Eleanor’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.
“This. Look at this.” Hailey pointed at a large white Styrofoam cup on the other side of the computer screen.
“So? It’s an old coffee cup. Maybe he recycles.”
“Right. Maybe Deputy . . . uh . . .” Billings bent around Hailey’s shoulder to read the county-issue, faux wood nameplate attached on the plastic portion of the wall. “Deputy Zilenski . . . maybe Deputy Zilenski is a recycler. Although I will agree, by the looks of his space, he’s a bit of a . . . a . . . uh . . . let me see. How would I phrase it? A neatnik! Yes, that’s it. He’s a neatnik and Hailey’s right. Under that theory, an old used coffee cup is definitely out of place. So there, you’re both right. But is that why you brought us back in here, Hailey?”
“It’s got pink lipstick on the rim.” Hailey wasn’t really talking to either of them . . . more to herself. She bent over the cup, and then walked around to look at it from a different angle.
“And it’s marked Morning Blend, black, half-decaf.”
“Morning Blend, black, half-decaf, I understand that. Maybe not the pink lipstick, but . . .” Billings’s voice trailed off.
There was a sprinkling of photos on the desk top. All three had one thing in common . . . a young sheriff, heavily muscled, blonde hair buzzed close to his skull. Neck, face, and arms tanned. One was the sheriff, clearly as a cadet at graduation from the police academy. Another was of him and a man who had to be his father holding a big fish, smiling at the camera. The third shot was identical to one on Alton Turner’s desk. It was the softball picture with Eleanor laughing, clutching a trophy in the center of the group.
“So?” Finch shook his head.
“This is the guy, the young sheriff we passed yesterday. He was crying in the hall outside the cafeteria when Elle died.”
Finch bent over and squinted at the photos but before he could speak, Hailey went on.
“And this.” She pointed at the cup. “This is the cup Eleanor Odom was drinking from just before she died.”
The two men stood in complete silence, looking from the photos to the Styrofoam cup. Billings spoke first.
“Why do you say that, Hailey? I don’t understand why he’d keep a cup from a dead woman.”
“She’s not just a ‘dead woman’ to him. You should have seen him crying in the hall to the café. He was actually pounding his head on the wall. I saw him. It’s definitely the guy in these pictures.”
“She’s right. That is the guy, Billings. I saw him too. He was pretty torn up,” Finch backed her up. “But I don’t know anything about this cup.”
“He kept the cup because it’s the very last thing to touch her lips before she died. That’s why. And I saw the cup on the floor beside the table where Elle was going to eat. Emphasis on ‘going to eat.’ This is important. Her knife, spoon, and fork were still lying on the napkin at her place. The food tray and the food was all thrown onto the floor.” Hailey was talking with her eyes closed shut, her fingertips over her eyelids as if she were trying to block out the present and remember exactly what she had seen in the cafeteria the day before. “So if her cutlery was still untouched on top of a folded napkin, that means she had just sat down or was about to sit down when she had her attack. Or whatever you call anaphylactic shock.”
“How do you get that?” Billings asked gently, not wanting to interrupt her thought process. He’d seen Hailey do this before and so had Finch.
“Because, if she had taken a bite of anything, her fork, spoon, or knife wouldn’t have still been lying arranged on the napkin like that. Plus one of them would have had pink lipstick on it.”
For a moment she was quiet, then burst into reasoning again to herself. “But the napkin . . .”
“What about the napkin?” Fincher was staring at her, not moving an inch lest he throw her off.
“The napkin was folded. If she had sat down, she’d likely have unfolded it and put it in her lap. She also had something messy . . . uh . . . a veggie plate and a fruit salad. Not a sandwich, so she’d need a fork or a spoon. Get it? So the napkin . . . the napkin . . . she hadn’t had a bite of her food because she hadn’t even picked up her fork or unfolded her napkin!”
Hailey suddenly opened her eyes and looked at them, clearly thrilled.
“And what does that mean? That she hadn’t unfolded her napkin and the fruit salad made a mess on the floor?”
“It means, she didn’t touch her food! Call the ME’s office. Tell them to check for a nut enzyme. We could compare to the new evidence.”
She didn’t have time to explain further. “Hurry! Call the ME. What if the enzyme dissipates over time? I mean, I don’t know . . . drugs can disappear in just a few hours . . . they metabolize . . . maybe this does too!”
“Call the ME and tell him what?” Billings asked.
“Tell him this means we finally have a piece of evidence!”
“What evidence?” Now Billings was visibly upset that he couldn’t seem to grasp her logic.
“This.” Hailey pointed at the cup. “This is what the folded napkin means. She didn’t eat the poison . . . she drank it! It means whatever poisoned her was in this cup!”