The Eleventh Victim

by Nancy Grace

  “We turned all the screens in the whole place on you all at the same time…even the JumboTron was on you, instead of the dancers. It was something, it really was.”

  “Thanks for the support, Sam.” C.C. smiled widely, tipping Sam a ten for future favors. “Where’s Tina? She here yet?”

  “Nope. But she should be. Her show starts in an hour. When she gets here, I’ll tell her to come see you at the bar first thing. Go on over there to the bar, Judge. Burger’s on me, just the way you like it, bacon and cheese, double-meat…right?”

  C.C. smiled again, then sidled up to the bar and took a seat, accepting his due as the front-runner gubernatorial candidate.

  “Jack straight up…and just show it the water, boss. Just barely show it the water. Just a sprinkle.”

  The drink appeared before him and he fixed his eyes on the JumboTron, where a new girl was dancing in pink patent-leather boots that went up over her knees.

  Sitting there in his leather swivel bar stool waiting for his free burger, C.C. realized he could easily pull a Reagan. Go from governor to a national platform. It was his for the taking. Washington needed him. His foreign policy was brilliant. He hated Iraq and North Korea and wanted to nuke them both till they both glowed yellow. God wanted him to be in Washington.

  Who was that girl in the pink boots? C.C. tried his best to place her as the music blared.

  The din of the football game blared from several widescreen plasmas, serving as background for various women onstage in the “entertainment” area. C.C. watched one after the next, each more beautiful than the last. He had lost count of how many bourbons had come and gone.

  The new girl in the pink boots was now making her second appearance since C.C. had settled in at the bar well over an hour ago. Her platinum hair was pulled high on the back of her head in a ponytail that swung halfway down her back, and she writhed to a Gwen Stefani tune.

  The pole was a wonderful thing and this girl knew how to use it. C.C. marveled at how a waist that tiny could physically support boobs so huge. The girl was great, true, but she couldn’t compare to Tina.

  Who was late…again.

  C.C. checked his watch, growing impatient.

  Two new girls in an Asian motif were on the stage. One had something like a fly-swatter in her hand. Okay. C.C. settled back for the show.

  “Lenny, hit me one more time…just to take the edge off. And, the cheeseburger?”

  Onstage, the girls began a series of elaborate contortions, one doing a backbend, G-string and pasties toward the audience, while the other miraculously managed to hang upside down by her ankles on the pole, dangerously waving one leg out toward the audience.

  Mesmerized, C.C. didn’t break his gaze, but as a second thought, called out, “And Lenny, make it well!”

  Rare meat disgusted C.C. Always had. He always liked to taste a little grill in his steak, lighter fluid and all. He only wished he had stock in A-1.

  He almost didn’t notice when Tina finally showed up, breezing through the front door past Sam and straight to the bar to hug him lightly from behind, reaching her arms across his chest. Startled, he looked down. The long, hot-pink enamel nails studded with rhinestones were a dead giveaway.

  “What do you want to drink, babe?”

  Disentangling herself, she carelessly dropped a huge metallic silver Prada bag to the floor beside their stools and settled in beside C.C.

  “Pink Cosmo for me, Lenny. I only have ten. I’m due onstage.” Tina called out her order, then swiveled around to look C.C. in the eye.

  “I saw you on the eleven o’clock news. You were standing in front of the mikes.”

  C.C. waited for the same old complaint she hadn’t been allowed to come to the party.

  “You looked good, babe. I’ve never seen you in a tux before.”

  “And you look great!” he said, trying to sidestep the party last night as Lenny set two drinks with napkins in front of them. “What’s your song? Got a new routine for me?”

  She looked back, coyly eyeing him over the rim of the frothy drink.

  Using her long pink nails, she dug into the froth, fished out the lime, and started tearing the fruit off the rind with her teeth.

  “Maybe I do have a new routine just for you…you’ll have to see. Right now I’m feeling all left out and hurt about last night. I saw Betty standing behind you. I bet you still haven’t told her, have you?” Her tone took on a childlike whine.

