Because You Loved Me

by M. William Phelps

  She’s here? thought Chris. Who?

  “Great. She’s here already,” said another detective, rolling his eyes.

  “What do you mean? What’s going on? Who’s here?” asked Chris.

  One of the detectives gestured with his head in the direction of the woman. She was holding a notepad, looking around, making her way toward them.

  The woman was a reporter from a local newspaper, a small daily that routinely kept its front-page focus on crime.

  “Oh, great!” said another cop standing close by. “Can you believe it?”

  Chris looked. It was the last thing he needed at the moment: some reporter getting involved as the crime scene unfolded.

  When the two detectives realized the reporter was heading toward them, they ducked Chris into the front seat of a cruiser.

  And that’s where he sat for the next fifteen minutes by himself. Until, “I just couldn’t sit there anymore,” recalled Chris. “So I got out.”

  Donna Shepard was back on the scene walking around. When Chris saw her, he got out of the car and called out, “Donna?”

  “Chris.”

  They hugged. Then Chris paced back and forth as Donna stood by his side and watched.

  Chris asked one of the cops assigned to “watch him,” who was following him wherever he went, if he could use Donna’s bathroom. “I really need to go.”

  “No. Sorry, sir. We can’t let you do that. Can you wait?”

  “No, you don’t understand, I absolutely need to go now, or I’m gonna wet my pants right here.”

  The cop traded dialogue with a colleague for a moment and then told Chris, “Over there…in the back,” and waved his flashlight toward the backyard by some trees.

  “What?”

  “Sorry…but I can’t let you out of my sight.”

  “Can’t I get a little darn privacy here?” Whether he wanted to believe it, every move Chris made was being monitored. He at no time felt police were treating him any differently than they might anyone else at the scene. But as he walked behind a bush to urinate, the cop stood next to him, shining a flashlight on him.

  “I’m not dropping anything here,” said Chris, “I’m just taking a leak.” He felt the cop was looking to see if he tossed something—like a piece of evidence—into the bushes.

  The cop didn’t answer.

  “They had to be sure, I guess,” Chris commented, “that I wasn’t trying to hide evidence or something like that.”

  After Chris finished relieving himself, he walked back toward the front of the house. Another one of Jeanne’s neighbors, Parker Smith, who had just gotten home, approached him. A big guy in his mid-thirties, with rough hands and sharp facial features, Parker was a blue-collar guy trudging through life, working hard to support his family. He knew Jeanne and the kids well. The past few months had been rough for Parker. Out of nowhere one day a few months back, he claimed, his wife asked for a separation. He suspected there was another man involved and had been showing up unannounced at home at various times.

  “What’s going on here?” asked Parker after he ran into Chris.

  “I don’t know…Jeannie’s gone. She’s dead, Parker.”

  From a distance, Parker couldn’t tell, but as he got closer, he could see Chris was covered with blood. (“He had a dazed look on his face,” recalled Parker.)

  “What?” a dismayed Parker said, inching closer.

  “She’s gone, man…Jeannie.”

  Parker wasn’t sure at that moment if Chris had done it or not. (“I saw all that blood all over him and wondered, you know.”)

  While stubbing out his cigarette, Parker talked to Chris as a detective walked up and, staring Parker in the eyes, asked in a sneering tone, “And you are?”

  “I’m the guy who lives in this house,” said Parker, pointing to his house next door.

  Parker’s wife, who had been waiting for him, came out of the house. “Jeannie’s dead…,” she said to Parker in tears.

  “I know.”

  “Where’s Nicole?” asked Parker.

  “They’re looking for her.”

  “Let me find out what’s going on,” Parker told his wife. “Go back in the house.”

  Parker made his way over to a group of detectives congregated in front of Jeanne’s house and asked one of them for an explanation. Parker was concerned for his family’s well-being. He didn’t know what to think. Had Chris snapped and killed Jeanne?

  “Why is it any of your business?” one of the detectives asked in a condescending tone.

  As they talked, another detective hopped in the cruiser Chris had sat down in and took off with him to the NPD.

  Parker didn’t notice Chris had left.

