by Nancy Grace
Passing under the arch, Cecil clutched his flashlight and a fresh bucket of raw chicken. Drenching himself in bug spray, he tossed the can into a metal trash can just beside the arches. He followed a path with tiki torches on either side separating the smooth dirt path from the dense foliage surrounding it.
Palm trees, huge palmettos, and sprawling water oaks were draped with hanging sheets of Spanish moss, all growing so thick he couldn’t see past them. It was hard to believe all this was right beside the hot asphalt parking lot, now cooling down as the sun set and the moon rose, both sharing the night sky for a brief time. The cicadas hummed rhythmically on either side of him and as loud as they were, he couldn’t spot a single one of them.
Where were the others? The pamphlet said there had to be at least five in a group for the Night Time Adventure. As he kept walking, a cool breeze crossed his face and dried the perspiration there. Finally, it was cooling down.
Rounding another curve in the path, a long wooden boardwalk came into view that stretched way out onto what was rapidly becoming dark water. It looked to be maybe eighty or ninety feet straight ahead, then broke off into four different paths like spokes of a wheel.
Standing at the end of the old wooden pier holding his bait bucket, Cecil felt a chill run up his spine. It was completely quiet now except for the hum of the cicadas. He looked up to see the moon, full in all its glory rising up overhead. It was a lonely moon tonight, though. No stars had yet appeared.
The palm trees silhouetted against the sky as the very last bit of sunlight disappeared and the deep, deep dark blue turned into velvety black. It was absolutely incredible.
Still waiting for the others to show, Cecil ventured out onto the boardwalk resting on thick, sturdy beams that obviously went deep, deep into the muddy goo beneath the dark water. Stomping on the boardwalk itself, just for good measure, Cecil determined that yes, it was safe. After all, he’d checked, and there had never been a single accident at the Gator World Croc-N-Gator Night Time Adventure. Not even one.
Peeking over his right shoulder, he glanced back toward the shore. He had to make sure no one could see what he was about to do and peg him as a scaredy-cat. No one was looking so Cecil bent down just enough to quickly check out the circular posts, the heavy wooden pillars, at least two feet or so in circumference each that supported the boardwalk.
Now he felt better.
He was even more reassured when, at a second glance to make sure he hadn’t been spotted, he saw another gator lover milling around at the entrance. Perfect. He could get help with his digital camera. The pictures would be so much better than shots that were so obviously selfies or even worse, taken with a selfie stick.
With visions of all the pics he’d soon be posting on Facebook and Twitter dancing through his head, he was even more emboldened. He’d watched at least a half dozen videos gator fans posted during and after the Night Time Adventure and it was like a big gator party! Thinking it through, maybe he’d Periscope as it was happening! That would be extremely cool. He instinctively felt in his Steve Irwin vest’s hidden pocket and identified the calming presence of the hard edges of his iPhone. After, he’d post the rest from his car before he hit the road back to Savannah.
This was the moment he’d been waiting for ever since he found out he’d won the drawing. He was ready, too. He clutched the bucket of raw chicken in his hand. This would be totally awesome! The words he read online came floating back to him as he gazed out at the smooth, black water. “An alligator feeding frenzy occurs when mammoth reptiles, feeding in pools, suddenly engage in a savage free-for-all, viciously clashing over prey.”
This was it. Showtime!
He headed out toward the far end of the boardwalk. The water was quiet, dark, and beautiful. Infused with bravery, Cecil ventured onto one of the four winding wooden walkways deep into the dominion of Florida’s most notorious beast, the mighty gator. Clutching his trusty flashlight and a bucket of raw chicken, Cecil made his way into the gator breeding flats.
He heard a gentle rustle of feathers somewhere in the night sky. Water rippled. He was not alone. He swatted at the back of his right shoulder; somehow a darn mosquito had taken a bite out of him, bug spray or no bug spray. And right through his shirt and the vest, too.
Cecil turned just in time to see that it was no mosquito. It was the gator lover from the shore. He saw the glint of moonlight on a syringe. In a split second and before Cecil even knew what was happening, a hard shove to his chest made him lose his balance.
