“Well? Do you think it’s him?”
Christine couldn’t answer, her emotions catching up with her all at once. Tears sprang to her eyes. She stopped in her tracks, stricken. She wanted to scream. It was too much. It couldn’t be. She covered her face with her hands, even holding the car keys.
“Oh honey.” Lauren hugged her gently.
“I think it’s him,” Christine heard herself saying, her heart speaking even as it was breaking. “I think he’s our donor. I think he’s my baby’s father.”
“You don’t know that for sure.” Lauren soothed her, then let her go. “You don’t.”
“Oh my God.” Christine was trying not to cry. She had to keep it together. She lowered her hand with the car keys. “How did this happen? This can’t be happening.”
“It might not be. We don’t know for sure until you ask him.” Lauren held Christine by the shoulders, bracing her and looking directly into her eyes. “Remember that. We don’t know for sure.”
“Right. We don’t know for sure.” Christine repeated the words, almost involuntarily, trying to convince herself. Maybe if they could say it enough, over and over, they could make it true.
“Lots of people look like other people. Just last week, I got an email from Britney Keen, you know her, and she thought she saw me in the movies, and I wasn’t at the movies.”
“Right, people look alike sometimes.” Christine sighed heavily, and Lauren let her shoulders go.
“Let’s get out of here.”
“Okay, yes, right.” Christine wiped her face and started walking, with Lauren falling into step beside her.
“Why do you think he’s your donor? Because he was accepted into med school?”
“Yes, and that he’s a chem major, he’s logical, he looks like him, he has religious parents…” Christine let her list trail off, trying to collect her thoughts.
“Don’t get carried away, though. None of that is definitive.”
“I know, but there’s more. He said that he did a lot of things to earn money during med school, and in the profile it said he donated it for the money, so he could pay for med school.”
“Most students need money during school.”
“I know, but it’s the sense I had, being in the same room with him—”
“You weren’t in the same room with him.” Lauren’s eyes looked worried, as they walked along.
“I kind of was, I mean, we were. Anyway he felt like the father.”
“Oh boy. Now you’re talking crazy.” Lauren snorted, walking beside her, as they traveled downhill.
“I know. It’s just a sense. I can’t deny it. It’s a hunch. A sensation, intuition.” Christine knew it was crazy, but she felt it inside. She hadn’t realized it until this very moment, but she had to admit it to herself. They were almost at the visitors’ lot, and she spotted her car, baking in the sun.
“It was voodoo? Pregnancy voodoo?”
“Whatever, I felt connected to him. I felt like he was the father.” Christine aimed the key fob at her car, miserably.
“Biological father.”
“Right.” Christine meant biological, it was a shorthand. “What do you think? Do you think he’s Donor 3319?”
“Honestly?” Lauren sighed, her heavy chest rising and falling slowly. “I hate to add fuel to the fire, but I thought he might be. The facts fit the online profile.”
“Oh no.” Christine breathed in deeply, suppressing her tears. She went to the driver’s side of the car, opened the door and climbed inside, starting the ignition to turn on the air-conditioning to MAX. The temperature on the dashboard read ninety-six degrees.
Lauren got in the car. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll figure this out.”
“Right.” Christine grabbed a half bottle of water from the console and took a sip, but it was hot. “I’m sorry I said we’d go see him tomorrow. We didn’t plan on that. I figured if we go in the morning, we’ll be fine. Is that okay?”
“Sure.” Lauren paused. “You know what’s bugging me? I didn’t understand why he told us about his sister.”
“Because I asked him, I asked about his childhood.”
“No you didn’t, not really. You asked him about himself, and he told you a sad story from his childhood. He just offered it.”
“I guess he felt comfortable with us.” Christine finally began to cool down, feeling like herself again. “To leave it out would be an omission, wouldn’t it?”
“Not necessarily. I just want you to be objective about him.” Lauren met her eye, her lips in a grave line. “Do you believe him, that he’s innocent?”
