Читать книгу Because You Loved Me - M. William Phelps - Страница 25

Chris McGowan was overwhelmed by what he found inside Jeanne’s modest blue-shingled Cape on the night of August 6, 2003. As the night wore on and the enormity of the crime settled on him, Chris had a hard time accepting the fact that he was never going to see Jeanne again.

She was gone. It all seemed real now.

At the same rate, however, by nine o’clock, Chris was growing frustrated that he still had no idea how Jeanne had died.

“I knew she was gone,” he said later, “but they still hadn’t told me how.”

Reliving the scene in his head over and over, all Chris could think of as he stood outside Jeanne’s house was that she had fallen and hit the back of her head on the corner of the stove. It was the only logical explanation.

Why didn’t I show up sooner? I could have saved her life.

“While standing there, as the police continued showing up and the night progressed, I kept going over it. All I could see was the blood underneath Jeannie…and I thought for sure she had fallen and split her head open.”

For the entire time he was at the scene after the murder, a police officer shadowed Chris, watching his every move.

“What happened? How did she die?” Chris asked more than once.

“Sir, we can’t say right now. Just relax. Please try to stay calm.”

“What happened?”

At one point, Chris ran into a cop he knew, a sergeant with the NPD he later described as a “close personal friend.” The guy was walking around the scene in front of Jeanne’s.

In the eyes of the police, Chris was undoubtedly on the top of their list of suspects. After all, he had found Jeanne. He didn’t have a solid alibi to back up where he had been, and didn’t have anyone who could say where he was at the time of Jeanne’s death.

Still, he didn’t want to believe it. “Even to this day,” Chris said later, “I never for a second was made to feel like I was a suspect in this. They never made me feel that way.”

Chris approached his friend. “Can you believe this?” he said, shaking his head in doubt.

“Chris,” said the sergeant, “I don’t know what to tell you. I have no idea what’s going on here. I’m so sorry.”

Stumbling with his words, Chris shrugged. Then babbled: “Jeannie…it’s Jeannie. I cannot believe this.”

“I know, Chris,” said the sergeant. “We’re going to get you out of here as soon as we can.”

The scene continued to populate. Word spread throughout town. A large crowd continued to grow on the opposite side of the crime scene tape. While Chris spoke to his friend, a detective walked over.

“We need to get you down to the station so you can answer some questions. You gonna be OK with that?”

“That’s fine. Absolutely. Anything I can do to help.”

“Come with me.”

The detective walked Chris toward an unmarked cruiser. Along the way, he asked questions about Jeanne. Who she was? How did Chris know her? As they walked, making their way through the crowd, Chris heard the detective say to a colleague, “She’s here.”

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.