Murder in the Courthouse (7 page)

“She was Chief Special Prosecutor. Ten years. Never lost a case. Over a hundred cases at trial.” Fincher answered for her and did so with much more bravado than she would have.

“Never lost a case? In ten years? How'd you do
that
?” Billings gave her a quizzical look as if to size her up.

“Just picked the right juries. That's all. Picked the right juries. They convicted, not me. Plus, they were all guilty.” Hailey passed off the compliment.

“Pretty impressive.” Billings said it like he meant it.

By now, Hailey was counting off the steps from the bloody tire to where Alton's body lay. She kneeled down and looked.

“Uh-oh. Glad the ME's on the way. Come see.” She was looking downward.

Fincher and Billings joined her and squatted down with her beside the body. Both of them squinted at the body in complete silence. Neither wanted to be the first to admit they had no idea what they were supposed to be looking at . . . what she had spotted.

After a few more moments of awkward silence, Billings cracked first. “What do you see that we don't see?”

But he didn't sound the least bit irritated, in fact, he sounded pleased she was there. Lots of lawmen would have booted Hailey from the scene at the get-go out of pure turf protection or simple professional jealousy.

“Well, his head is slightly turned to one side. Look at the back of it. Right there. Do you see it?” Again, without touching anything, she pointed her Tiffany pen toward Turner's head.

The two men peered into Turner's hair toward the back of his head. And sure enough, there it was, under his hair. Blood. Not the same blood from the deep red circle underneath him. This blood was a different color, hidden under Turner's hair, and was clearly from a deep gash head wound.

“See, here? There's a slight abrasion on his forehead, not much but the smudge is the important part.”

“The smudge?” Shrugging off all sense of ego, Billings asked the obvious question.

“Yeah, look right here. The black smudge just above his brow. You can make out where he hit his forehead on the tire here, a black tire smudge around it. It's slight, but an abrasion nonetheless.”

“So the blood in the back . . .” Billings's voice trailed off. Hailey finished the thought.

“The blood in the back of the head has to be from a blow. The most likely scenario is that he got a blow to the head from behind and fell forward, catching the side of the tire with his forehead. That would account for the black smudge.”

They all stood up. She went on. “In fact, I bet he never even made it as far as opening his car door. Is it locked?”

Trimble marched around the far side of the car, reaching out his hand for the driver's door handle.

“Stop!”
Billings and Hailey shrieked in unison. In a flash, Billings's hand shot out and caught Trimble by the shoulder, pulling him back before he could make contact with the car.

“Don't touch anything! We could ruin potential fingerprint evidence.” Billings looked alarmed.

“Fingerprint evidence? Oh, right. Fingerprint evidence.” Trimble looked flustered. “I didn't know we
had
fingerprint evidence.”

“We don't . . . not yet anyway. But we may, and I don't want the crime techs to report the only prints they find are yours!” Billings gave him a wide smile.

As if by cue, the crime scene investigators pulled up and began to unload from a van elaborately emblazoned with the Savannah Police Department insignia across its side door underneath a depiction of a large, gold police shield. Out they came and headed straight to where Hailey stood with Billings.

They all trouped forward . . . first out was the print team to pick up any latent prints the killer, if there was a killer, may have left behind. In no time, they'd have their dark powder covering every possible surface the killer might have touched, even inadvertently. Light switches, door handles, doorbell, windowpanes and sills, car handles . . . the works.

Fingerprints . . . how Hailey loved them when she was a trial lawyer. If any defendant was stupid enough to leave them behind, they had the same effect as a giant neon sign screaming out “I did it!” for the world to see. They could also match up to hand and palm. Even ridges from the foot could be traced . . . basically comparing the raised portion of the skin, practically invisible to the human eye, but not to the microscope.

Fingerprint impressions could be left behind on surfaces simply by the natural secretions of sweat, ever present on the skin. Even though the word “latent” actually meant hidden, in the crime-scene world it meant any impression left by fingers or palms on a surface, visible or invisible at the time it was left. Different fingerprint patterns, each and every loop, whorl, and arch could be used in evidence at trial.

