Death On the Dlist (2010) (7 page)

“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 cold 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.

The elevator doors swished open and Hailey stepped out into the huge lobby. She kept walking straight ahead, clutching the notes she’d brought with her. She didn’t stop to look either way, to the left or the right, her eyes locked on the huge plate-glass doors ahead of her and out onto the street.

Just before she pushed the doors open in front of her, she stopped. There was clapping. From a single pair of hands.

Hailey turned around toward the lobby. There, off to the side of the large, marble expanse, beside an indoor stand of perfectly manicured trees, was a cleaning lady. She was actually only a few feet away from Hailey. She was dressed in a light blue, short-sleeved dress with her name, Lorraina, embroidered across the left shoulder in deep navy blue thread. Under the dress, which came to a few inches below her knees, she wore a pair of black pants and tennis shoes. The woman, slightly built and barely topping five feet, rolled her plastic bucket and mop toward the front door where Hailey stood.

“They murdered my son. He was only seventeen. Nobody saw anything. Nothing ever happened. We’ve only been here in the U.S. a few years. I know who you are. I see you in the paper. I saw what you did to Mr. Todd. I’m glad.”

Outside, the sun was shining and a huge fountain in front of GNE was shooting gusts of water up into the air. It caught the light as it hung there, just before it fell back into the fountain.

Sucking in a lungful of air, Hailey walked right past a long, black limo with her name written on a white placard in the window. She went to the corner, cars, trucks, buses, all whizzing by.

Holding her left hand high over her head, arm straight up in the air, she looked uptown. Within seconds, a cab swerved in dangerously close to her shins. Opening the door, she got in. Some type of canned music was blaring, repeating the same verse over and over and over, and the cab reeked of incense.

It was good to be back in New York.

“Fifty-fourth and York.”

He didn’t reply, just gunned the motor, and they were off.

THE CABBIE RACED ACROSS TOWN BACK TO THE EAST SIDE, WEAVING DANGEROUSLY
through parked and moving cars, catching lights just as they changed from yellow to red and growling out his open window at any pedestrian who dared to slow down in a crosswalk. Hailey paid cash through the plastic window partition between seats, opened the car door, and stepped up on the street’s curb headed toward the front steps of her building.

Pushing through the heavy revolving door, she saw Ricky smiling at her behind the lobby desk, still here these hours later. It made her smile back. “How are you?” Hailey called out as she stepped in from the cold.

“Same as ever. Happy to be alive. How about you, Sunshine?”

“Good. Thanks, dear.” She said it with warmth. It was nice to see a friendly face.

“Need help with the box and the bag?”

Hailey was suddenly reminded of the flight up from Atlanta, the luggage she’d dragged up the front steps, and the box wrapped in plain brown paper with Kolker’s handwriting on the front.

“Nope, I’ll manage. Thanks.”

Heading toward the elevator, Hailey balanced the box on top of her rolling bag while keeping her purse on her shoulder and her notepad clasped in her left hand. Once off the elevator and standing at her own front door, she instinctively glanced over her shoulder before setting her purse and pad down on the carpeted floor beside her. She’d already pulled the apartment keys from her bag so she wouldn’t have to fish. Sliding the key into the top deadbolt lock, she turned it to the right, and it slid to the side. She mechanically went through the same process with two lower locks and pushed the door gently open, scooping up the purse and pad, and rolling the bag over the threshold in one fluid movement.

The apartment was silent. Silent in an inviting, quiet way. The shades were up and from the entrance area, she could see the city lying beneath her. Hailey turned and locked all three locks and slid the door chain lock into place. Leaving the bag where it stood upright, she carried the box into her kitchen, glancing around her little apartment as she strode across the rosewood den floor and onto the smooth, green slate floor of the kitchen.

She automatically turned on her gas stove for tea, filled the copper kettle that was always there, and sat it on the stove’s eye, now burning blue. Pulling a pair of scissors from the spoon and fork drawer, she slid them down the middle of the box, slicing it open neatly. Though she knew she’d return whatever he’d sent as an apology for her arrest the year before, she always looked to see if there was a note included. Something that would somehow explain what Kolker had done . . . something to make things right.

The flowers, the treats . . . It was almost as if he were courting a girlfriend. But what had passed between them, the murders of Hailey’s two friends, the suspicion cast on her, her arrest, the night she’d almost lost her own life and ended up taking the life of her attacker . . . When she’d come to . . . his was one of the first faces she remembered seeing. She distinctly remembered the look on Kolker’s face, the realization hitting him hard that Hailey was innocent and had nearly lost her own life while he pursued her instead of the real killer.

