by Nancy Grace
Hailey was mortified. She was no murderer . . . She had defended herself, brought down a twisted killer, and nearly lost her life doing it. And why did they drag Will into it? Tony had promised this wouldn’t happen. In the bright lights, she could barely see past the anchor desk. The studio audience, the aisles leading to the exit, everything was completely obscured by the harsh lights . . . She couldn’t see her way out. After the quick intro, Harry Todd lobbed the first question.
“So, Hailey Dean, before you’ve been touted as a victims’ rights champion, but you killed a man in cold blood . . . What’s your response?”
Okay. That was it. Gloves off.
“Mr. Todd, I’m not sure where you’re getting your facts, but you, sir, are woefully misinformed. I did not kill a man in cold blood . . .”
“That’s what the reports say!” he broke in. Hailey ignored him and plowed ahead.
“I defended myself against a man twice my weight and a full foot taller than me, a man who murdered defenseless women in cold blood, strangling the life out of them, and ripping them open with a sharpened poultry lifter. Mr. Todd, maybe your producers should feed you the correct information, but that killer had his hands around my neck, and frankly, I’m glad he’s dead.”
Before she could go on, the studio audience burst into wild applause, unprompted.
She tried to look out past the blinding lights shining into her face and into the audience to signal a silent thank-you, but she couldn’t see any of them. Instead, she made eye contact with Todd, who was obviously angry the audience was siding with her and not him.
What a pompous ass . . . Exercising immense self-control, Hailey did not give him a swift kick under the table . . . She could’ve always acted like it was an accident . . . These cowboy boots could really do some damage.
“So killing someone, stabbing them in the temple with a drill doesn’t bother you . . . You’re happy about it?”
“I’m happy to be alive, Mr. Todd, if that’s what you’re asking. And yes, while I never, ever condone violence, I am, let me say, relieved that a man who stalked, tortured, and murdered innocent women is now gone off the face of this earth and if by my own hand . . . Then so be it. I’ll answer come Judgment Day, certainly not to you, Harry Todd.”
His long, thin face was turning blotches of beet red, and Hailey spotted sweat trickling down the left side of his forehead, cutting through the thick, tan pancake makeup they slathered onto his face, neck, and hands to give him a more human skin tone.
Todd looked at the prompter blankly, the deer-in-the-headlights look, desperately listening for somebody, anybody, to give him a cue as to how to respond. He even held his right hand up to the nearly invisible plastic earpiece fitted in his right ear, in the hopes his line producer in the control room would give him a sharp comeback. Hearing nothing to bail him out, he looked down at the questions laid out plainly in front of him.
“So, Hailey, tell me about your childhood.”
Hailey looked at him dumbfounded. Was he crazy? That question didn’t follow . . . It didn’t make any sense. My childhood?
At first she looked around for just a split second or two. Was this a joke?
Then, looking directly at Todd from across the three feet or so of table that separated them, she saw he was still looking down, red-faced, at the yellow cards lying in front of him. He hated her, she could tell, but why? Obviously, he was unprepared for the interview and was doing nothing more than reading canned questions some staffer had written for him, regardless of whether they were relevant to the conversation.
That was the first rule of questioning a witness on the stand, Hailey had learned in court. Be prepared with questions, but respond to the witness’s answers, or any jury would have just as bad a reaction as she was having right now.
It was nearly laughable, how hard she had prepared for today, memorizing facts, figures, and statistics about violent crime across the country. She knew he was a virulent death penalty opponent, and having sent over a dozen or so killers to meet their Maker, she assumed that was the source of his animosity toward her.
Even though all these thoughts registered in just seconds, enough daydreaming. She shook it off . . . She was under attack.
“It was very happy, Harry,” she replied sweetly. No need for vinegar when honey would do.
Todd obviously picked out another prepared question, re-shifting his weight in his chair. It was black leather and melted into the background of his set, making his appearance on camera even sharper under the bright lights and against the dark backdrop. Her own chair was beige. He leaned toward her to lob the next salvo.
