Murder in the Courthouse (19 page)

“I do,” Billings answered with no hesitation.

“But
why
? She was a nice lady.”

“Don't know that. Yet, anyway.”

“I sure hope you get him. She brought a whole dinner to the house one night right after my wife got out of the hospital last year. Out of the blue. Didn't know she even knew Margie and I had a baby. You know . . . complications.”

“I remember. How's the baby?” Billings made small talk.

“He's trying to walk now.” The crime-scene tech slowed just long enough to throw a big grin at the three of them, and then turned back to the exacting science of fingerprints.

Hailey watched carefully. The guy knew what he was doing. He not only got the upper edge, but all down the three sides of the bin, all the way down to the carpet, just in case. The fourth side was pushed against the wall.

He then went back into his bag and pulled out what looked like a pair of extremely long tweezers, reached into the bin, pulled out the pouch by its strap with the tweezers, and laid the beaded bag onto a sheet of pristine, clear plastic he'd spread on the floor. It would be hard to get a full print off the beads, but he was trying.

Then, he had a go at the strap and the zipper. “Can I open?” He turned back to Billings.

“Sure, that's what we've been waiting for.” Instinctively, the three of them edged forward as the tech, with blue surgical gloves on, took the zipper with a smaller set of tweezers and unzipped the tiny black bag.

Resting inside the beaded pouch along with a single gold tube of lipstick, her driver's license and credit cards held together by a blue rubber band, sat Eleanor Odom's EpiPen. It was small and sleek, no bigger than a writing pen. Hailey was right.

The sight of Eleanor's purpling face, her hands tearing at her own throat, her tongue thick and swollen in her mouth, her eyes bulging as the small blood vessels in her eyes burst from asphyxiation . . . leaped to Hailey's mind. But for this pen. The pen that could have saved Eleanor's life. That
should
have saved Elle's life.

“Hey, guys! We got a winner! Somebody wrote back.”

The spell was broken.

“The guy that found the bag! He wrote back already! I told you this would work!” Snodgrass was now standing over his keyboard staring at the screen, looking for all he was worth as if the email and reward had been his idea from the get-go.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“W
ho is it?” Hailey had just gotten the words out of her mouth and come to peer over Snodgrass's shoulder at the return email when the double doors to the clerk's office inched open extremely slowly. Barely pushing through, first came a double-tiered cart on wheels stacked to the brim with cleaning solutions, stacks of unopened toilet paper, and paper towels, with a tall bunch of multicolored dusters and mops attached upright at the back.

The cart creaked slowly forward and when the doors whooshed shut behind it, a short elderly man poked his head out from behind the mops. “Hello, everybody. You wanted to know who found the little purse? I did. Last night. But I didn't open it, oh no, I'd a never opened up a lady's purse like that. I just came straightaways here to the lost and found and set it in there. That's just what I did, all right . . . I didn't take a thing from it. You can look and see . . . the Lord knows I'd a never . . .”

“Oh, no sir! We don't think you took anything from it at all! We are just trying to find out where you found it. That's all.”

Hailey rushed over to the old man, who had to be pushing eighty. Short to start with, he was stooped over with age and wearing a long-sleeved tan shirt buttoned nearly all the way up with matching tan work pants, brown belt, and shoes. His name was embroidered in half print and half cursive over his shirt pocket. It read “Albert Thomas.”

“Mr. Thomas, thank you so, so much for coming down,” Hailey went on as Billings and Finch approached the two.

“Up.”

“Up what?” Billings asked.

“Oh, the lady said I came down. I actually came up. My locker is down in the basement. So I come up to get here.” His big brown eyes
rested again on Hailey. “You look familiar to me, Miss Lady. But you don't work here in the courthouse, do you? I know I'd a remembered you for sure.”

“No, sir. I don't work here. But I have been here the past few days on a trial. Come sit down.” Hailey led him over to the cubicle next to Cecil's and sat him in one of the chairs.

“So, Mr. Thomas, where did you find it?”

“The purse?”

“Yes, sir. The little black beaded purse. You say you found it last night?”

