by Nancy Grace
Her right hand was outstretched above her. The Casio glowed in the dark.
It was 7:03 a.m.
Hailey lay there on her stomach, barely breathing. She slid the square over just a few inches, and then reached down with her right hand and gently, gently, pulled the lifter, sharp tongs facing away, out from under her shirt. Unwrapping the towel, she held the lifter by its base, the towel still wrapped around the handle.
Careful…fingerprints.
She watched as the busboy stood there running more hot water into the soapy goo. When it reached almost to the top, he wrenched the hot water off and turned away. In that split second, Hailey moved the ceiling square six inches further to the right and dropped the lifter directly into the sink, eight feet below.
It hit the top plate underwater and slid left to the bottom of the sink.
Instantly moving the square back into place and almost afraid to look, she forced herself to peer through another pinpoint speck hole. To her amazement, nothing had changed. The kitchen continued on and the busboy returned almost immediately with another load of plates for the sink
Still on her stomach, Hailey turned back on the night-glow feature of her watch.
It was 7:10 a.m.
Backtracking, she crawled as fast as she could toward the bathroom, just in time to hear the first of a stiletto of sharp knocks on the bathroom door.
Moving the bathroom ceiling square, she lowered herself to the sink, returned the square, hit the floor, and opened the door.
Would the elevator man be there with a pair of handcuffs?
She looked straight into the prunish face of a Wall Streeter, who brushed by her without a word, as if somehow she had insulted him by just being there.
She did the same, worming her way through the crowd at the door, and finally lifting her face only as she stepped onto the sidewalk and back into the morning air.
Turning left, then left again, she made her way back to the East River, sprinting east until she was back to her regular path. She ran crosstown to her building, then two steps at a time up to the front door and quickly tucked into the high-rise lobby.
Ricky was there still, smiling. “That was a quickie for you, Hailey! No pain, no gain!”
“I can’t pull anything past you, Ricky…but don’t worry, I’ll make up for it tomorrow.” She breezed past him and into a waiting elevator.
Her head buzzed as the elevator climbed the thirty floors, minus floor thirteen, for good luck.
It was 7:18 a.m.
Stepping off the elevator, all was quiet.
With the murder weapon safely soaking in the soapy water of the sink at Century Diner, Hailey had one job left on her to-do list.
Catch the killer before he caught her.
71
Atlanta, Georgia
“DAMN! DAMN! DAMN!”
Why the hell couldn’t anyone do anything on their own?
Why did he, Floyd Moye Eugene, have to do everything himself?
Eugene was steaming under the collar; his face was red and his temperature had to be soaring. Sitting there behind his mahogany desk, which was completely free of clutter, not a single stray piece of paper or even a tiny silver gem clip out of place, he fumed.
Just off the phone with the Palmetto Dunes “leadership” down on the Island, Eugene decided, as he slammed the phone down mid-conversation, to make good on the threat to fly down to the Island and straighten things out himself.
If you want anything done right, you have to do it yourself.
That moron of a commissioner at St. Simons couldn’t foul this thing up any better if he tried.
Two months of constant delay had cost Eugene over two hundred thousand dollars so far. The bill was rising. Time was wasting. Failure to open the doors in time for tourist season would drain millions from short-term “flip” investors hoping for a quick recoup to then sell out before moving on to another so-called paradise high-rise development.
Eugene and his backers out of Vegas already had their eye on a “protected” strip of land in Hawaii—nothing but fisherman’s huts dotting the beach for miles.
Perfect.
But that was a no-go until Eugene could make good on St. Simons.
This should have been a freaking shoo-in, right here in his own freaking backyard.
With all the strings he’d had to pull with that moron Judge Carter; the reversal in order to get the federal funding back…in order to get the statute changed; the bust at the strip club…
Eugene breathed in hard and exhaled.
He had to calm down. Reaching for his right top drawer, he unlocked it and pulled out a manila folder, just to reassure himself.
