“On TV, the prisoner, the serial killer?” Christine glanced over her shoulder, to check if anyone was within earshot, but nobody was around. The scene was calm and idyllic, in contrast with the tumult inside her. Nutmeg Hill Elementary was in a rural pocket of Glastonbury, Connecticut, and though it was a Title I school, meaning it had an underprivileged segment, the building was relatively new, two stories of yellow limestone with modern windows, surrounded by acres of open pasture and cornfields.
“No, I didn’t see him.” Marcus pulled his car keys from his pants pocket. “You drove in with Lauren, right? My car is right over here. We can load the presents into my car.”
“Okay, but Marcus, the serial killer—” Christine couldn’t finish her sentence, suddenly feeling that to say it aloud would make it real, and Marcus was barely listening anyway, scrolling through his email. They passed the playground with its new red, yellow, and cobalt plastic chutes and weather-treated timber, set on a square of perfect mulch. In front was an asphalt play area with bright yellow lines for the walking track and foursquare games.
“That was a nice party,” Marcus said idly, still checking his email.
“Right, yes, they really went over the top,” Christine heard herself saying. She couldn’t stop thinking about their donor and the serial killer. She couldn’t believe that something could go so horribly awry. Her heart fluttered like a panicked bird in her chest. She telescoped away from the playground with its newly planted trees, their slender trunks protected by white plastic sleeves. She wished she had a plastic sleeve of her own, one that would encircle her body, protecting her and the baby from harm, from threat, from everything, forever and ever.
“Babe, are you okay?” Marcus asked, pocketing his phone. They crossed to the visitor parking lot and reached his black Audi sedan.
“I’m fine,” Christine forced herself to answer.
“But your face is red.” Marcus opened the car door for her. “Is it the heat? Are you gonna faint?”
“No, I’m okay.”
“Get in, and I’ll turn on the air-conditioning.” Marcus gestured at the passenger seat.
“Okay, great.” Christine let him guide her into the seat, then she put her quilted purse on her lap.
“Okay, hold on.” Marcus closed her door, hustled around the front of the car, climbed in the driver’s side, and started the engine, which blasted the air conditioner. He aimed the vents at her, which blew initially hot, but cooled surprisingly fast. “Better?”
“Yes, thanks.” Christine felt the chilly blast as a relief on her cheeks, which were burning. It had to be her blood pressure. She felt as if she were bursting, as if the news had an explosive force of its own.
“What’s up? Is it the heat?”
“No.” Christine had to tell him. She couldn’t keep it to herself. “Marcus, the serial killer on that TV report looked like our donor. He looks like Donor 3319.”
“What?” Marcus blinked.
“Did you see him? I swear, I think I recognized him.”
“What are you talking about?” Marcus frowned in confusion, but Christine was already reaching for her phone, tucked in the side pocket of her purse.
“He looks like our donor. Let me check that video—”
“Of course he’s not our donor.” Marcus snorted, then faced front, shrugging it off.
“But he looked a lot like him.”
“Don’t be silly.” Marcus put the car in reverse, still shaking his head.
“I know what I saw. Did you see the video?”
“No, and what’s up with Al? What kind of guy follows serial killers?” Marcus backed out of the space, then drove toward the side entrance of the school, where they had left the gifts and leftover cake, because teachers never wasted anything.
“Hold on.” Christine tried to log onto the Internet, but couldn’t. Cell reception was spotty around the school, which drove her crazy.
“What are you doing?” Marcus pulled up at the side entrance and parked.
“Going on CNN. They probably have the video on their website.”
“You’re not serious, are you?” Marcus looked at Christine like she was crazy or hormonal, which was an expression she’d seen on him in the past, not completely unjustified.
“I don’t know, it was just weird.”
“What was weird?” Marcus let the car idle, readjusting the lattice vent so that it blew on Christine.
“I just took a look at the TV, and it struck me all of a sudden—that’s him. It was like I recognized him.”
