Most Wanted

Chapter Forty-two

Christine’s mouth dropped open when she caught sight of Zachary, being escorted to the booth. He had been badly beaten; his forehead was puffy and pinkish, his right eye was swollen half-closed, and fresh scabs covered his right cheek. Dried blood clotted in his hairline at a cut that had been closed with butterfly bandages. The corrections officer uncuffed him, and Christine could see that red scrapes cross-hatched his arms and fresh bruises discolored his elbows. A gauze pad was adhesive-taped to his left forearm.

Christine couldn’t imagine what had happened. Her chest tightened, and she remembered their blood connection. The father of her child had been assaulted, and she couldn’t deny that she cared about him for that reason alone. It disarmed her on the spot; she had been upset and angry at him, having come from Gail Robinbrecht’s, the stench of the murder still in her nostrils. Fresh in her mind were the bloody photos of him, and she had been geared up to confront him for lying. But her anger dissipated when he entered the booth and she saw his wounds close-up.

“Zachary, what happened?” Christine asked, stricken.

“Oh man, it was unreal.” Zachary sat down stiffly, wincing. “We were in lockdown yesterday because of it. They said they were going to call Griff. Did they?”

“I don’t know. What was it? Were you attacked?”

“Kind of, we were out in the yard when it happened.” Zachary shook his head, running a tongue over dry lips. “You don’t know what it’s like, I stand with my back against the wall. I try to stay out of everybody’s way. The white guys hang with the white guys, the black guys hang together, the Muslims and the Mexicans, same thing. I avoid everybody. So I was standing there, and the CO-that’s what they call the guard, for corrections officer-the CO was walking in front of me, keeping an eye on things. It was hot as hell out, and all of a sudden the CO grabs his chest right in front of me and falls to his knees. I knew exactly what was happening.”

“What?” Christine asked in confusion.

“He had too much upper body weight, a big beer gut. He was sweating, and I knew he was having a heart attack.”

“Right in front of you?” Christine grimaced.

“Yes, so I went to him right away and I started compressions on his chest. I knew I could save his life. I yelled out, ‘call 911, it’s a cardiac,’ but the COs thought I jumped him, so they came running, pulled me off him, and put me on the ground. They slammed my head into asphalt and beat the crap out of me.”

“Oh no!”

“I kept yelling ‘he’s having a heart attack, he’s having a heart attack, call an ambulance, call an ambulance,’ and the next thing I know, all hell broke loose. Gangbangers started throwing punches and, like, a SWAT team of COs dragged me away and threw me in ad seg.”

“What’s that?”

“Administrative segregation. Isolation. Solitary. They were even going to write me up until they got the CO to the hospital and they got it straightened out.”

“What’s ‘write you up’ mean?”

“Discipline me!” Zachary’s eyes flared, though the right one stayed half-closed. “The only reason they didn’t is because the EKG and heart enzymes showed he had a heart attack. It took them all day to realize I didn’t jump him, and they backed off on the discipline, but I’m still in ad seg.”

“Did he live?” Christine asked, astonished.

“Yes.” Zachary smiled, exhaling.

“So you saved the man’s life?”

“I guess.” Zachary’s bruised forehead eased momentarily.

“Wow.” Christine felt a warm rush of validation. She’d seen compassion in him, and she’d been right. But at the same time, she’d also seen the bloody scene at Gail’s. She wanted to know why he had lied to her.

“Right?” Zachary snorted. “Unreal. The COs are probably trained in CPR but none of them was as close as I was.”

“So was there a riot, in the yard?”

“No, it didn’t get that far, but they locked us down.”

“Did they take you to the hospital?”

“No, they treated me here. It’s only superficial.”

“This wasn’t in the newspaper or anything, was it?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t see any reporters. I hear the prison brass can keep things out of the papers.”

“Still, you did the right thing. You saved a man’s life.”

“Are you kidding?” Zachary leaned close to the Plexiglas, looking at her like she was crazy. “It’s not the right thing to save a CO, not in here. Gangs run this place, stone cold gangbangers. They would’ve let the CO die. They’re keeping me in ad seg for my own protection. I’m the pretty boy who saves COs. I have a target on my back.” Zachary raked his fingers through his hair, his knuckles red. “I hope they never move me back to gen pop, but ad seg is the worst. The guy in the cell next to me, he screams, rants, and raves all night. The guy on the other side hits his head against the wall. It’s cinder-block.” Zachary’s good eye rounded, a bloodshot blue. “They had to put him in a restraint chair, with shackles and a spit mask, and they moved him to a psychiatric observation cell. He should be in a mental hospital, they all should. They’re psychotic. Insane.”