Ah—the black-and-white photos of C.C. in the bathroom stall with the tranny.
They were beautiful. Thank God Hadden knew how to take a shot, even though he was a drunk. And excellent quality. You could make out every single hair combed over C.C.’s head.
C.C.
The idiot had to be shitting himself, waiting for the bomb to drop.
Then it would be bye-bye “Mansion,” as C.C. insisted on calling the governorship.
Wonder if he’d ever put two and two together and figure out that it was no coincidence that just after the reversal and the refunding of federal money to the law firm, he got busted with a tranny.
Probably not.
C.C. would probably blame it on some right-wing Republican conspiracy. Self-important moron. As if the Republicans would go to so much trouble to destroy a pimple on their ass like C.C.
Still seated behind his desk, Eugene patted the photos gently, as if they were a little pet, then locked them back away in the drawer.
Eugene realized he actually looked forward to the inevitable phone call from C.C., ’fessing up and begging Eugene to save his jiggly ass. He reached under his jacket into his short pocket, pulled out his dark aviator sunglasses, and touched a button on his phone.
“Yes, sir?”
“Call Peachtree DeKalb and get a pilot ready. I want to leave in thirty for St. Simons. I want the Gulfstream. I refuse to be cramped in a Citation. And for God’s sake, no stewardess yammering. I only want to hear from the pilots, and then precious little. And get the car and driver. And have a white Escalade waiting on the Island.”
Eugene clicked her off before she could utter the usual, “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
Minutes later, the traffic blurred as Eugene’s limo sped up I-85 toward PDK, Peachtree-DeKalb Airport, one of Atlanta’s most exclusive private airports. With pilots on the ready for those who could afford it, PDK had a steady stream of veteran Delta pilots standing by to fly your plane, carry your luggage, fix you a drink, and shine your shoes if you wanted. Pilots were in the surplus in Atlanta, thanks to carrier layoffs and gas prices at the biggest Delta hub in the country.
The limo pulled up in front of EPPS Aviation with Eugene seated in the back, behind tinted windows.
Like the Wright brothers, the Epps started off as bicycle repairmen. Now they catered to an elite clientele that was willing to drop $8,000 for a one-way forty-five-minute jet charter flight.
The limo door was opened for Eugene, and he crossed a few feet of hot asphalt through wide glass automatic doors and onto a red carpeted walkway, leading to a white birch front desk.
To one side past closed frosted doors was the pilots’ lounge, and to the other, an elaborate setting for waiting passengers, complete with food, liquor, coffee, and widescreen televisions flush against polished birch walls. Magazines and newspapers from practically every major city in the world lined one side of the lounge.
Eugene breezed past it, heading straight through the lounge area to a second set of glass doors opening out onto private runways.
Standing there holding the door for him were two former Delta pilots, one gray with a deep tan, the other younger, paler, and taller.
“Mr. Eugene, happy to have you back….”
“Skip it. Let’s go.” Eugene cut him off mid-sentence.<
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The two pilots exchanged a glance and fell silently into step behind Eugene. They’d flown for him before.
Eugene was one of only a handful of customers who made them question their decisions to leave being true captains in exchange for opening doors, saying “Yes, sir,” eating shit, and cashing a big, fat paycheck every other Friday.
At the plane’s metal steps, Eugene looked up and barked, “This isn’t the Gulfstream V. What the hell is it?”
“It’s a Citation X, Mr. Eugene. This is all that was available at short notice.”
He climbed the steps without a word and sank down into a creamy leather seat.
A flight attendant who had also flown with Eugene before knew better than to speak. She waited silently until he signaled by holding up the aisle-side index finger.
“Bourbon on the rocks.”
“Yes, sir. Right away.”
She disappeared for just a few moments, reappearing on his left with the drink and a napkin. He took it silently and she melted away into the air-conditioned seats just outside the cockpit.
