Murder in the Courthouse by Nancy Grace Page A

?” Billings gave her a quizzical look as if to size her up.
    â€œJust picked the right juries. That’s all. Picked the right juries. They convicted, not me. Plus, they were all guilty.” Hailey passed off the compliment.
    â€œPretty impressive.” Billings said it like he meant it.
    By now, Hailey was counting off the steps from the bloody tire to where Alton’s body lay. She kneeled down and looked.
    â€œUh-oh. Glad the ME’s on the way. Come see.” She was looking downward.
    Fincher and Billings joined her and squatted down with her beside the body. Both of them squinted at the body in complete silence. Neither wanted to be the first to admit they had no idea what they were supposed to be looking at . . . what she had spotted.
    After a few more moments of awkward silence, Billings cracked first. “What do you see that we don’t see?”
    But he didn’t sound the least bit irritated, in fact, he sounded pleased she was there. Lots of lawmen would have booted Hailey from the scene at the get-go out of pure turf protection or simple professional jealousy.
    â€œWell, his head is slightly turned to one side. Look at the back of it. Right there. Do you see it?” Again, without touching anything, she pointed her Tiffany pen toward Turner’s head.
    The two men peered into Turner’s hair toward the back of his head. And sure enough, there it was, under his hair. Blood. Not the same blood from the deep red circle underneath him. This blood was a different color, hidden under Turner’s hair, and was clearly from a deep gash head wound.
    â€œSee, here? There’s a slight abrasion on his forehead, not much but the smudge is the important part.”
    â€œThe smudge?” Shrugging off all sense of ego, Billings asked the obvious question.
    â€œYeah, look right here. The black smudge just above his brow. You can make out where he hit his forehead on the tire here, a black tire smudge around it. It’s slight, but an abrasion nonetheless.”
    â€œSo the blood in the back . . .” Billings’s voice trailed off. Hailey finished the thought.
    â€œThe blood in the back of the head has to be from a blow. The most likely scenario is that he got a blow to the head from behind and fell forward, catching the side of the tire with his forehead. That would account for the black smudge.”
    They all stood up. She went on. “In fact, I bet he never even made it as far as opening his car door. Is it locked?”
    Trimble marched around the far side of the car, reaching out his hand for the driver’s door handle.
    â€œStop!” Billings and Hailey shrieked in unison. In a flash, Billings’s hand shot out and caught Trimble by the shoulder, pulling him back before he could make contact with the car.
    â€œDon’t touch anything! We could ruin potential fingerprint evidence.” Billings looked alarmed.
    â€œFingerprint evidence? Oh, right. Fingerprint evidence.” Trimble looked flustered. “I didn’t know we had fingerprint evidence.”
    â€œWe don’t . . . not yet anyway. But we may, and I don’t want the crime techs to report the only prints they find are yours!” Billings gave him a wide smile.
    As if by cue, the crime scene investigators pulled up and began to unload from a van elaborately emblazoned with the Savannah Police Department insignia across its side door underneath a depiction of a large, gold police shield. Out they came and headed straight to where Hailey stood with Billings.
    They all trouped forward . . . first out was the print team to pick up any latent prints the killer, if there was a killer, may have left behind. In no time, they’d have their dark powder covering every possible surface the killer might have touched, even inadvertently. Light switches, door handles, doorbell, windowpanes and sills, car handles . . . the works.
    Fingerprints . . . how Hailey loved them when she was