  The same detective Parker had spoken to before his wife came out of the house returned to ask him again why he was so concerned about what was going on.

  “Because my family lives right here!” Parker snapped back. Now he was pissed. How dare they treat him like a criminal for asking important questions. His neighbor had been murdered. He was concerned. There was no need, Parker said later, for “tough guy” police tactics. He just wanted information.

  “I want to know. I have kids.”

  Suppose there was some lunatic running wild, Parker wondered. “I needed to know that.”

  Indeed, he wanted to know that his wife and kids were going to be safe. He worked third shift. In a few hours, he would be gone for the night.

  “Your neighbor was killed,” one of the detectives finally acknowledged.

  “Do you know who did it?”

  “Why are you asking these questions?”

  “I’m concerned about my children’s safety. I want to know if you know who did this and you’re going after them—or if there’s somebody roaming around the neighborhood right now.”

  It was a fair question from a man becoming increasingly animated.

  The detective ran a hand over his chin and thought briefly. Then, “No need to worry, sir. We’re pretty sure who did it.”

  That satisfied Parker’s curiosity. But as he walked back to his house, the detective said, “We’re going to have you come down to the station and give us a statement. You and your wife.”

  “Sure,” said Parker, “anything I can do to help.”

  When Parker met up with his wife, he said, “They know who did it.”

  “What…already?”

  “Apparently.”

  Both were baffled that the police had supposedly solved the crime already, but for whatever reason were not telling anyone.

  CHAPTER 16

  Patricia “Pat” Sullivan was at her Willimantic, Connecticut, home when she received a call from Billy, her son, at about 7:30 P.M. He was “calm,” Patricia said later, as he explained that he and Nicole had been driving around town most of the night. They were “shopping,” added Billy. Two young lovers spending their final night together.

  “OK,” said Patricia.

  “We’re at the mall.”

  “How are you?”

  “Good. I’m picking up some souvenirs for [my sisters].”

  “Don’t go spending all of your money,” warned Patricia. She had always taught Billy the value of saving his money. There was no need to go out and buy the kids a gift. They could do without.

  “I won’t, Mom.”

  Then Patricia asked, “Are you taking your medication?”

  Billy was on a variety of antidepressants. He took the pills at night. It was important he took his medication, for Patricia knew things fell apart rather quickly for Billy when he failed to medicate himself regularly.

  “Yes, Mom.”

  As the murder scene back at Jeanne’s unfolded, Nicole and Billy drove around town. Unless they had been stalking the scene from afar, neither could have known cops were scurrying around, collecting evidence, interviewing neighbors and friends, trying desperately to figure out what had happened. Nicole had no idea that her brother, Drew, a wayward boy at odds with his mother, was now aware t
hat she was dead—or that Drew was out there on the front lawn, like everyone else, answering questions, weeping, trying to comprehend it all.

  While they were out, Billy stopped at a nearby shopping mall. Nicole bought him a new pair of socks and a T-shirt. For some reason, Billy felt the need to wear them that night and changed clothes just down the street from Jeanne’s in the parking lot of a local movie theater.

  Nicole had called home a few times, but, of course, no one answered, so she left several messages, saying she and Billy were “running late” and would be home as soon as they could. After all, it was their last night together. They had to make the best of the time they had left. By Thursday morning, life would be, Nicole later wrote in her diary, a “hellhole” she saw no way of digging out of. Nicole wrote that she’d likely sit in her room, hug her favorite pillow, listen to music that reminded her of Billy and try to figure out a way to be with him again. Any depression she had suffered throughout the past six months was going to escalate. She was sure of it. And Billy, well, he was going to be back at McDonald’s flipping burgers, making sandwiches he cared little about, wondering how he was going to convince Jeanne to allow the relationship to continue.

  “Let’s take off to Connecticut,” Nicole suggested at one point that night as Billy drove.

  “No,” Billy said for a second time, “the cops will be at my door two days later.”

  “Vermont. Let’s go to Vermont, or Niagara Falls, like we talked about.”

  “Come on, Nicole.”

