Murder in the Courthouse

by Nancy Grace

  “Careful, your mirror’s cracked.” Still on her knees, Hailey looked up at Tish Adams.

  Then she saw it. Hailey’s green eyes were directly even with Tish Adams’s oxygen tank. And it was there. The knob on the top, the twist mechanism on top of the canister . . . she’d seen it before. Not the many, many times she’d watched Tish Adams leaning heavily on it in court or walking around the courthouse with it . . . she’d seen it somewhere else.

  Black plastic, about the size of a Gatorade screw top but not quite, with a peculiar edge to it. An image flashed in her mind. An image of the floorboard in the back of her rental car, scattered with trash from the otherwise immaculate yard of Alton Turner. The round rubber cap wasn’t a bottle cap. It fit on Tish’s tank.

  A chill went across Hailey’s arms. Tish Adams’s open purse in her lap, Hailey looked down into it again, and there, peeking out from under a red leather ladies wallet beside a thin folded yellow scarf, was the pale green and gold edging of a tall pack of Virginia Slims. Hailey looked from the cigarettes to the oxygen tank’s hard plastic valve cap, to the coppery-red lipstick on Tish Adams’s lips and stood up, looking Adams unflinchingly in the eyes.

  “You.” Hailey uttered the one word, taking a step back from Adams, whose eyes were no longer tired-looking or teary. They were burning with a light . . . a zeal Hailey had never seen before in what appeared to be a frail and suffering middle-aged woman. A mother, for Pete’s sake.

  Somehow, Tish Adams was standing up straight now and at full height, no longer stooped over and shuffling, leaning on a portable oxygen tank. She was a good two inches taller than Hailey.

  “I what, Hailey Dean?” Adams spit the words out, her eyes on Hailey, her lips hardening at the edges.

  “You. The cigarette butts . . . the lipstick stains. You were in Alton Turner’s yard, spying on him. Behind the trees, at the birdhouse. It was you . . . you all along. You killed Alton Turner . . . and . . .”

  It hit Hailey like a brick. In a flash, Hailey saw what she couldn’t see before. It all played out in her mind’s eye. Alton taking a blow from behind after someone concealed in the yard, watching, waiting for the right moment, enters the garage. As Alton, unsuspecting, balancing his coffee for the commute to work, reaches for his car handle, the blow comes to the back of the head and he’s down. Strength isn’t required to swing a bat or a golf club.

  Once he was down, the rest was easy. It was just a matter of dragging him a few feet to the garage door, slicing his gut open, and—with that rubber safety edging removed—grinding the metal into his torso to look like an accident until he bled . . . to death. It all looked like a stupid accident.

  “And make no mistake, missy. I saw you that day. I knew you were on to me . . . you picked up the flowerpot and saw the key was gone . . . you knew it was me, didn’t you?” The venom in her voice was pure evil. Her eyes looked totally possessed with hate.

  Tish Adams stepped away from the sink and positioned herself between Hailey and the door to the hall. She yanked the thin plastic tubing off her face and threw it, skidding across the floor. Her memory sparked, Hailey recalled the moment she’d checked the flowerpot at Alton’s back door just on a hunch . . . a hunch she’d thought was wrong when no key was hidden. But the hunch was right.

  “But how would I have ever known . . .”

  “Liar!” Adams’s voice was now a guttural hiss coming from deep in her throat, her face contorted. “You saw me . . . in the window. Don’t lie about it now. You’ve been gathering evidence . . . to destroy me just like you tried to destroy my son . . . to kill him . . . to burn him to death in the electric chair. You, Hailey Dean . . . you’re the one that should die . . . not him! Not my son!”

  Hailey instinctively backed away from her as if she were a rattlesnake about to strike. Her back pressed against the metal beam between the two bathroom stalls. She looked quickly around the tiny bathroom but there was nowhere to go.

  “Turner had to die. He threatened Toddy . . . our family. We’d be ostracized, kicked out, laughed at if Todd was convicted. We’d be nothing in this town. I couldn’t let that happen.”

  Hailey stared, unmoving. She could feel sweat pooling, trickling down the front of her chest into her bra.