There was hardly a splash when Cecil Snodgrass hit the water, and even if there had been, there was no one to hear.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
After the long-awaited Cuban sandwiches with Finch followed by a hot bath at the hotel, Hailey slept through the night for the first time in weeks. She was so tired, she didn’t even close the heavy hotel curtains; and the next morning, she woke up to bright sunshine pouring across the Savannah River and into her room.
The hotel halls were quiet and the traffic far below was muted. She suddenly wanted to go home, not to her apartment in Manhattan but home to her parents’ brick house at the top of a long, winding driveway in Macon, south of Atlanta.
It was surrounded by azaleas, dogwoods, tea olives, and purple wisteria hugging the brick and situated in the middle of nothing but soybean fields and tall pine trees as far as the eye could see. It was a place where, in Hailey’s childhood, she could ride her bike all afternoon after school, free from fear of stranger danger or maniac traffic, only returning home when the chimes in the little Methodist church steeple nearby rang out that it was six o’clock. By then her mom would be home from work, and supper would likely be on the table.
Lying in the center of the hotel bed with the morning sun on her face, she knew it wasn’t just the place of home that she was longing for . . . it was the feeling of home. Glancing at the bedside clock, it was only 6 AM, too early to call her parents.
What would she ever do without them? They’d been there through thick and thin . . . Will’s death, law school, dozens and dozens of high-stakes prosecutions . . . she pushed the thought from her mind and, as if to get away from it, swung her legs over the side of the bed and headed for the shower.
Hailey grabbed her iPhone and her old, trusty BlackBerry as she passed the bedroom desk where they’d charged all night plugged into a lamp outlet. Can’t I even walk to the shower without multitasking? Hailey thought to herself but then smiled. No . . . I can’t.
She reached into the huge shower, turned the shiny silver controls, and stood waiting for the water to heat up. Leaning against the faux marble bathroom counter, Hailey glanced down at her emails and texts from overnight. There were several from Billings and Fincher from this morning. The last one from Finch had a red flag beside it to mark it as urgent.
She read that one first. “Heading home to Atlanta to see the family.”
Home? He was leaving the trial? What? Then it hit her . . . she scrolled back to the home screen. It was Saturday! No court!
A sense of relief poured through her body. She’d been on autopilot for so many days in a row, she literally didn’t even know what day it was! She went back to read the rest of Finch’s message. The words glowed at her, “Sleep late! You look tired!”
Ha, thanks Finch.
She skimmed down to Billings’s message. Similar, except no mention of her looking tired, and he asked her to lunch. Hmm.
The hot shower began to steam up the room so Hailey jumped in. She was just rinsing conditioner out of her hair when she thought she heard someone at her hotel door. Quickly grabbing a towel, Hailey called out, “Yes?”
No answer.
Padding back into the bedroom, Hailey looked through the peephole. Nobody. Opening the door, she looked down. At her feet was a neatly folded copy of the Savannah Morning News. Hailey leaned down to get it and came face-to-face with a huge shot of Todd Adams’s mom, her eyes lolled back in her head, stumbling forward down the steps to th
e witness stand.
Above the fold.
Hailey picked it up and began to read the story. The banner read “Heartbroken Mom Tish Adams at Son’s Murder Trial.”
The banner headline started a slow burn in Hailey’s chest. Heartbroken mom? What about Julie’s mom? What about her? And her heartbreak? Had the whole community forgotten about Julie’s body washing up on Tybee Island followed by her unborn baby girl, Lily? What about that?
But looking back at Tish, Hailey felt a pang of sadness. She was heartbroken at the thought of losing her son. All of this was Todd Adams’s fault. He had single-handedly left behind a wake of pain that would not soon subside.
Hailey could only hope the Todd Adams jury didn’t get a look at this. They were already concerned enough about Tish Adams after seeing her pass out in court.