“You think that guy was our donor?” Marcus’s lips parted in puzzlement. “He’s just a guy on a news story.”
“But he was blond and tall, and he had those eyes, his blue eyes—”
“A lot of guys look like that. My dad does. I do.” Marcus opened the car door, and the hot air blew in. “Stay here. Try to relax. I’ll load the trunk and drive you home. I don’t want you driving like this. We’ll get your car later.”
“I can drive, I’m fine.”
“No, sit tight.” Marcus got out and shut the car door, and Christine returned her attention to her iPhone. She tried again to get online but there was no service. She knew she’d have better luck near the office, so she opened the door and got out of the car. She walked down the sidewalk until she saw a bar pop onto the top of her iPhone screen, then logged onto the Internet. She typed CNN into the search function and tapped through to the news of the day until she got to the third story, with the heading SUSPECTED SERIAL KILLER APPREHENDED.
“Christine, I thought you had left!” Pam emerged from the front doors with a surprised smile, carrying three tote bags.
“Marcus is just packing up. Thanks so much again.” Christine tried to put on a happy face, but she was dying to look at the CNN video. She slipped the phone into her pocket as Marcus returned to the car with the bags and started loading the trunk, which caught Pam’s attention.
“Oh, I could’ve given him a hand,” Pam said, waving to Marcus, who shut the trunk.
“Thanks. He’s got it, and you’re carrying enough.”
“When are we ever not carrying enough? Did you see my new bag, by the way? My daughter gave it to me.” Pam held out her largest tote bag, a floral Vera Bradley pattern, which was the real version of Christine’s knockoff purse.
“Gorgeous. Teacher porn.”
“Hey ladies!” Marcus called out, striding toward them, his hand in his pocket. “Pam, you sure know how to throw a party, thanks again.”
“Happy to do it.”
“Honey?” Marcus took Christine’s arm and they walked as a threesome toward his car, which was in the same direction as the parking lot. They said good-bye to Pam again, and Marcus opened the door for Christine, then went to the driver’s side of the car and got inside. “Why did you get out of the car?” he asked, putting the car in gear.
“To see the video.”
“You’re being silly.” Marcus pulled out of the drive and headed for the exit.
“Maybe, probably. Let’s just head home. In three blocks I’ll be able to get better reception, on Glastonbury Road.”
“Silly.” Marcus reached on the console for the wraparound Maui Jims that he used for golf, and slipped them on his face. “Honey, he’s not our donor.”
“He could be. I mean, it’s possible.”
“No, it’s not possible. It’s out of the question. I can’t even believe you’re serious. They screen these donors.”
“I’m sure they do some, but how much? And what?” Christine thought about it. She had never asked anyone the question about what kind of screening they did for donors. She remembered reading some boilerplate on the site and wished she had paid more attention.
“These are reputable banks. We were referred to them by Dr. Davidow. It’s not like some fly-by-night operation.”
“But still, it’s not impossible. Someone committing a murder, or really any kind of crime, how do you screen for that?”
�
��Our donor must be a medical student by now. That guy they arrested wasn’t a medical student.”
“Maybe he was, we didn’t hear the story.” Christine thought that sounded improbable, even to herself, which made her feel a little better. They drove down the winding road toward the stone bridge. She checked her phone but there was still no reception. They’d be at Glastonbury Road in minutes. Sunlight dappled the asphalt from tall oaks lining the street, and the cornfield was a solid block of leafy green, fairly high for mid-June.
“Anyway, you only have one day left of school. Amazing, huh?”
“Yes, but I want to get this video up. Then I want you to look at it and see if I’m crazy.”
“You’re crazy.” Marcus chuckled, his eyes hidden behind his sunglasses. He steered the car onto Shire Road, and Christine logged onto Safari, then navigated to the CNN site, tapping the heading of the news story on her iPhone screen, then enlarged it with her fingers to read it better.
“It says, ‘Zachary Jeffcoat, a Pennsylvania man, was arrested today—’”
“See, already. It’s not our guy. Our guy’s from Nevada.”
