Most Wanted

Chapter Twenty-one

The two women walked down the street from Griff’s office, with Christine mulling over the meeting, preoccupied. The sun still burned in the sky, and the air still felt humid. The only shade came from tall trees that lined the sidewalks, which were of red brick. They passed an antique store with a window display of painted cast-iron doorstops and a barber shop with an old-school barber pole mounted on its brick façade. The town seemed busier, with more traffic clogging the narrow streets, couples strolling hand-in-hand to restaurants, and young people bopping around, toting backpacks, icy Dunkin’ Donuts drinks, and smartphones. Christine spotted people wearing white ribbons pinned to their clothes, and more than one shop window had a sign that read GAIL, YOU WILL BE MISSED!

“Mission accomplished,” Christine said, after a moment. “We got Zachary a lawyer.”

“Yes, and I like Griff.”

“You mean Gruff?”

Lauren laughed. They passed a hair salon with a sign that read STUDENT CUTS ONLY TWELVE DOLLARS, since West Chester was home to West Chester University. “He knows what he’s talking about, even if he reminds me of those Muppets in the balcony.”

“Staler and Waldorf?” Lauren laughed. “Exactly. He’s Waldorf.”

“Right.” Christine smiled, but it faded. “So we only have one meeting left with Zachary. I have to ask him tomorrow morning.”

“You can do it. And you need to since you’re too nice to convince anybody you’re a reporter. I bet Waldorf is Googling you right now.”

“He doesn’t have the Internet, remember.” They turned the corner, passing a local bank, and spotted her car down the street.

“You must want to get off your feet. Let’s go to the hotel and check in.”

“Right.” Christine got her car keys from her purse and chirped her car unlocked as they approached since it was on their side of the street. “Did you hear what Griff said, that Zachary hasn’t been linked to the other murders? It was the same thing Zachary said.”

“What’s your point? That he’s not a serial killer?”

“I guess,” Christine answered, but she didn’t know what her point was, truly. Her emotions were bound into a knot that she was too tired to unravel.

“If you kill even one person, that’s too many.”

“I agree.” Christine went around the back fender of her car and waited for traffic to pass until she went to her door. “But what if he’s innocent? What if it’s not him? He seems too emotional to be a sociopath, doesn’t he?”

“Then we just got him a good lawyer,” Lauren answered before she got inside the car.

“I’m worried.” Christine turned on the ignition and went through her air-conditioning routine.

“You’ll feel better after you shower and rest, we both will.” Lauren buckled on her seat belt. “Oooh, I want to use towels I don’t have to wash, then put on a bathrobe that’s nicer than mine.”

Christine only half-listened, pulling into traffic and stopping at the red light, on the road that led to the highway back to Collegeville.

“I wonder if our hotel has room service. I want to lie in bed and have people bring me food. It’s like a hospital for moms.”

Christine’s thoughts churned, and she felt like she needed a sounding board. “The problem is that there are so many possibilities, and I can’t figure out which ones are true.”

“Like what?” Lauren looked over.

“Let’s start with whether Zachary is Donor 3319. We both think he might be, but that’s based on our intuition and some facts.”

“Not a lot of facts.”

“Right.” Christine watched the traffic light burn red. “Tomorrow we find out the answer, but there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to know.”

“Because you’re afraid it’s him?”

“Yes.” Christine had a second thought. “But the only reason I’m afraid it’s him is because he’s in jail, charged with murder, a serial killer. If he’s innocent, I’d like it if he was our donor. He’s a nice guy. He’s smart, personable, and he’s so good-looking.”

“I get that. I understand.”

“So I’m not crazy?” Christine hit the gas when the traffic light changed, going forward.

“Not at all. This is a hard situation, and I’m proud of you. You’re doing a great job, considering all you’ve had for sustenance is saturated fats.”

“Ha.” Christine glanced over at a street sign, which read WARWICK STREET. “Warwick Street? How do I know that name?”

“I don’t know.”

“I read it somewhere.” Christine braked slowly, causing the car behind her to start honking. “I remember, in the newspaper article online. Warwick is the street that Gail Robinbrecht lived on. Where she was murdered.”

“That’s weird.” Lauren grimaced.

“Not really. It’s a small town. We’ve seen it ourselves, you can walk places here.” Christine stopped the car, her eyes on the WARWICK STREET sign, letting traffic flow around her. “Can you get her address for me, on the phone?”

“Does this mean we’re not going to the hotel?”

“Not yet.” Christine got a second wind as she turned onto Warwick. “Aren’t you curious?”

“As between a murder scene or room service? No.” Lauren chuckled, but she was already scrolling though her smartphone. “Here we go. Robinbrecht’s house number is 305.”