Empathy for Mrs. Adams lasted just a brief moment because when Hailey unfolded the lower half of the paper, it got worse. There, under the fold, was a shot of Hailey Dean! It was a shot of her walking down the courthouse steps with Mike Walker from Snoop magazine thrusting a microphone in her face. And Finch had been right . . . she did look tired . . . especially in black and white. In the background and also coming down the courthouse steps, Tish Adams could be spotted. She was looking directly down at Walker and Hailey, and Hailey was convinced it gave the distinct message that she, Hailey, was somehow responsible for Tish’s suffering.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Making it worse, the headline over the photo read, “Super Sleuth on the Todd Adams Case!” Hailey scanned the article, which was only a few paragraphs. The gist of it was that the state had brought Hailey Dean on board as a criminologist to save the prosecution—which they likened to a sinking ship, the Titanic specifically. The article rehashed her perfect win record in inner-city Atlanta and, of course, dredged up Will’s murder to make her sound like some sort of angry avenger.
Hailey was used to it. It wasn’t necessarily true, but it sold more papers. Over all her years in the district attorney’s office, she had been both lauded, usually by the newspapers, and villainized, usually by the Atlanta Defense Bar and their related publications. She couldn’t honestly say it didn’t hurt, because it did. Not hurting and being used to something are definitely two very different things.
It was likely cool this early in the morning. Hailey pulled on her usual black running pants and Nikes, with a V-neck zip-up long-sleeved shirt and an old Fulton County Fire Department sweatshirt wrapped around her waist. Although she rarely carried, she was still trained to keep her hands free just in case. She wedged her driver’s license and credit cards bound together by a single rubber band down the left side of her sports bra and a tube of lipstick down the other side. Baseball hat and sunglasses topped it off, and she was out the door carrying only her cells and car keys.
Passing through the hotel’s elegant lobby, Hailey paused long enough to get a free Styrofoam cup of hot tea from a table set up for hotel guests. It was laden with various coffees, decafs, hot water for tea, tea bags, and a huge assortment of creamers and sweeteners.
She hadn’t thought to grab an Irish breakfast tea bag from the cache she packed in her suitcase and stuff it down her bra, so she went for the English breakfast. Fishing it out of a basket of individually wrapped tea bags, she gave it a stir into plenty of hot water and skim milk, and headed to her car parked on the street.
Passing by the lobby doors, Hailey stopped short. A man with long, blue-jeaned legs stretched out beneath the double pages of the paper’s sports section was sitting in a cushioned wingback chair. Although the paper obscured his face, Hailey caught his profile as she rushed by, and the boots alone were hard to forget.
“Cloud! Hello! Nice to see you! What are you doing here?”
He lowered his paper to eye Hailey Dean and broke into a wide smile. “Well, fancy meeting up with you here! And I thought I’d never see you again!”
“Are you staying here, too? That’s a coincidence!”
“Well, as a matter of fact, I am! I was just waiting for a ride heading to a meeting. Where are you headed so bright and early?”
“Oh, I’m just going out for a jog. It’s beautiful today! Hey, I think I saw you at the courthouse! On the front steps, but I was in such a hurry, I couldn’t slow down. I don’t think you saw me.”
“The courthouse? Here in Savannah? Nope, haven’t been there and can’t say I want to! Courthouses and lawyers make me nervous!”
Not missing a golden opportunity, he pressed on. “Hey, want to have dinner tonight? I hear there’s a great restaurant right on the river. About seven-thirty?”
“That sounds so nice, but I have to work. Sorry!” Hailey did her best to look disappointed. What she needed now was a quick exit.
Glancing up at a huge clock over the hotel registration desk, she feigned surprise. “Oh no! I didn’t realize what time it is! I better run. Rain check, OK? Bye, Cloud. Have a great day!” Hailey practically sprinted through the open lobby doors.
That was weird. She was almost positive that had been Cloud on the courthouse steps. Hailey slowed passing the parking deck entrance. She’d always had an aversion to parking garages after prosecuting so many violent crimes that went down there. She avoided them whenever she could and she’d found a spot on the street she could actually see from way up in her room. It was comforting somehow.