Christine sighed, ragged. “I don’t trust anything I’m feeling right now. I’m not objective.”
“I get that.”
“But you know what, I think he might be innocent. I recognize that he could be guilty, but I just didn’t feel like I was in the presence of someone who could kill someone, much less be a serial killer.” Christine searched her best friend’s troubled expression. “Did you think he’s innocent?”
“He could be, yes. But what do we know about serial killers?” Lauren exhaled, deflating.
“Yeah.” Christine’s heart was still racing. “I’m a mess.”
“Let’s get out of here.” Lauren patted her arm again. “Are you okay to drive?”
“Yes, I got it.” Christine pulled out of the space and steered toward the exit road.
“You want to go to the hotel, check in? Grab some dinner?”
“Not just yet,” Christine answered, getting her bearings as she turned left onto Route 29.
Chapter Twenty
Christine sipped water and pressed END to hang up the call. She felt somewhat better after a salad and French fries at a drive-thru MacDonald’s, and they were making phone calls from the idling car, parked on the street near the courthouse in West Chester, which was a quaintly charming town with funky boutiques, restaurants with sidewalk seating, and a tiny business district that had a confusing number of one-way streets. It had the feel of a college town since it contained West Chester University, reminding her of where she had grown up, since Middletown had Wesleyan. It had taken them an hour to drive here, and on the way, they’d called local criminal lawyers that Lauren had found online. Unfortunately, it was five thirty on a Saturday night, and none of the lawyers was in.
Christine sighed, worried. She’d just called the sixth lawyer and got another no answer, leaving messages on voicemail. “I’m striking out here. Do we have more names?”
“Just a few. Look.” Lauren clicked to get another website, then showed her the phone screen, munching away. Napkins, used ketchup packets, and a crumpled white bag joined the other food debris on the floor of the backseat.
“On it.” Christine pressed in the number of Melinda Norate, Esq., who according to her website, had been practicing for twenty-two years, representing felons in distinctly rural Chester County, which as far as Christine could see, could include horse thieves. A bronze historical plaque on a pole by the car read, Chester County—One of Pennsylvania’s three original counties, formed in 1682 by William Penn.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this.”
“Getting him a lawyer? You heard him. He said he’d tell us anything if we helped him. Tomorrow, I will find a way to ask him if he’s Donor 3319.” Christine straightened up, and the phone stopped ringing, but it didn’t go to voicemail.
“This is Melina Norate,” a woman answered, sounding harried.
“Yes, hello!” Christine said, hopeful. She put the call on speaker so Lauren could hear. “I’m calling for Zachary Jeffcoat, who needs a criminal lawyer. He’s—”
“The serial killer who killed Gail Robinbrecht.”
“Allegedly,” Christine answered, surprised. “Would you represent him?”
“No.”
“But you practice criminal law, don’t you?”
“Yes, but I’m too busy. That’s why I’m here on a Saturday night.” Norate paused. “You
’re never going to be able to get Jeffcoat local representation.”
“Why?”
“Are you from here?”
“No.”
“Okay, West Chester is the proverbial small town. Everybody here knows everybody else. Gail Robinbrecht had a lot of friends, she worked at the local hospital. Haven’t you seen the white ribbons people are wearing?”
“No. I just got into town.”
“Any lawyer who defends her murderer will never get new business, ever. He’ll be a pariah.”
Christine hesitated. “But what if Zachary Jeffcoat isn’t guilty? Doesn’t he deserve a defense?”
“In theory, but law is a business…” Norate didn’t finish her sentence.
“Can you recommend anybody who would take him?”
“You know who I would try? Francis Xavier Griffith. He goes by Griff. He’s semi-retired, but he’s the best.”
Christine took heart. “Is he local?”
“Yes.”
“So why would he do it, when others wouldn’t?”
Norate chuckled. “Give him a call. You’ll see. Don’t be put off by his demeanor.”
“Okay.” Christine started scrolling through her phone for Griff’s website. “Thanks.”
“Bye.”
