The Eleventh Victim

by Nancy Grace

  “For your information, we have officially set the time of death for Hayden Krasinski at eight thirty p.m. Melissa Everett died at nine fifteen p.m. the preceding Wednesday. Nice touch playing dumb, Dean, as if you didn’t already know. So while we’re on that topic—”

  She cut in coolly. “I’ll continue the interview as long as you keep the recorder going. The trial judge might not like it when she finds out you turned it off.”

  The twitch in his right eye went crazy, and Kolker punched the recorder’s red “On” button again.

  They both knew it was highly inappropriate to tape only portions of a police interview. If the case made it to a courtroom, such a practice would lead to successful motions to suppress the entire discussion, thrown out on claims police had edited or tampered with the defendant’s statement.

  Score two for Hailey.

  Sweat appeared on Kolker’s upper lip, and his collar showed dark, damp areas where it met the skin of his neck.

  “Where were you at nine fifteen last Wednesday night, Ms. Dean?” he asked crisply. “Or do you need a lawyer to dream up an alibi for you?”

  Wednesday…nine fifteen…Where was she?

  Where was she on that night, for God’s sake?

  Her mind stretched to the limit, but she couldn’t remember.

  Then it hit. She leaned forward from the waist, as if she was making sure the recorder picked it up, heavy on the drama for the benefit of the peanut gallery watching from behind the two-way mirror.

  “Get this, Kolker. I don’t need a defense lawyer to protect me from you because I don’t need protection. I don’t need a defense lawyer at trial because there will be no trial. And I certainly don’t need a defense lawyer to dream up an alibi…because I know exactly where I was. Check it out. I was at the New York Sports Club on Third Avenue at Fortieth Street. I showed my club ID, the computer read it and logged it. There should be a computer record to verify it.”

  “Nice try, but I checked you out…. I know your drill. You’re just like clockwork…always the same thing, every night of your lonely little life. When it’s nice, you run the East River, when it’s not, you run the treadmill and lift weights at the gym. Out running alone doesn’t amount to an alibi. And for all I know you could have left that night right after you signed in, just to create an alibi. Would have been a decent story, too. But sorry, no good, Counselor.”

  Damn…he had done his homework. Who the hell had told him her workout schedule?

  Then the truth hit. Who else could it be but Dana?

  Hailey could just see her, drinking in every drop of attention Kolker or any half-decent-looking man was willing to feed her. Dana could talk forever and apparently had.

  But it wasn’t over yet.

  “Well, normally, that would be correct. If you did your homework instead of listening to office gossip, you’d already know Wednesday night was a little different. Change up in the routine.” She paused for effect, just long enough to get him nervous.

  Leaning back into the tape recorder, she went on. “Wednesday night, when I signed in at the Sports Club the weather was bad. Too cold for me, anyway. Check it out, Kolker…call the Weather Channel. And as for the treadmill, that particular night management was redoing the treadmill room to install individual televisions on each machine. I couldn’t use the treadmill, so I signed into an aerobics class—probably two dozen witnesses, maybe more. I got stuck in the very front row and I didn’t know the steps, plus my ribs ached, so I’m sure they’ll all remember me.”

  Kolker looked as if he had taken a punch to the gut. If she was telling the truth, and her steady gaze straight into his eyes suggested she was, his “airtight” case against her was falling apart in front of his eyes.

  “It was a funk-aerobics class…and it went from eight thirty until ten o’clock that night. Then I took a shower. And, Kolker, I walked out of the building that night with the instructor. I was there when she locked the glass doors in the front of the club. Check the security camera in the gym lobby. You’ll see me, but you’d better hurry. In case you didn’t know, banks, convenience stores, ATM machines…those cameras tape over every seven to eleven days at best.”

  Before he could respond, she continued on. “After that, I went across the street to the mini-mart at Thirty-eighth and Third. A few of them are open twenty-four hours, you know that much, right? I bought groceries.”

  Almost immediately, his eyes lit up.