“Yes, ma'am.” He addressed her with the title ma'am, although he was much older than Hailey, as was just polite manners in the South, just as she referred to him as “sir” due to his age.

“I was cleaning out the ladies' room over by the cafeteria last night and that's when I found it.” He nodded his head up and down gently, as if to emphasize his story, all the time looking between Billings and Hailey, then down to the floor as if nervous or simply timid.

“Interesting. I know where that bathroom is. It's the ladies' room on the right just as you come down the ramp to the food lines?”

“Yes, ma'am. That be the one. Right below Judge Regard's courtoom.”

“Where was the pouch sitting? On the floor beside a commode? The window ledge? Left beside the sinks?” Hailey continued as Mr. Thomas seemed to be most comfortable with her. He was now looking up from the floor and directly into her eyes.

“Oh no, ma'am. It weren't out like that. It weren't at all. It were wrapped up in the paper towels and it were shoved down all the way at the bottom of the trash can. I only noticed it when it fell out of the towels when I was pouring it all into my big trash can. I don't know why somebody would do that to such a nice little pocketbook. I guess they didn't want it no more.”

The import of his words caught in the air and hung around them. Someone had intentionally hidden Elle's purse—and lifesaving EpiPen—so she couldn't possibly find it. So she would die.

“You called the ME, right? To do the additional toxicology screens?” Hailey's mind had already leaped ahead.

“Yep. Done,” Billings answered.

“So, Miss Lady. What's wrong with the pocketbook? Did I do wrong putting it in the bin?” Mr. Thomas looked doubtful and worried again . . . almost scared.

“No! Not at all. As a matter of fact . . . you did a
wonderful
thing, Mr. Thomas.” Impulsively, Hailey hugged him tight around his old shoulders. He paused briefly, then held his feeble arms up and hugged her back.

“Mr. Thomas, how long have you worked in the courthouse?” she asked.

“Well, believe it or not, it's going on sixty years now. I joined the county straight out of the military when I was just a young man. Almost had to retire a few years back when they passed the mandatory retirement law, but me and one other was already so old, it wouldn't affect us. I thought I would lose my job.”

“Well, thank Heaven you didn't retire!” Hailey responded.

“So, Mr. Thomas, were you wearing cleaning gloves when you recovered the purse?” Billings asked him.

“Well, when I fished it out of the trash I had just finished cleaning the toilets, so yes I was.”

All three of them looked relieved. If there were fingerprints, they were safe.

“But then, I took off my gloves when I left the ladies room. I don't believe I had them on when I laid it in the bin over there.”

Disappointment had to show on their faces. “Uh-oh. Was that bad?”

“Oh, no sir. It's fine. We are just glad you came forward,” Billings reassured the old man, who now looked worried again.

“Was anybody else around when you came in here?” Billings asked.

“No. Nobody was in here, but some peoples was just leaving . . .” He looked at Hailey, his eyes wide.

“Miss Lady! That's where I seen you. You and that man there had just come through the doors heading out when I was leaving.” He pointed at Fincher. “I knew I'd seen you somewheres. I never forget a face. I don't.”

“So, Mr. Thomas, how long did you say you've worked here?” Finch chimed in.

“Over fifty years now,” he answered, smiling up at Finch's face.

“And you said one other was too old to have to retire. Who was that? They gone now?”

“Oh, no sir. They not gone. It was the judge. Judge Luther Alverson. We good friends, the judge and me. We started at the courthouse on the very same day.”

It was a small world.

“Just curious, how far is the ladies' room where you found the purse from Judge Regard's chambers?”

“Oh, not too far at all. But Judge Regard and his staff, they have the private bathrooms. They don't wander out to the public toilets too much.”

“So, you started out with Judge Alverson?”

“Yes ma'am, I did. He's a pistol all right. Don't get him mad, I always say.” The old man smiled up at Hailey again.

“Wow, that's something. A pistol, you say. And you two have worked together all these years.”

