The Eleventh Victim (4 page)

“T
HIS, MEMBERS OF THE JURY, IS THE WEAPON DEFENDANT CLINT
Burrell Cruise used to murder eleven innocent women. This, and his own brute strength as he circled his fingers around their throats.” Hailey held up the poultry-lifter in her left hand, arm outstretched, slowly walking the length of the jury rail in a courtroom packed with relatives, court watchers, and media. Witnesses lined the halls outside the courtroom, waiting to be called in one by one.

The jurors stared at the weapon, some with their mouths open. This was the weapon that had stumped Atlanta PD for so long. Sev
eral of the jurors actually recoiled backward in their seats as she walked slowly before them, intentionally holding the lifter just beneath their chins.

Blood from the last victim, LaSondra Williams, was still on the prongs that left an unmistakable, signature death wound ripping open the lower back of each victim.

Hailey’s mind flashed back to the exact wording in the autopsy.

Angle: 45 degrees, upwards, back to front, just below the lung cavity.

Even with Cassie’s lead, it had taken a while to piece together the puzzle and make an arrest.

Between baker’s twine, the murder weapon itself, and what Cassie said about the smell of garlic oozing from the pores of her attacker, it all slowly fit together. The killer was a chef.

The murder weapon had taken a while to figure out. Months of studying the mortal wounds, their angles of entry and exit, their lengths and their widths, and searching for microscopic fibers or particles left behind inside or around the puncture marks had ended with nothing. Nothing. It was only after Hailey’s comparison of the baker’s twine and Cassie’s observation that a murder weapon was finally identified…in a specialty gourmet kitchen boutique.

The killer used a poultry-lifter to deliver each of the four-pronged stab wounds. A solid stainless-steel Norpro poultry-lifter had prongs sharp and sturdy enough to handle even the biggest birds. The long, seven-inch stainless-steel prongs were easily identifiable once they knew where to look, the individual tines widely spaced to allow a chef to balance the bird.

He’d always ended by staging the scene, postmortem, with the signature bow, tied with baker’s twine around the victims’ bruised neck, wrist, ankle, toe…almost always varying the anatomical location, like a little surprise.

Cruise wrapped each victim like a present to the Homicide Unit. Then later, after the papers announced that Hailey was named head of the investigation, it became a mocking gesture to her alone.

When the murder weapon was finally found in Cruise’s home, pursuant to a search warrant, it was in a Ziploc double-zip bag, wrapped in a stark white bath towel and stuffed inside a gym bag. The bag was concealed far behind a row of perfectly lined shoes in Cruise’s bedroom closet. The rubber grip should have revealed latent fingerprints, but multiple grooved markings on the handle made prints impossible.

Still, nothing could stop the DNA trail in the identical series of murders, which were so similar any court in the nation would affirm their introduction into evidence.

The trial itself was a DNA nightmare: Ten of the eleven murders pointed to Clint Burrell Cruise. But the final victim had been found without a trace of the killer’s DNA on her body.

LaSondra Williams.

And she alone had the odd marking on her neck—a small cluster of shallow cuts, fresh fingernail scratches. Hailey assumed LaSondra’s nails were inspected and yielded nothing. It had to be from Cruise’s nails, but by the time he was arrested months later, the DNA was obviously gone.

Hailey didn’t know what it meant—probably nothing—but she knew Leonard would use it against her at trial. As usual, she overanalyzed. Neither the lead defense counsel nor his fleet of sycophants had caught it in the autopsy report. She guessed Leonard wasn’t as sharp as he was cracked up to be.

LaSondra’s mother, Leola, was at the trial every day, sporting one beautiful, tailored suit after the next, eyes fixed either with gratitude on Hailey, or with hatred on the man who had snuffed out her daughter’s life, leaving a wake of pain behind him he seemed unable to comprehend, sitting in court every day, nonplussed…as if he were above it all.

Hailey tried the case solo as usual—no other lawyers to back her up as second chair. Just Fincher sitting with her at the counsel table for the State. The table was strewn with stacks of notes, evidence books, and brown paper bags containing clothes, shoes, earrings,
and hose that once belonged to the dead women, each bag sealed and marked separately.

The photos of the crime scenes and close-ups of the victims’ faces in death were burned into Hailey’s brain. One in particular disturbed her. It was a photo of dirt and grass pushed up into LaSondra’s nose and mouth from being shoved facedown into the ground during the attack. In it, the angry, red elongated scratches on LaSondra’s neck were clearly visible.

But the photos—and even the media frenzy surrounding the case—were the least of Hailey’s worries.

