The Eleventh Victim

by Nancy Grace

  “Don’t bother to look so shocked,” Lieutenant Kolker said dryly. “That stunned, hurt look might have fooled me once, Hailey Dean, that’s right. It worked the first time you used it at the hospital, but it ain’t workin’ this time. You nearly had me snowed in there. Man, was I a fool. I guess you’ve used your looks before. It’s not working this time, Counselor.”

  “What?” Her thoughts were spinning. She couldn’t take in the news about Hayden. “Lieutenant, I’m not—”

  “Don’t bother to tell me what you’re not,” he cut in rudely, “because I’m going to tell you what you are. You’re under arrest.”

  “For what?!” Anger took her over. Her patients were being singled out for death, and her words came out sharp as steel.

  “Do you want me to repeat it?”

  She said nothing back, the desire for revenge against the killer so strong now, her whole body was coiled and ready to spring.

  “Melissa Everett and Hayden Krasinski are both dead. Two innocent women murdered just weeks apart, and you know what, Ms. Dean? You’re the only connection to the both of them.”

  “But that doesn’t mean—”

  “Same MO. Single females in their twenties, both slight of stature, both emotionally troubled and easy to take advantage of, both strangled and stabbed—very unusual—both in the evenings on a city street, no robbery…sound familiar? Both murdered just blocks from your office. Both had your business card on them. Both had your home number and cell in their address books. Both trusted you, Hailey Dean. They’d do whatever you told them, wouldn’t they? They never saw it coming, did they, Hailey…just walking along and the stab in the back. Too much of a coincidence for my taste.”

  This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be happening. The man was an imbecile. How could she be connected to violence, much less murder…and of her own patients?

  “Oh, and nice touch, leaving that little message on Melissa Everett’s answer machine…as if you had no idea where she was when you knew she was lying stiff and cold in an alleyway. But nice touch. You’re a real pro, Dean. A jury’s gonna love that!”

  “Kolker, you know this is impossible. Why are you doing this? I can’t believe it…. Hayden’s been killed? What happened to her?”

  “Don’t ask me. It’s up to headquarters if you get any more information up front. I’m sure your defense lawyer will file discovery and tell you anything you need to know about your patients. For now, that information’s off-limits to you. All you need to know is that they’re dead.” He eyed her as if she were a dangerous snake loose in the office. “Look, cut the crap. I know you lawyer types…anything we tell you, you’ll just use it against us in court. Isn’t that the game you lawyers play?”

  Hailey hardly knew where to begin. “What in the hell are you talking about? What are you saying? I cared about Hayden and Melissa. They were both friends to me.”

  He continued as if she hadn’t spoken a word.

  “You handled serial murders, didn’t you? Never lost a case, did you, Dean? Always a winner, right? Well, you’re not a winner now. You lost this time. We’re on to you.”

  Kolker was having a field day. He kept talking, hoping for a reaction, a statement, an outburst, maybe even an admission. Anything he could use against her in court. She knew this. Far in the back of her mind, the wheels started turning. Years and years of courtroom strategy were piercing through the shock.

  “I’m actually a little disappointed in you. Should have tweaked the MO. Changed it up just a little bit. Hell, a smart ex-prosecutor like you can afford to be creative once in a while…right? Not make it so easy for us dumb cops to figure out.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Kolker went on, unfazed. “But what I don’t get is…is it some sick sex thing for you? Because I just don’t seem to pick up on that particular vibe from you. Or did you just crack?”

  “You moron!” She shrieked it. “You’re arresting me while a killer’s out there stalking my patients? You’re wasting time!”

  “Hailey, Hailey, Hailey, temper, temper.” Kolker waggled an index finger at her like she’d been a bad schoolgirl.

  That was it.

  Hailey pulled back and gave Kolker what he asked for. Before he knew it was coming, her right elbow wound back and released with a force neither of them could have predicted, landing a right punch to his left chin. It landed with a loud thwack, slicing up to his nose, too, and blood immediately began gushing down the front of his shirt.

  It happened so fast and was so unexpected, Kolker was caught completely off-guard.