“My God.” Christine grimaced.

“I sit in the cell twenty-three hours a day. I eat in the cell, all three meals. I talk to nobody, I see nobody. They only let me out for an hour, in a cage by myself. You have to get me out of here.” Zachary shifted forward on his elbows. “Tell Griff about this, what happened in the yard. You’re working with him now? They put you on my visitor’s list.”

“Yes, and I will talk to him about it, for sure.” Christine resolved to buy Griff a cell phone, too.

“Please, do, maybe he can use it to get me out of here or sent down to Chester County Prison. It’s minimum-security, a camp compared to here.”

“Of course.” Christine had to get back on track. She had so many questions, including the one about the lie. “Zachary, I just came from Gail’s apartment, and there’s a few things I need to understand about the murder. Can you tell me exactly what happened that night, in detail?”

“I told you, I came in and found her.” Zachary blinked.

“I need to know in greater detail. What did you do exactly?” Christine wanted to hear his story and see if it explained the blood she’d seen on him in the photos.

“I went in-”

“How did you get in?”

“The door was open. Only the screen was closed. I went in. We had a date, so I figured that was okay, but I didn’t see her in the kitchen. So I went to the bedroom.”

“Were there bloody footprints from the kitchen to the bedroom?”

“Not that I saw at first. I wasn’t looking down. I saw them later, after the cops came, and I’m sure a lot of the footprints are mine, pacing, walking around, going back and forth to let the cops in.”

“So what did you do when you first got there?”

“I saw that there was something wrong in the bedroom, that she was lying there, so I went in, like, I went in to her.”

“Was a light on in the bedroom?”

Zachary frowned in thought, shifting his butterfly bandages. “No, I think I turned it on.”

“So how did you see in the dark?”

“There’s a window on the other side of the bed and some light was coming in from it, moonlight or light from the houses, just enough to see something was wrong. And there was a funny smell. I knew it right away, from the OR. It was blood.”

Christine knew it, too. It rang true. “What time was this?”

“Around ten o’clock.”

“Why so late?”

“That’s when she said she was free.” Zachary shrugged.

“Then what did you do?”

“I went right to her, I grabbed her, I mean, I don’t remember exactly. Blood was everywhere, all over her, the bed, everywhere.” Zachary’s brow furrowed, even with the red scrapes. “I leaned over her, I lifted her up, I called her name, I felt her pulse, her carotid. There was nothing. She was dead.”

“Was she bleeding? Was blood spurting out?”

“No, not in the beginning. Her heart had stopped, so it wasn’t spurting out, and I don’t know why, I pulled out the saw. I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing, it was like I wanted it not to be. I wanted it not to be in her.” Zachary’s lips curled in revulsion. “But when I pulled the saw out, blood came out, gushed out, more of it. I even held her up, like, hugged her, God knows why, I was so shocked.” Zachary grimaced, recoiling. “Blood squirted all over me. It was horrible.”

Christine thought it explained the blood that was on him, a credible alternative scenario to his being the killer. And she realized something else, it also explained why there had been no blood on the top of his loafers. His shoes would have been out of the way or under the bed, from the way he described what had happened. She kept going. “Before we move on, let me ask you, you called it a saw. Did you recognize it as one of the types that you sell?”

“No, not at first. It was too dark, and I was too, like, upset.” Zachary shook his head. “I saw it had a stainless-steel handle. I thought it was a kitchen knife. When I pulled it out, the blood flew all over, I didn’t notice what kind of knife it was. That was the last thing I was looking at. But then when the police came, and they took photos of me and the knife, I realized it was one of ours.”

“Did you say that to the police?”

“No, I was, like, in shock, I was so freaked. I didn’t realize they would arrest me. I mean, I didn’t do it.” Zachary leaned over, his battered face a mask of anxiety. “Please, I didn’t. You have to know that.”

“I believe you,” Christine found herself saying. She thought that if Zachary was telling the truth, then he was terribly unlucky, being wrongly accused not only at the scene but in the prison yard. “Let’s go back to the saw, as you call it. What type of instrument is it?”