  “I knew he was eavesdropping that day, hanging around, snooping, listening to Todd and I talk. Todd made a mistake . . . a mistake . . . Julie’s death was an accident! She must have hit her head when they argued . . . Todd said so . . . and Alton Turner heard him . . . but it was her fault . . . she trapped him! With that horrible baby in her belly! My Toddy’s no murderer!”

  “But you heard it . . . there were marks on Julie’s neck . . . she was strangled . . . ligature . . . someone strangled her . . . the autopsy . . .” Hailey tried to reason with the woman that it was no accident, even though she realized Tish Adams was clearly insane.

  “That was a setup! They set him up! It’s not true! Turner heard what Toddy told me that day in lockup . . . he was listening! But I followed Turner . . . all through the courthouse halls straight to the DA’s office. Oh yes, he couldn’t wait to blurt out what he had heard. And what was he? He was a nobody; he was nothing compared to Toddy. Don’t you see he had to die? Just like the courthouse whore. He told her, too, bragging to her sitting in his car in the parking deck that afternoon. I saw them. He thought she was his girlfriend, but she’d been with every man in the courthouse including a judge. Right under his wife’s nose. Believe me, I know . . . I watched her.”

  “But that doesn’t mean Alton told Elle . . .”

  “He told her the whole thing! The little whore emailed him about his meeting with the DA! I saw it with my own eyes at Turner’s house . . . their disgusting emails back and forth about Toddy. She even made a crack that Turner could sell Toddy’s ‘confession’ to that gossip rag Snoop! That Toddy confessed to me he did it! Oh it was no joke . . . I knew better! I knew she wanted headlines and money! Her picture on the cover! But all she got was a cemetery plot! Nobody will miss her . . . they’re all glad she’s dead and out of their hair. You think the judge isn’t glad she’s gone? Or his wife? They’re thrilled. Trust me.”

  Tish Adams’s eyes looked like they’d popped right out of her head and had taken on a glazed-over quality. Her hair fell in dark tendrils around her face. Her lower jaw thrust out as her teeth clenched, giving her a piranha’s underbite. She focused on Hailey with a malevolent intensity that hung in the tiny room.

  “Then I saw you with Snoop on the courthouse steps and I put two and two together—you were in on the whole thing. All because of Alton Turner eavesdropping. And that little courthouse tramp Elle Odom. She died all right, like the pig she was . . . on the floor of a cafeteria with her tongue swollen up and her face turned purple. She can rot in hell for what she tried to do to Toddy!”

  Hailey couldn’t help but glance at the trash can, now full of refuse from the day. Tish followed her eyes.

  “Smart girl, aren’t you, Hailey Dean? Yes, I hid it. The purse with the EpiPen. Right there in the trash. And the fools nearly let it go to the dump. It was easy enough to find out about the nut allergy. Anybody could read the girl’s babbling about herself online. Just go to the cafeteria, dump a little almond milk in the milk pitchers, and voila! Nobody even glanced twice at the coffee bar. Then she goes into shock and dies in minutes. One of the happiest moments in my life was when she choked dead on her own tongue.”

  Tish Adams’s voice was shrill now, her eyes wide and crazy. “And then there was that idiot . . . that moron . . . Snodgrass. They all sat side by side at work gossiping . . . about my Toddy! I saw it myself on Turner’s home computer where he emailed Snodgrass he’d be late for work the next morning because he had a meeting with the DA . . . that Turner would ‘fill him in on the whole thing’ when he got there. But he never made it. And don’t think there’s an email trail. I watch TV; I deleted them all.” She was actually bragging now.

  “That sniveling dunce . . . sticking his nose in Toddy
’s business. Snodgrass was on to the purse, sending that email asking who found it. But I took care of him too . . . it was easy. A fake ‘prize’ to Gator World, a syringe full of GHB . . . you know what that is, right, Hailey Dean? Gamma hydroxybutyrate. Odorless, colorless, induces sudden sleep? Ring a bell?”

  “But . . . how did you . . .”

  “I was almost a nurse, Hailey. If I hadn’t gotten pregnant, who knows, I may have gone to med school. But that was ruined for me, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it? You think I can’t get my hands on a syringe and some meds? Think again.”

  “The day you fainted on the witness stand . . .” All the pieces were fitting together now.