If crime-scene techs picked them up, that is. If Trimble had wrestled with the door handle, it would have only complicated things.

It was hard enough to ascertain and lift latent prints with no interference whatsoever. Latent prints often exhibit only a portion of the fingertip and can easily be smeared, distorted, or even overlapped by prints from the same or different persons.

The crew converged around Billings.

“Start with the car, the handles, the entire side closest to the kitchen door, then the other side just in case a perp was hiding out over there. Then, of course, the kitchen doorknob, all around it.”

“What about the garage door remote?” Hailey suggested it quietly to Billings, who was standing next to her. She didn't want to appear to upstage him.

“Good thinking, Hailey. Any other ideas?” He asked it as if he genuinely wanted her thoughts.

“As a matter of fact, yes.” She walked across the garage toward the side of the door, looking up at the door's chain mechanism. “Bet this was an older model, no automatic reverse.”

“Right. An automatic reverse,” Finch thought out loud as he, too, looked up toward the far upper corner of the door. “The feature that causes a closing door to reverse if it detects something in its path.”

“Exactly,” Hailey went on. “I can't tell from here whether there is one or not; it would probably be part of the mechanism itself. And if there is an electric eye, like a sensor, it can be programmed to override.”

“Anything else?” Billings asked her without the least hint of sarcasm.

“Well, yeah. Look at the lower edge of door itself right above where his body is. The rubber trim is cut away in just that one spot. It's left the sheet metal exposed. If he was simply trapped under the rubber edge of the door, at most he'd have been asphyxiated. But the sharp metal actually cut into the guy's torso. That's an awful lot of coincidences.”

Billings was listening intently, jotting more notes in his notebook. She was right. There was a good three feet of the rubber edging gone from the bottom of the door and by the looks of it, it had been cleanly and precisely cut away.

“And what about the manual device, the in-garage mechanism he would have used if things had gone wrong. Maybe the perp used that. And, oh yeah, the driver's side sun visor. I see Turner clipped his garage door remote to that; maybe the perp fumbled and touched the visor. I mean, hey, it's worth a shot . . . you never know where you might just get a fingerprint.” Hailey was looking into the car though the front window.

Leaving the immediate vicinity of the car, she began to prowl around the garage, staring intently at everything from power tools to golf clubs to a bicycle pump. Fincher knew what she was doing . . . looking for something . . . anything that might have rendered the blow to Alton Turner's head.

“You're right. Maybe the guy did use Turner's own remote.” Billings bent down over her shoulder to look into Alton's car as well.

“Might as well do the whole area around the steering wheel and the window too, just to be safe, don't you think, Hailey?” Fincher weighed in.

“Yep.” Billings spoke before she did. He called out the orders to the crime-scene techs over his shoulder. They immediately set their black suitcases—looking for the world like big makeup kits—down on the garage floor, kneeled down, and began unloading the tools of the trade.

Out came the dark powder that would soon be strewn everywhere, made of pure, nearly black ground graphite. Then, the Zephyr brushes, resembling a very delicate shaving brush, would apply the latent powder. Then finally, the precut, one-inch fingerprint lifting tape.

The trick was to dip the Zephyr brush into the graphite, tap its handle gently on the beaker to get rid of excess powder, and lightly brush the powder all over the area in question: in this case, Alton Turner's Corolla, inside and out, the garage door itself, and its remote opener. Then a magnifying glass would be used to determine if there were, in fact, any prints left behind.

Hailey stood watching. She'd always been fascinated with prints and loved producing them to juries. The medical examiner's
detectives had also arrived and were busily measuring distances from here to there, the car tire to the body, the body to the kitchen door, the blood on the tire from Alton's bloody, upper torso, and so on.

“Hey, guys. Want to take a look inside with me?”

Billings was heading through the door leading into Alton's kitchen.

“Sure!” They said it at practically the same time.

