Murder in the Courthouse (10 page)

Turning a corner, Hailey spotted Alton's house. It was just as precisely neat as ever. Pulling her rental car into the driveway, Hailey got out and slammed the door just in time to spot a guy on foot with a ponytail walking away from Alton's. He had a huge camera slung over his shoulder and was just turning the curve in the street. Had he just been here? Maybe a crime-scene tech . . . or the
Savannah Morning News
.

Hailey turned from the guy who had now disappeared into the neighborhood and faced Alton's house. She took one step and stopped. Something was wrong.

She stood stock-still, just looking. After a few moments she realized what was out of place. There were pinecones and leaves scattered across the front lawn. Pinecones. Hailey's mortal enemy as a child. The things were little, barbed grenades to the touch and when accidentally pressed against bare feet in summertime . . . oh, the scream that would follow. And Alton's yard was covered with them, thanks to some tall pine trees at the edge of his lot.

Pinecones on his otherwise immaculate lawn? That would've driven Alton Turner absolutely crazy.

Instinctively, Hailey strode across the lawn and, bending over, picked up the ten or so prickly pinecones dotting the yard. There was a group of shrubs surrounding an ornamental willow off to the
side of Alton's house with a concrete birdbath and decorative swing nearby.

It was a lovely setting. Hailey imagined Alton landscaping it and knew without being told that he and his mom had sat in that swing together many an evening. The shrubs and willow were positioned in a bed of pine straw . . . a pine straw island so to speak. The perfect place to ditch the pinecones.

Hailey quickly dumped the sharp cones behind the bushes. Just to the rear of the island, she spotted three more cones.

Ugh. Why was she doing this? Cleaning the yard of a dead man she'd never even met? Automatically, a voice answered in her head.
Because I'd want someone to do the same for me
.

Truth be told, Hailey felt like she knew Alton and actually connected with him. Looking through his home, reading his emails, looking at so many photos of him, even looking in his fridge, for Pete's sake, Hailey was convinced she knew Alton Turner . . . and she liked him.

Maybe she was just projecting, but she could feel the pang of loss he'd felt when he lost his mom. Immediately, she recalled a small black-and-white photo she'd seen. It was framed and positioned beside his bed. It was an old shot of Alton and his mom when he was a boy. He was standing partially behind her. She had on a short-sleeved print dress with a white apron tied behind her, covering the front of the dress from the waist down. Alton was hugging the tops of her legs with both arms.

He was smiling and so was she. Hailey paused and it struck her that throughout Alton's home, she hadn't seen a dad . . . anywhere. Not a single photo of him . . . not a trace. His mom was all he ever had. Alton, aside from trying to fit in with the other sheriffs at work, was alone in this world.

Hailey understood. She bent over to get the rest of the pinecones and spotted some trash as well. There was a cigarette butt barely edged with bright red lipstick and a piece of round black plastic, something about the size of a Gatorade bottle top.

Did the Eleanor from the emails smoke? Had she been here with Alton? Hailey tossed the cones behind the bushes and carried the cigarette butt and the plastic back to her car to throw away.

The bits of trash were minute, but Alton Turner would've flipped if he'd seen litter in his yard. Hailey smiled to herself and tossed it into the back floorboard of her car.

Now, to get down to business. She wanted another look around Alton's place. Alone. Without a fleet of crime-scene techs, and Fincher, God bless him, nagging at her with questions.

Cell phone in pocket, Hailey clicked her car locked and headed along the white cement driveway toward the garage. The garage door was back in place and a tiny coil of yellow crime scene tape was curled like a fuzzy caterpillar on the drive at the edge of the garage door. That was all that was left, to the casual eye, of the discovery of a dead body.

But as Hailey walked closer, she could see the dark stain on the concrete at the edge of the door. If a potential home buyer didn't know better, they'd probably think it was an oil spill.

But Hailey knew it was Alton's blood. She was rooted to the spot, staring down at the concrete.

A bird chirping overhead in the pines filtered through her thought process, and she looked up to the green branches and to the blue sky beyond. What really happened to Alton Turner?