  Grabbing a bandanna out of his back pocket, he wiped his mouth and nose, furious and embarrassed at the same time over the fact she’d been able to land a hit square to his face. Now he’d be the punch line back at the station for this and he knew it. Maybe he’d just leave it out of his report.

  “Oh, the jury’s gonna love this. A temper out of control. Fits right in with my scenario. Want to tell me all about it? I’ll listen. I’ll even make sure they go easy on you downtown. What happened? Get a little too involved in your cases back home, Hailey? Push yourself a little too far? You couldn’t take it anymore…”

  She had committed a horrible tactical mistake—she showed anger. She actually punched a cop. She had to rein it in for her own sake. With immense self-control and a throbbing right hand, she now remained perfectly silent, taking in everything she could, gleaning every fact possible before he got wise and clammed up.

  “That’s my theory…you cracked and left the law, didn’t you, Hailey Dean? I’ve read about you. We checked up on you, we did our homework on this one, don’t worry about that. You quit prosecuting after that last big-deal serial murder case you won. And now…your patients start dropping like flies, dead…just like them…just like the hookers in Atlanta.”

  She lifted her head and looked him square in the face. Surely he couldn’t mean it.

  “I mean, come on, these killings are copycat to the max…right down to the four-pronged stab wound. Can’t you come up with another plan?”

  Four-pronged stab wound?

  She knew there’d been a strangulation-stabbing…but this was the first she knew of a four-pronged wound. Her blood ran cold.

  “What I don’t copy is what you get out of it all. No robbery…no previous hatred or animosity with the victims. Do you just want to be in the spotlight again? Somehow swoop in with vital evidence and make yourself the big star all over again? Is that it, Hailey? You know…to look so good, you’re one twisted chick.”

  She finally answered.

  “Shut up, you stupid son of a bitch. You know this is impossible. What’s the real deal, Kolker? You guys need to make yourselves look good with an arrest instead of admitting the truth…that you don’t have any remote idea who’s committing the murders?”

  In the back of her mind she knew it was deadly to “chat” with police when you’re clearly a criminal target. Whatever you said was guaranteed to be misconstrued, but she went on anyway.

  “For your information, I didn’t ‘crack.’ I just got sick of it…the bloody crime scenes, the murders, and the double-dealing in the courtroom. The cruelty…that’s what I quit. Don’t you ever think of it yourself, Kolker? What is it…do you like dead bodies?”

  He looked pained. She kept going.

  “Don’t you ever get tired of defense attorneys who beat the system, Kolker? And the morons who sit on the bench and call themselves judges? The witnesses who lie with a straight face? Ever wake up at night dreaming about the last victim…the last trial…the last investigation? Ever get worn down from just fighting the fight…finishing one case and forty more land on your desk? Or is it you just don’t have the guts to do anything else?”

  At last, he rallied. “Save it, Counselor. Don’t fight me on this. I’ll end up taking you in anyway, so you might as well make it easy on yourself and not cause a scene. Remember this, Hailey Dean…I don’t need to figure it out. I don’t need a motive. All I
need is a perp, and the perp is you. I’ve got you on motive and opportunity, plus, we’ve got forensics to back it up. I don’t have to untangle the snakes in that little blonde head of yours. I’ll leave that up to your court-appointed psych. Hell, you’ll need one to explain this to a jury. Nice going, Counselor.”

  Forensics? How could that be? Forensics…blood, fluid, DNA? Linking her to the murders? Impossible!

  Hailey clamped her mouth shut while he cuffed her, knowing at this point that anything she said could and would be held against her in court. Why her? What did they have? But she wasn’t getting any more out of Kolker, not right now, anyway.

  How many times had she repeated those same Miranda warnings to how many suspects?

  You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law, you have the right to an attorney…

  She knew the words by heart and they rang like a nursery rhyme through her head.

  The cuffs were cold metal and tight on her wrists. Her side was hurting so badly it felt like it was on fire. Throwing the punch had cost her, but it was worth it. Kolker’s nose was still dripping blood.

  He grabbed her purse from the rug beside her desk and shoved it under his arm.