The three walked carefully into Alton's kitchen, scoping the room to take in every single detail. Finch whipped out a writing pen from his pocket and used it to open the fridge.

“Check this out. Every single thing except the milk is in Tupperware and labeled.”

Staring into the highly organized fridge, she checked out the contents. Lettuce in a crisper, butter in its specifically designed niche in the fridge door alongside eggs also in their designated holders, canned drinks stacked in two neat, horizontal dispensers . . . everything in its place.

Finch pushed the fridge door shut and turned toward the sink. Hailey followed but something caught her eye. Alton's calendar taped squarely onto the upper right portion of the refrigerator. Today was the 24th. But his calendar said the 25th.

That wasn't like Alton Turner at all, based on what Hailey could surmise. Where was the tear-away sheet for today?

Hailey opened the cabinet under the sink and, predictably, found a plastic kitchen trash can hidden under. Checking in, there was only one thing at the bottom of a white plastic trash can liner. A single paper packet of Dixie Crystals sugar, opened and empty. Alton must have had coffee just before he died.

Hailey turned on her heel to continue on through a largely beige and gold den with dark brown accents. The room was dominated by a dark brown pit group in front of a prefab, built-in fireplace. Fire tools were arranged perfectly at its side even though it featured fixed gas logs. Above the wooden mantel was an oil painting of Alton standing behind his mother, seated in front of him. It looked like one painted from a local church directory photo.

Alton's mom had a really beautiful smile, and the strong similarity between the two was evident. Hailey had the eerie feeling Alton's mom was watching her as she walked toward a narrow hall leading past a pristine guest bath with a night-light on, positioned over the sink beside the door. Just passing the door toward three bedrooms in the back of Alton's house, Hailey passed a simple framed copy of his mom's obit hanging alone in the hall. Her eyes again watched Hailey pass by.

Glimpsing into Alton's master bedroom, she noticed the bed was carefully made. The bedroom next to Alton's was done in shades of lilac and deep purple. Using her pen, Hailey gently pushed open one of the levered closet doors to see clothes that looked like they belonged to Alton's mom. She must have stayed here often before her death.

Heading to the third bedroom across the hall from the guest room, it looked like Alton had turned it into an office of sorts. A blonde wood desk with a desktop computer sat in the center of double windows looking out onto the front yard through sheer, ivory curtains accented by deep gold rayon drapes on either side. A clear plastic carpet cover was positioned underneath a desk chair on rollers pulled in exactly to the center of the desk.

Hailey naturally headed straight to the desk after first using her pen again to nudge open a single closet door beside the desk and peek inside at stacks of office supplies neatly arranged alongside boxes marked for the past ten years' worth of tax returns.

Out of curiosity, Hailey punched the “enter” button on the computer's keyboard with her silver pen. To her amazement, she saw immediately Alton didn't keep his computer in lockdown because the screen promptly lit up and his personal email appeared. The very first thing she noticed was a long list of sent mail to someone with a courthouse addy.

The list was most recently accessed the night before. “Hey, Billings! Better come here!” she called over her shoulder.

The heading of the last email read “Big Meeting Tomorrow.” As Billings stepped in behind her, Hailey punched a button and the
message appeared. It read: “Left a message with his secretary. All set for 2
PM
. Nervous. Call me as soon as you can!”

“Hmm. Wonder what that's all about.” Hailey studied the email as if somehow its meaning could mysteriously be extracted from its brief message. Could be anything from a dentist's office for a root canal to buying an RV to a new job interview.

Scrolling farther down, Hailey easily saw a bulk of the messages were to someone named Eleanor Odom. Eleanor had a courthouse address as well. The headings ranged from “the cookies were great” to ‘let's meet for coffee in the cafeteria” to “lots of paperwork today!” Many of the emails to whomever Eleanor Odom was remained unopened.

At that precise moment there was a large crash simultaneous with loud male voices. Hailey darted down the hall and out the kitchen door to find Trimble standing at the forefront of a tight knot of officers and crime-scene techs. At his feet was the actual garage door.