  After leaving the movie theater parking lot and stopping a few additional places around town, Billy drove to Amanda Kane’s house. Amanda was Jeanne’s best friend. She lived about three miles east of Jeanne’s, over near the intersection of Greeley Park and Route 3, the main interstate leading into downtown Nashua. Amanda’s house was small, but the perfect suburban haven she desired. Jeanne, Billy, Nicole, Drew and Chris had helped Amanda move into the house the previous Friday, August 1. Some of her things were still unpacked. In boxes. Sitting all over the place. Amanda was planning on having Jeanne and Chris back over that Saturday to help finish unpacking.

  Amanda had known Jeanne for close to fifteen years: they had worked together at one time and met through the companionship of spending eight hours next to each other, five days a week. Amanda was quite different than most of Jeanne’s friends.

  “Very reclusive,” said a former friend. “[Amanda] rarely goes anywhere aside from work, five days a week. She is an unbelievable chain-smoker that sits at home with her two cats…. She records her soap operas and watches them religiously. Jeanne would go to Amanda’s house on Saturdays and do all her housework (vacuuming, dusting and other minor chores)…. Jeanne provided her with some well-needed companionship. Jeanne accepted [Amanda] for who she was…. She is not a badperson, just for the fact that she is very antisocial.”

  Jeanne, without a doubt, loved Amanda dearly.

  Especially short at four feet ten inches, and a bit heavy, forty-five-year-old Amanda wore her Puerto Rican heritage well. She was born and raised in New York City; her parents were in Puerto Rico, her grandparents in Spain.

  “I’m pretty Latin, all the way down to my fingertips,” she later said jokingly.

  With jet black hair and olive skin, Amanda was attractive, but also strong-minded and not afraid to speak her opinions when she felt the situation warranted it; whereas Jeanne was more laid-back, socially correct and not quite as outspoken.

  They had made a great pair, feeding off their differences.

  Like Jeanne, Amanda, a single woman, worked hard to make ends meet. She was employed by a health care company in Andover, Massachusetts, about a forty-minute drive on a good day from her home. Because the commute during peak morning and afternoon rush hour could get congested and heavy along Route 3 and Interstate 495, Amanda set it up with her boss so that she could get into the office by 6:30 or 7:00 A.M.

  “That way,” she said, “I can miss most of the morning traffic and I get to leave work by three-thirty or four P.M. and miss most of the afternoon traffic.”

  Leaving her house at 6:30 A.M., however, had its downside: Amanda had to get up by 4:00 A.M. to shower and fix her hair and makeup, which meant she had to be in bed on most nights by 8:00 P.M. At about 10:05 P.M., Billy and Nicole knocked on Amanda’s door. Amanda wasn’t quite asleep, but she had the lights out and, lying down, had begun to drift off. When she heard the buzzer, she said aloud, “Shit, who is that?” knowing full well, she remembered later, it was Nicole.

  “What is it?” Amanda asked as she sluggishly opened the door, upset Nicole and Billy were ringing her at that time of the night. Nicole knows better, she thought.

  “It’s Nicole, Amanda.”

  “It’s late, honey, you know I go to bed early. What the hell are you doing here?”

  Having known Nicole since she was two years old, Amanda held a special bond with her. Like many of Jeanne’s friends, Amanda believed Nicole was smarter than most girls her own age. (“She had a bright future ahead of her—and still does,” recalled Amanda.)

  “We wanted to come over so Billy could say good-bye,” said Nicole. “He’s leaving tomorrow morning.”

  Nicole seemed sincere. She looked tired, but Amanda expected it: Billy was leaving, and Nicole had made no secret of the fact that her “world” was going to collapse with his departure.

  Still, the last thing Amanda wanted to do was sit and entertain two teenagers.

  Part of her felt bad about coming out and telling Nicole to take Billy and leave. Nicole had telephoned Amanda three times earlier that night, but Amanda screened each call and never answered. In one message, Nicole said she wanted to stop by. “I thought it was nice, you know,” recalled Amanda. “It was unnecessary, but it was a nice gesture. I figured if I didn’t answer the phone, they would just go home and leave me alone.”