  Before he could even blurt it out, she held up her hand. “Don’t get excited…. I didn’t pay cash. Used a debit card. Comes right off my checking account. Immediately. If you have wireless in here I could pull it up for you right now. You know how to use a computer, right? You know…e-mail…online banking…surfing the Internet…. It’s easy now, Kolker, it even shows the time—somewhere around ten thirty. How does that fit into your theory? Pretty well, if you totally want to throw out the time line your Medical Examiner established for the time of death. Or, hey, your theory could still conceivably work…if the body had been found in the dairy section at the mini-mart.”

  She saw him glance over at the mirror. They had to be laughing into their fists at him back there by now, and before he thought it through, he shot back.

  “The time is fluid, Dean. And I’ve still got you on Hayden’s murder. You may talk your way out of one—and I’m not saying you did—but not the other. You’re dead in the water, Dean.”

  The veins on either side of his temple were bulging, and his face was red.

  You’d better watch it, she told herself, realizing this might not be the right time to be a smart-ass.

  After all, he did have the keys to the jail, literally. “What about Thursday night? Where were you?” Kolker asked without a pause.

  She pulled back. “I’m clear on Thursday, too. I ran the East River.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yes.” The tables turned abruptly. She knew she was in trouble.

  “Running alone along the East River? No witness? No running buddy?” Kolker smiled, rummaged in his pocket for a quarter and pushed it across the worn tabletop with the pink eraser tip of a yellow pencil. “I know it hurts, Hailey…but don’t feel too bad. Here’s a present. It’s from me to you…to call your lawyer. Nice try, Hailey.” He stood up and gazed triumphantly toward the mirror, nodding his head slightly to his cronies on the other side, as if he were taking a bow.

  She knew he was right. Running by herself…all alone along the East River jogging path…wouldn’t work. No witnesses…but wait…what could she do…Was there any way she could alibi herself? They’d still hold her, even on the single Murder One count, even if the other was weak. Without thinking it through, she spoke.

  “Well, you have a point. But, Kolker, I ran with my cell phone tucked into the pocket of my sweatshirt. I was thinking as I ran. I had an idea about an article I’m working on, and before I lost the thought, I called my office. I left a message to remind myself.”

  “So what does that prove? You could have easily made the call anytime from anywhere…maybe leaving the body warm on the ground at the scene of the murder, for all I know.”

  He was right. Again. She had to think faster.

  “So the call, if it does exist, only proves one thing—you’re even more cold-blooded than I thought. Cold-blooded enough to stab some mixed-up, innocent kid and then before you even turn the block, you set up your own alibi.”

  He was gaining ground. “And everybody knows that even a high-schooler knows how to change time and date stamps on incoming and outgoing calls. This’ll make a hell of a closing argument for the prosecutor, won’t it, Hailey Dean?”

  He sat back in his chair, now relaxed, grinning into the two-way. Kolker’s moment of triumph. He was loving it.

  But it didn’t last long. Watching him carefully, Hailey pulled the trump card. “No.”

  The moment faded for Kolker and he turned slightly in his chair to look at her.

  Her voice was cold now. “In the middle
of the message, fire trucks from Sixty-seventh Street pulled out onto Third. It’s Engine 39, I’m sure. It had to have been. I could hear the ladder man over a bullhorn shouting so that they could get the big pumper truck out. I heard him telling drivers to back up so they could get out. Cars were blocking the driveway. The pumper couldn’t pull out onto the street. If the machine picked it up and I’m sure it did…it locks me in on the time. I’m clear across town, practically in the Seventies, the murder is at the other end of the island, in the Village, you said.”

  He didn’t respond, but looked briefly toward the mirror as if for guidance.

  “Check the message, Kolker. I know I saved it because I didn’t have time to work on the article yesterday before…”

  Before you barged into my office and you brought me here…

  She held her tongue, saying only, “I can play it back for you right now on remote if you want. You’ll hear the ladder captain in the background and the sirens. They’ll have a record of a fire-truck detail being sent out that night…that time. And you do know how to triangulate, right? To ping? You know, to pinpoint the exact location, sometimes down to the square block, where a cell call’s made?”