Matt Leonard was at the helm of a fleet of high-priced attorneys and their hangers-on: paralegals, investigators, and unpaid clerks plotting to count the trial as “experience” when they padded their résumés at the end of law school—all of them banded together, determined to beat a murder rap on behalf of the most prolific serial killer ever to stalk the city of Atlanta.

Especially Leonard, who was unaccustomed to losing in court to anyone.

Hailey could feel the venom in his gaze right now as she went on with her closing argument.

She could see him out of the corner of her eye throughout the trial, though she never let the jury catch her looking over at the defense table.

She finished in a hushed tone in a rapt courtroom, barely speaking above a whisper, leaning over the rail, addressing the jurors directly. This was not for the press, not for the judge, not for the packed courtroom. It was for their ears alone. The court reporter strained to take it down.

“These women had families. Mothers and fathers, husbands, children, sisters and brothers. Families who waited for them to come home. They never did. They never did, because they crossed paths with Clint Burrell Cruise. It’s in your hands now. Do not turn away from the evidence. Your voice is the only one they have. Please, please, convict this man and return a verdict that speaks the
truth. Show him the same mercy he showed his victims. None. He is
guilty
.” After a brief moment of complete silence, she turned from the jury and took her seat at the State’s counsel table.

Now, with Hailey’s closing arguments ended, it was finally out of her hands. She had done all she possibly could during months of long nights and weekends working. Now she could only pray justice would prevail.

“Miss Hailey?” Leola Willaims came up behind her as she gathered files into her briefcase. “I want to thank you.”

“No, Miss Leola. I only hope the jury does the right thing and you find some peace.” Hailey hugged her tightly, knowing that even a death sentence for Cruise wouldn’t bring back Leola’s girl.

They broke apart and went to the courthouse cafeteria for iced teas, going over and over the witnesses, the evidence, everything that had happened during the trial. And then, back up the elevator and to the courtroom.

Hours passed as they all sat on the courtroom’s hardwood pews, waiting. Once, when she caught Leonard staring at her again, he turned sharply away from her, pretending to study the far wall of the courtroom in deep thought.

Out of the jury’s sight, Hailey turned slightly to study Cruise as he sat at the counsel table. He was angled away from her, but she immediately noticed Cruise hungrily biting the nails on his right hand, almost like an animal. During the investigation, she retraced his movements through credit card statements and knew he must miss the weekly manicures he had gotten on the outside. Something about his gesture struck her as odd, but she was wrenched from her train of thought when the courtroom bailiff placed his hand on her shoulder. He nodded to her, giving her a heads up, silently communicating the jury was done. Almost immediately, a buzzer inside the jury deliberation room buzzed loudly in the courtroom. They had a verdict.

Guilty…on all eleven counts. Hailey published the verdict, standing alone in the center of the courtroom looking directly at Cruise. It hardly seemed real, reading out loud in a clear voice. It rang out in the courtroom as she spoke.

“I didn’t do it!” Cruise bellowed out when the last count was read. All hell broke loose in the courtroom. Cruise, in a rage, lunged at Hailey across the defense table. Books thumped to the ground, papers flew up in the air, the jury and spectators leaped to their feet.

In a matter of seconds, eight sheriffs strategically positioned about the courtroom when major verdicts came down attacked Cruise, dragging him away from Hailey. But it was just long enough for Hailey to feel what his victims had felt—Cruise’s cold hands closing around her neck.

In that moment, Hailey knew she was finished.

Years of trials and the endless parade of victims silently looking out at her from crime scene photos and autopsy tables at the morgue had taken their toll. But it wasn’t Cruise’s lunge at her that did it. It was the photo, the photo of the dirt and grass, smeared up and across LaSondra’s face.

This was Hailey Dean’s final war with a powerful and cunning Atlanta defense bar, a last stand.

She was ready now, ready to turn her back on the justice system and leave the practice of criminal law—and Atlanta itself—behind.

With Cruise off the street, Hailey Dean resigned from the District Attorney’s Office.

And on that night, the papers wrote, the city’s pimps, thieves, and killers…and their defense lawyers…danced in the streets with the Devil.

T
HE SMELL COULDN’T BE DISINFECTED AWAY.

No ammonia, no cleanser, no air purifier yet known to man could erase the funk left behind by thousands of killers, rapists, and child molesters. In fact, the industrial-strength cleansers mopped into the floor and scrubbed into the sideboards only added their own unique ingredient to the mix. It was a stench to remind visitors, long after they’d left the cluster of concrete buildings, just how sweet their own freedom smelled.

Clint Burrell Cruise sat in his cell on a metal bunk bolted to the floor. Imagining. Remembering.

He had been the premier star, the up-and-comer in the small, ultra-prestigious world of nouvelle cuisine called “infusion art.” He’d even convinced himself he had actually coined the phrase.