It certainly was a small world. Very small
, Hailey thought to herself.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

E
leanor's pouch, driver's license, and EpiPen were now safely ensconced in a clear plastic bag. Carefully marked, sealed, and signed by the crime-scene tech who processed the scene, they were safely tucked under Billings's arm. He stood beside Hailey as they helped Mr. Thomas from his seat and prepared to finally leave. Maybe they'd even have that fried fish platter Billings had promised them.

Suddenly, Fincher stopped in his tracks. They'd been walking side by side, but now he grabbed Hailey by her arm just above her left elbow.

“What is it?” Hailey turned. “What's wrong?” She looked up into his face.

“
The reward
. Mr. Thomas didn't get his reward!”

Relieved, Hailey laughed. “That's right, Mr. Thomas. You have a reward coming your way.”

“Did you say a reward? For what?”

“For coming forward about finding the purse! Lieutenant Billings has it right here. A hundred dollars.”

“Miss Lady, I don't need that. I just did the right thing.”

“No. Please take it. We insist.” Billings took the cash money out of his wallet and handed it to the old man.

“Well, it will certainly come in handy. I believe I'll take my wife out for a nice dinner with this.”

“Your wife?” Finch asked. “How long have you been married?”

“Sixty-five years, young man. Sixty-five years. Lynnette was the prettiest girl in Savannah.”

“That reminds me, I gotta call Vickie back home in Atlanta. She'll kill me. I haven't called her all day. I only texted her this morning.” Finch stepped away a few feet and punched numbers into the cell phone he pulled out of his jacket pocket.

“Yep. The prettiest girl in all of Chatham County. And oh what a dancer. Oh, my Lynnette could do the jitterbug. And she married me. I believe she deserves a fancy meal for putting up with me for all this long.”

Hailey was listening to Mr. Thomas. She glanced back at Finch on the phone with Vickie, his wife. She suddenly felt odd and out of place. She didn't have a soul to call. She wasn't part of what they had. She never would be.

She stood in the center of the clerk's office and thought of Will. She couldn't help it. Albert Thomas was old and stooped, that's true. But this old man had known a lifetime of true love. A love that endured nearly seven decades. Children, grandchildren, even great-grandchildren had been born out of that love.

True, she may have a law degree and jet around the country as an expert witness, she may pop up on TV on various cases, and, yes, she lived in the center of the “capital of the world,” New York City. But she'd never have true love. Not in this world, anyway.

Finch punched off his phone and put it back into his coat pocket. The four of them, Hailey, Finch, Billings, and Mr. Thomas, started walking again and this time actually made it through the wide doors into the lobby.

Mr. Thomas headed toward the elevator bank going down to his locker to collect his things. Just as Hailey put her hand on the door to go outside, she froze.

“Guys.”

“Oh. I know that tone.” Finch's arm held the door above her own. “What's wrong? Did you leave something in the clerk's office?”

“No, I didn't leave anything. But we have to go back.”

“What for? I gotta tell you Hailey, I'm starved,” Billings jumped in.

“Me too, Hailey. All I can think about is fried shrimp and hush puppies.”

“I'm hungry too, but I just realized something . . .”

By now she was six feet ahead of them heading straight back from where they'd just come. Pushing open the doors, Hailey charged
back down the lines of cubicles, coming to an abrupt halt at one of them not too far from Cecil Snodgrass's.

The others caught up. “What?” Finch asked first. “I don't get it.”

“Look.”
Hailey motioned with her head down at the desk.

“I'm looking. I still don't see anything.” Finch stared at the work space. There was nothing at all unusual about it. In fact, it was incredibly neat and tidy.

Papers were squarely placed in a metal mesh intake box, their corners perfectly aligned. A tickler file was carefully set up beside the computer screen with each day's tasks in order. A plastic, industrial-size jug of hand sanitizer guarded the other side of the space. Even the pens and pencils seemed to be lined up perfectly. Almost too perfectly, actually.

“Look again,” Hailey insisted.

“OK, Hailey. But look at what?” Billings stared hard at the space.

“All I can see is fried shrimp. They're dancing, two of them, right in front of my eyes. Oops, now they turned into a big, fat fried shrimp po' boy,” Finch went on.