  Kolker was looking down at the table between them, deep in thought.

  She didn’t let up, she went for the kill. “Go ahead…ping me. And oh yes, my doorman, Ricky, saw me when I came back in.”

  Hailey put her right index finger on the face of the quarter and slowly pushed it back across the tabletop toward Kolker.

  “Keep it, Kolker.” Hailey stood up, preparing to leave. She’d won her way out of the jail and she knew it.

  She glanced over her shoulder at the two-way mirror and nodded her head.

  “Not so fast, Counselor. Your hair’s usually pulled back, right? Maybe you should have kept it back the nights of the murders, Hailey.”

  She stared at him full-on. “Get to the point, Kolker.”

  “I told you we have forensics. Can’t argue with the crime lab. You were on the crime scenes all right, both of them. DNA puts you there.”

  “There is no way my DNA was at the crime scenes.”

  “Save it. We got top-notch crime techs working Melissa’s body within the hour. Hayden’s, too. The best in the state, maybe even the country. They combed the scene, Hailey. It didn’t take them ten minutes to find long blonde hair—not one piece, Hailey, several. We’ve already had it tested, mitochondrial DNA, Hailey, maybe even some nuclear DNA, too … and they’re yours.”

  Her hair? At the scene?

  “And Hailey, they weren’t just at the crime scene. They weren’t just on the body. Melissa was clutching them in her right hand. She was fighting to live…fighting with you. I think you had them doped up on some of your shrink meds…and they never saw it coming…and from someone they trusted. It’s sick. On Hayden it was caught in a bracelet she was wearing.

  “And one last thing, as if we needed it. What about this? Any idea who this belongs to?” Kolker stood up, stretching his long legs. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out something shiny, something silver.

  Hailey turned and froze. Hanging from his right hand, on its black silk cord was a small, silver necklace, a tiny Tiffany’s ink pen.

  “Recognize this, Hailey?” Kolker asked, gloating.

  She did. Of course she did.

  She didn’t have to look any closer to know what was engraved: For Hailey, Seeking Justice, Katrine Dumont-Eastwood.

  “We found your jewelry, your necklace from Tiffany’s. It was on the Krasinski murder scene. And it wasn’t in her pocket or sweatshirt. She didn’t just pick it up accidentally. It was under her body. And to top it off…the cord’s broken. Lose it during the struggle, Hailey?”

  She had once treasured it dearly but now it dangled in Kolker’s fingers like a noose.

  59

  Atlanta, Georgia

  FRANK LAGRANGE HADDEN (THE THIRD) HAD BEEN WORRIED ABOUT being able to walk, let alone run, after being folded into the crapper stall for so long.

  Thanks to the burst of adrenaline shooting through his body when he sprang up and snapped the first shot, he somehow found himself sprinting through the hot breeze of the parking lot with amazing agility for someone so horribly out of shape. Tall and thin, he never exercised, spending most of his time online, parked in front of his big screen, or closeted away in his darkroom.

  But once he was off the toilet, he unfolded long, thin legs and ran like hell.

  His Nikes dug into the gravel and he pumped his arms furiously, weaving through hundreds of parked cars to get to his own burgundy Toyota.

  Laying the camera on the passenger’s seat, Hadden cranked up, jerked the Camry into reverse, put it in drive, and took off spewing gravel. He burned rubber pulling onto the asphalt, locked the car doors, and belted himself in all while gunning the gas, surreptitiously glancing into his rearview mirror just in time to see C.C. lurch out of the club, a burly bouncer on either side of the Judge.

  Damn fool.

  Looking back, he could see the Judge and his two goons running through the strip club parking lot, looking for him in the wrong direction.

  By now, he knew, Baby was long gone and wondering who had given “her” the two thousand dollars cash. He/she should have known that was way too much for just a Monica. But there was no way a hooker would turn down a cold two thousand dollars, and Frank knew it.