Just as he inhaled for the question, music piped in through Todd’s earpiece and also into the studio audience, signaling they were headed to break in one or two seconds.
He was thwarted. No time for an insightful comeback. In what had become a contest of sorts, she’d obviously won round one. Rather than chat during the break, Todd was listening to direction in his ear and pretending she wasn’t there.
“No.” He said it staring into the camera. “No. That won’t work for me. What else do you have?” He paused. He still wouldn’t make eye contact with her.
“No. Not that either. Send Rachel down.”
Without looking at her, Todd got up unceremoniously and left the set.
Was this normal?
The audience was chatting among themselves. Even with the scorching lights bearing down on her, it was icy cold on the set. She felt a presence behind her, and turning, there was Tony, standing only inches from where she was seated, her back to him.
“Hi . . . How do you think it’s going? When are we going to get to the fight against violent crime?” She looked up into his face and noticed stubble growing under his pale chin, where he had obviously missed a spot shaving.
“Cover your mike.” He whispered it into her hair.
“What?” She whispered it back although she didn’t know why they were whispering.
“Hailey, listen, cover your lapel mike with your hand!”
She did as she was told and looked back at him.
“I don’t want the control room to hear me. As long as you’re miked, they can hear you all over the building if they want to . . . on the in-house channel. Listen, Harry’s got it out for you, I guess I should have told you before, but you know, he’s got a record.”
“What? A record?”
“Yeah. He’s a klepto. He can’t help himself. It doesn’t matter what it is, shaving cream at Duane Reade, hair gel’s his favorite steal, socks at Bloomingdale’s, even a portable CD player he stuck down the front of his pants once at RadioShack.”
“Down his pants?”
“Oh yeah, they have the whole thing on store surveillance video. All the security were watching him . . . I mean he is a celebrity . . . Then he stuffs the CD player down the front of his pants. I’ve seen the video. The whole staff watches it all the time. It’s hilarious. He doesn’t know we’ve got it.”
Hailey tried to take it all in. That’s one thing she hadn’t thought to do before her appearance before millions of Americans: run the star’s rap sheet.
“Then there was the iPhone he took right off a display at the Apple Store across from Central Park . . . Oh yeah, and some DVDs he put in his briefcase the other day at Barnes & Noble . . . in the music section. There’s more . . . a lot more. It goes back for years . . . most of it gets swept under the rug, but he actually has a couple of convictions. He hates police and prosecutors . . . thinks they’re all straight from hell. He never even wants them on panel legal discussions. I had to make him.”
“Why doesn’t the press make more of it?”
“The convictions are under his real name, Harold Isaac Finkler. He was booked under Isaac. Plus, they all plead down to citations or get handled behind closed doors. You’d really have to know where to look. Anyway, bottom line, he hates you.”
“Then why did you put me out here?”
“Oh! Don’t take it personally! I
t’ll be great TV!”
If looks were daggers, Tony would be dead right now.
“Oh, and he’s in the control room right now, up there.” Tony gestured upward and ahead, into the darkness.
“Don’t look! They’ll know I’m warning you!”
She quickly looked down at the table and the handwritten notes she’d worked on for hours, then brought with her.
“Warn me about what? What could happen? More lame questions?”
“No. He’s up there right now, and they’re loading him up with some ammo to shoot you down. Be ready.”
“Ammo? What ammo? For what? Shoot me down how?”
No answer. She turned to look at him, but he was gone, evaporating into the darkness behind her. She took her hand off her lapel mike and steeled herself. Literally within seconds, Todd came back and slipped into his chair, revealing nothing. She noticed his makeup was repaired, now thicker than ever. He looked like he’d just come off hours lying on the beach, his face an unnatural brown. His hands and neck were browner than before, too. She wondered if viewers would notice the difference.
