Just before she pushed the doors open in front of her, she stopped. There was clapping. From a single pair of hands.
Hailey turned around toward the lobby. There, off to the side of the large, marble expanse, beside an indoor stand of perfectly manicured trees, was a cleaning lady. She was actually only a few feet away from Hailey. She was dressed in a light blue, short-sleeved dress with her name, Lorraina, embroidered across the left shoulder in deep navy blue thread. Under the dress, which came to a few inches below her knees, she wore a pair of black pants and tennis shoes. The woman, slightly built and barely topping five feet, rolled her plastic bucket and mop toward the front door where Hailey stood.
“They murdered my son. He was only seventeen. Nobody saw anything. Nothing ever happened. We’ve only been here in the U.S. a few years. I know who you are. I see you in the paper. I saw what you did to Mr. Todd. I’m glad.”
Outside, the sun was shining and a huge fountain in front of GNE was shooting gusts of water up into the air. It caught the light as it hung there, just before it fell back into the fountain.
Sucking in a lungful of air, Hailey walked right past a long, black limo with her name written on a white placard in the window. She went to the corner, cars, trucks, buses, all whizzing by.
Holding her left hand high over her head, arm straight up in the air, she looked uptown. Within seconds, a cab swerved in dangerously close to her shins. Opening the door, she got in. Some type of canned music was blaring, repeating the same verse over and over and over, and the cab reeked of incense.
It was good to be back in New York.
“Fifty-fourth and York.”
He didn’t reply, just gunned the motor, and they were off.
Chapter 10
THE CABBIE RACED ACROSS TOWN BACK TO THE EAST SIDE, WEAVING DANGEROUSLY through parked and moving cars, catching lights just as they changed from yellow to red and growling out his open window at any pedestrian who dared to slow down in a crosswalk. Hailey paid cash through the plastic window partition between seats, opened the car door, and stepped up on the street’s curb headed toward the front steps of her building.
Pushing through the heavy revolving door, she saw Ricky smiling at her behind the lobby desk, still here these hours later. It made her smile back. “How are you?” Hailey called out as she stepped in from the cold.
“Same as ever. Happy to be alive. How about you, Sunshine?”
“Good. Thanks, dear.” She said it with warmth. It was nice to see a friendly face.
“Need help with the box and the bag?”
Hailey was suddenly reminded of the flight up from Atlanta, the luggage she’d dragged up the front steps, and the box wrapped in plain brown paper with Kolker’s handwriting on the front.
“Nope, I’ll manage. Thanks.”
Heading toward the elevator, Hailey balanced the box on top of her rolling bag while keeping her purse on her shoulder and her notepad clasped in her left hand. Once off the elevator and standing at her own front door, she instinctively glanced over her shoulder before setting her purse and pad down on the carpeted floor beside her. She’d already pulled the apartment keys from her bag so she wouldn’t have to fish. Sliding the key into the top deadbolt lock, she turned it to the right, and it slid to the side. She mechanically went through the same process with two lower locks and pushed the door gently open, scooping up the purse and pad, and rolling the bag over the threshold in one fluid movement.
The apartment was silent. Silent in an inviting, quiet way. The shades were up and from the entrance area, she could see the city lying beneath her. Hailey turned and locked all three locks and slid the door chain lock into place. Leaving the bag where it stood upright, she carried the box into her kitchen, glancing around her little apartment as she strode across the rosewood den floor and onto the smooth, green slate floor of the kitchen.
She automatically turned on her gas stove for tea, filled the copper kettle that was always there, and sat it on the stove’s eye, now burning blue. Pulling a pair of scissors from the spoon and fork drawer, she slid them down the middle of the box, slicing it open neatly. Though she knew she’d return whatever he’d sent as an apology for her arrest the year before, she always looked to see if there was a note included. Something that would somehow explain what Kolker had done… something to make things right.
The flowers, the treats… It was almost as if he were courting a girlfriend. But what had passed between them, the murders of Hailey’s two friends, the suspicion cast on her, her arrest, the night she’d almost lost her own life and ended up taking the life of her attacker… When she’d come to… his was one of the first faces she remembered seeing. She distinctly remembered the look on Kolker’s face, the realization hitting him hard that Hailey was innocent and had nearly lost her own life while he pursued her instead of the real killer.
There was some sort of bond between Hailey and Kolker… something she couldn’t quite identify, nothing as trite as a flirtation. Hailey remembered motioning Kolker down, to where she was lying alongside Matt Leonard’s dead body. The others standing around had all parted, stepping aside for Kolker to kneel down beside her. Hailey remembered her throat ached so badly from Leonard’s attempted strangulation, she couldn’t speak. But Kolker had… He’d said exactly three words as Hailey recalled, whispering the words against her hair, “Hailey… I’m sorry…”
The kettle whistled and Hailey moved it over to a cold burner. The box was full. She picked up each item… mostly CDs. The first was The Otis Redding Anthology, including “The Dock of the Bay.” Redding was born in Georgia and grew up in Macon. Then there was Forever Ray Charles. Charles, also from Hailey’s home state of Georgia, sang one of her favorites, “Georgia on My Mind.”
The last CD in the cardboard box was by Johnny Mercer, the genius from Savannah who composed “Moon River.” The lyrics and the haunting tune never failed to bring tears to her eyes… to make her heart ache for something she’d never had… a lifetime with her true love.
How did Kolker know such personal details? They certainly didn’t come up that night in the police interrogation room. Hailey bristled at the vivid… and painful… memory.
At the very bottom of the cardboard box were two smaller boxes wrapped separately. Tearing at the same brown paper wrapping, she opened the larger one, obviously a book. She looked down at it in surprised silence. It was a hardback copy of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. When she was just a little girl, Hailey checked the book out from the bookmobile, a library van that routinely traveled to visit poor and rural areas in the South. The librarian had warned her she was too young, that the book was for more advanced readers, but she let Hailey take it home anyway.
When Hailey turned to the first page, she couldn’t believe her eyes. The book was signed by the great author and recluse, Harper Lee. A note fluttered down when Hailey opened the book. Leaning down toward the kitchen floor, Hailey unfolded the note and read it. It was Kolker’s handwriting in blue ink and read simply “I understand Atticus Finch was the first lawyer you ever met. That explains a lot. Kolker.”
Then it dawned on her exactly how he knew so much about her. She’d agreed to a profile piece in the Atlanta paper several years ago when she won her hundredth jury trial. While the article focused mostly on her courtroom victories and various killers, dope dealers, and thugs she put behind bars, it also included a few personal details she allowed them to know. They were printed in a thin panel to the side of the article, including her favorite music and books.