Most Wanted

Chapter Forty-one

Christine followed Detective Wallace, ducking under the yellow caution tape and walking down the alley beside Gail Robinbrecht’s house. On the way, she snapped photos with her phone, trying to ignore the tension in her stomach. She hadn’t slept well and she’d already barfed up her breakfast, but she’d showered and changed into a fresh denim shirtdress. It had a skinny leather belt, and for the first time, she’d had to move to an extra hole, a fact she noted with mixed emotions. She’d been waiting for her baby bump, but she felt differently now. She was about to see the aftermath of a murder that her baby’s father might have committed.

Detective Wallace stopped at the end of the alley, waiting for her. He was in his forties, with short dark hair and wire-rimmed glasses, and he made a tall, trim, and professional appearance in a black polo shirt with the sewn-in gold emblem of the Chester County Detectives, which he had on with Dockers and loafers. He gestured at Gail Robinbrecht’s wooden stairs, which Christine had only seen from a distance. “Here we go. It’s upstairs.”

“Thanks.”

“Follow me.” Detective Wallace ascended the stairway, she climbed behind him, snapping photos of the backyard, which was also paved with concrete, lined on one side with trash and recycling bins, and bordered by the same wooden privacy fence as Linda Kent’s backyard. It even had the same sign on the back gate, COBBLESTONE PROPERTY MANAGEMENT, and Christine gathered that the duplexes managed by the company would be generally uniform.

Detective Wallace asked, when they reached the top landing, “Before we enter the scene, did Griff tell you the rules?”

“No. Do you know Griff?”

“Everybody knows Griff. He’s an institution.” Detective Wallace smiled as he bent over and unlocked a square metal container with the county seal. “Can’t say I care for his clients, but he does a lot of good for the department. He’s the single biggest donor to the Widow & Orphans Fund. He gives to PAL, too. We’d do anything for him. How do you think you got in here so fast?”

“He has money?” Christine asked, surprised to think of Griff’s sad little bedroom behind his office.

“He must be worth a fortune, but he gives it all away.” Detective Wallace reached inside the metal container. “My wife’s a librarian, and he gives them money, too. He just paid to renovate the reading room for the kids. He doesn’t make a big deal about it. He didn’t want his name on the reading room. They offered, too.”

“Where does his money come from? Not from his family, I didn’t get that impression.”

“No, he’s self-made, in commercial real estate. He owns the building his office is in.”

“You mean he rents it to that other law firm?” Christine had thought it was the other way around.

“Yes. He owns a lot of office buildings in West Chester.” Detective Wallace held a cardboard box of blue booties, tugged two from the box, and offered them to Christine. “Please put these on your shoes.”

“Okay, thanks.” Christine took the booties and slipped them over her espadrilles, thinking about Griff. The man was a paradox, that much was sure. Suddenly her cell phone began ringing in her hand, and she checked the screen. It was Marcus, so she didn’t get it. “Sorry.”

“You need to wear gloves, too.” Detective Wallace returned to the box. “Are you allergic to latex?”

“No.”

“Here.” Detective Wallace handed her two purple gloves, and Christine put her phone in her purse and tugged them on.

“Thanks.”

“Here are the rules. Please don’t touch anything inside.” Detective Wallace spoke as he gloved his hands. “No smoking or gum chewing. You may take as many pictures as you want. You may not make or receive cell-phone calls or texts.” Detective Wallace went back into the metal box and pulled out a clipboard with a pen attached. “Please walk only in the areas I designate. You’re entitled to see any rooms you wish, but you may not contaminate or disrupt anything. The scene hasn’t been released yet, so it’s still an active crime scene.”

“When will it be released?”

“That, I don’t know. It’s not up to me.” Detective Wallace made a note on the clipboard, which appeared to be a log of visitors to the scene.

“Who’s been here already?” Christine peeked at the log, trying to read it. “Did the FBI come, or detectives from Maryland and Virginia?”

“That’s police information.” Detective Wallace put the clipboard back in the metal box, then pulled a key from his pocket, opened the screen door, and unlocked the wooden door. “If you have any questions, either you or Griff can call the district attorney. We’re not meant to answer questions on these walk-throughs.”

“Okay.” Christine took the opportunity to look across the way at Linda Kent’s apartment, directly opposite, and she snapped a few pictures.

“Follow me,” Detective Wallace said, holding the door open, and Christine went inside, struck instantly by an intensely horrible odor. It was unmistakably blood, organic and decomposing, and it turned her stomach. She didn’t know if the smell was more powerful because the apartment had been closed up or if it was because of her pregnancy, but she had trouble keeping her gorge down.

“Watch your step.” Detective Wallace turned on the light, then pointed to the floor, and Christine looked down, appalled to see bloody footprints that led from the door, around the kitchen table, and out of the room.