The music started and the audience cheered when a pale guy in skinny black jeans, black tennis shoes, and a black T-shirt walked before them with an “Applause” sign. They clapped wildly, some wolf-whistling their enthusiasm for all things Todd.
When the music started to fade, Todd looked directly at the camera and read verbatim off the prompter as Hailey read along herself, silently of course.
“Welcome back. With us, special guest Hailey Dean. She went from small-town prosecutor to national headlines after the stabbing death of a well-known defense attorney . . . stabbed dead at the hands of Hailey Dean, who is giving us her first-ever national interview about the night she committed murder.”
Before he could finish the rest of the read, Hailey spoke up loudly.
“Mr. Todd, you continue to misinform the viewers and I absolutely will not stand by silently. That is absolutely not what happened. First, correction. Obviously you don’t make it past the city limits of New York City or read the papers or you would know Atlanta is no small town. In fact, sir, nearly a million people live in Atlanta, not including the metro area. And, I did not commit murder. Whoever is feeding you questions in your ear needs to fact check. I was unarmed, and in self-defense stabbed a serial killer with a dentist drill, turned on, in the temple. It’s as simple as that. Check the police report, if you know how.”
Before he could interject, she went on.
“And, I was invited to be with you today to discuss the fight against violent crime in our country, crime that takes the lives of thousands of men, women, and especially, children. It can be stopped, I firmly believe. More people die of homicides in the U.S. each year than they do in our most current war.”
As if he’d heard nothing she said, he blurted out the next question, trying to maintain his best newslike demeanor while trying to stop her from talking.
“Is it because of Will? Will, your fiancé who was murdered just before your wedding? The murder that ruined your life, that changed you forever? He was gunned down, right?”
He tossed the last question off casually, almost as an aside. The question clearly was not the point. The buildup was.
Even though she had been warned by Tony’s whisperings in her ear, she didn’t expect this. Hailey was speechless. She never allowed anyone to bring up Will’s name. If she brought it up, which was never, she’d be mentally prepared. But to have it thrown at her like this was like having a bucket of icy water thrown in her face.
Mortified, she looked up on a screen directly to her right, behind Todd’s head. Out of nowhere, just over Todd’s slicked back hair appeared a huge head shot of Will.
He looked so young.
Will’s eyes were brilliant blue against the light tan on his face and his teeth were pearly white, shining out from a big smile. The sky was a sapphire background behind him. It was a shot she herself had taken when they had gone to the beach, not long before he was murdered.
How had they gotten it?
Her chest tightened and a pain seemed to shoot out of her heart. This was not what she had signed up for. At first, tears sprang to her eyes and a huge lump seemed lodged in the front of her throat. But then, she pried her gaze down from the full screen of Will looming above them and looked Todd in the face.
There was no mistaking it. He was thrilled . . . a smug, self-satisfied grin played on his lips. She noticed for the first time he’d obviously had filler . . . probably Restylane . . . along what should have been laugh lines on either side of his nose downward toward the outer tips of his lips. Extremely unattractive in doses so great. And speaking of his lips . . . Weren’t they a tiny bit . . . too plump?
It hit her there in her seat with an entire studio watching, and no telling how many viewers would likely see from their own homes, how little TV people actually cared about what they were reporting. Todd was actually smirking now, waiting for her to say something, to break down in tears, to blurt out her life story and the pain she suffered the day her world exploded and Will’s world . . . ended.
So she did the opposite. Never taking her eyes away from Todd’s, Hailey stood up, jarring the little table that sat between them. As she stood, she noticed Todd shrinking back in his chair, like he was afraid of her.
Hailey squeezed open the tiny microphone attached to her left lapel, let it fall gently down the inside of her blouse, and pulled it out at the waist. Setting it on the table, in one fluid motion, she picked up her purse sitting on the studio floor behind her chair and her notes off the table and turned to leave.