  He turned toward the widescreen. The game went to commercial and came back to two men in painful-looking sports coats who began discussing the game, laughing as if they’d told the funniest joke ever. C.C. couldn’t make out what they were saying.

  Tina pulled his sleeve. When he didn’t answer, she continued, “You know, I’m starting to think that after I pulled you through all this, I’ll never even be invited to the Governor’s Mansion, much less live there with you like you promised.”

  “Baby, you know now’s not the time to announce our engagement. Just be patient. You’ll see.”

  Tina glanced at her watch, drained her drink, and slid down off the chair until her spikes touched the floor. Gathering the Prada and the full-length amber fur coat she carried everywhere, she whispered into C.C.’s ear.

  “I got you a little surprise tonight.”

  “What’s that?”

  Her last “surprise” had been when she tattooed his initials inside the top of her thigh. It had led to a nasty infection and cost him thousands in doctors’ bills.

  “You’ll see!” With a tongue-kiss in his ear, she was off. A thick cloud of perfume hung in the air behind her.

  The music blared, the players ran up and down the field onscreen, the girls danced, and Tina made her way to her dressing room. C.C. pulled a nice Dominican from his shirt pocket and lit up.

  The two with the fly-swatter were still onstage. By the looks of it, C.C. figured they must be professional gymnasts.

  The cheeseburger came with a huge side of fries. After smothering them with ketchup, he dug in. He waved at the next man down the bar and gestured for the salt. Before the guy could respond, a feminine hand came between them. It was wearing a full-length, hot-pink evening glove, with plenty of bling on the slender fingers outside the glove. Reaching between the bar patrons, it was holding a salt shaker.

  “Hi, Judge. I’m a friend of Tina’s. How are you tonight? Feeling good? You’re looking good!”

  C.C. looked into the eyes of one of the most beautiful, tall, statuesque women he had ever laid eyes on. She was the color of mocha, with brunette hair falling nearly to her waist in waves.

  “Well, hello! It’s nice to meet you. Have we met before?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  After all the bourbons, C.C. couldn’t quite make out her accent, but it was husky and exotic.

  What a beauty! C.C. was thrilled. Could she possibly be…?

  “Are you my surprise? From Tina?” he asked tentatively, hopefully.

  Would Tina be so magnanimous?

  Of course she would! She was being squired by the next governor!

  This was his victory lap!

  She smiled at him. Her lip gloss smelled like cinnamon. It was so thick he could smell it, even over the cheeseburger.

  “Surprise? Yes, that’s what I am…your surprise…your special, private surprise.” Her words came out like honey being poured from a jar.

  He knew it. Tina was an angel.

  “But for the rest of the surprise, Judge, the cherry on the icing, we need privacy. It’ll only take a minute. But my special surprise for you has to be in private. Tina said so.”

  Private? Just the two of them?

  Just at that moment, right on cue, Tina emerged onto the stage dressed in an Egyptian-style headdress and sandals with straps crisscrossing up her legs. Her eyes were rimmed with elaborate blue and black kohl eye shadow, and she wore a shiny black Cleopatra wig. She lithely stepped up onto the backs of two muscle-bound guys on all fours on the s
tage floor. Just before she swung into gyrations, balanced on their backs, she tossed a kiss onto one index finger toward the JumboTron, her secret “hello” to C.C.

  He took it as a sign that he was meant to fully enjoy his “surprise,” with no guilt attached. Tina truly was his dream girl.

  The surprise whispered into his ear, “Go to the VIP men’s room, far end stall. I’ll meet you in five minutes.”

  Without a word, C.C. drained the remainder of the golden liquid in his glass, turned, and headed toward the men’s room in the VIP at the rear of the club.

  Making his way through the club, C.C. adjusted his eyes to the darkened VIP Pinkie Suites.

  “Hey Jack. How are you tonight?” C.C. asked the attendant outside the bathroom.

  “You’re looking good, Judge. Looking good.” C.C. breezed through the swinging door and, amazingly, found himself alone in the john. By instinct, he squatted over and checked. No feet below.

  Perfect!