  “Let’s go, you’re under arrest for double murder, the stabbing deaths of Melissa Everett and Hayden Krasinski,” he said, leading her out her own door, his grip tight on her arm above the elbow, as though she would take off at any minute and try to outrun him

  She prayed no one would be there to see her go. Dana’s office door was closed, thank God.

  But the door to the dentists’ office on the first floor was propped open as the UPS guy wheeled in boxes of supplies. She could see them all…the waiting room full of patients, secretaries behind the counter, one of the dentists. They’d all know soon enough.

  They stared at her as she passed, hands in front of her, wrists obviously shackled together. No one spoke. It was if they were characters in a silent movie, or those life-size cardboard cutouts of people…people who didn’t move or speak, just stared.

  She tried her best to cover the cuffs with her coat so onlookers wouldn’t see. But she knew they could see.

  They could see.

  51

  St. Simons Island, Georgia

  VIRGINIA PULLED UP IN FRONT OF THE 7-ELEVEN. SHE COULD SEE Larry behind the counter, slumped between displays of chewing gums, Sweet-and-Sours, even ginseng root.

  The cowbell hanging from the door clanged when she walked in, and Larry sat up. His eyes were bloodshot and his face was pale except for his nose, which was red.

  He didn’t speak at first, just slid off the bar stool, walked to the Bunn-o-matic, and reached for the glass coffeepot. He poured coffee into a Styrofoam cup and topped it off with heavy cream before nuking the contents for exactly twenty-five seconds in the mini-microwave next to the Slurpee machine. In somber silence, he handed the Styrofoam cup to Virginia.

  “Just like I like it. Thanks.”

  “V.G., I’m not some nut, some obsessed freak.” He reclaimed the bar stool. “It’s just that he was a hero. You know, he came from nothin’ and nowhere, and he was king, V.G., king of the NASCAR.”

  “I know, Larry.”

  They sat in silence, Larry flipping through a NASCAR magazine, Virginia beside him sipping her coffee and looking out through the glass storefront at the parking lot.

  A white pickup pulled up, and she watched a man in a blue uniform get out of the driver’s side and slam his door.

  An officious-looking “crest,” reminiscent of Great Britain’s royal House of Windsor coat of arms, was proudly emblazoned on the driver’s side door. It was tacky, pompous, and fake.

  It was the Palmetto Dunes Luxury Living logo.

  The man in the uniform certainly was at work early this morning. So…they hadn’t given up after the attack…but why should they?

  Why should a guerrilla foray onto the property scare away millions of dollars of backing and even more to rake in once the condos sold? Of course the developers weren’t giving up.

  While the guerrillas had staged only one attack, word was they had at least slowed down the dune developers. After the assault, there had been no further attempt to re-pour the foundation. At least not yet.

  The cowbell on the handle clanked as the man pushed open the glass door.

  He looked vaguely familiar to Virginia, but she looked down instinctively when the cowbell sounded. Virginia noticed his navy uniform was already blotched dark with sweat.

  “Hey, Larry.”

  “Hey, Clyde. How’s it goin’?”

  “Well, I went out there and got ’em ready to start up the construction again. Got the security cameras in place. Guess you heard about it already. Bet there won’t be any more kids tearing the place apart this time. And it’s a good thing, too. The boss out of Atlanta rolled some heads. Got the security guard so nervous, he’s poppin’ Tums like you wouldn’t believe. Near ’bout lost his job after that last time.”

  He stopped dead center in front of Virginia and turned back to Larry. “Got the Coke with lime, Larry?”

  “Nope. That company never could leave well enough alone. Seems they’d have learned something after the ‘New Coke.’ Remember that big mess?”

  “Yep.” He kept talking with no instigation. “Yes, sir…these cameras’ll stop ’em. Got ’em all the way from some outfit in Atlanta. Damn, Toby McKissick and the whole County Commission’s in on it. They got their hands in everybody’s pocket, you know. Nothing new about that.”

