Читать книгу Because You Loved Me - M. William Phelps - Страница 28

The questions detectives posed to Jeanne Dominico’s exhausted fiancé, Chris McGowan, didn’t much bother him as he sat sipping stale water from a Styrofoam cup, wondering how the love of his life had died in such a tragic manner. Chris wanted to help any way he could. Still, Why all the questions, he thought as he sat and stared back at the detective, if Jeanne had died of an accident? What is going on here?

“I knew then,” recalled Chris, “that Jeanne hadn’t fallen. I had my suspicions back at the house, but there was so much going on, I didn’t have time to think about it.”

Throughout the night, the conversation—and Chris viewed it as nothing more than a relaxed interview—turned back to the kids. Where were Nicole and Drew? Detectives wanted to know if Chris could reach them. A cell phone number? A neighbor who might know where they were?

“I don’t know…I have to find them, though.”

“You have no idea where they are right now?”

“No. Nicole called me earlier and left a message that she and ‘her friend’ were out doing their stuff. I think they went bowling, shopping. I just don’t know where.”

Chris then explained that Nicole’s “friend” was a boy named Billy Sullivan she had been dating. They had been together all week. He told detectives he would gladly play back Nicole’s voice mail from earlier that night, if only he had his cell phone.

“I left my phone on the kitchen table at Jeannie’s.”

“OK. That’s fine. We can’t get your cell phone right now.”

From memory, Chris recalled Billy’s number.

“I’m not sure if it’s right, because I have it in my cell phone on speed dial.”

“That’ll do.”

Both detectives walked out of the room—and so it went like that throughout the next few hours: detectives walked in and asked a few questions, then left the room for a while, only to return again wanting to know more.

“Did Jeanne have any enemies?” began the next set of questions. It didn’t come across as pushy, or desperate, Chris remembered, but it still seemed like an odd thing to ask. For the first time, without anyone telling him specifically, Chris said he knew Jeanne had been murdered.

Why else would they be asking me such a thing?

“No. Absolutely not! The last person on this earth to have an enemy would be Jeanne.” Yet, as quick as the words fell off his tongue, Chris thought of Jeanne’s ex-husband, Anthony. “That motherf…,” Chris said, “if he came back and…I will…if he did this to Jeanne.” Chris slammed his fist on the table.

“OK, Mr. McGowan, we got it. What about Drew and Nicole?”

“Nicole is a model student. Model daughter.”

The mention of Drew in terms of the crime, however, made Chris uncomfortable. He couldn’t fathom for a minute that Drew had something to do with Jeanne’s death. But as he sat and thought about the times Drew had openly displayed his temper in the house, a lightbulb went off.

“He was a hothead,” recalled Chris, speaking of Drew’s temperament lately. “As I sat there and detectives asked me questions about him, I began to go over in my mind the things Drew had been doing and how at odds he was with his mother up until the day she was murdered. It’s sad to say, but I thought for a brief moment it could have been Drew. I really honestly did. I feel bad about that now, but that is what I thought then.”

“Tell us about Drew,” asked one detective after Chris brought it up.

“Well, I know the kid has a hot temper. It was either his way or no way. I’ve replaced a couple of doors in the house because Drew—‘Mr. Tough Guy’—put his fist through the door after getting pissed off at his mother.”

As a single mother, Jeanne had her hands full with two teenagers. Raging hormones. Problems at school. Peer pressure. Neighborhood kids. There wasn’t a home in America inhabited by teenagers that hadn’t suffered from the same teenage angst at one time or another. Yet every argument, misunderstanding or bad word said about Jeanne was now going to be analyzed under a different light.

After Chris answered a few more questions about Drew, detectives left the room. When they returned, one of them, wearing latex surgical gloves, asked Chris if he would agree to give a buccal swab DNA sample.

“Not at all,” said Chris, opening his mouth. “Absolutely.”

With a cotton swab, the detective scraped the inside of Chris’s cheeks.

“Thanks,” the detective said, popping the cap back on the buccal swab, walking out of the room.