“Thanks.” Christine drove down Warwick Street, slightly downhill, and they entered a residential section of West Chester. Well-maintained colonial-vintage row houses with Victorian porches lined block after block, each home with brick façades and paneled shutters painted in tasteful Williamsburg hues of light blue, grayish browns, or daffodil yellow. Most of the front doors sported decorative wreaths, and colorful glazed pots of impatiens and petunias sat atop the front steps. The houses had no front yards because they were built directly on the sidewalk, as they would have been in the 1700s and 1800s, reminding Christine of the older sections of Mystic and Marblehead.

“This is pretty.”

Christine looked ahead to the next block, where there seemed an unusual amount of traffic slowing in front of one of the houses. “I think that’s 305, her house.”

“Oh man. People are stopping by to pay their respects.”

“Right.” Christine was getting the idea that the murder of Gail Robinbrecht might have disappeared from national headlines, but the story was heartbreakingly alive in West Chester.

“Look, a memorial.” Lauren pointed to the right, and as Christine drove closer, she spotted in the middle of the block a lovely three-story house with moss-green shutters. People stood in front, gathering around a sad grouping of flowers, candles, stuffed animals, and homemade signs. Cars lined the block, and some double-parked in front of number 305, with their blinkers on.

“That’s sad.” Lauren shook her head. “I hate to think that people can be that evil.”

“I know.” Christine was wondering if Zachary could be that evil and if evil was inherited. She drove slowly as she approached the house, then navigated around the double-parked cars, glancing over at the signs. WE WILL MISS YOU, GAIL, read one handwritten placard with a bunch of signatures, and another sign had a picture of a lovely young woman, presumably Gail, but Christine couldn’t see much detail from her side of the car.

“You sure you want to do this?” Lauren asked, looking over. “This reminds me of Sabrina, remember?”

“Yes,” Christine said, her throat tight. Sabrina Bryfogle had been one of the most beloved teachers in the fourth grade, passing last year from breast cancer. The faculty had been stricken to lose her, and they’d called in grief counselors for the students. Sabrina’s memorial tree grew by the soccer field, and Christine would never forget the outpouring of emotion at the memorial service.

“I hate cancer.”

“I hate cancer, too.”

“But I hate murder more.”

“I do, too. I hate that anybody has to die, ever.” Christine was thinking of her father. She turned the corner, looking for a parking space that she wasn’t sure she wanted to find. “Maybe we should leave. I don’t want to bum you out.”

“No, that’s okay,” Lauren said, rallying. “We’re here, and I see a space at the end of the block. Go park, it’s okay.”

“Okay, thanks. I don’t know what I’m expecting to find, I’m just curious.” Christine drove forward to the space, which was at the corner, where she parked and cut the ignition. They got out of the car, and Christine crossed behind it to the sidewalk, where she fell into step with Lauren. They passed a woman with over-processed bright red hair sweeping the sidewalk, a cigarette clamped between her teeth.

“Hello,” Christine said politely.

The woman straightened up with a deep frown. Her eyes were a bloodshot blue, and her nose was vaguely reddish, like a drinker. She was dressed in a vintage Ramones T-shirt, cutoff shorts, and pink flip-flops, and blurry tattoos blanketed her arms. “Going to see Gail’s?”

“Yes.”

“You from Connecticut?”

“Yes,” Christine answered, surprised. “How do you know?”

“The license plate.” The woman motioned toward the car with her broom. “I’ve been seeing all kind of plates, you’re not even the farthest. People came down from Québec yesterday. They don’t even know her. People, they’re ghoulish. It’s sick.”

“Not really,” Christine said, defensive. “They’re just trying to be nice, I think. Don’t you?”

“Hmph.” The woman turned her back, returning to sweeping, while she talked to herself. “What’s nice about it? Come see where the lady was killed by the Nurse Murderer? Everybody in town’s talking about it. Everybody’s saying the same thing, ‘I just saw her, she was just here.’ Everybody locking their doors now. We never used to have to lock our doors around here. Never!”

Christine and Lauren exchanged glances, but neither of them said anything, and they resumed walking again. They came to a break in the row houses, and a skinny asphalt street that ran behind the row houses, each of which seemed to have a backyard. Blue recycling bins and numbered trash cans lined the spiky privacy fences along the back wall of the yards. Most were also fenced on the sides by more tall wood, white picket, or old-school iron, separating one neighbor from the next, and some yards contained pretty gardens around bistro tables, but others were paved over, converted to a driveway.