  “Yes! Smart girl. For once, anyway. And you all fell for it, even Alverson. I had to get to Snodgrass by dark. It was the only way. I knew in my gut he was in on it. They were all going to frame my boy. I wouldn’t let that happen.”

  Tish Adams reached down to her purse with ease, showing no sign of the physical ailments she’d been milking in the courtroom. They’d all bought into her act . . . the judge, the jury, even Hailey. Adams reached to the bottom of her purse and from within the yellow scarf, she pulled out a .22.

  With sudden clarity, Hailey knew without a doubt Tish Adams was not insane; she was a cold-blooded killer. Nothing and nobody would ruin her life, her social position, her prop of a family.

  “Wondering how I got this through the metal detector? Because of the oxygen tank . . . stashed underneath between the wheels! They never even looked under there. The stupid idiot sheriffs felt sorry for me.”

  A numbness crept across Hailey’s face. Enclosed here in the tiny bathroom with her back against a wall, there was nowhere to go.

  “In fact, now that I think about it . . . you’re all stupid. Nobody will ever miss Turner or the whore. And certainly not that moron Snodgrass. Or you, Hailey. Nobody’s going to miss you. You think I can let you go now? Think again.”

  Tish Adams, finger on the trigger, raised the gun to Hailey’s face. “Last words? Want to say bye-bye to mommy and daddy? I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.”

  Quick as a snake when it strikes to kill, in one defining moment, Hailey dove hard and down to miss the roaring bullet and grabbed the only thing she could. The tank.

  Tish turned on her, cursing, spittle spewing out of her mouth, full of hate like the devil himself.

  Heaving the metal cylinder up over her head, Hailey crashed it down with a loud metallic thud onto Tish’s forehead. Hailey pulled it back again. Blood flew across the bathroom, spattering onto the white sinks, the mirrors, the floor, the metal stalls. Hailey slammed it down on Tish’s face with all her might and then . . . again and again, Tish Adams’s nose crunching under the tank, blood spurting out onto the floor, onto Hailey in a gush.

  Like an animal gone wild, Hailey pulled back the tank again, holding on to both ends as best as she could and thrust it down again as Tish Adams lay on the floor. It careened off her chin and landed hard on her right shoulder. Tish Adams now lay in a pool of blood, creeping out to form a crimson rug underneath her. Like Alton’s body. Teeth were in the blood on the floor beside Adams’s face and her mouth hung open against the cool tile beneath her.

  Hailey fell back, sitting on the floor of the ladies bathroom there in the Chatham County Courthouse. It was then she saw deep red blossoming, blooming ever bigger on her own chest.

  Hailey Dean was shot.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  It was unnaturally cool.

  Tish Adams stood, her face a black-and-blue pulp and arm in a sling, directly in front of none other than the imposing figure of Luther Alverson. He stared down from his bench at her. Slowly, he read the charges against her.

  The indictments for murder had been handed down by a hastily assembled grand jury, rousted from their beds and called to the courthouse. In a bizarre twist of fate, on the first bench behind her, just beyond the rail, stood her son, Todd Adams, now out on bond thanks to Mikey DelVecchio and his new buddies at All-Night Bonding Company.

  Across the aisle, on the front row, stood Garland Fincher. He stood stock-still, staring straight ahead of him directly at Tish Adams. His face looked like thunder. His hands in fists. Beside him, still standing, was Hailey Dean.

  Her shoulder sported a thick bandage with stitches underneath where a bullet had grazed her, but otherwise not much worse for the wear. On her other side stood Chase Billings. He glanced occasionally at Tish Adams. For the most part, his eyes remained locked on Hailey beside him. It was hard to take in what happened the night before, that Hailey had somehow managed to literally dodge a bullet . . . well, almost. Tish Adams aimed the .22 straight at Hailey. If Hailey hadn’t dived onto the floor at that split second, she’d be dead right now.

  “Quit staring! Do I look that bad without makeup? It’s your fault! I asked to stop at the drugstore for blush and lipstick but you said we didn’t have time!” Billings checked to make sure she was smiling when she said it. She was. Actually, she was even more beautiful without the distraction of makeup, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to tell her that.