The engine whined and they were off, suddenly looking down at a crazy slant onto the city. Eugene sipped his drink and eyed the familiar landscape. The Capitol shone bright gold, the Georgia Dome, the Fulton County Courthouse, the Georgia Supreme Court building, CNN Center, all closely woven together in Atlanta’s downtown.
Eugene’s bourbon was down only an inch or so when the city fell away and they were flying over deep, deep green fields that stretched as far as the eye could see.
This was the “other Georgia,” the dream that Sherman had coveted, the land that had sparked hundreds of tales and a body of folklore…the Deep South. Thousands of square miles of peanuts and soybeans and peach orchards and pine trees, swamp and live oaks and the remnants of vast plantations, with great white lines, Interstates I-75 and I-16, slicing the state generally down the middle.
Here lay the voters: voters who didn’t like six-foot-tall transvestites getting it on in a bathroom stall with a gubernatorial candidate.
Eugene drained his first drink and was soon on his second.
Before thirty-five minutes had passed, out the window he saw water, a million sparkles playing on the dark ocean from the sun. Marshes and sand melted into each other at water’s edge. The white beaches of St. Simons shined like a string of translucent pearls beneath him.
How gorgeous that beach would be with Eugene’s Palmetto Dunes high-rise luxury living, right there on the water’s edge.
For the first time that day, he nearly smiled.
72
Atlanta, Georgia
“YOU SON OF A BITCH.”
C.C. winced at the shrill volume and held the telephone receiver away from his ear. “Baby, what’s wrong?” he asked, and dared to hope Tina was pissed at him for something lame…like not showing up last night at the Fuzzy or forgetting to call earlier.
C.C. was suddenly opting to keep a low profile. Very low. He hadn’t left his apartment since the incident in the men’s room.
With any luck, she’d never find out about that.
“How could you?” she shrieked in his ear, and his heart sank.
She knew.
He’d been fooling himself if he thought he could keep it from her—or anybody, for that matter.
“And with a tranny? You sick son of a bitch!”
“How did you find out?”
“Are you freaking kidding me? CNN? Headline News? How about Fox? They’re talking about you, C.C. It’s freaking breaking news. They even cut into my soap this afternoon, you stupid son of a bitch! You’re the crawl, C.C., the crawl at the bottom of the screen!”
He opened the nearest drawer, found his flask, and threw back a shot of bourbon as Tina screamed all kinds of accusations into his ear.
“Baby, you don’t understand what happened,” he said when she’d stopped to take a breath. “I thought you were the one who set it up. I thought it was your special surprise for me…and I…”
“What the hell? Why would I—”
“You said you had a surprise for me. I thought she—he—was it!”
“Are you out of your mind, C.C.? That’s sick. You’re sick.”
“Tina, just listen. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. You know I love you. I did it for you. You can’t—”
He never did get a chance to tell her what she couldn’t do, because there was a click in his ear, followed by a dial tone.
He reached for the remote, braced himself, and turned it on.
73
St. Simons Island, Georgia
“WHY THE HELL IS IT SO HOT IN HERE?” EUGENE DEMANDED of the flushed female clerk behind the desk at the Hertz rental car office as she hunted for papers that should have been ready.
They weren’t.
“I’m sorry, sir, the air-conditioning blew out yesterday.”
“Yesterday? It happened yesterday? And what’s the explanation for it being out today?”
“Needed parts,” she said apologetically, and slid the clipboard across the counter at him.
He continued to glare at her across the counter.
“From Atlanta.” She felt he wanted more of an explanation.
Signing the papers, he decided on the spot that the stupidest people in the world weren’t in Atlanta after all. They were here on St. Simons Island. Bunch of hayseeds. No wonder he had to fly all the way down to straighten things out at Palmetto Dunes.
After an interminable wait, Eugene strode across the sun-baked parking lot to the white Caddy Escalade he demanded his secretary locate for him.
The sweat rolled down the back of his neck as he climbed up and in, switched the ignition, and cranked the AC on high. A local country station was pre-set and blared out of the radio. He jabbed at the controls to turn the thing off. Quiet. He wanted total quiet and another Jack on the rocks…wondering if he’d find anything but moonshine in these parts. Idiots.