The women kept walking, and Christine felt an increasing sadness the closer they got to the house, and by the time they turned the corner and walked partway up the block, she regretted having come. A small group of forlorn people clustered around the memorial, their heads bent over a pastel pile of sympathy cards, scented and votive candles, and more than one SpongeBob SquarePants; Gail Robinbrecht must have been a fan, which touched Christine, showing that the nurse had had a sense of fun. Photographs of Gail covered the signs; candids showing her in navy scrubs at the hospital, hiking with three other women on a hillside covered with wildflowers, or cuddling a chubby calico near a bookshelf full of books.

Christine felt an ache in her heart. She prayed to God that Zachary hadn’t been responsible for the brutal death of this lovely woman, then caught herself, realizing that Zachary might not have been her donor at all. Either way, she felt terrible if Zachary had killed Gail, or that anybody had killed her. She heard snatches of the sorrowful talk around them: “… how could this happen…” “… she was so dedicated…” “… I’ll never forget how she helped my son when he had his tonsils out…” “… she was the best, just the best…”

Suddenly a woman started to cry, holding a Kleenex to her blotchy face as she was comforted by another woman. They must have been coworkers of Gail Robinbrecht’s because they both had on blue scrubs and each wore a laminated employee ID from Chesterbrook Hospital on a green lanyard.

Christine wasn’t surprised to see Lauren’s eyes glistening, and she touched her best friend’s arm. “Let’s go,” she said softly.

“Right.” Lauren fell into step with Christine, and they walked stiffly away.

“Sorry I dragged you here.”

“It’s okay. It puts things into perspective, doesn’t it?”

“How so?” Christine asked quietly as they turned the corner and headed toward the car.

“That life is short, and sweet. You have to live it in a way that makes you proud.” Lauren wiped her eye, blinking back her tears. “That’s it, that’s all I got.”

“That’s pretty good,” Christine said, patting her on the back, but ahead they both spotted the tattooed woman, still muttering to herself as she swept. She was either drunk or crazy, so they gave her a wide berth, but just as they were passing, the woman stopped sweeping, turned, and straightened up, glaring at them.

“Well, girls? Did you see what you wanted to see? Did you get your jollies?”

“No, really, please,” Christine started to say, raising her hand, but the woman’s eyes flared with anger.

“Did you shed a few tears, did you have a good cry? Boo-hoo! Boo-hoo!”

Lauren fended her off with a hand. “Look, that’s uncalled for-”

“Is it?” the woman demanded, stabbing her broom into the sidewalk. “How the hell would you know? You don’t know her! You hear she was a nurse, you think she was a saint! But I’m telling you, that woman was no saint! She was a slut!”

“Please, we have to go,” Christine said, shaken. She didn’t want to hear the woman speak ill, much less slut-shame, and Lauren hustled away to the car.

“She lived back there!” The woman shook the broomstick toward the backyards. “You see that second floor, the duplex with the yellow door, where the stairs go? That’s where she lived!”

Christine looked back toward the yellow door, only because she hadn’t realized that Gail Robinbrecht had lived in a duplex. None of the newspaper articles had said that, and Christine spotted the bright yellow door, which had a stairwell that zigzagged down the back of the row house, standing out against the brick because it was of unpainted lumber.

“That’s right! Take a good look!” the woman shouted at her. “I live right across from her door. My kitchen’s across from hers. You know how many different men I saw come up and down the stairs late at night? Plenty!”

Christine’s eyes flared, but she couldn’t stop listening. She scanned the back walls of the other houses, and she could see that wooden stairwells had been added to many of them, so they all must have been duplexes with the entrances around the back.

“One man after the other, all different, they were booty calls! That’s what they’re called! Booty calls!” The woman shook her head, her lips making a bitter line. “What did she expect was gonna happen? You gonna bring home strange men? You’re gonna let them in? That’s Gail the saint!”

Christine listened, appalled, but she started to think about the implications for Zachary. He could’ve been one of several men that Gail hooked up with, maybe even one of many. Maybe he had been telling the truth, that he’d found her dead already.

“The neighbors on the front of the street, they don’t see what I see! You know what I think? She was a slut and a hypocrite! You play with fire? Sooner or later you’re gonna get burned! That’s what I-”

“Miss,” Christine interrupted, “what’s your name?”

“Linda Kent. Mrs. Kent! I’m a widow!”

“My name is Christine Nilsson, and I’m wondering if you saw anything suspicious or unusual on the night she was murdered. Did you see any man, or men, on her back steps?”

“See something, say something! See something, say something! I already called the police! They said they’d call me back and get my statement.” The woman brandished the broom, her eyes wild. “Now get lost! Get back to Connecticut!!”

Christine turned away, then hustled for the car.

The woman could have been drunk, or crazy.

Or she could’ve been correct.