  Her crystal green eyes were like pools of tropical ocean water, almost unnaturally green. They were framed by her light brown brows, and her silky blonde hair fell in waves around her face. Her lips were perfectly shaped and pink without lipstick or gloss to enhance them, and even with all Billings knew she had been through in her short life, her face remained unlined except for two light wrinkles on either side of her lips . . . laugh lines. Hailey Dean seemed to love to laugh and could almost always find something light and funny to say . . . when she wanted to. He loved that about her. She always made him smile . . . and she wasn’t the kind of girl that minded laughing out loud, really loud if warranted. And then . . . there were her half smiles, and he loved those too.

  Wham!

  The sound of the judge pounding his gavel snapped Billings out of his daze. “So ordered. The defendant Tish Adams is hereby remanded to the Chatham County Jail until said time when she shall be tried for the murders of Alton Turner, Eleanor Odom, and Cecil Snodgrass, and the attempted murder of Hailey Dean. We now await the district attorney’s decision as to whether this will be a death penalty case and at the time that announcement is made, this court will be in recess on this matter. Court adjourned!” He pounded the gavel again very loudly, shot a look of contempt and loathing at Tish Adams, and left the bench.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  “I’ve got to hear the whole thing again, and this time, slowly. I only got the extremely abbreviated version at the hospital this morning. And then, the red tape of getting you out and over to the courthouse in time for the grand jury . . . I can’t believe the DA moved so fast. He had to have the grand jury in there by 8 AM at the latest to have the indictment handed down and signed in time for the hearing. What time did you testify in front of them, Hailey?”

  “The DA swore me in at eight-fifteen, I told my story, and, believe it or not, I was out of there at eight-thirty.”

  “No questions?” Billings asked, gently holding the back of her elbow on her good side, the left, as they descended the courthouse steps. Finch stood protectively on her right.

  “I never fell for her act . . . with the oxygen tank and all . . . the ‘poor me’ look all the way through the trial . . . always skulking around . . . she put a bad taste in my mouth from the get-go. No wonder the son is such a loser. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, you know that’s right,” Finch, glancing to the left and the right as if on lookout, was growling the whole way down the steps, having his own conversation by himself that had nothing to do with what Hailey and Billings were talking about.

  “Not a single question. I started with me flying down to profile for the state and pick apart Todd Adams’s behavior. I told it just how it unfolded . . . going to Alton’s home, the murder scene, going back out there and finding the black plastic valve, Elle’s death, and meeting Cecil Snodgrass. Then, I went straight to last night. They didn’t ask
any questions, but they were all listening and taking notes. We’d only been outside the grand jury room for two, maybe three minutes when they rang the buzzer that they’d voted. The DA went in, was in there about one minute, and came out with the signed indictment.”

  “Then what happened? Oh, and did they get the oxygen cap out of the back of your car?” Chase Billings, still staring at Hailey nonstop, asked the question standing at the crosswalk to the parking deck.

  “They did get it. Amazing I hadn’t thrown it out. They got it this morning. Techs got it and took photos. I think they’re back out at Alton’s right now. So anyway, back to this morning . . . then I walked to the elevator with the DA, we went and filed the indictment at the clerk’s office, and then we came to the courtroom.”

  “Oh.” Billings was still staring, Finch still fussing.

  “Then, the DA peeled off and went into the judge’s chambers and I went into the courtroom. That’s when I saw you guys; and before I could really even sit down, the judge came onto the bench and they wheeled Tish Adams in front of him.”

  “I should have seen it coming. I can’t believe I didn’t figure it out before the old bag could take a shot at you. You know, the more I think about it, all the signs were there . . .” Finch was in his own world, still muttering under his breath about Tish Adams.

  “Hey, Finch! How are you, man? Long time no see!” All three looked at a tall man coming toward them in the crosswalk. It was none other than Cloud Sims, still in jeans and silver-studded cowboy boots, sauntering up.

  “Sims! Hey, guy! How are you? What brings you to Savannah?” Finch grabbed Cloud Sims in a big bear hug. Hailey stared between the two of them.

  “And Miss Hailey Dean, how are you? And what are you doing with a character like Garland Fincher? You’re going to get a bad reputation hanging out with this guy. And lo and behold, the famous Lieutenant Chase Billings! Last time I saw you, you’d just busted up that bank robbery!” The bear hug with Finch complete, Cloud began pumping Billings’s right hand enthusiastically.