Murder in the Courthouse

by Nancy Grace

  Hailey suddenly had a flashback to many years before, to a scene in a book she’d read in junior high. It was her older sister’s book, required reading for eleventh grade. Always starved for something new to read, Hailey filched it virtually the very moment her sister finished and laid it down. It was Animal Farm by George Orwell.

  In Hailey’s mind, DelVecchio’s group looked exactly like Orwell’s pigs, feasting and plotting against the other animals. Lips slick with grease from the food and horribly obese from their gluttony, the pigs were all seated around a table with the finest food and drink while Boxer and the other animals ate grain from their troughs.

  It was stifling hot here on the corner. The tall buildings blocked the cooling breeze off the river. On the corner of the busy intersection in front of the courthouse, with her hand shielding her eyes, Hailey scanned the streets for Finch. Where had he gotten off to?

  Hailey stood at the edge of the curb, holding her right hand over her eyes to somewhat block the bright sun overhead. Heat was rising up off the street in waves along with fumes and emissions from the heavy downtown traffic. The light turned green and the cars and trucks gunned their engines, impatient. At precisely that moment, it happened.

  A hand, or an arm—maybe an elbow or shoulder—it all happened so fast she wasn’t sure which, but someone, or something, pushed her hard from behind. Hailey tumbled forward.

  She was off kilter with one hand over her eyes and the other clutching her notebook, iPad, and papers to her chest. She was vaguely aware of them all flying out of her arms and into the air in front of her. For a split second they seemed to hang suspended in the air, and she felt frozen for just that moment . . . in midair.

  Then, she saw them crash down onto the street. Somewhere in her mind, Hailey heard the high-pitched screech of brakes, but it was too late. Her body catapulted onto the asphalt in the middle of oncoming traffic. Trying desperately to block her fall, she couldn’t quite pull it off.

  A swell of oncoming traffic surrounded her, rushing forward like a huge, honking robotic mechanical monster. Landing hard on both bare knees, her palms stung on hot, filthy pavement that somehow, in the wavy heat, looked like it was crawling, slithering underneath the cars and trucks.

  For a split second, Hailey looked up just long enough to see the front grill of a huge lime green and white Chatham Area Transit bus bearing down onto her.

  Her scream was drowned out by the CAT bus engine, the traffic, the crowd. There was nothing but the motor shrieking and the heat as the massive body of the bus careened sideways in traffic, directly toward Hailey and then, in a screeching, skidding burst, collided.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “OK. Great seeing you, Finch! See you back at the crime lab, man!”

  “Sure thing, Kelly. Great to see you, too.” Fincher had been waylaid outside the men’s room by the head of the Georgia Crime Lab Ballistics Division, Kelly Piper.

  Usually a man of very few words unless he was on the witness stand, Piper had chewed Finch’s ear off about the intricacies involved in the gangland murder case that brought him all the way from his digs at the crime lab in Atlanta to Savannah that morning.

  Finch scanned the front steps. A full hour had passed. No Hailey. He headed back in the courthouse lobby. Had she come back for him? He checked outside the bathrooms and again, no sign of her.

  Maybe she left something in the courtroom again. Finch headed up the elevator back to the Adams trial. Entering the courtroom, he saw testimony had resumed. He was sure Hailey would be back any minute. Over her cold, dead body would Hailey Dean ever miss a word of testimony.

  The defense had taken over. Again. The judge looked peeved and the state’s attorneys were hunched forward over their notes at their counsel table.

  The prosecutors were no match for a flamboyant performer like DelVecchio. He was prancing back and forth in front of the judge’s bench like a Lipizzaner stallion, whose jumps and maneuvers displayed the highest classical dressage. He was having a field day.

  Fincher felt sick. Where was Hailey? She couldn’t miss this. He glanced back over heads and shoulders toward the swinging doors at the back of the courtroom. DelVecchio’s voice cracked like a whip. Finch jerked his attention back to the front of the room.

  “So let me understand more clearly, Dr. Richards. An errant fishing line, plastic, nylon, or otherwise. Could that be responsible for Julie Love’s strangulation? Is it possible?”