“Right, good, but let me read the story.” Christine tried to focus in the jostling car. “‘… was arrested today for the murder of Gail Robinbrecht, a thirty-one-year-old nurse from West Chester, PA. The murder is the third of three murders of nurses in Newport News, Virginia, and Bethesda, Maryland. Nurse Lynn McLeane, a pediatric nurse, was stabbed to death on January 12, and Susan Allen-Bogen, an operating-room nurse, was also stabbed to death using the same MO, on April 13—’”
Marcus clucked. “The guy kills nurses? What’s the matter with people? Nurses are great.”
“Right, but it’s weird that Donor 3319 was a medical student and the victims were nurses.”
“The guy they arrested isn’t a medical student.”
“Right, I know.” Christine was confusing herself. Her face still burned, despite the air-conditioning. She returned her attention to the iPhone screen. “It says, ‘The murders gained national attention as the Nurse Murders.’”
“Does it say the killer is a medical student?”
“No, it doesn’t.” Christine skimmed the last two lines of the story. “‘The police commissioner is gratified that the suspect is in custody and thanks federal and state law enforcement for their hard work.’ Hmmm. It doesn’t say any more about him, like where he went to school. Even his age.”
“There. It’s not him. If he was a medical student, it would say so. That’s a relevant detail.”
“True,” Christine said, but her heart was still racing. She scrolled down to the end of the story and tapped a camera icon for the video. A freeze-frame showing the group of police officers came onto the screen, and she hit PLAY. The video showed the police walking and behind them, a thatch of blond hair bobbing up and down. She couldn’t see the prisoner’s face because the police blocked the view, and sunlight coming through the car window made it hard to see her screen. She hit PAUSE. “Can we pull over so I can see this?”
“Do we have to? We’ll be home in twenty minutes.” Marcus kept driving, his expression opaque behind the sport sunglasses.
“I don’t want to wait. Just pull over, it’ll take a minute. We can watch it together.”
“Fine.” Marcus peeled off the road onto a gravel service road that traveled uphill into the woods, ending in a tall mound of discarded logs and tree limbs, then he put the car in PARK and shifted over toward her in the seat. “Let me see what you’re talking about.”
“Thanks.” Christine hit PLAY, and they both watched the video, which showed the police walking below the frame and then in the next instant, the tall blond prisoner walking with them, his hands behind his back.
“It doesn’t look like him. Our guy’s taller.”
Christine pressed STOP. “You can’t tell how tall he is from this.”
“Yes, you can. Look at him in relation to the cops.”
“But you don’t know how tall the cops are.”
“The cops look like they’re just under six feet, which makes sense. They’re not staties. Staties tend to be taller. Besides, you know I have eagle eyes.”
Christine knew that was true. A lifetime of playing golf had made Marcus almost preternaturally skilled at guessing distances, and he had an engineer’s sense of spatial relationships, which she lacked completely.
“Besides, he looks older than our donor. Our guy should be about twenty-five, I think. That guy looks over thirty.”
“I can’t tell how old the guy is from this picture. Anyway, a twenty-five-year-old doesn’t look a lot different from a thirty-year-old.” Christine squinted at the video image, which was still hard to see in the car.
“Yes they do. Our guy is young. A kid, a med student. This prisoner is not young.”
“But we don’t know when our donor entered med school. We only know that he was accepted.” Christine gestured at the video. “Think about it. He’s tired, not old. He’s been on the run from the police.”
“It doesn’t say that.”
“I’m assuming.” Christine hit PLAY, and the video continued, the cops coming forward and the prisoner coming into view, from the waist up. He had on a rumpled navy Windbreaker and a white T-shirt underneath, but she couldn’t see his face because his head was tilted down. His blond hair caught the sunlight at the crown, showing its darker caramel tones. Christine pressed PAUSE. “That looks like our donor’s hair color, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t know, I don’t remember.”