  Nonetheless, here they were, standing in her doorway.

  “Come on in,” said Amanda grudgingly. Billy seemed hyped-up and “jittery,” she recalled. Nicole was somewhat relaxed, calm, but also “very sad.” Both looked “tired and exhausted,” remembered Amanda. “I attributed it all to separation anxiety. Billy was going back to Connecticut the next day. That’s why I thought they looked so nervous.”

  “If I look a little jittery or jumpy,” Billy said as they stepped into Amanda’s dining room, “it’s because I had a Coke earlier.”

  “Whatever…,” Amanda said. She was uninterested.

  Nicole sat quietly next to Billy. Although Nicole and Billy hadn’t spent that much time together face-to-face since they met online in May 2002, many who witnessed them together said Billy was the dominant force in the relationship. It was an unspoken rule, for example, that Nicole submit to Billy’s wishes. More than one close friend of the family later said that whenever Billy used the bathroom in Nicole’s presence, she would “wait like a puppy dog” by the restroom door and was expected not to talk to anyone until Billy emerged. Just a few days ago, on Sunday, August 3, Billy and Nicole stopped at a local fast-food restaurant and Nicole bumped into a male friend. After saying hello, Nicole and the boy hugged. Billy was “so upset,” said Nicole’s only girlfriend, Cassidy Dion, “he stormed out of the restaurant” in anger. “He got really upset and walked out.” Furthermore, Chris was quick to point out he thought it rather bizarre that on those nights Billy stayed at the house he slept on the couch, and Nicole, even though she was told not to, slept on the floor next to him, as if Billy didn’t want her out of his sight.

  While inside Amanda’s, Billy bounced his foot a mile a minute, like a kid waiting outside the principal’s office, and, at times, got up and walked around the room.

  He just couldn’t keep still.

  Finally, after some small talk, “Listen, you guys are going to have to leave now,” Amanda said. “I need to get some sleep so I can get up for work.” She didn’t want to kick them out. She felt that being Jeanne’s best friend, it was nice of Nicole to bring Billy b
y. But at the same time, it was getting late. Amanda needed to get some sleep.

  “Nicole,” Amanda said when Nicole didn’t respond, “it’s after ten o’clock. Your mother let Billy stay here for a week. She must be worried about you.”

  “I know,” said Nicole.

  Amanda picked up the telephone and dialed Jeanne’s.

  No one answered.

  Then she tried calling Chris.

  Addressing Nicole after hanging up the line, she said, “They are probably out looking for you right now. It’s pretty selfish of you to do this to her. Why don’t you just go home.”

  “Yeah, I guess we’re really tired,” said Billy. “I guess I’ll just go to Jeanne’s and crash on the couch.”

  CHAPTER 17

  For Chris McGowan, the nightmare had just begun. It was like a telephone call in the middle of the night—it was never good news.

  “Look at all this blood?” Chris told himself as he stood underneath the fluorescent glow of the lights inside the small room that detectives had put him in at the NPD. Both of his arms, from his triceps down to his fingertips, were covered. His knees, because he was wearing shorts, had patches of blood where he had knelt down beside Jeanne.

  My goodness, thought Chris while sitting in the room by himself, holding up his arms, looking at it all for the first time. What happened?

  Two detectives sat Chris down at a small table on the second floor, gave him a glass of water and told him to “relax,” someone would be back to ask him a few questions in due time.

  What seemed to Chris like “an hour” actually took fifteen minutes. As he sat, contemplating life without Jeanne, thinking about what could have happened, he still didn’t feel as though he was being treated as a suspect.

  “I had nothing to hide,” he said later. “It didn’t even cross my mind.”

  Equally disturbing was the idea of never seeing Jeanne again. She’s dead. In the breadth of an instant, just like that—Chris snapped his fingers while recalling the memory—he and Jeanne were talking about the rest of their lives together, going out to dinner, taking walks, raising Jeanne’s two kids, saying good-bye at work, discussing soda and pizza and chips, the kids—and now she was gone. How quickly life can be interrupted by tragedy.