  “You mean if a nine-months pregnant mom was out swimming in the choppy waters of the Savannah River and she encountered a fishing line? Are you serious?”

  Dr. Richards was clearly not in agreement with DelVecchio’s theory as to how Julie had mysteriously obtained ligature marks around her neck. The defense went livid, sputtering and red in the face. He was clearly not used to a government employee, even a medical doctor, fighting back.

  “Your Honor, again, I must cut off the witness and ask that you direct Dr. Richards to answer only the question I ask him and not elaborate any further. No musings. I am the lawyer and he is on cross-examination! I have a right under the Constitution for a thorough and sifting cross-examination in order to protect the rights of my client, Mr. Adams. And in so doing . . .”

  “Mr. DelVecchio, we’ve all read the Constitution. That’s enough, counsel. Save the speeches. Sustained.” The Honorable Judge Luther Alverson, wearing an extremely pained expression, turned toward the Chatham County Medical Examiner, now visibly sweating along his brow and mustache line.

  “Dr. Richards,” Alverson began wearily, “you have testified in my courtroom many, many times. Defense counsel DelVecchio is correct as a matter of a black-and-white reading of the law. I now direct you to answer his question.”

  “But, Judge Alverson, I don’t want to be responsible for misleading this jury . . .” The medical examiner looked distraught.

  “I understand, Doctor. But under the law you may not explain or elaborate upon cross-examination. The jury will decide the truth of the matter. Proceed, counsel.”

  DelVecchio rubbed his hands together in delight. Fincher imagined a filthy fly poised over a laden dinner table.

  “Again, for the record, Dr. Richards.” DelVecchio turned with a flourish toward the jury and, leaning over the jury rail, looking directly at the jurors, he repeated his earlier-thwarted grand finale.

  “Dr. Richards, how long have you been the chief medical examiner here in Chatham County?”

  “Twenty-two years,” Richards answered in a flat tone, averting his gaze completely away from DelVecchio. He looked like a POW held hostage by DelVecchio, who in return flashed his bejeweled fingers in a dramatic backward pointing motion at the doctor, never once breaking eye contact with the jurors, who sat transfixed by the debacle.

  “And isn’t it true, Dr. Richards, that it is possible that poor Julie Love Adams could have sustained ligature strangulation markings around her neck from a wayward fishing line as her body floated in the Savannah River? Isn’t it possible?”

  “It’s possible,” Richards answered, staring numbly. He obviously still had a little fight left in him though, as he began to add, “But practically imposs . . .”

  “Objection! Unresponsive!” DelVecchio bellowed it so as to drown out the doctor. “Let the record reflect Dr. Richards responded it is possible the ligature strangulation markings around Julie Love Adams’s neck came from a dislodged fishing line, netting, or otherwise!”

  “So reflected.” Alverson looked as though he could use an antacid.

  Faring no better, the state’s prosecutor looked like he’d just been dealt a knockout punch. Huge, swelling sweat stains darkened the armpits of his navy suit, the perspiration long ago having leaked through antiperspirant, pit hair, a short-sleeved white T-shirt, a dress shirt, and the dark suit. He’d bought it on sale at Jos. A. Bank and was convinced it looked like it was from Brooks Brothers.

  Leaning forward and peering between backs, heads, and shoulders, Garland Fincher could bare
ly spot Julie Love’s mom and dad seated in the front row behind the state’s table. Her father sat stiffly upright with his arm protectively around his wife. His skin beneath his short-sleeved dress shirt was worn and suntanned from years working outdoors on construction sites.

  Julie’s mom, on the other hand, was bent forward, her face downcast. She was holding a white handkerchief to her eyes with both hands. Although her shoulders heaved occasionally, she made not a sound as she cried silently into her husband’s hanky out of fear she’d be ejected from court over an emotional display. The prosecutors had warned her of this before the trial had started.

