Читать книгу Because You Loved Me - M. William Phelps - Страница 21

Nashua police officer Kurt Gautier was approximately one mile away from Jeanne’s house, sitting in his cruiser on Amherst Street, when he responded to a report of a “sudden death.”

Flicking on his lights, Gautier rushed toward Dumaine Avenue.

When he arrived three minutes later, Chris McGowan was waiting at the door. Chris appeared desperate and perplexed. Gautier had been a cop for twenty-one years. He’d been involved on all levels of police work throughout his career: a K-9 handler, criminal investigation division officer, drug enforcement officer and straight patrol. He was experienced and respected. A big, hulking man, with a customary buzz cut, Gautier didn’t know what to expect as he entered Jeanne’s house. Dispatch reported a man had called in an account of a woman on the floor of her home who was not responding. There was a pool of blood around her.

After some time, several more officers arrived, accompanied by EMTs and firefighters.

Because of his training and experience, Gautier knew as soon as he looked at Jeanne that she was dead. Chris was still wondering if she was alive. He wasn’t thinking straight, but Gautier had seen dead bodies. He had no doubt.

“It was a bloody mess,” Gautier said later in court. “There was blood all over the floor, all over the cabinetry. It was everywhere. I saw massive amounts…splattered on the walls. The blood was still wet. It hadn’t dried….” (This told Gautier as he began surveying the scene that the crime had perhaps just taken place.)

Maybe Chris was responsible?

Police officer Jeff Connors arrived next. He escorted Chris away from the house. Gautier had questioned Chris after first entering the house, but it was “hard,” Gautier recalled, “to get any information out of him. He was stuttering. He was a mess.”

With Chris standing outside next to Connors, Gautier invited the paramedics inside to take a closer look at Jeanne while he stood nearby. No one was completely certain whether an intruder—if, indeed, Jeanne had been killed by a stranger—was still inside the house.

Were there more victims? Where were Billy and Nicole? What about Drew?

It didn’t take paramedics long to make the call. “She’s gone, Officer.”

“OK, please step back outside,” Gautier advised. Then he walked toward the back door. “Connors?”

“Yeah?”

“Come here.”

Connors and Gautier searched the house completely to make sure no one else was inside, “alive or dead.”

For all Chris knew, Billy, Drew and Nicole were upstairs, like Jeanne, lying in a pool of blood.

Standing outside, running his hands through his hair, Chris thought: Oh Christ…what’s happening?

“Oh my God! Oh my God!” Chris said aloud, pacing the lawn. Then he dropped to his knees and, moments after, got up and walked around.

Donna Shepard, Jeanne’s next-door neighbor, was looking out her porch window a few minutes later when she noticed two people standing by the side of Jeanne’s house. She couldn’t quite make out who they were through the brush blocking her view, but she was convinced it was Chris and Jeanne.

“I thought for some reason,” Donna said later, “Chris and Jeanne were out there talking.”

It was the perfect opportunity, thought Donna, to go talk to Jeanne regarding something she had found out about Nicole the previous day. Donna, a twenty-nine-year-old mother of three children—a boy, aged three, a girl, five, and a boy, nine—had lived with her husband next door to Jeanne for the past two years. They were good friends. Nicole had recently started babysitting Donna’s kids. Through that, Donna and Nicole had become close. At times, Nicole confided in Donna about “teenage” problems she felt she couldn’t discuss with Jeanne. On that Wednesday, the previous day, Nicole showed up to babysit, but seemed worried about something.

“What is it?” asked Donna. She was genuinely concerned.

“Can you go to the store and get me a pregnancy test?” asked Nicole. She was terrified. “I think I might be pregnant.”

“Nicole…what do you mean?” Donna knew Nicole had been seeing Billy. She had even met him a few times. She thought he was a presentable boy, well mannered, but extremely quiet and reserved. She knew Nicole loved Billy and had been having sex with him; Nicole had even told Donna Billy was her first. But like everyone else, Donna saw the relationship as the beginning of a long list of romances Nicole was going to have throughout her teenage years. Let that first love run its course and she’ll be fine, Donna assumed.

“Don’t tell my mother, please, Donna,” pleaded Nicole.

“OK,” said Donna, for the sake of the conversation. Yet she decided when the first opportunity presented itself, she was going to let Jeanne know what was going on. Ultimately, Donna went down to the store and picked up a pregnancy test and brought it back to the house while Nicole waited. With Donna there, Nicole went into the bathroom and took the test.

Now Donna, looking out her window, believing Chris and Jeanne were out there talking, was prepared to tell Jeanne the results of that test.

Donna stepped out of her house and walked across the lawn. When she reached the little trail beyond the brush and trees, she noticed several police cruisers and ambulances lined up and down the street. Cops were beginning to block off the area with yellow crime-scene tape.

“What the hell is going on?” Donna said out loud to no one in particular.

Then she saw Chris.

“Hey, Chris.”

Chris didn’t react. As she approached, Donna noticed it wasn’t Jeanne standing beside Chris, but a police officer.

“Chris,” Donna said, “what’s going on here?”

“I thought it was going to turn out to be something silly,” recalled Donna. “No big deal. Maybe Drew and his friends had gotten into some trouble. Drew was hanging around with the wrong crowd and he and Jeanne were at odds during much of that summer.”

Donna got closer to Chris. He was walking in circles again, trying to understand what he had just found.

“Chris, what the heck is happening?” she asked again.

At first, Chris had a hard time speaking. Then, according to Donna, he blurted out: “She has to be dead…. There’s blood everywhere. I don’t know how she can still be alive.”

“What are you talking about?”

Chris didn’t answer. Instead, he dropped to his knees and cried. Then he stood and walked around as an officer followed him wherever he went. For a few minutes, recalled Donna, that’s all Chris did: drop to his knees, cry and get up to walk in circles. At one point, Donna heard Chris shout, “Why…why would someone do this to Jeannie? Why did this happen?”

“I just shut down,” remembered Donna. “It’s disbelief. You cannot comprehend what someone is telling you. Nothing was registering.”

Donna’s kids were alone at home. She was worried about them and needed to get back to the house. One of the officers told her they had to talk to Chris alone. She would have to leave.

“Someone will be over to speak with you soon,” the officer told Donna.

As she walked back to her house, more cruisers arrived. Soon the entire street was blocked off.

When Donna got into her house, she huddled her children around her and hugged them. Then she stood by her window, lit a cigarette and thought about who she should call first.

“I wondered then where Drew and, especially, Nicole were. Jeanne’s death was going to devastate those two kids.”