“Repeat, ma’am?”
“Oh yes, it is me, the Kacynthia Sikes.”
“I’m not understanding you. Did you just say ‘the swimming pool bites’?”
“No, I did not say ‘the swimming pool bites.’ I clearly said I am the Kacynthia Sikes.”
“Oh. I heard you that time. Your name is Cindy Sikes.”
Kacynthia recoiled at the sound of her name so debased. “No. I am not Cindy Sikes… I am Miss Kacynthia Sikes. I’m sure you’ve heard of me. WSAV Channel 3 just did an in-depth one-on-one special on me? The eleven o’clock news? Repeated that following Sunday morning? It was a very highly anticipated special on me.”
“Did you just say somebody pulled a Saturday night special on you? You mean a.25 caliber semiautomatic? Somebody pulled a gun on you, Cindy? Where are you? I’m sending a patrol car right now. Where’s the assailant? Is he still there? What does he look like?”
“No!” Kacynthia’s frustration was mounting. “I was in no way attacked! There is no semiautomated… or… whatever it is you said. I said I was in a TV special about being a Penthouse Pet! Are you one of those phone reps from another country or are you just deaf and dumb?”
With the deaf and dumb comment, the dispatcher asked no more but stoically sent out a radio call message. “That’ll be a 24, en route.” Savannah police dispatch immediately changed the nature of the 911 call to a “24,” a crazy person.
“In any event, I see a pair of legs in a pool of what appears to be human blood and I’m just trying to report it.”
“Yes ma’am, what’s your location?”
“I’m in the Williamsburg residential community… I think… just one house down from the intersection of… uh…” Kacynthia knew her call would be recorded and possibly played back in future TV interviews featuring her, so she tried her best to articulate. Straining, she could barely make out the green street signs, but she did it. The thought of eyeglasses was never an option for Kacynthia.
Thank you, LASIK! she thought quickly before blurting out, “Randolph and Armory!” like she’d just won the clue on Jeopardy.
“Please stay calm, Cindy. Don’t move! We’re en route.” Dispatch didn’t want her to move; nobody in the Williamsburg residential community needed a 24 wandering through their backyard.
“It’s Kacynthia. Not Cindy.” She enunciated carefully and spoke loudly as if she were talking to a deaf person.
What was wrong with these people?
Kacynthia Sikes kept her thoughts to herself and promptly dialed WSAV. She pressed *3 for viewers to call in breaking news stories as they happen, and to become part of the story themselves!
Speaking breathlessly into her cell, Kacynthia described in detail the pair of legs and the pool of blood to somebody who answered the phone at WSAV. And this time, she got the street address off the mailbox at the end of the pair of legs’ driveway.
“Yes… I’m standing here in a golden-nude workout leotard… I’m at 3443 Randolph Drive. My name is Kacynthia Sikes… your station just did a special on me. Penthouse Pet?”
The cameras would be there any minute. Kacynthia just adored those trucks with the satellite thingies that reached up into the sky.
Wiping away the mascara from under her eyes, almost involuntarily, Kacynthia sucked in her stomach and poked out her chest.
CHAPTER THREE
The Savannah airport was so busy it didn’t seem that different from the crush of people back at LaGuardia. Pulling her roller board behind her, Hailey wound through knots of travelers complaining about the wait for luggage. Overhearing snippets of their conversations, she was glad she was a light packer.
Just as she cleared the last claim belt, she saw him in the distance… a familiar figure with his back to her. But between the six feet three inches of frame, broad shoulders, and a dark fedora, she’d know him anywhere. It was Fincher, Garland Fincher, her longtime investigator and sometimes bodyguard.
Together, the two of them had worked felony investigations from the most filthy and dangerous inner-city housing projects to high-society murders along West Paces Ferry Road. It all raced through her head… at the crime lab or murder scene, prepping one case after the next, cruising the strip in an undercover county car, digging bullets out from under a swing set playground in the projects. Combing over crime scenes together, measuring blood spatter, staring in windows, late nights and early mornings at every diner and fast-food stop in metro Atlanta. Coffee, coffee, and more coffee… it all blended… year after year… each case spilling over onto the next.
Together, they forged a reputation as being unbeatable. The Odd Couple-that’s what they were called around the Fulton County Courthouse. Fincher was a dark-skinned black ex-Marine, six three, ripped, and wouldn’t even drive to church without packing heat, hip and ankle. Hailey barely topped five one, and was slight of frame, blonde, and always unarmed.
Secretly, she still recoiled at the sight of handguns, ever since Will’s murder years before. Realizing her own aversion, she forced herself to make target practice a routine, and she ranked as one of the best shots in Fulton County, male or female. She hated them nonetheless and even in court, when guns came in as evidence, she held them lightly only when absolutely necessary, as if they burned her fingertips.
For some reason, though, Hailey had packed her shoulder holster. It was specially designed, made of black, flexible Lycra and Velcro. Leather was often used, but it always bulked up and was easy to spot outside clothing. Not Hailey’s.
It all shot across her mind in just seconds. As if he knew she was there, he turned just as she walked up to him.
“Need a ride?” He said it casually, like they’d just seen each other yesterday.
“Yeah. I do.” She let go of her roller board and in a split second, he picked her up and whirled around with her as if she were as light as a feather. Landing on both feet, they hugged. It seemed like the longest… and the shortest hug she’d ever had.
“Fincher, I don’t get it. Why are you here?”
“Same as you, Hailey. The Julie Love murder trial. The prosecutors told me yesterday they needed you on the stand. I’m here because I arrested the whiney little SOB. He was up in Atlanta with his new girlfriend…”
“He’s out of town with a girlfriend… that soon after his wife disappeared?”
“Yep. Adams was in Atlanta for one of those ‘weekend getaways’ they always advertise in USA Today. It’s something like a dinner and a weekend stay at one of the luxury hotels. So long story short, Adams had a coupon.”
“So he’s cheap?”
“Extremely, but he doesn’t let his lady friends find that out. He had a coupon for the hotel and a coupon for the swanky dinner he took the girlfriend to. I got him the next morning, getting his hair highlighted…”
“His hair highlighted?” She didn’t even try to hide the ridicule.
“I knew you’d love that part, Hailey… him getting his hair done while search crews are still out looking for his wife and baby. Anyway, so they find the body down off Tybee and send an APB out for Adams. Got a tip about the salon there in Buckhead, some fancy-schmancy place. I race over and make the collar.”
“How’d he take it, Fincher?”
“Take what?”
“The arrest. You know, him knowing that somebody, specifically the police, saw through his BS.”
“The arrest.” Fincher let out a laugh. “Cool as a cucumber, Hailey. Slick would be a better word to describe him… tall, good-looking… and slick. He’ll be a hard nut to crack.”
“A hard nut to crack? Fincher, he won’t crack.”