“It’s a metacarpal bone saw, for hand surgery or other small bones.”

“So hand surgeons would have that?”

“Yes, all hospitals would in their ORs and ERs. It’s for general surgery of the hand and other small bones.”

“Are hand surgeons your customers?”

“My accounts? Yes, but I don’t call on hand surgeons on their own. They’re in hospitals or affiliated with hospitals. I sell to the purchasing people at hospitals, not the docs.”

Christine had more questions about the saw and the customers he sold it to, but she wanted to get to why he’d lied to her about Gail. “Okay, sorry I interrupted. Then what happened, after you pulled the knife, or the saw, out?”

“I called 911, I told them what I saw, what I found.” Zachary frowned, his scrapes buckling. “I don’t know what I said, you can get the tape. Then the cops came.”

Christine decided it was time to go for it, because she had to know. “Let me ask you, when was the first time you met Gail?”

“I told you. Sunday, in the hospital.”

“Why were you there on a Sunday?” Christine tried to listen critically.

“It was the only time I could catch Dr. Malan-Kopelman. He’s a top doc in thoracic surgery and he’s wall-to-wall during the week. He’s impossible to catch, so I went in. He does rounds starting at 6:00 A.M. that day.”

Christine felt confused. “But when we were talking about hand surgeons, you just said you don’t sell to docs.”

Zachary blinked. “I do, when the docs have clout with purchasing. I don’t know any hand surgeons who have that kind of clout. Malan-Kopelman is major.”

Christine thought it made sense. “Okay, back to Gail. Do you know why she was there on a Sunday morning?”

“Nurses work every day. We were both in early. Her shift started at seven, and she was getting coffee. I was getting coffee because I was finished selling Malan-Kopelman. I got the order, by the way.” Zachary half-smiled, but Gail couldn’t be distracted.

“And your first date with Gail was that same night?”

“Yes, I told you.”

“And you went to her apartment?”

“Yes?”

“And you slept together?”

“Yes.” Zachary frowned, crumpling his bruises. “But why are you asking me all these questions? I told you all this.”

Christine searched his face to see if his expression had changed, but it hadn’t, and she couldn’t tell if he was lying or not. “Zachary, what would you say if I told you that one of Gail’s neighbors saw you at her apartment on Thursday night?”

“What? Who?” Zachary’s lips parted in outrage, and his blue eyes flashed like cold steel. “Are you trying to trap me? Whose side are you on? I thought you were working for me, not against me.”

Christine recoiled, surprised. “I am on your side, I’m asking you-”

“You’re not asking me anything!” Zachary raised his voice. “You’re accusing me. You’re calling me a liar!”

“No, I’m not. I’m asking you-”

“You’re trying to trick me, catch me!”

“Zachary, calm down. I’m on your side-”

“The hell you are! You don’t know what it’s like in here! I could have been killed! I can’t sleep, they scream all night! I feel like I’m going to explode! You have to get me out of here!”

The CO standing guard on the secured side swiveled his head to them. “Jeffcoat, no shouting!” he boomed through the window in the door.

Christine sat back in her chair, trying to regain her composure. His outburst rattled her because it was so sudden.

“I’m sorry,” Zachary said, seeming to recover. He exhaled loudly, pushing his blond bangs from his cut. “I’m at the end of my rope. I’m losing it. I didn’t mean to snap. I have to get out of here. I don’t know what to do.”

“It’s okay,” Christine said, though it was anything but.

“You don’t believe me? Is that why you asked? Why don’t you believe me?”

“I need you to tell me the truth,” Christine said, because it was exactly how she felt.

“I told you the truth,” Zachary shot back, but Christine could see him avert his eyes for a moment.

“If you’re lying, come clean with me now. We can’t help you if we don’t know the facts. Is the neighbor right, that she saw you?” Christine kept her tone soft. If she had learned anything as a reading teacher, it was to create an atmosphere that was safe enough to make, or confess, any mistake. “Tell me the truth, Zachary.”

“Okay.” Zachary swallowed hard, pursing his lips. “I did see Gail Thursday night, but that was the first time, ever.”

“How did that come about?”

“The exact same way I told you. I met Gail in the cafeteria on Thursday, that was the first day I met her. Same time, all else the same. I was trying to get Dr. Malan-Kopelman in the morning, but I missed him in surgery. I didn’t get the order until Sunday, I kept at it.” Zachary rubbed his face, wincing. “I saw Gail again on Sunday, but Sunday wasn’t the first day we hooked up. Thursday night was.”

