“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.
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 blinke
d. “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.