Cruise was even approached by the Food Channel to launch his own televised daily hour of infusion art. He was all set to be up there alongside the others, Rachael Ray, Paula Deen, the Iron Chefs, and maybe one day, Martha Stewart herself. Many times he’d imagined lingering over the made-for-TV kitchen counter, casually straddling a bar stool, sharing techniques with Stewart.

It could happen.

As much as he adored Martha Stewart, he hated Emeril Lagasse with that frickin’ “Bam!” every time he did something. God he hated that man. He, Cruise, should have Lagasse’s fame.

Screw him and his worn out “Bam!” routine.

The last time some ass had turned on Lagasse in the rec room, Cruise picked up a metal folding chair and threw it at the TV. He got
thirty days in solitary for that, but if Lagasse said “Bam” just one more time Cruise swore he’d kill him dead with his own two hands.

The Food Channel…just when it was all coming together…it all came crashing down. Because of her. Hailey Dean. That bitch hunted him down like a bloodhound.

After his arrest, she came to the jail. He could smell her halfway down the cellblock. She smelled like cold wind, like the night air in Atlanta after it rained. Even that memory plagued Cruise now, made him twist at night in a sweat on the two inches of flat cotton over rusted springs they called a cot.

When she’d come to the jail that day, she had him pulled out of his cell with a warrant and dragged to the sick bay. He knew what she wanted and he fought like hell until two guards forced him into a seat and cuffed him to the chair. There, she watched the nurse jab him with a needle to draw blood from his arm. He stared right back at her, neither one ever once breaking their gaze, even when the needle bit into his skin.

Not one muscle moved in her face, even though behind her, talking into her ear the whole time she watched, there had stood a huge black man wearing a heavy coat and a black fedora. She seemed to listen to him, but never once responded, never looking away from Cruise’s face. When the blood was drawn and siphoned into separate vials, she stepped around the glass wall and into sick bay. Even as she spoke to the jail nurse, she still kept a razor lock on Cruise.

“Mark it, please. Name and cell,” he heard her say. “And would you hand it directly to my investigator? I can’t touch it myself, can’t break the chain of custody. I’d hate to be a State’s witness in a murder case I’m prosecuting myself. And ma’am, let me give you this subpoena in case the drawing of the blood is called into question by the defense.”

The nurse marked the two glass vials and handed them over to the investigator.

“Fincher, seal it.” Hailey stood completely still, never laying a finger on the vials, vials that literally held Clint Cruise’s future
within their thin walls. Fincher placed them into a brown manila envelope, and sealed it.

Hailey Dean handed the nurse a court order of appearance, then backed toward the door. Still staring him in the face, she fired one last remark, like a hollow-point bullet. “DNA evidence is a miracle. Isn’t that right, Fincher?”

“Sure is, it’s a miracle.”

They both looked at him with no change of expression, then turned on their heels and walked out.

Later, at trial, Cruise learned Hailey Dean was so concerned about the admissibility of DNA evidence at trial, she was shoring up her evidence before the jury was even struck. She knew full well that defense attorneys far and wide labeled DNA “junk science” when it suited their defense.

With Fincher by her side, Hailey had drawn up an additional warrant for the trial judge presiding over Cruise’s murder trial and presented it to him in chambers. She’d sworn in Fincher using the judge’s desktop Bible, and asked him a series of quick, carefully constructed questions they’d rehearsed in the elevator on the way up to the judge’s chambers.

The questions were all regarding the Atlanta serial murders, and their answers would support the judge in signing the warrant to look for additional evidence to prove the State’s case. The “search” amounted to having a second, backup series of Cruise’s blood drawn for comparison to sperm found in and on the bodies of several of the victims.

Several, but not all of them.

There was one victim, the last one, whose body offered up no trace of DNA matter to compare: no blood, no sperm, no hair.

LaSondra Williams.

The eleventh victim haunted Cruise every night.

Couldn’t they see she wasn’t his type anyway? Why hadn’t Leonard argued that to the jury?

LaSondra Williams looked nothing like the others, all of them slight and pale-skinned, with hair parted over to the right and fall
ing in waves down to their shoulders. LaSondra had been tall and gangly, much taller than Cruise himself.

With no DNA, Matt Leonard, if he had taken his head out of his ass for one minute, could have argued the State was wrong about Williams’s murder and, therefore, could likely be wrong about the other ten hookers. Then he could have argued the rest was planted by police…. It only takes one juror to hang a jury.

Most nights now, in the quiet of maximum security in the innermost cells of Reidsville, Cruise woke up sweating, back in the courtroom with Hailey Dean staring him down. Hailey Dean passing just inches from him as she questioned each witness on the stand. Hailey Dean so close he could feel the whisper of air melting around her as she passed, always wearing black, hair always pulled back tightly from her face.