  He reached into a glassed-in refrigerated area, pulled out a Diet Coke, walked back to the counter, and put down a dollar. “’Course the work crew said it wasn’t kids…that it was a curse. You know, voodoo. Everybody’s always said the south beach was haunted. My aunt Rosa said it to me twenty-five years ago.”

  “I always heard that, too. My grandmother told me,” Larry told him.

  So had Virginia. The ghost stories surrounding the Island’s south beach, which dated back to before the Civil War, as far as anybody could tell, were about a burning slave boat that had landed on St. Simons’s southernmost shore. No such ship had ever been documented, but the lore continued.

  Clyde pulled a cloth handkerchief out of his back pocket and ran it across his face. “Damn it’s hot out there. What time is it, for Pete’s sake?”

  They all three turned to look at the clock plugged into the wall behind the register. Over the Coca-Cola logo, it read eight fifteen.

  “Not even eight thirty in the morning! Whew!” Clyde exclaimed. “Got to be eighty-five degrees already. Thank God I finished up before it really heats up.”

  “Musta been tough out there,” Larry said, alluding to the camera installation. “It’s like a jungle in some parts. Hot as hell.”

  “Oh, yeah, and they wanted the damn cameras hidden out of the way so they can catch the kids. Don’t know why…prob’ly just a bunch of high-school kids having fun. It ain’t like it’s a federal case, ya know? Just kids. But you know folks out of Atlanta…ever’ thing’s got to be just so. They start up construction again tomorrow morning and had to have the cameras in place first, come hell or high water…whatever, I got paid.” He waved the dollar at Larry. “You gonna ring me out or what?”

  “Hey, keep the dollar. The Coke’s on me. So where’d you finally end up puttin’ ’em?” Larry asked it without the slightest change of inflection in his voice.

  “Put what?”

  Damn this guy was slow. “The security cameras…this morning…remember?”

  Virginia didn’t dare move a muscle, keeping her nose in Larry’s NASCAR magazine, specifically, a close-up of Dale Earnhardt getting Rookie of the Year back in 1979.

  Clyde snorted. “Oh yeah…them. Put ’em up high on those two big pines just inside the guardhouse, one on either side, ’bout twenty feet in, just off the road. They’re kind of hidden behind the pine needles. You’d never notice ’em in a million years,” he adde
d. The more he talked, the prouder he got of his job that morning.

  “That was smart,” Larry kept it going. “Just two of ’em?”

  “Yep. Two’ll do it. Look right down on the driveway into the site. I had to go in all the way to Brunswick and get a ladder special order to make it to the top. Damn Eddie over at the Georgia Power Company wouldn’t let me use one of their trucks. But don’t blame Eddie, it wasn’t his fault. It was the lawyers that said no.”

  Larry nodded. “Yep…it’s always the lawyers.”

  Not a word from Virginia.

  “Thanks for the Coke, Larry.”

  “Any time, Clyde.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Virginia watched Clyde go out through the glass doors and head to the pickup. But just as she opened her mouth to commend Larry on his detective work, Clyde stopped in mid-stride.

  Now what?

  They watched through the glass storefront as he threw his throat back and took a deep gulp of the ice-cold Coke.

  “Good Lord,” Virginia muttered, shaking her head.

  Neither Larry nor Virginia moved a hair sitting there on the bar stools behind the counter, watching as Clyde finally got into the truck, cranked up, and headed out of the parking lot.

  Only when he’d eased out onto the highway and screeched off did Larry turn to Virginia.

  “Man, V.G., you make me nervous! I gotta calm down. This whole morning’s giving me an aneurysm. I guess you wanna drive over there right now to check out the cameras.”

  “I can go by myself. It’s okay.”

  “Hell, no, you are not going by yourself. Anyway, I want to get a look at those cameras stuck up on a pine tree. Go wait in the El Camino while I close up. We’ll take my car. She’s unlocked. Better let the windows down. Might be hot.”

  Virginia smiled. Larry always did the driving.

  Virginia went ahead, sat in the El Camino’s passenger’s seat, and watched Larry lock up.

  He climbed into the driver’s seat, flicked on the El Camino’s AC, and they headed out of the lot toward the Palmetto Dunes development site.