  The pink and sky-blue ribbon she’d worn on her blouse in honor of Julie and baby Lily had been confiscated by the bailiffs. They apologized profusely, explaining DelVecchio had objected to a display of support for the state in front of jurors. The state getting trounced at every turn by DelVecchio wasn’t helping. And now, the Chatham County Medical Examiner was being crushed right before her eyes.

  Fincher could see Dana Love’s shoulders shaking. Thunder raging inside him, he glanced across the aisle at the defense supporters. They were taking up the first three rows behind Adams’s team. Tish Adams and her husband led the pack and Fincher looked over just in time to see Tish turn toward the jury, a triumphant gleam in her eye. The satisfied look of a winner rubbing it in to the losing team was hard to miss.

  “The state requests a recess.” The defense attack on the ME had been so thorough, the lead prosecutor didn’t bother to stand when he addressed the court.

  “So granted.” Alverson rose and left through the door beside his bench.

  As he left, Finch stood up with the rest of the courtroom and headed toward the exit. Whipping out his cell phone, he immediately called Hailey as soon as he got out into the hall.

  After several rings, it went straight to voicemail. That was weird. She’d have to be dead to not pick up a call. Especially during a trial.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Scanning the front sidewalk, no Hailey. Sauntering down the wide granite steps as if he owned the place, Finch looked both ways and then reached into his pocket and glanced at his cell phone to make sure she hadn’t called while he was on the elevator.

  No good. Not a single call in the last five minutes, anyway.

  As he headed toward the parking garage, people that normally moved with the flow of pedestrian traffic suddenly became a human wall, knotted tightly at one corner. Making his way through, he saw why.

  Hailey was lying on the sidewalk across the street, surrounded by paramedics. Holding his hand high in the air, hailing traffic to stop, he broke into a full-on run across the street.

  Fighting through the group around her, he wedged the paramedics to either side, and kneeled down. “Hailey! Hailey! Can you hear me?”

  She didn’t answer.

  For once, Finch couldn’t speak. His mind cycled through all the years he and Hailey had been inseparable. Fighting the bad guys, hitting the streets, casing crime scenes, days at the shooting range, martial arts defense, long days in court, lunches and dinners, driving the city of Atlanta, learning all of its secrets. They were a team that couldn’t be stopped.

  She’d seen him and his wife through the births of their two children and was godmother to both. She Skyped throughout his deployment in Iraq. She rode along in the ambulance when he was shot in the arm by a doper at a crime scene. She was always there for him, and now she lay at his feet on a hot Savannah sidewalk. He never envisioned this.

  With a jolt, Garland Fincher found his voice. And it wasn’t pretty. Rounding on the EMTs, he snarled, teeth clenched, “What happened? Does she have a pulse?”

  “Well . . . we really don’t know for sure . . .” The tallest one scratched the side of his head as another kneeled alongside Finch with her fingertips to Hailey’s jugular vein with a look of intense concentration on her face.

  A dark purplish bruise was manifesting on Hailey’s right jaw and blood was seeping from a gash above her right eye into her blonde hair. The EMT’s hands now moved deftly from jugular to eyelids, where she gently lifted Hailey’s lids.

  Instead of focusing upward and on them all standing over her with her usual piercing gaze, the green irises around Hailey’s pupils were rolled back in her head. Seeing that, Finch felt his stomach churn and he lashed out.

  Edging even closer to Hailey’s body, he roughly elbowed the EMT to the side when she tried to nudge him back away.

  “Give her some room, man,” one of the EMTs yelled into the air above his head.

  “Hell no, I’m not giving anybody any room until my trial partner wakes up.” He reached to her neck with his own hand to find a pulse. “She could be dying here . . . if she doesn’t pull through this, so help me, you’ll have me to answer to. And you mean to tell me you don’t know what happened to her? Did a car hit her? Was she coldcocked in the face?”

  His voice was now raised . . . he was no longer asking . . . he was bellowing. More onlookers gathered around.

  “Nobody saw a thing? Are you for real? Are you people serious? Aren’t you people trained, for Pete’s sake? They just handing out the EMT uniforms to anybody who asks for one?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer. “What do you mean you don’t know what happened to her? With all these rubberneckers standing around, you haven’t asked one . . .”