Happy to see her car remained vandal-free for another night on downtown Savannah streets, she hopped in. There was a distinct chill in the early morning air, even though she knew that in a matter of hours the place would be boiling. Probably the cool air off the river made everything chilly in the mornings. But it was nice, and Hailey marveled, once again, that it was good to be alive.
Putting her car in reverse and then drive, she caught sight of her own green eyes beneath the red gash on her forehead in the rearview mirror. The red in her eyes was gone and so were the dark circles underneath. She felt great this morning. Everything around her seemed shiny and new, even though she was in the heart of Old Savannah, full of old pirate houses, Civil War homes, and even the home of Girl Scout founder Juliette Gordon Low.
Pulling out onto old cobblestone streets, she drove underneath the arms of huge, ancient live oak trees. Spanish moss hung down low from the limbs like gorgeous, intricate shawls. She could imagine the Wesley brothers, just kicked out of the High Church of England. John preaching here under the oaks and his brother, Charles, on guitar, spreading what would one day become Methodism.
Waiting alone at a red light, Hailey glanced again into her rearview and took a sip of her hot tea. It was delicious and she could feel it, warm, going down.
Foot on the brake at the red light, Hailey held the Styrofoam cup with both hands, the steam still rising off the hot liquid. She took a tiny sip, testing it to see if it was still too hot to take a big gulp.
Hot tea. Hot tea . . . milk . . . almond milk . . . immediately, Eleanor Odom, Elle, sprang to mind. Then there was the lackluster love rival. She’d never forget the look on the face of the judge’s secretary when Hailey first spotted her in the courthouse cafeteria the day Elle died.
She originally looked so . . . so . . . mousy. It was the only word Hailey could come up with. But that look on her face . . . that look changed it all.
With dull, thin, light brown hair sticking flat to her head held to the sides with pins, slightly hunched forward . . . but then that look. It was so stark, so real. What was it, though? Jealousy? Hatred, maybe?
Who was the judge? What was his name again? Hands gripping the steering wheel, she willed herself to think! As if Providence intervened . . . right there on the corner was a placard . . . a sign on a short, wooden post stuck in the dirt . . . Bill Regard for Governor! That was him! Bill Regard . . . that was his name!
But . . . the secretary . . . Hailey racked her brain . . . what was the secretary’s name? Staring up through the sunroof glass and beyond to the Spanish moss swaying in the breeze off the river,
it felt like the more she tried to think of it, the less she could remember.
And then, quick as lightning . . . it hit her . . . Eunah . . . Eunah Mabry! Bingo!
Foot still on the brake and no one behind her to impatiently toot the horn should she miss a green light, Hailey did a quick Google search. In just a few seconds, up popped Eunah Mabry in her capacity as chairwoman of the local Daughters of the American Revolution chapter. Hmm, Daughters of the American Revolution. She seemed very active in the group, according to Google.
In the most recent posting was a notice of the last DAR meeting . . . at Eunah Mabry’s house. It was in Ardsley Park, south central Savannah. Wow, that was a surprise. How could a single woman on a civil servant’s salary afford Ardsley?
It was truly Savannah’s first and priciest suburb. Ardsley Park meant plush lawns, elaborate landscaping, six- and seven-bedroom mansions dating back to the 1920s, all either restored or in mint condition. Bordering Victory Drive and running east from Bull Street to Waters Avenue, it was the movie version of Old Savannah that tourists and movie producers alike came hunting.
How could she afford all that on a secretary’s pay?
Hailey couldn’t help but ask the question again in her mind. And then, in an instant, her plans changed.
Hailey had intended to go jogging in Forsyth Park. One block south of the Johnny Mercer house, the park was a lush thirty-plus acres of live oaks, historical monuments, old park benches, and, the jewel in the crown, the famous three-tiered cast-iron fountain that served as the backdrop for the movie Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. But all that could wait.
Maybe it was stirring the milk in her tea. Or maybe it was the “Bill Regard for Governor” sign stuck in the dirt on the corner at the red light . . . or the photo in the Savannah Morning News. Hailey wasn’t sure what it was exactly, but suddenly going to the home of the judge’s secretary seemed a lot more interesting than a morning jog.