  This was incredible, just the beginning of his new life and all the wonderful opportunities that would come with it. As instructed, he marched directly into the last stall.

  Wait…maybe he should freshen up.

  Peeking outside the stall’s metal door, he noticed he was still alone and ventured out over to the multiple sinks lined beneath a huge horizontal mirror. A long counter ran below the mirror, covered with men’s hairsprays, condoms, lotions, and aftershaves.

  He quickly squirted himself but good with something called Drakkar Noir. It sounded foreign and exciting. He added squirts under each arm and one quick, discreet but drenching spray down the front of his pants aimed directly at his crotch.

  You never know.

  C.C. scurried back to his stall and sat down, waiting. It felt like Christmas morning!

  Not more than a few minutes passed when he heard the swinging doors to the bathrooms swish open and heels clicking across the tile floor.

  C.C. tensed, sitting there on the toilet.

  There was a light tapping at the door, and he could tell from her feet under the stall door that it was her. He opened the stall door and let her in. From where he was sitting on the ceramic bowl, Mocha looked six feet tall.

  “Don’t get up, Judge, just sit back and relax. Baby got a surprise for you.”

  Baby kneeled down on the tile in front of C.C., unzipped his pants, and buried her face in his lap, his right hand resting gently on the top of her head, his left palm braced against the metal wall of the stall.

  She tossed her hair back and started giggling.

  C.C. giggled too, his eyes nearly closed, his head rolled back, leaning against the back of the toilet.

  Then he saw it—C.C. was never sure whether he caught the first few bright flashes.

  Then another and another…

  At first he thought he was seeing strobe lights in his head, but when he squinted his eyes open, he was staring right into an expensive-looking black metal camera attached to a long lens.

  It was hanging to his left, over the side of his stall.

  What? A camera in the crapper?

  He jerked forward and caught something in his right hand. With much confusion, he looked at the long brunette wig he held in his hand as Mocha squirmed up to attention and began rearranging her clothes.

  “No-no…Baby’s leaving. Y’all too kinky for Baby in here. Nobody told Baby ’bout no camera.” She blurted it out in a deep-pitch baritone.

  Still clutching the long weave, C.C. was frozen on the cold commode seat, unable to absorb what was happening.

  Looking up straight into Mocha’s nostrils, he noticed for the first time a large and distinct Adam’s apple. Not good.

  Urine threatened to expel. C.C. absolutely could not wet his pants. He had to act.

  With the two of them struggling to rearrange themselves in one stall over a toilet, C.C. could barely get up and zip up. The stall door flew open, Mocha flounced out, and the man attached to the Nikon jumped down off his perch on the neighboring commode seat, lid down. He had apparently been crouched there, straddling the toilet’s water with one foot on either side of the bowl, since before C.C. first came in.

  “What the hell is going on, you son of a…”

  Jumping down off the bowl like a monkey, he lurched directly in front of C.C. and continued to snap away…catching C.C. arranging and zipping.

  Just as C.C. made a grab for him, he took off like an Olympic sprinter, not even bothering to push the swinging doors open, charging them shoulder-first like a linebacker.

  The music from the VIP room blared into the bathroom as C.C. started after the guy, only to stumble and fall face down onto the cold tile floor. He got up and ran for the door. What the hell was going on?

  He charged from the brightly lit fluorescent-tiled bathroom through the doors and back into the darkened club room; he couldn’t see but knew enough to head for the door.

  Too late. The guy was gone.

  56

  New York City

  “WHAT THE HELL IS SHE DOING?” OFFICER KEVIN DUNNE ASKED, as Hailey leaned into the two-way mirror and wiggled two fingers like bunny ears saying hello. “Does she know we’re here?”

  “What do you think?” Lieutenant Kolker responded, lowering all four chair legs to the ground and watching her intently. “I told you, she’s a lawyer.”

  Not just a lawyer, Dunne knew.

  Kolker had instructed the detectives to pull up every LexisNexis article they could find on Hailey Dean.