  “Finch.”

  When he looked back down, he was staring into two green pools. Her eyes were open. A weak smile played at one corner of her mouth.

  He grabbed her up under her shoulders, hugging her but trying not to hurt her back or arms in case any bones were broken. “Hailey, what happened? Are you all right?”

  “I’m not sure exactly. I was standing on the sidewalk, actually, looking for you across the crosswalk . . . and then, I was out in the street . . . a green bus . . .”

  “That was me, lady. I’m so sorry.” All of them, Hailey, Finch, and the EMTs, collectively turned to look at a short, thin man standing at the edge of the group. He was twisting a green Chatham Area Transit cap in his hands. His eyes were brimming over with tears.

  In one fluid movement, Finch gently disengaged with Hailey, stood, and advanced menacingly on the slight, pale man who was obviously the driver of the bus that had struck her.

  “You’re sorry? Sorry? Is that all you’ve got to say?” Finch pushed through the group and grabbed the little guy, literally lifting him off the ground by his collar and holding him just inches from his own angry face.

  “I swear, mister, she just came outta nowhere. I was looking straight at the street, I was slowing down because we were heading into a crosswalk . . . I didn’t want to hit nobody . . . I swear it. It was like one second she wasn’t there and the next second there she was. She just kind of lurched out right in front of the bus . . . I’m so sorry lady . . . I’m so sorry you got that shiner . . . I’m gonna lose my job . . .”

  With that, the waterworks started and tears streamed down the guy’s face. He tried to wipe his nose with his hat.

  “Sorry? You’re gonna be sorry if it’s the last thing I . . .”

  “Finch. Somebody pushed me.” Hailey had fought into a sitting position on the sidewalk, holding out her arm in a nonverbal appeal for Finch to let the guy go.

  Not ready to let go, Finch turned to look at Hailey while still holding the bus driver by the front of his collar.

  “Pushed you? Hailey, are you sure?”

  “Finch, I’m positive. It was a sharp push, and it was right in the middle of my back. He pushed really hard . . . I’m almost positive . . . it was definitely somebody’s hand and it was definitely intentional.”

  By now, sirens were screaming and cops were pulling up. Out of nowhere, Chase Billings materialized, cutting through the crowd gathering around Hailey and Finch. Bending down on one knee, Billings asked the same thing.

  “Hailey, what happened? Are you all right?”

  “I was just telling Finch, Billings, somebody gave me
a pretty hard shove. I’m sure of it. The last thing I saw was the bus barreling down on me. I dove away from it, and I hit my head on something, I guess the curb?”

  “Yep. It’s the curb . . . there’s some blood right here where she hit her head.” One of the EMTs was bent down examining the concrete curb just a few feet away.

  “Hailey. Did you get a look at the guy?”

  There was a long pause. “Finch, I didn’t. It all happened so fast . . . I . . . I just shot out into the street and the bus was right there and I dove. That’s really all I remember. If the bus driver hadn’t been watching, I’d be dead right now.”

  Finch finally relaxed his grip on the bus driver.

  “Let’s get you to the hospital,” the lead EMT broke in.

  “No! I want to get back in the courtroom! I have to . . .” Hailey was struggling to get to her feet. Billings held out his hand to help her up.

  “Hailey, you have to. You at least need an x-ray. Just to make sure . . .” Billings broke in.

  “I don’t have to do anything. I’m not missing the afternoon session.” She was polite but firm and clearly digging in on this one.

  “Hailey . . . this is not the right time to be muleheaded . . .” Finch started in.

  But looking her in the face, Billings could see it was a lost cause. She wasn’t going anywhere but back into the courtroom. He turned his focus to Fincher.

  “Finch, she’s right. Nobody can physically make her go to the ER. You’ll stay with her, right? Any dizziness, nausea . . . it could be a concussion.”

  “You know I will. I can’t make her do a thing, though.”

  “FYI, I can hear you . . . I’m sitting right here!” Hailey looked at the two of them accusingly.