“Wait! You can’t leave! Answer the question! You murdered a man because of all your pent-up rage! Isn’t that right, Hailey Dean? It was all because of Will!” He barked it out, leaning forward in his chair, into the camera for emphasis.
Hailey froze.
Turning on her heel, she looked back at Todd, sitting there, so smug, so self-satisfied, so impressed with himself.
“You are not worthy to even say his name, you plastic freak. Don’t you even whisper his name to me again.”
Todd opened his mouth for a comeback, but before he could say a word, Hailey picked up the huge glass pitcher of ice water sitting between them, along with two mugs emblazoned with Todd’s name and logo. He recoiled.
He should have.
Aiming straight for the top row of fake white dental implants, she thrust out her right arm, drenching Todd’s head with at least a gallon of clear, cold water mixed with slushy ice. He pushed back his chair; the matte-colored makeup, carefully patted onto his face and scalp so the bald spots wouldn’t shine through, streamed down in rivulets.
“They’re right . . . You are crazy . . . you’re . . . you’re . . . ,” he had to stop and think since an appropriately outraged zinger wasn’t provided on his cue cards, “. . . a bitch!”
Wow. That was original. If only Hailey had a dime for every time she’d been called a bitch in court, she’d be a millionaire.
She couldn’t see exactly where she was going, but she didn’t stop going. In the background, she could hear thunderous applause, wolf-calls and whistles from the audience.
They were a bloodthirsty bunch.
Hailey could make out the faint red glow of an illuminated exit sign over a door and headed toward it. Pushing it open, she could hear the applause still going in the background. She had walked into yet another stairwell, obviously the wrong one; she had no idea where it led. But before she had made it ten steps, she heard the door behind her open and there he was.
Tony Russo was lumbering after her as fast as his short little legs could take him. She braced for his anger at what she had done to his beloved Todd.
“You were marvelous! We loved it! The whole control room was cheering!”
There he was with the “loving it” thing again. But his words stopped her in her tracks and she turned around to look at him.
“What? I just threw a bucket of c
old water on your boss. It made his hair and makeup run down the front of his face. You should be furious!”
“Furious? Are you kidding? You’re a natural! It’ll make great TV!” He was so excited, he was panting, gasping for breath. Or maybe it was the eight stairs he tackled.
“Great TV? So you don’t care I just chewed out your boss on national TV? I don’t get it.”
“Number one, Harry Todd is not my boss. Sookie Downs is. All she cares about is ratings and honey, this is ratings! I love it!”
“Don’t call me honey.” She was trying to take in the depth of his disloyalty. Even from Russo, it was disturbing.
He went on as if he hadn’t heard her. “Look, he’s been in a ratings slump; no matter what we put up—politics, celebrities, angry housewives—it doesn’t rate. This will rate! My gut says so and I have the best gut in daytime talk.”
He brimmed with sheer excitement at the prospect of not only a ratings comeback for The Harry Todd Show, but more specifically, a guest and a story that he alone had masterminded and booked.
“I have to go.” She simply could not think of anything else to say.
Once again, Russo chased after her as she exited the stairwell out into a common hallway lobby and a set of elevator banks. She recognized them from before and punched the “down” button.
She could find her own way out.
Stepping onto an elevator that opened right in front of her, she heard him as the doors were shutting.
“Wait! Hailey!! Wait! I want to talk to you . . .”
Suddenly everything was quiet. She was alone in the elevator. Alone with the thick carpet and the wood paneling, and on the two identical TV screens on either side of the door was a replay of her drenching Todd with the icy water going out onto the live airwaves. The banner across the bottom third of the screen screamed out Violent Crime Vigilante Takes Aim At Harry Todd!
As she looked at the screen, the banner changed. Dean’s Fiancé Murdered Just Before Wedding, Transforms Her Into Vigilante Crime Fighter.
These people were shameless. The dousing kept being replayed over and over, including the brunette makeup running down Todd’s forehead. They obviously would eat their own for a Nielsen number.