The Eleventh Victim (25 page)

Not more than a few minutes passed when he heard the swinging doors to the bathrooms swish open and heels clicking across the tile floor.

C.C. tensed, sitting there on the toilet.

There was a light tapping at the door, and he could tell from her feet under the stall door that it was her. He opened the stall door and let her in. From where he was sitting on the ceramic bowl, Mocha looked six feet tall.

“Don’t get up, Judge, just sit back and relax. Baby got a surprise for you.”

Baby kneeled down on the tile in front of C.C., unzipped his pants, and buried her face in his lap, his right hand resting gently on the top of her head, his left palm braced against the metal wall of the stall.

She tossed her hair back and started giggling.

C.C. giggled too, his eyes nearly closed, his head rolled back, leaning against the back of the toilet.

Then he saw it—C.C. was never sure whether he caught the first few bright flashes.

Then another and another…

At first he thought he was seeing strobe lights in his head, but when he squinted his eyes open, he was staring right into an expensive-looking black metal camera attached to a long lens.

It was hanging to his left, over the side of his stall.

What? A camera in the crapper?

He jerked forward and caught something in his right hand. With much confusion, he looked at the long brunette wig he held in his hand as Mocha squirmed up to attention and began rearranging her clothes.

“No-no…Baby’s leaving. Y’all too kinky for Baby in here. Nobody told Baby ’bout no camera.” She blurted it out in a deep-pitch baritone.

Still clutching the long weave, C.C. was frozen on the cold commode seat, unable to absorb what was happening.

Looking up straight into Mocha’s nostrils, he noticed for the first time a large and distinct Adam’s apple. Not good.

Urine threatened to expel. C.C. absolutely could not wet his pants. He had to act.

With the two of them struggling to rearrange themselves in one stall over a toilet, C.C. could barely get up and zip up. The stall door flew open, Mocha flounced out, and the man attached to the Nikon jumped down off his perch on the neighboring commode seat, lid down. He had apparently been crouched there, straddling the toilet’s water with one foot on either side of the bowl, since before C.C. first came in.

“What the hell is going on, you son of a…”

Jumping down off the bowl like a monkey, he lurched directly in front of C.C. and continued to snap away…catching C.C. arranging and zipping.

Just as C.C. made a grab for him, he took off like an Olympic sprinter, not even bothering to push the swinging doors open, charging them shoulder-first like a linebacker.

The music from the VIP room blared into the bathroom as C.C. started after the guy, only to stumble and fall face down onto the cold tile floor. He got up and ran for the door. What the hell was going on?

He charged from the brightly lit fluorescent-tiled bathroom through the doors and back into the darkened club room; he couldn’t see but knew enough to head for the door.

Too late. The guy was gone.

“W
HAT THE HELL IS SHE DOING?” OFFICER KEVIN DUNNE ASKED
, as Hailey leaned into the two-way mirror and wiggled two fingers like bunny ears saying hello. “Does she know we’re here?”

“What do you think?” Lieutenant Kolker responded, lowering all four chair legs to the ground and watching her intently. “I told you, she’s a lawyer.”

Not just a lawyer, Dunne knew.

Kolker had instructed the detectives to pull up every LexisNexis article they could find on Hailey Dean.

It made them all a little edgy to learn that she was considered to be a brilliant criminal trial lawyer, perceived by many civil libertarians as a zealot, a renegade crime fighter who used all means necessary to win a case.

“Maybe she really is crazy,” Dunne’s partner, McKee, muttered, reaching for a Marlboro, contraband in the new “smoke-free zone” era.

They’d tossed that theory around when they’d read about how, out of the blue, she had packed it all in after ten years of clawing her way to the top. It was rumored she’d bid farewell to a million-dollar civil practice waiting for her.

Nobody was sure what triggered her departure. Rumors ranged from a disastrous love affair with a defense attorney in Atlanta to disgust with the jury system to a nervous breakdown following her last major trial.

Kolker was opting for the breakdown. It fit much better with his theory that Dean was motivated to kill her patients due to a mental imbalance linked to that last prosecution. The MOs were far too similar not to be connected. They thought about a third-person copycat, but between the obvious connection, the forensics taken in the field, and the other evidence Kolker developed—it added up to her. And it made a much more sexy story. There’d be nowhere else but up for Kolker after this…outsmarting a lawyer-turned-killer.

“Sure looks like she’s lost it,” Dunne agreed, incredibly uncomfortable beneath her studied gaze that laid bare their hiding place.

“Damn, it looks like she’s staring right at us.” McKee pulled uncomfortably at his necktie.

Of course, she couldn’t see them…could she?

No.

That was ridiculous.

But the way she was staring…

It just wasn’t right. They were supposed to make her nervous…not the other way around.

“Kolker, go ahead…get in there.”

“Not just yet. I’m gonna make her sweat.”