Her voice was sharp as a whip on cross-exams, yet cajoling and hushed on direct with her own witnesses. During her closing argument to the jury, she spoke so softly, leaning in with her fingers resting on the jury rail, that Cruise had to strain to hear her words. His mouth went dry, his palms sweaty as hell as he’d watched the jury leaning forward toward her, and he caught himself doing the same.

Then, without warning, she turned on him and lashed out loudly, causing the jury to look directly at him while she practically shouted out the evidence.

His stomach burned with the memory.

And the stench of this place was giving him another pounding headache. Like the kind he used to get each time he’d go hunting for the next woman, the next victim. The tension building, he’d watch his own hands at work in the highest-tech kitchens in Atlanta. Then, later that same night, almost as if in a dream, off Stewart Avenue, hidden in the shadows of motels lining the strip, he’d have the hooker facedown in front of him, his hands choking, out of control, pulsing as if they belonged to someone much stronger, someone superhuman.

Only after, when he walked away and headed for his car, could he ever breathe again.

His body needed the kill, needed the feel of skin under his fingertips, digging, digging into flesh, to feel alive.

And who were the “victims” anyway? They were all hookers. He was doing the city a favor.

In court, the photos of the women’s necks showed mangled flesh, as if the killer had torn the skin with his fingers in the frenzy of the strangling. Once, as Hailey Dean looked down at crime scene photos she was holding in her hand, he thought she was going to crack.

A flush of victory loomed for Cruise when her voice broke in the middle of questioning a lead homicide detective. She’d been looking at a shot of the knees of one of the hookers, scratched and bruised from the dirt where she’d knelt.

It was LaSondra Williams.

This whole mess was his lawyer’s fault. That stupid ass. He had never finished working Cruise’s alibi for the night LaSondra Williams was strangled. Cruise knew Leonard didn’t believe him. But he’d stood there lying that the private investigator couldn’t locate the leads Cruise gave him.

Here in Reidsville, he had plenty of time to relive the trial, all the errors his lawyer had made, and all the other indignities Hailey Dean subjected him to.

He followed her career from behind bars. He had gone to the law library and Xeroxed every document he could find on her. He had every news clipping, every blurb, every shred of information on Dean. It was too obvious to just thrust it under his cot, so instead, at night, he’d meticulously tear apart the thin layers of cotton that made up his mattress and press each article between the strips. He had to be careful.

He read all about her cases, every appeal of every case she ever tried, even the hard-luck story that came out about the murder of her fiancé. The thought of her and the memory of his attorney screwing him over consumed him.

The day the verdict was handed down, she was pale. Her hair was pulled back and he couldn’t take his eyes off her neck.

He remembered watching her neck as the verdict was read.

Guilty. All eleven counts.

The courtroom turned into a reddish, hazy blur when the last count was read, the last verdict of guilty, for the murder of LaSondra Williams.

His body took over, his hands felt the electricity surging through them, shooting through his wrists down to his fingertips and he leaped.

Lunging across the table, strewing law books and notes and paper cups…he made it. He made it all the way to where she stood, unprotected in the center of the massive courtroom. Her investigator was several rows back in the courtroom sitting with the State’s witnesses. He had stupidly let his guard down and left her alone. In that one moment, Cruise made it across the courtroom to Hailey Dean.

He reached out and barely fingered her neck, when a pain burned through his skull as the sheriffs clubbed him from behind.

Idiots. They couldn’t understand the artist’s mind, a mind like his. They thought he was enraged over the verdict. But all he wanted was to touch her neck. His hands were pumped with energy, and they ached to circle her neck, just below her chin.

Dean stood silent when they dragged him off her, eyes still locked on him, as if he had never touched her.

Tonight, in the dark of his cell, his hands felt hot with electricity, that old feeling that took hold of him. He was superhuman again.

He thought of her. She wasn’t so smart. A smile spread across his face.

He was the only one that knew just how stupid Hailey Dean really was. Because he, Clint Burrell Cruise, hadn’t strangled LaSondra Williams.

Imagine Dean’s expression when she finds out the truth. Stupid bitch. So stupid, she didn’t have a clue.

If his own incompetent lawyer had proven him innocent on the eleventh murder count, doubt would have been cast on all the other
murders and the jury would have let him go…let him walk out of the courtroom and onto the elevator. Down to the lobby and out into the street, mingling with all the others on the sidewalk until he disappeared into the evening.

The cell row was deafeningly quiet. Cruise’s hands were so electric tonight he thought he’d come out of his skin.

Hailey Dean.

It was like she was here, in his cell with him. He still remembered her smell. In the dark, he could still smell her, like the outdoors.