At first she looked around for just a split second or two. Was this a joke?
Then, looking directly at Todd from across the three feet or so of table that separated them, she saw he was still looking down, red-faced, at the yellow cards lying in front of him. He hated her, she could tell, but why? Obviously, he was unprepared for the interview and was doing nothing more than reading canned questions some staffer had written for him, regardless of whether they were relevant to the conversation.
That was the first rule of questioning a witness on the stand, Hailey had learned in court. Be prepared with questions, but respond to the witness’s answers, or any jury would have just as bad a reaction as she was having right now.
It was nearly laughable, how hard she had prepared for today, memorizing facts, figures, and statistics about violent crime across the country. She knew he was a virulent death penalty opponent, and having sent over a dozen or so killers to meet their Maker, she assumed that was the source of his animosity toward her.
Even though all these thoughts registered in just seconds, enough daydreaming. She shook it off… She was under attack.
“It was very happy, Harry,” she replied sweetly. No need for vinegar when honey would do.
Todd obviously picked out another prepared question, re-shifting his weight in his chair. It was black leather and melted into the background of his set, making his appearance on camera even sharper under the bright lights and against the dark backdrop. Her own chair was beige. He leaned toward her to lob the next salvo.
Just as he inhaled for the question, music piped in through Todd’s earpiece and also into the studio audience, signaling they were headed to break in one or two seconds.
He was thwarted. No time for an insightful comeback. In what had become a contest of sorts, she’d obviously won round one. Rather than chat during the break, Todd was listening to direction in his ear and pretending she wasn’t there.
“No.” He said it staring into the camera. “No. That won’t work for me. What else do you have?” He paused. He still wouldn’t make eye contact with her.
“No. Not that either. Send Rachel down.”
Without looking at her, Todd got up unceremoniously and left the set.
Was this normal?
The audience was chatting among themselves. Even with the scorching lights bearing down on her, it was icy cold on the set. She felt a presence behind her, and turning, there was Tony, standing only inches from where she was seated, her back to him.
“Hi… How do you think it’s going? When are we going to get to the fight against violent crime?” She looked up into his face and noticed stubble growing under his pale chin, where he had obviously missed a spot shaving.
“Cover your mike.” He whispered it into her hair.
“What?” She whispered it back although she didn’t know why they were whispering.
“Hailey, listen, cover your lapel mike with your hand!”
She did as she was told and looked back at him.
“I don’t want the control room to hear me. As long as you’re miked, they can hear you all over the building if they want to… on the in-house channel. Listen, Harry’s got it out for you, I guess I should have told you before, but you know, he’s got a record.”
“What? A record?”
“Yeah. He’s a klepto. He can’t help himself. It doesn’t matter what it is, shaving cream at Duane Reade, hair gel’s his favorite steal, socks at Bloomingdale’s, even a portable CD player he stuck down the front of his pants once at RadioShack.”
“Down his pants?”
“Oh yeah, they have the whole thing on store surveillance video. All the security were watching him… I mean he is a celebrity… Then he stuffs the CD player down the front of his pants. I’ve seen the video. The whole staff watches it all the time. It’s hilarious. He doesn’t know we’ve got it.”
Hailey tried to take it all in. That’s one thing she hadn’t thought to do before her appearance before millions of Americans: run the star’s rap sheet.
“Then there was the iPhone he took right off a display at the Apple Store across from Central Park… Oh yeah, and some DVDs he put in his briefcase the other day at Barnes & Noble… in the music section. There’s more… a lot more. It goes back for years… most of it gets swept under the rug, but he actually has a couple of convictions. He hates police and prosecutors… thinks they’re all straight from hell. He never even wants them on panel legal discussions. I had to make him.”
“Why doesn’t the press make more of it?”
“The convictions are under his real name, Harold Isaac Finkler. He was booked under Isaac. Plus, they all plead down to citations or get handled behind closed doors. You’d really have to know where to look. Anyway, bottom line, he hates you.”
“Then why did you put me out here?”
“Oh! Don’t take it personally! It’ll be great TV!”
If looks were daggers, Tony would be dead right now.
“Oh, and he’s in the control room right now, up there.” Tony gestured upward and ahead, into the darkness.
“Don’t look! They’ll know I’m warning you!”
She quickly looked down at the table and the handwritten notes she’d worked on for hours, then brought with her.
“Warn me about what? What could happen? More lame questions?”
“No. He’s up there right now, and they’re loading him up with some ammo to shoot you down. Be ready.”
“Ammo? What ammo? For what? Shoot me down how?”
No answer. She turned to look at him, but he was gone, evaporating into the darkness behind her. She took her hand off her lapel mike and steeled herself. Literally within seconds, Todd came back and slipped into his chair, revealing nothing. She noticed his makeup was repaired, now thicker than ever. He looked like he’d just come off hours lying on the beach, his face an unnatural brown. His hands and neck were browner than before, too. She wondered if viewers would notice the difference.
The music started and the audience cheered when a pale guy in skinny black jeans, black tennis shoes, and a black T-shirt walked before them with an “Applause” sign. They clapped wildly, some wolf-whistling their enthusiasm for all things Todd.
When the music started to fade, Todd looked directly at the camera and read verbatim off the prompter as Hailey read along herself, silently of course.
“Welcome back. With us, special guest Hailey Dean. She went from small-town prosecutor to national headlines after the stabbing death of a well-known defense attorney… stabbed dead at the hands of Hailey Dean, who is giving us her first-ever national interview about the night she committed murder.”
Before he could finish the rest of the read, Hailey spoke up loudly.
“Mr. Todd, you continue to misinform the viewers and I absolutely will not stand by silently. That is absolutely not what happened. First, correction. Obviously you don’t make it past the city limits of New York City or read the papers or you would know Atlanta is no small town. In fact, sir, nearly a million people live in Atlanta, not including the metro area. And, I did not commit murder. Whoever is feeding you questions in your ear needs to fact check. I was unarmed, and in self-defense stabbed a serial killer with a dentist drill, turned on, in the temple. It’s as simple as that. Check the police report, if you know how.”
Before he could interject, she went on.
“And, I was invited to be with you today to discuss the fight against violent crime in our country, crime that takes the lives of thousands of men, women, and especially, children. It can be stopped, I firmly believe. More people die of homicides in the U.S. each year than they do in our most current war.”