“Why did you lie?” Christine kept the judgment from her tone.

“Because of Hannah, my girlfriend. I didn’t want her to know that I cheated on her twice.”

“What difference does that make? Cheating once is bad enough, isn’t it?”

“Once could be, like, a slip-up, a mistake. But twice, I don’t know, I knew she’d think it was worse. Not that it matters now.” Zachary paused, his shoulders letting down. “I knew we were in trouble when she went to med school and I didn’t. She got distant. At first I thought it was that our schedules were different, she was working all the time or in the lab, but it wasn’t that.”

“What was it?” Christine didn’t know if he was deflecting or being honest.

“A medical sales rep isn’t the same thing as a doctor, not to women. Especially not to women doctors, like Hannah. I felt like I got demoted in her eyes, and she looked for the upgrade.” Zachary slumped. “Hannah’s gone, so maybe I got what I deserved.”

“I don’t think that,” Christine said, wanting to build on their rapport. “But I’m surprised that given the break-up, she would lend you the money for your retainer. She dropped it off last night, a cashier’s check.”

“I’m not surprised.” Zachary managed a smile. “She really cares about me, or she feels guilty because she dumped me. I’ll pay her back, and she knows that, if I get out of here. I loved Hannah, and if I could’ve had her back, the way she used to feel about me, I would’ve been totally happy.”

“How can I reach her? I’d like to speak with her.”

“Why?” Zachary frowned.

“She was your girlfriend. Who knows you better than your girlfriend?”

“I don’t see the point.” Zachary frowned again. “She’s done enough for me, lending me the money.”

“I’ll know the point after I speak with her. I’m trying to turn over every stone for your case. She might have facts to help your defense.”

“Christine, if you want to help my defense, talk to my boss. His name is Tim Foster and he’s right in town. The Brigham offices are right outside of West Chester on Cardinal Street.”

“Okay, I’ll see him first then.” Christine made a mental note to squeeze him in before she went to Zachary’s apartment. “But how do I reach Hannah? I’d still like to speak with her.”

“No, don’t, please.”

“I have to.” Christine thought a moment. “You were dating her during the time of the other murders, weren’t you?”

“You mean the other two nurses?”

“Yes.” Christine felt bothered he didn’t say their names, which she remembered. “Did you know them?”

“No, not at all. Bethesda General and Newport News are my accounts, but I didn’t know those nurses. I never met them.”

Christine couldn’t tell if he was lying, but his plaintive expression looked so genuine, especially with the bruises. “Did you hook up with nurses at Bethesda General and Newport News Memorial?”

“I don’t know, I’d have to think about it, but not those nurses.” Zachary spread his hands, palms up. “Look, I’m not perfect. I’m a single guy, I hooked up on the road, when I was with Hannah. She was the one who turned away from me. I was just hanging on because I wanted to be with her. Sometimes you don’t get what you need from someone you love. That’s the truth.”

Christine felt the words resonate but tried not to let it show. She knew exactly how Zachary felt, now that Marcus was turning away from her.

“I’m not proud of it, but I’m not going to apologize for it, either. But I didn’t kill Gail or anybody else. I’m not a serial killer. I love nurses, I would never kill nurses.”

“McLeane was killed in January and Allen-Bogen in April.” Christine didn’t have the exact dates since she didn’t get to finish her bulletin board. “You were with Hannah during that time, and at some point, I’ll have to talk with her about where you were those nights and establish an alibi.”

“But she might not meet with you. Her parents want her to distance herself from me, and she’ll be hard to get ahold of. Med school is super busy. You’ll have to catch her between classes.”

“Where does she go to school?”

“Temple. It’s all the way in town. Philly.”

“I’ll drive in.” Christine got her golf pencil and notepad from her pocket. “What’s her number and email?”

“But please, don’t push it if she doesn’t want to meet you.” Zachary rattled off a number and email address, then glanced behind him as the guard approached, signaling the end of their visit. “Christine, just know, I didn’t kill anybody. I would never kill anybody. I’m completely innocent, and I need you to believe in me and get me out of here. It’s worse than before, in ad seg.”

“I understand,” Christine said, believing him, in the end.

“Christine, please, help me. I’m counting on you.”