“Ugh,” she heard herself say, snapping pictures almost immediately because she didn’t want to waste time. Some of the footprints were clearer than others, but she didn’t have the heart or the stomach to parse it now.

Christine took a slew of pictures, looking around the small, pretty kitchen, its walls a sunny shade of buttercup yellow, with white cabinets and heartbreakingly charming details; above the sink was a narrow shelf with an array of photographs of Gail with her family and friends, everybody smiling and with their heads together, taken at a Great Adventure park, in bathing suits at the beach, and around a table in a restaurant.

Magnets blanketed the refrigerator, plenty of SpongeBob SquarePants, but more about nursing; one was shaped like a Band-Aid and read, NURSES MAKE IT BETTER, another showed a picture of a nurse in a cape and read, I’M A NURSE, WHAT’S YOUR SUPERPOWER? and a third one said, RN: CUTE ENOUGH TO STOP YOUR HEART, SKILLED ENOUGH TO RESTART IT. Christine felt her eyes tear up as she took pictures, but she suppressed them.

“Watch your step.” Detective Wallace led her out of the kitchen, and she followed him, though the stench grew stronger and more nauseating.

“Look down. Don’t step on that.” Detective Wallace stopped, pointing down with an index finger, and Christine looked down, taking more pictures of the footprints tracking blood from the kitchen to the bedroom.

Detective Wallace turned on lights, and she noticed that the apartment was laid out the same way as Linda Kent’s was, with the bedroom to the left and the living room to the right. Detective Wallace strode ahead to the bedroom and turned on the light, and Christine gasped.

Blood stained the flowery sheets of a queen-size bed, obliterating the pattern as it spread all over the surface. No longer red, it had dried a dark brown and even black in spots, spattered everywhere: on the brass headboard, on the white wall behind the bed, on the framed reproduction of van Gogh’s sunflowers at the head, even on the floor beside the bed, where there was a pair of clog sandals, left where Gail must have taken them off. They were splattered with blood, too, and the pool of blood around them was disturbed by more footprints, in different directions.

Christine tried not to tear up again or even breathe as she took pictures of the horrifying sight. A human being had been slaughtered here, and the sights and smells revolted her to the depths of her very being. She realized that the bed was the first thing she had seen because the headboard was against the right wall, and the midsection of the bed was in direct view of the doorway, but then she noticed that there was a dark pool of blood at the foot of the bed, a dark red-black that had soaked into a blue twill rug, almost the color that Christine had in her bedroom at home.

She ignored the thought, taking pictures of the spot because even as a nonexpert, she could tell that that must’ve been where Gail had been stabbed. The blood was concentrated on that spot, and it had even spurted on the opposite wall, obscenely marking the mirror and pine dresser with teardrops of blood. Christine remembered that Zachary had told her how the blood would spurt out of a stab wound to the left ventricle, pulsing with each heartbeat, but she never would have believed it if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes.

She tried to stay in control of her emotions, trying to reconstruct the murder, whoever had committed it: from what she was seeing, it looked as if the killer must have confronted Gail at the foot of the bed, maybe surprised her by stabbing her with the medical saw. Perhaps he had it hidden in his back pocket or elsewhere. Her blood would have gushed all over him, as well as the mirror and the dresser, then he would have carried her to the bed, where he bound her at the wrists and ankles, either as she lay dying or even after she was dead.

Christine kept taking pictures, her brain filled with gruesome scenarios. She knew she would learn more after the autopsy reports were turned over, but she didn’t need to be a coroner to know that the way she imagined the crime matched the blood that she had seen on the photographs of Zachary last night. Except for one detail: the fact that there was no blood on the uppers of his loafers. He should have had blood on his shoes if he had killed Gail in the way Christine had imagined. Unless it was just random that no blood had spattered there.

Detective Wallace kept an eye on her as she took more pictures, walking gingerly around the bedroom, taking in the girly perfume bottles, ponytail holders, pink-striped makeup case, and other bits and pieces of Gail Robinbrecht’s tragically short life. Detective Wallace escorted her to Gail’s bathroom, and Christine followed him, taking pictures of the bathroom, then the living room, and she knew that there was no substitute for seeing this scene with her very own eyes, even if her photos were like Griff’s pictures, which wouldn’t be ready until later today.

All of the darkest emotions from last night came rushing back at her, and she felt the deepest despair she had ever known at the notion that one human being could do this to another, much less that it was Zachary Jeffcoat who had done it to Gail Robinbrecht. She wanted to punish whoever had committed this murder, even if it was Zachary, a feeling she had never had before this moment.

Christine finished going through the apartment, taking pictures as she breathed in the awful odor, her head filled with gruesome images and her heart full of anger, and by the time Detective Wallace led her finally outside, she stood on the landing of the wooden stairs, breathing in deep lungfuls of fresh air before she began to take off her gloves and booties.

Her head was swimming with questions, all of them for Zachary, and she couldn’t wait to get to the prison.