“Yeah, well, she don’t look like she’s sweating,” McKee commented as Hailey smiled into the two-way.

“Shut the hell up,” Kolker barked, and shifted his weight in his chair.

They continued to watch, studying her, trying to get a read on her emotions.

Was she nervous? Was she tired? Would she break into tears?

At last, Kolker cracked.

“All right,” he said, standing, “it’s time to play bad cop. I’m going in.”

T
OBY MCKISSICK STARED AT THE PHONE ON HIS DESK AS IF IT WERE LIABLE
to bite him on the wrist if he reached for it, and squirmed in his seat, now noticeably slick with sweat, especially along the lower back and contoured seat.

He wanted to shoot himself. No, not himself, somebody else. He definitely wanted to shoot somebody else.

The intercom system made a second obnoxious buzzing sound, and he slumped down even further in his prized Naugahyde office chair on wheels. He pulled it as close to his desk as his stomach would allow.

He knew it was Sean, his secretary, buzzing him to tell him Floyd Moye Eugene was holding on the phone, long-distance from Atlanta.

He could pretend he wasn’t there like he normally did with unwanted and intrusive calls. It probably wouldn’t work this time.

Sean wasn’t too smart, but her legs were long as a colt’s and she had a perpetual, miraculous coppery brown tan.

Even though Sean was beautiful, her blind hero worship of him was actually irritating sometimes.

Quite a contrast to his wife. When she wasn’t at home playing bridge with her foursome, Lois made constant trips back and forth to the St. Simons United Methodist Church. The bulletin had to be written on Monday, typed on Tuesday, mailed on Wednesday. Then there were the Hand Bells Choir, the Kids’ Choir, and the Adult Choir. Lois was involved in all three, plus knee-deep in church politics. Toby still loved her in his own way, like a child loves an old teddy bear whose fur was rubbed off and eyes torn out, in other words, no longer attractive.

“Who is it, Sean?” Toby asked.

“It’s Mr. Eugene, long-distance from Atlanta.”

Toby felt like every ounce of energy had drained from his body.

He knew it was hopeless, but he asked anyway. “Does he already know I’m here in the office?”

“Well, I told him you were in a budget meeting…like I normally do. Was that wrong? Should I tell him you’re ‘in conference on a matter of grave importance to the constituents,’ like I did last time?”

“No. I’ll take the call.”

“Yes, Mr. Chairman.”

The dreaded buzz came again and the call passed through to Toby’s desk.

He put on his game face, kicking back in his chair and putting his feet up on his desk, trying to get in the mood. “Hi, buddy…
how’s business? Hot as hell here, Floyd, you ought to come on down and go out fishing with me on my boat. How is it up north in Atlanta?”

There was flat silence on the other end.

Toby involuntarily sucked in his breath and held it there. He didn’t have to wait long.

“You stupid piece of shit.” Floyd was speaking low. “Don’t even start the glad-mouthing. Save it for the locals you brainwashed into voting for you every two years. I’m not buying. Your boat…
my ass.
It’ll be a cold day in hell before I’d let you steer anything with me in it. I rue the day I picked a complete imbecile for an operation this big. You wanna tell me how you managed to totally screw this thing up?”

This morning’s “Huevos Ranchos” egg special he’d ordered at the Huddle House was making loud churning sounds in Toby’s stomach. “Floyd, I understand why you’re upset and…”

“‘Upset’ isn’t the word for it, moron.” Eugene never raised his voice, but his unique hissing quality was worse than a rattlesnake’s. “I’ve got eight million in equity tied up in Palmetto so far. And that’s
pre-construction
. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

Toby couldn’t answer—a whiny stutter came out instead of words.

“Because of you, McKissick, there’ve been delays. Timing is everything.”

“But, Floyd, I can’t control a group of kids tearing the place up. We tried to…”

“And because of your delays, I’m out an extra two hundred thousand. The place is guaranteed to open its doors for occupancy in two months. Two months. Another delay and we could lose committed buyers. You know how much that’ll cost me, you moron?”

“We hired extra weekend security…the best.” Sweat rolled down the side of Toby’s temple.

“Bull
shit!
You got one sad sack from the Brunswick mall and the other from Wal-Mart. I already checked them out, idiot. Just for
once
…just
once
in your miserable pea-brain life,
try not to bullshit
.
I can smell it on your breath, two hundred miles away over the damned phone line.”

The Sansabelt waistline in Toby’s madras-print pants was soaked from the sweat coming down his back, and his mind was a blank.

“We’re starting up again in twenty-four hours. If anything goes wrong, McKissick, you’ve got more than a couple of thousand riding on it. You’re about to put some skin in the game. Now buzz your secretary so I can hear you send her to lunch. And keep it on speaker.”

“Why? She can’t hear what you’re saying. She has no idea what’s going on anyway.”

“Just do it, McKissick. Now.”