“I do.” Christine scrutinized the man’s hair, thinking that she remembered his hair color, only because she always spent time noticing variations of blonde, so she could tell her colorist what she wanted. She’d been highlighting her hair for a long time, but she was always looking in magazines to get new color ideas, so she had the blond vocabulary. “His hair color was tawny. Not ashy like you, but a warm golden, like caramel, not cool Scandinavian—”
Marcus rolled his eyes. “Are you trying to make yourself crazy?”
“Let’s keep watching.” Christine hit PLAY and watched the video as a fine spray of the prisoner’s bangs blew off his face. She remembered that she had noted the fineness of their donor’s hair in the photo of him. She remembered she had even talked about it with Lauren.
Best. Hair. Ever, Lauren had said, eyeing the photo in Christine’s phone. Do they charge extra?
It said in the profile that his hair is fine.
Oh, it’s fine, all right. He’s fine, too. Meow mix.
Please don’t lust after my donor.
Christine pressed the memory from her mind, and she and Marcus watched in silence as the video played. In the next few frames, the prisoner was led to the police cruiser and put in the backseat. Marcus stiffened beside her, which told her that he wasn’t completely dismissing her worries, and she held her breath, waiting for the telltale shot of the prisoner looking up, just before he was closed inside the squad car.
“Here!” Christine blurted out, experiencing the same flash of recognition that she had in the teachers’ lounge. She hit PAUSE, freezing the prisoner, who was looking up. His eyes were round and blue. He had that same look about him, an aspect that regarded the world with curiosity and intelligence. She had thought the same thing when she first saw his photo online. She was a visual learner, she knew that about herself. This image, it was fixed in her brain. “I swear, that’s—”
“Not him,” Marcus interrupted, his tone dead certain. “That’s not him.”
“What makes you say that? I think I recognize him. I think it is him. It looks like him.”
“No, it doesn’t.” Marcus frowned.
“How is it different?” Christine looked over, her heart in her throat, begging him to say words that would convince her. He had to convince her. She couldn’t be right. She had to be wrong.
“Our guy had like a wider face, here, across his cheekbones.” Marcus drew a line under his eyes, with his fingers. �
�I remember thinking, pick him. My dad has broad cheekbones like that and I have my dad’s cheekbones, the Nilsson cheekbones. Remember when you first met me, you said something about my cheekbones? I remember thinking, what is it with women and cheekbones?”
“What’s your point?”
“I’m saying, look at the cheekbones of this guy in the video. They’re not as broad as my dad’s. My dad’s a heavy-boned Swede, and I have the same cheekbones. That’s what I liked about our donor, one of the things. There was Swedish in his background, the bio said it. You can check it.” Marcus waved airily at the video. “He’s not our guy.”
“But what about the eyes?” Christine pointed, unconvinced. “They’re big and round, like our donor’s.”
“A lot of people have big, round eyes. I do.”
“But don’t they look like the ones in the donor photo to you?”
“No, not at all.” Marcus tapped her phone screen with his index finger, and the video ended, showing the prisoner shut inside the police cruiser. “Now can we go home?”
“Hold on a second.” Christine tapped her phone, navigated out of Safari, and found her photos, then started swiping backwards through the pictures of her cat, dog, and garden.
“What now? What are you doing?”
“Finding his picture.”
“You have a picture of our donor in your phone?” Marcus peered over his sunglasses in surprise. “Why?”
Christine kept swiping. “I wanted to show Lauren.”
“You could have showed her online. They sent it to us by email.”
“Maybe, but I had it in my phone. I saved it.” Christine felt vaguely busted. “I save pictures of everything, you know that. Everybody does.”
“Okay, whatever.”
“Wait. Look.” Christine swiped back through the photos of the nurses and techs at Families First, girl selfies with everybody hugging or making duck faces, and then she finally reached the picture of their donor as a little boy. She tried to look at it with new eyes, but she couldn’t fight the feeling that he looked like the man in the video.
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