He pulled out of the gravel driveway from the private landing strip and onto a paved surface road, the dashboard-mounted GPS instructing him to “Turn right.”
Floyd Moye turned and headed straight to the only five-star hotel in the region, the Cloister. Perched on the upper waters of St. Simons Island, it was surrounded on the other three sides by a world-class golf course in the Scottish tradition. Every evening, a single, lonely figure in full kilt regalia would wail the bagpipes out near the water for the residents.
Screw that.
All Eugene wanted was a cold drink and the AC on high in his room. He hoped to God they had him in the lodge where a private butler was assigned to each room. The butlers weren’t great, but at least they were something. And what a bar that place stacked. His mouth was dry as he put down the pedal.
After a twenty-minute drive, he was there. The Lodge at the Cloister welcomed Eugene like a long-lost son, ushered him straight up to the Presidential Suite looking past a croquet lawn and on to the trickle-back of the Atlantic. The marshes swelled up across the salty water and shimmered in the last streaks of sun pouring down onto the Georgia Gold Coast.
None of it fazed him. He called over his shoulder to the room’s private butler, “Jack on the rocks.”
“On its way now, Mr. Eugene.” Bent down slightly in a perpetual half-bow, the butler backed out of the room, shutting the door noiselessly behind him.
Eugene turned away from the balcony and came back into the AC, picked up the bedside remote, and clicked on the room’s TV. There was an immediate close-up of C.C., dressed in the long, black robe he wore on the bench. A large font across the bottom of the screen screamed out BREAKING NEWS in red letters, all caps.
Floyd Moye turned up the volume.
“…is just the latest high-profile politician to become embroiled in a sex scandal,” the reporter was saying. “Having recently achieved notoriety after a stunning vote to reverse the conviction of serial killer Clint Burrell Cruise, the judge was formerly considered to be a strict law-and-order advocate. Shortly a
fter that decision, he launched his campaign for governor…a campaign now scuttled by a spectacular fall from grace. CNN has managed to locate the young man allegedly photographed in the men’s room of a local club, the Pink Fuzzy, with Justice Carter. He promises to reveal in detail about his life and his night with the judge in his upcoming book…”
Eugene turned off the television and stepped back out onto the balcony. The sun was just dipping down into the horizon, sending millions of shimmering bursts of light dancing onto the dark water.
He silently did the math: How much would people pay for a view like this over on the formerly protected sands at St. Simons?
Millions.
Millions were in the balance.
Everything was in place now for the condos to rise up directly on the sand.
Floyd Moye felt the chilled air from inside pouring out through the open doors onto his balcony and he turned around. The drink he had requested was sitting on a napkin there on the coffee table, no sign of the butler who had come and gone. Eugene walked over and drained it, setting the glass back down as he turned again toward the water.
To hell with it. Enough was enough.
Time was money, and every day of delay cost him thousands in potential profit. If Eugene couldn’t pull off Palmetto Dunes, he’d lose the deal in Hawaii…at the very least. His “friends” in Vegas backing the deals were not the understanding sort.
He had trusted others to handle the problem. They failed miserably.
He’d drive out to the construction site on the Island right after dinner, find out exactly what the problem was, and solve it. Himself.
Tonight.
74
Dooley County, Georgia
OF ALL THE PLACES C.C. HAD IMAGINED HIMSELF LIVING, OR even visiting, Dooley County was not among them.
An upscale Atlanta penthouse, yes. Tina’s place minus the voodoo roommate, yes. The Governor’s Mansion, definitely. The White House, a distinct possibility.
But never did he imagine the rambling former farmhouse that had been in Betty’s family for over a century would be his permanent abode. Her family barely tolerated him, practically holding their noses at him just to get through a single dinner. He could feel it emanating from the walls of the front room when he walked in. And the feeling was mutual.