There was some sort of bond between Hailey and Kolker . . . something she couldn’t quite identify, nothing as trite as a flirtation. Hailey remembered motioning Kolker down, to where she was lying alongside Matt Leonard’s dead body. The others standing around had all parted, stepping aside for Kolker to kneel down beside her. Hailey remembered her throat ached so badly from Leonard’s attempted strangulation, she couldn’t speak. But Kolker had . . . He’d said exactly three words as Hailey recalled, whispering the words against her hair, “Hailey . . . I’m sorry . . .”

The kettle whistled and Hailey moved it over to a cold burner. The box was full. She picked up each item . . . mostly CDs. The first was
The Otis Redding Anthology
, including “The Dock of the Bay.” Redding was born in Georgia and grew up in Macon. Then there was
Forever Ray Charles
. Charles, also from Hailey’s home state of Georgia, sang one of her favorites, “Georgia on My Mind.”

The last CD in the cardboard box was by Johnny Mercer, the genius from Savannah who composed “Moon River.” The lyrics and the haunting tune never failed to bring tears to her eyes . . . to make her heart ache for something she’d never had . . . a lifetime with her true love.

How did Kolker know such personal details?
They certainly didn’t come up that night in the police interrogation room.
Hailey bristled at the vivid . . . and painful . . . memory.

At the very bottom of the cardboard box were two smaller boxes wrapped separately. Tearing at the same brown paper wrapping, she opened the larger one, obviously a book. She looked down at it in surprised silence. It was a hardback copy of Harper Lee’s
To Kill a Mockingbird
. When she was just a little girl, Hailey checked the book out from the bookmobile, a library van that routinely traveled to visit poor and rural areas in the South. The librarian had warned her she was too young, that the book was for more advanced readers, but she let Hailey take it home anyway.

When Hailey turned to the first page, she couldn’t believe her eyes. The book was signed by the great author and recluse, Harper Lee. A note fluttered down when Hailey opened the book. Leaning down toward the kitchen floor, Hailey unfolded the note and read it. It was Kolker’s handwriting in blue ink and read simply “I understand Atticus Finch was the first lawyer you ever met. That explains a lot. Kolker.”

Then it dawned on her exactly how he knew so much about her. She’d agreed to a profile piece in the Atlanta paper several years ago when she won her hundredth jury trial. While the article focused mostly on her courtroom victories and various killers, dope dealers, and thugs she put behind bars, it also included a few personal details she allowed them to know. They were printed in a thin panel to the side of the article, including her favorite music and books.

Kolker had done his research.

The last item in the cardboard box was a longer, thin container. When she removed the brown paper, she immediately saw it was a trademark eggshell blue box from Tiffany’s. Of course she wouldn’t accept jewelry from Kolker. But true to her inquisitive nature, she at least wanted to look inside the box.

When Hailey gently lifted the lid, her lips involuntarily parted open in surprise. There, inside on its black silk cord, lay a small, silver necklace, a tiny Tiffany’s ink pen. It wasn’t new . . . It was hers . . . Hailey’s . . . from long ago and another life she once had.

Hailey didn’t have to look closer to know what was engraved on the pen . . . It had hung lightly from its silken cord around her neck for nearly ten years. It was a gift from Katrine Dumont, whose fiancé, Phil Eastwood, was murdered. It was one of Hailey’s first murder cases as a young prosecutor.

A newly engaged young couple with their whole lives ahead of them had stepped out onto their patio to toast their new engagement. Two new parolees with long rap sheets ambushed them from behind a thick hedge surrounding the patio. Phil fought back and was immediately gunned down at point-blank range. His fiancée was dragged into the apartment and repeatedly assaulted.

Katrine was so traumatized, she was unable to testify at trial. In the end, Hailey found corroborating evidence, and even without an eyewitness, the jury convicted. After sentencing, Katrine came to see her and handed her a sky-blue velvet box. Inside was the pen, etched with the words,
For Hailey, Seeking Justice, Katrine Dumont-Eastwood
. For the next ten years, Hailey had worn the pen during every jury trial and often in between.

Then, as fate unfolded, Kolker discovered the silver pen years later . . . under the dead body of Hailey’s own patient here in New York. It had been planted underneath the body to incriminate Hailey and was a big part of why Kolker arrested her to start with.

How did he ever get it out of police property this soon? Usually it took years to retrieve evidence in criminal cases, much less a serial murder case. Kolker had to have broken rules to get it out of the evidence room for her.

Hailey took the box to her favorite chair by a window overlooking the city. Studying the CDs, the book, and the pen on its silky cord, she slowly stood and walked to the apartment’s front door, carrying the cardboard box they’d come in.

Padding down the carpeted hall in bare feet, she opened the door to the trash chute and threw the box to the foot of the tiny trash room. She wouldn’t be needing it anymore. There would be no return.