Toby left the line open and buzzed Sean. “Honey?” He struggled to keep his voice level. “Why don’t you go on to lunch early and take your time…do a little shopping?”

She buzzed back immediately. “What? Shopping for what? And I’m not hungry. I just ate a Slim-Fast bar and they’re great…. Want one?”

“No, lemon-pie. You go ahead. I need to have a private conference.”

“Okay…but it’s not gonna be private. Two gentlemen are out here in the front office waiting to see you, from Atlanta they say. They said you’re expecting them.”

She buzzed off before Toby could say anything, and frankly, he didn’t know what to tell her even if he’d had the chance.

He heard the front door to the office slam shut behind her as she headed out to her Geo, sitting in the office parking spot.

For a moment, there was only the even, grinding sound of the air conditioner, cranked up on high even this early in the day.

Then two men appeared, standing silently at his office door.

They didn’t speak, just strode uninvited straight through his door, into his office, and toward him. The taller one silently massaged the knuckles of his right hand and took in his office like it was a two-bit flophouse. Toby knew instinctively that all the Kiwanis awards, civic trophies, and local celebrity snapshots covering his of
fice walls—each one carefully evocative of his own importance—didn’t impress these two in the least.

The shorter man trained his eyes on Toby like a Doberman, watching him as if he were some sort of a doggie meat-treat. He spoke in a low, guttural tone toward the speaker on Toby’s desk. “We’re here, boss.”

“Good. Keep the speakerphone on for me, boys. I like to know when a job’s finished.”

They were on him immediately.

The first punch was sharp and to the stomach. The Doberman’s fist disappeared deep into Toby’s gut, the pain doubling him over and smashing him facefirst to the floor. His head hit the metal trash can and it toppled over, papers flying across the floor, now at his own eye level.

His favorite Mexican egg dish came up in a blur of brownish salsa and egg. It spurted across the carpet and dribbled down the sides of his mouth.

They pulled him up and, despite the intense pain, Toby struggled with one hand to keep his toupee atop his head.

As the intruders looked down as if Toby were a giant garden snail they were about to salt, he managed to adjust the hairpiece to a perfect center.

“I knew it was a piece,” the shorter one paused to snicker.

“Shitty piece, dumb-ass. We spotted it a mile away. Not only are you a dumb-ass, you got no style. I hate a guy with no style. Don’t you hate a guy with no style?”

“No style whatsoever. It’s disgusting.” Even thugs have standards. This one looked down at Toby like he was something foul smeared on the bottom of one of his snakeskin boots.

He reached down, ripped the piece off Toby’s head, and threw it like a Frisbee across the room, where it landed on a shelf covered with local softball trophies.

Toby had never, not even once, been seen publicly without his toupee, and it was quite the topic among the locals. Moreover, he
never even went to bed in the dark of the bedroom he shared with his wife without his hairpiece carefully adjusted on his head, much less allowed the shiny red skin covering his skull to ever be seen by strangers. Of his many vanities, it was the greatest.

With vomit dribbling down his chin, his hairpiece stripped away, and his gut aching, he was terrified of what was about to come.

He’d known from the start that Eugene was dangerous, but how did things go so wrong? And the money…it had seemed like a dream come true, a deal he couldn’t turn down….

The second punch made the room go dark.

Toby fell back to the floor, faceup and prone against the wall behind his desk.

The smell of the eggs managed to reach through the hazy pain to his nostrils. He retched again onto the floor under his desk and all over the side of his prized briefcase—alligator, pre-governmental ban.

“Okay…talk. The boss wants to know who did it.”

Toby could barely hear, much less talk.

A punting kick from a sharp-toed cowboy boot landed at the small of his back.

“I don’t know…. It was kids,” he blubbered it out.

“Bullshit! The boss wants a name. Talk, you fat turd, or you’ll be picking up your teeth off this carpet.”

Tears streamed down Toby’s cheeks.

He recalled the hours of veneer and porcelain work the cosmetic dentist had placed in his mouth, creating a megawatt smile that shone out of his tanned face.

The big one lifted him up off the floor by his collar. A punch landed on his nose. Warm blood oozed down his face onto his golf shirt, and bloody bubbles formed between his lips when he managed to speak.

“Virginia Gunn. She probably did it.”

“Crybaby snitch. I knew you’d talk.” The big one looked down at him. “Didja get that Tony? Virginia Gunn…whoever the hell that is.”

“Got it. Virginia Gunn. We’ll find her.”

Sharp kicks in quick succession landed to his lower back and stomach, worse than either of the previous blows.

As the savage kicks continued, one after the next, Toby instinctively curled into a fetal position to protect his vital organs.

After a few moments, he felt nothing more.

The vomit dried brown on his face. He was out cold when Eugene clicked off the speakerphone and the Dobermans disappeared into thin air, out in the sweltering mirage of the strip-center parking lot, as if they’d never existed.