Christine hung up, found the website, which was barebones and had no photo, but she pressed CALL, and the phone rang a few times.
“Griff,” a man answered in a grumpy voice.
“Yes, hello.” Christine introduced herself, then said, “I’m calling on behalf of Zachary Jeffcoat, who needs a lawyer. He’s charged with the murder of Gail—”
“I know who he is. I’m old, not stupid. Who are you? Are you family?”
Christine cringed. She was family, in a way. “I’m a freelance journalist and—”
“Lord, deliver me. Journalists are bad enough. Freelance means you couldn’t get hired by anybody.”
Christine and Lauren exchanged looks.
Griff said, “I heard Jeffcoat had a PD.”
“PD?” Christine didn’t know what that meant. To her, PD meant Professional Development, or homework for teachers.
“Public Defender.”
“Yes, but he wants a private lawyer. Would you represent him?”
“I don’t know. I’m trying to retire. My daughter says if I do, I’d make everybody miserable. But I already make everybody miserable. So.”
Christine wasn’t sure how to respond. “Well, please don’t retire, because we need a lawyer.”
Griff sighed heavily. “I don’t do this over the phone. Come in Monday morning.”
“Can I come in now? I’m only available for the weekend. I see that your office is on Market Street. We’re in town, near the courthouse.”
“Then get here before I change my mind.”
“See you in five—” Christine said, but he had already hung up.
Five minutes later, Christine and Lauren were sitting in an office that was as different from Gary Leonardo’s as a mousehole from a lion’s den. The law firm of F.X. Griffith, Esquire, was a single room in the back of the first floor of a converted row house, which Griff evidently rented from a large estates practice; the office was a medium-sized rectangle with a single window in the back wall, containing brown bookshelves, a gray file cabinet, a plain wooden desk with an old desktop computer, and two maroon leather chairs opposite the desk, in which Christine and Lauren sat. The bookshelves held faded photographs of grinning family members, and the lawbooks were leather-bound, their spines broken and their tops feathered. The framed diplomas and court admission certificates on the wall dated from the 1970s.
“So, fill me in.” Griff narrowed his eyes, which were gray-blue and cloudy at the edges behind old-fashioned tortoiseshell glasses. His thick, chalk-white hair shot straight up from both sides of his part, and he had unruly eyebrows to match. He had to be seventy-five years old, given the number of age spots on his temples, the depth of his crow’s-feet, and the fissures etched into his face, bracketing his flattish lips. Still, he had sunburned cheeks and a small red nose, which made him look like an outdoorsy Methuselah.
Christine answered, “We just met with Zachary, and he asked us to find him a private lawyer.”
“He too good for a public defender?” Griff wore a dingy white polo shirt with baggy khaki pants, and when he leaned forward on his desk, his arms were covered with spidery white hair.
“I guess he wants somebody better.”
Griff frowned. “Public defenders are good. I started my career there.”
Christine wondered when but didn’t ask. “Well, he wants a private lawyer.”
“What he should want is a local lawyer.” Griff leaned over the desk, picking up a dirty rubber band. “Somebody who lives in Chester County. Knows the judges and the bar. Knows how to pick a jury, what appeals to them and what doesn’t. Knows how to reach them, speaks their language. Has the same accent.”
Christine noted that Griff had a farm-y accent. “So you’ll do it?”
“I didn’t say that.”
Christine felt nonplussed. “Okay, can you tell me about yourself? How many murder cases have you handled?”
Griff frowned in thought. “Can’t tell you. Lost count.”
“Can you ballpark it?” Christine was trying to evaluate him as a lawyer.
“Handled up to thirty felonies a year in my salad days. Practiced criminal law for fifty years. You do the math.”
Christine got the gist. “How many cases did you win?”
“Nobody keeps count, nobody worth knowing.” Griff held up a thick finger. “Wait. Four.”
“You won only four cases?” Christine glanced at Lauren, worriedly.