  He also knew, after following this jackass for weeks, a judge no less, that there was no way he’d turn Baby down.

  What a way to make a living.

  His legs had fallen asleep while he’d been crouched on the toilet seat for nearly an hour, and now they felt like fiery daggers were tearing through them.

  Hadden snaked through the back streets of Hispanic neighborhoods surrounding the Pink Fuzzy until he made it back to I-85.

  Once there, he floored it, going north of the city, keeping one eye on the rearview mirror, just in case.

  In minutes, the traffic and streetlights began to fall away. He picked up his cell and dialed the number he had been given.

  No one ever answered, but he always got his payments on schedule, like clockwork.

  The line was picked up by a machine, identified only by an outgoing beep.

  “It’s me, Frank. I got the photos. The ones you wanted and plenty of extras. As soon as I get the last payment, they’re all yours. Negatives included, as promised.”

  Another beep came, signaling the end of the allotted recording period.

  He hung up the phone and tossed it onto the seat beside him.

  Frank finally began to breathe easy. He dropped his speed to fifty-five mph as he continued heading north to his home on a cul-de-sac in one of thousands of nearly identical suburbs surrounding the city of Atlanta.

  His neighbors had no idea what he did for a living.

  But everybody who was anybody in certain circles knew that he was the best in the Southeast. He got it all—on tape, audio, and video—for people all over the country. Private dicks, the mags, sleazy divorce lawyers, jealous lovers—they all knew where to come.

  If they had the money.

  But even with business being good, he could always use more fat wallets like this one.

  This was a major gig, and that moron Judge Carter made it easy.

  Frank had tailed him for seven weeks, and the idiot never even looked in the rearview mirror. Not even once. Oh, wait, there was the one time Carter had actually waved at him.

  For the first few days Frank started out with rented cars and elaborate disguises, which of course he billed to the customer, along with the entire stakeout. The bill was never questioned. The disguises didn’t last long, though. No need.

  By the end, Frank was parking his Toyota right behind Carter’s car over at his girlfriend’s apartment. No fear of detection whatsoever.

  Frank had hated people like Carter his whole life, ever since kindergarten. The ones who had it all, got it all without even trying. The Haves. Carter w
as so drunk off his own sense of self-entitlement, so used to the world being his oyster, he never looked up from his own front zipper.

  Speaking of which, he was probably out in front of the Pink Fuzzy right now still trying to get his zipper up.

  If he could find it.

  60

  New York City

  HAILEY FROZE…HER MIND WRESTLING HAND-TO-HAND WITH her vision. She was speechless…staring at the impossible…the illogical. It couldn’t be true…. It didn’t make sense.

  Her silver Tiffany pen, engraved on the side, given to her by Katrine years ago after a murder trial.

  She and Fincher had torn apart the courtroom looking for it…spending hours down on all fours between the pews of the courtroom, where Hailey had wandered during her closing arguments. They’d searched through all the evidence, the trial files and notes, even retracing Hailey’s footsteps back and forth to her office there in the courthouse. Finally, they gave up. Hailey remembered walking to the county parking garage that night feeling a loss, repeatedly touching her neck where the black silk cord normally hung down.

  She never saw it again until now…years later in the interrogation room at the NYPD.

  “Surprised, Hailey?” Kolker rolled the glinting silver back and forth gently between his thumb and fingers.

  She had her back to the wall. The only strategy she had was to play him. Let him do all the talking. He was incredibly pleased with himself, barely able to contain his elation over the pen. Could he hold it in? Was Hailey wrong?

  It took about thirty seconds.

  “You thought you pulled it off, didn’t you. But you left this little calling card. You were there with Hayden when she died, Hailey, and this proves it. And I want you to know…I picked it up myself.”

  He actually turned toward the mirror, his back to her as he went on.

  “It didn’t take me long to realize it belonged to none other than the treating psych for both dead women. That’s no coincidence, Counselor. By trial time, believe me, we’ll come up with a way to explain your alibis. Just be glad New York got rid of the death penalty.”