  It made them all a little edgy to learn that she was considered to be a brilliant criminal trial lawyer, perceived by many civil libertarians as a zealot, a renegade crime fighter who used all means necessary to win a case.

  “Maybe she really is crazy,” Dunne’s partner, McKee, muttered, reaching for a Marlboro, contraband in the new “smoke-free zone” era.

  They’d tossed that theory around when they’d read about how, out of the blue, she had packed it all in after ten years of clawing her way to the top. It was rumored she’d bid farewell to a million-dollar civil practice waiting for her.

  Nobody was sure what triggered her departure. Rumors ranged from a disastrous love affair with a defense attorney in Atlanta to disgust with the jury system to a nervous breakdown following her last major trial.

  Kolker was opting for the breakdown. It fit much better with his theory that Dean was motivated to kill her patients due to a mental imbalance linked to that last prosecution. The MOs were far too similar not to be connected. They thought about a third-person copycat, but between the obvious connection, the forensics taken in the field, and the other evidence Kolker developed—it added up to her. And it made a much more sexy story. There’d be nowhere else but up for Kolker after this…outsmarting a lawyer-turned-killer.

  “Sure looks like she’s lost it,” Dunne agreed, incredibly uncomfortable beneath her studied gaze that laid bare their hiding place.

  “Damn, it looks like she’s staring right at us.” McKee pulled uncomfortably at his necktie.

  Of course, she couldn’t see them…could she?

  No.

  That was ridiculous.

  But the way she was staring…

  It just wasn’t right. They were supposed to make her nervous…not the other way around.

  “Kolker, go ahead…get in there.”

  “Not just yet. I’m gonna make her sweat.”

  “Yeah, well, she don’t look like she’s sweating,” McKee commented as Hailey smiled into the two-way.

  “Shut the hell up,” Kolker barked, and shifted his weight in his chair.

  They continued to watch, studying her, trying to get a read on her emotions.

  Was she nervous? Was she tired? Would she break into tears?

  At last, Kolker cracked.

  “All right,” he said, standing, “it’s time to play bad cop. I’m going in.”

  57

  St. Simons Island, Georgia

  TOBY MCKISSICK STARED AT THE PHONE ON HIS DESK AS IF
IT WERE LIABLE to bite him on the wrist if he reached for it, and squirmed in his seat, now noticeably slick with sweat, especially along the lower back and contoured seat.

  He wanted to shoot himself. No, not himself, somebody else. He definitely wanted to shoot somebody else.

  The intercom system made a second obnoxious buzzing sound, and he slumped down even further in his prized Naugahyde office chair on wheels. He pulled it as close to his desk as his stomach would allow.

  He knew it was Sean, his secretary, buzzing him to tell him Floyd Moye Eugene was holding on the phone, long-distance from Atlanta.

  He could pretend he wasn’t there like he normally did with unwanted and intrusive calls. It probably wouldn’t work this time.

  Sean wasn’t too smart, but her legs were long as a colt’s and she had a perpetual, miraculous coppery brown tan.

  Even though Sean was beautiful, her blind hero worship of him was actually irritating sometimes.

  Quite a contrast to his wife. When she wasn’t at home playing bridge with her foursome, Lois made constant trips back and forth to the St. Simons United Methodist Church. The bulletin had to be written on Monday, typed on Tuesday, mailed on Wednesday. Then there were the Hand Bells Choir, the Kids’ Choir, and the Adult Choir. Lois was involved in all three, plus knee-deep in church politics. Toby still loved her in his own way, like a child loves an old teddy bear whose fur was rubbed off and eyes torn out, in other words, no longer attractive.

  “Who is it, Sean?” Toby asked.

  “It’s Mr. Eugene, long-distance from Atlanta.”

  Toby felt like every ounce of energy had drained from his body.

  He knew it was hopeless, but he asked anyway. “Does he already know I’m here in the office?”

  “Well, I told him you were in a budget meeting…like I normally do. Was that wrong? Should I tell him you’re ‘in conference on a matter of grave importance to the constituents,’ like I did last time?”

  “No. I’ll take the call.”

  “Yes, Mr. Chairman.”