Hailey glanced toward the front door, but instead turned left and headed around the side of the house along a path of garden stepping-stones. The grass around and in between the smooth flagstone steps was lush and green.

More fresh pine straw bordered the grass on the side of the walkway nearest the side of the house, and the yard sloped slightly downward as Hailey went to the backyard.

A white ornamental bird feeder resembling a mini Victorian mansion stood planted in the pine straw on a high, white wooden pole. It was extremely intricate and the sides of the mini-mansion were beveled batten siding sloping up to tiny eyebrow gables that peeked out from a dull green roof. Pausing to look at it in detail, Hailey saw the tiny initials A.T. painted on the bottom right side of the bird feeder.

He made this? By hand? It dawned on her that Alton Turner was so much more than the mild-mannered paper-pusher others portrayed him as. Staring up at the miniature mansion, she wondered . . . when did Alton have the time or energy to maintain all this?

Stepping off the flagstone stepping-stones into the pine straw, Hailey ran her fingertips across the edge of the little house. Had he made it for his mom?

Taking a deep breath, she tried to distance herself from
Alton Turner the person
and refocus on Alton Turner's
death investigation
. The birdhouse was firmly attached to a tall wooden pole about six and a half feet tall. And there, just below Hailey's line of vision, was a small, round, dark mark smeared on the pole.

What was that? It almost looked burned. Touching it, Hailey glanced down and saw there in the pine straw built up around the base of the pole was another cigarette butt. It seemed wrong to have a nasty butt just beneath the handcrafted feeder made by a gentle—but dead—man.

What was worse was that judging by the rounded black smudge, somebody actually stubbed their cigarette out on Alton's bird feeder pole. Hailey reached down and picked it up and stuck it in her pocket.

Bending upward, a slight movement, ever so subtle, caught her eye. There, in the window on the side of the house. Had the edge of a curtain moved? Looking carefully . . . what room was that?

Remembering the layout of the home, this had to be Alton's office . . . or was it his mom's bedroom? And who would be in the home? Hailey had definitely looked when she pulled up . . . the garage door was shut tight and there wasn't a single car parked on the street in front of Alton's house. The cul-de-sac was empty, too.

She looked back at the curtain. It was ivory colored, gauzy material with some sort of edging and Hailey was sure, very sure, she'd seen movement. The movement she thought she'd seen out of the corner of her eye was as if someone had pulled the curtain back, spotted Hailey outside, then suddenly let the draped material fall back into place, hanging there at the edge of the window.

But that didn't make sense. Remaining completely still, she continued to look directly at the window. With the sun outside and the room dark on the inside, she had no chance of spotting who may be lurking behind the window.

There was no way crime-scene techs would be here on foot. And why would anyone else be inside a dead man's house? Hailey's mind ticked off possibilities.

Was there a cleaning lady? If so, why would she dart away from the window as soon as she spotted Hailey? And where was her car? And what, for Pete's sake, would she be cleaning?

Just at that moment, it happened again. The curtain moved . . . right in front of her. And this time it was in her direct line of sight, not just caught in the corner of her peripheral vision. There was someone in there . . . she was certain of it now.

The curtain fluttered gently, but this time it kept going . . . it continued to flutter against the windowpane. Unlike before, there was no abrupt movement. And what's more, now the curtain on the
other
side of the window began fluttering gently as well.

Then it dawned on her. Just before the fluttering, she'd heard a clicking sound from around the corner.

Stepping out of the pine straw bed, she kept her eye on the window as long as she could. Following the neatly laid path of flagstone stepping-stones down the side of the house, she rounded the corner to the backyard.

Sure enough, big as Ike, there it was. A central heat and air unit was situated at the corner, segregated from dirt and pine straw in a neat, graveled square held in by a low wooden fence. It was humming a mechanical monotone. The gray behemoth was huge. It must serve the whole house.

Set at a certain temperature, it would automatically turn itself on or off to maintain that specific temperature.

That explained it. The AC simply kicked on. That's what she'd seen. There must be a vent centered in the middle of the window that directed an air current toward the drapes. Mystery solved.