Griff shook his head. “No. Four death-penalty cases. That’s all anybody keeps track of. Got life without parole for all four. That’s four victories.” Griff nodded, satisfied with himself. “Two of my guys are at Graterford. I wouldn’t recommend you say hello.”
Christine shuddered. “Do you have staff to help you on this case?”
“Used to. These days I’m a one-man band.”
“Can you handle this case on your own?”
“Jeffcoat’s got no money for staff, does he? He’s not a rich kid, is he?”
“No. But do you have a paralegal or a secretary?” Christine hadn’t even seen a receptionist’s desk
“I know how to answer a phone. See?” Griff reached for his beige telephone and held up the clunky receiver, then hung it up again.
“You have a cell phone, don’t you?”
“No. No email, either. The government taps our phones and email. NSA admits as much. You know what NSA stands for? No Such Agency.” Griff permitted himself a crooked smile, showing yellowing teeth. “You ask me, politicians are the real criminals. Wholesale violations of the Fourth Amendment, every day. Unreasonable searches and seizures. Dragnetting of information, which is exactly what our forefathers warned against. Why the citizenry consents to it, I don’t know. Not me. I don’t consent.”
“So how do you work?” Christine asked.
“I use the computer for word processing. I type my own briefs and motions. I don’t e-file. I wouldn’t have the website, but my grandson made it for me.”
“Do you have Internet?” Christine had to draw the line. She would accept a Luddite, not a crackpot.
“No. Too easy to hack into. I’ve been saying it for years, but you see it on TV now. Everybody getting hacked into.” Griff pointed to the door. “If you don’t like it, do me a favor. Go. Let me retire. I was about to. Also my bunions hurt. I have two now. My feet are tripods.”
Christine didn’t think he was kidding.
“Now, to business. Can Jeffcoat pay? Freedom isn’t free. My retainer is low because I have no overhead. $5,000. He’ll pay fifteen grand with someone else. Twenty-five in Philly.”
“He says he’ll pay. So what happens, next, for him?”
Griff linked his fingers. “In ten days, if we don’t ask
for an extension, the Commonwealth will have to appear at a preliminary hearing and show its prima facie case.”
“What does that mean?”
“You don’t know Latin?”
“No.”
“Too bad.” Griff sniffed, his disapproval plain. “Prima facie means first face or first impression. The Commonwealth has to show its first impression of the evidence against Jeffcoat, sufficient to make out the crime of capital murder. Then there’s a formal arraignment date, where he’d enter a plea, and we’d ask the Chester County D.A., for mandatory disclosures.”
“Which is?” Christine felt like she was pulling teeth.
“The photos they took, autopsy reports, blood and DNA tests, review of physical evidence, reports of forensic evidence, and the like. They have to turn it over, but not until later. Jeffcoat will have to enter a plea, yay or nay. Pretty soon, the FBI and the other state jurisdictions, Maryland and Virginia, will want to interview him about the other murders. It’s fun messing with the government.” Griff smiled sideways again. “Messing with the press, even better. They’re calling him a serial killer. It prevents him from getting a fair trial.”
Lauren interjected, “What does the FBI have to do with this?”
“The FBI sticks its nose where it doesn’t belong. In a situation with multiple killings over multiple states, every state has jurisdiction over the murder that took place within its borders. The FBI shouldn’t investigate a murder unless it happened on a government property, an Indian Reservation, a federal building, national park, military base, or involves a U.S. citizen abroad. They’re supposed to have a nexus, a jurisdictional hook, but they try to find one. Remember that spree killer, Cunanan? Shot that famous Italian designer, back in ’97?”
Christine tried to remember. “You mean Gianni Versace?”
“Right. The FBI got involved because he also killed a caretaker of a park in New Jersey. It turns out that in the middle of the park, there was a one-acre cemetery deeded to the federal government. That gave the Feds their nexus. Cunanan eventually killed himself, so he wasn’t prosecuted.”
Christine listened, interested. When Griff talked law, his words took on an authoritative ring.
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