Almost laughing out loud at herself, Hailey made her way across Alton's backyard. As she expected by now, it was beautifully, and painstakingly, landscaped. The grass was thick and green interspersed with several islands of pink, purple, and white azalea bushes, and pink-blossomed cherry trees were artfully positioned in islands of built-up pine straw.

Hailey examined not only the grounds but the windows across the back of the house. Only one door, a basement door, apparently, opened onto the backyard. It had a square concrete stoop with clay pots of green plants on either side of the door.

On instinct, Hailey lifted up the clay pot on the right.

Nothing.

Hailey tried under the left pot too, surprised she was wrong on this. She could just imagine the naïve and trusting Alton Turner leaving a spare key under the pot.

But Alton tricked her! His law enforcement training must have paid off . . . regarding the spare key, anyway. Walking up a low incline, she headed back to the front of Alton's home.

There appeared to be no forced entry anywhere around the house, doors, or windows. Or anything else of much interest, at least forensically. So other than picking up some trash, she didn't really accomplish a whole lot.

Headed back toward her car, Hailey couldn't stop herself from going back to the garage door . . . and the bloodstain on the concrete. Gazing down at it, a myriad of thoughts collided in her head. Something was nagging at her . . . but she couldn't identify it.

Was it possible she was wrong? Was it an accident after all? She'd been so sure at the crime scene. Hailey felt the dull pang of a headache beginning.

“Oh, hello there!
Helloo!
” A woman's voice called out, cutting through the still air of the previously quiet subdivision.

Hailey turned to see a lithe young woman dressed in 1980s-style workout gear. Matching neon pink from head to toe, she sported it all . . . at once. Headband, wristbands, kneepads, short runner's shorts over knee-length tights, all coordinated with a pink and purple
lightweight shirt and neon pink sports bra peeking out from the shoulders of her shirt. The ensemble was topped with a vivid pink sun visor.

It was certainly something.

“Hi there! My name's Kacynthia and I'm a walkaholic! I confess it! I exercise in this neighborhood and after everything that's happened, I feel like Alton and I were best friends! Isn't it awful? Absolutely awful! I was the one who actually found his dead body and then, I was besieged, positively besieged by the press. Oh, the media! They are truly unrelenting, aren't they? Just unrelenting! I mean really . . . forget about my own personal privacy. After all, I have no thirst for fame whatsoever! It's Alton I'm thinking of! No respect for the dead! So what do you think? Was it murder? Or an accident? From what I hear in the neighborhood, Alton didn't have an enemy in the world! So it had to be an accident . . . right? You're not the press, are you?”

As opposed to looking shocked at the thought she was spilling the beans to a reporter, Hailey noticed the woman, to the contrary, looked elated at the prospect . . . eager, as a matter of fact, with a big smile showing a mouthful of cosmetic dentistry. Hailey also noticed the woman was not as young as she'd thought at a distance.

She had the body of a thirty-five-year-old, but her face, as artfully disguised as it was, belied her body. Creases, especially around her mouth, along with her neck and hands, gave away her age. This was a grandma, possibly a great-grandma and no spring chicken at all.

And Hailey was convinced she'd seen her before.

“Hi.” Hailey smiled at the woman who was now approaching her, walking up Alton's driveway.

“I can tell . . . you're the press!
48 Hours
?
Nightline
?
20/20?
No,
Investigation Discovery
? I can tell! No use in hiding it from me! I'm very familiar with the
media
. Let me tell you. Not to brag, of course, I've been in the public eye for years . . . years! Are you familiar with the name Bob Guccione? I was a
Penthouse Pet
! And not that long ago!”

It was actually in 1969, but Kacynthia withheld that tiny detail.

“In fact, my ‘article' did so well, he invited me back! For a special ‘pictorial.' But it was really all about the article, you know . . . the
content
.”

Hailey nodded.

The woman in Lycra went on about something she called her “career as a Penthouse Pet” until Hailey interjected. “Do you live here in the cul-de-sac?”