Most Wanted (18 page)

And later, when coffee was ready, and Christine watched as her mother carefully cooled each teaspoonful before she placed it in her father's mouth, she realized that love could endure almost any obstacle. Real, abiding love. It was right before her eyes, lifelong, in them.

And she knew she had to go to Pennsylvania, if only to save her marriage.

 

Chapter Sixteen

Christine was loading the dishwasher when her phone on the counter rang. It was Marcus calling, and on the screen was an old photo she had taken of him, from their first trip to Presque Isle, where his family used to have a vacation house. The Nilssons sailed, and Marcus loved to work on the boat; in the photo, he was hand-sanding its wooden hull with the boombox blasting. What Christine loved about the photo was how carefree he looked, his grin loose and relaxed, his shirt off, his back tanned, his muscles defined, his body effortlessly sexy in the way of twenty-one-year-olds. They had been crazy in love then, with their future ahead of them, their successes merely assumed, their struggles unforeseen. She ignored the lump in her throat to answer the phone.

“Christine? Hey, how are you?”

“Okay.” Christine could read his voice instantly, like any wife. He was still remote but too tired to be angry. “How about you?”

“It was a bitch of a day.”

“I bet.” Christine knew it was code for he was sorry he hadn't called earlier.

“So did you go to Gary?”

“Yes, Lauren came with.” Christine would've bet that he had already talked with Gary, but she was tired, too, and in no mood to play games. “Gary said that we don't need to sue Davidow but we should sue Homestead, and I'm going along with it.”

“Good, great, well, thanks. I know that was a concession and I appreciate it.”

“You're welcome.” Christine could tell that he was trying to be nice. It made her want to tell him about the ultrasound, but she didn't want to risk a fight, and she had a lie to tell. “You know, since you're not coming home, Lauren and I were thinking about making a girl trip to New Jersey this weekend.”

“Really, what's going on?”

“Well, you know her parents have a house there, on Long Beach Island?”

“Right, yes.” Marcus sounded vague, and Christine knew he didn't remember. She barely remembered it herself. It was the only story that she and Lauren could come up with that was virtually uncheckable.

“Yes, her parents have a house there and all the kids use it. You know, one of those deals where they divide the summer into weeks and they rotate?”

“Okay.”

“Anyway, she always gets stuck closing it, but this year she gets to open it, which is a helluva lot easier. She asked if I wanted to go with her. Take a weekend. Just take a break, you know, with all that's been going on.”

“Of course, right.” Marcus's voice softened.

“Right.” Christine felt a wave of guilt. “Jessica down the street can take care of the animals, so I think I'm going to go.”

“Sounds like a good idea.”

“We'll leave tomorrow morning and come back Sunday.”

“Fine. I won't be home until Sunday night myself. Remember, it's my dad's birthday Monday night?”

“Oh, right.” Christine rolled her eyes because she could get away with rolling her eyes on the phone. She disliked her father-in-law, the insufferable Frederik Nilsson.

“We'll go out to dinner. I made reservations at that Thai place he likes, so you don't need to cook. Sound good?”

“Yes, that's great.”

“Okay, I'm beat, so I'm going to turn in.”

“Me, too.”

“Love you,” Marcus said, and for a brief second, he sounded almost like himself.

“I love you, too,” Christine said, touched, but she could hear the defensiveness in her own tone.

“Hey, good night then. Give Murf the Surf a kiss for me.”

“How about Lady?” Christine said automatically, their call-and-response, because he preferred the dog to the cat.

“Her, no. Drive safe tomorrow. The Jersey Shore is a long haul. Good night.”

“Good night.” Christine hung up, then stood still at the counter, the dishwasher door hanging open. She realized she had just lied to Marcus twice, once by omission and once by commission, her old Catholic catechism rising to her consciousness; she had lied about where she was going and she hadn't told him about the ultrasound. She couldn't remember the last time she had lied to him, if ever.

Christine looked out the kitchen window, into the darkness of the backyard, and suddenly the motion-detector light went on, which meant that Murphy was at the door, ready to come in. She shook some Cascade powder into the little boxes in the dishwasher door, closed it, and pressed
ON
, then went to retrieve the dog, so they could both go upstairs and end this hellish day.

 

Chapter Seventeen

It took Christine and Lauren until three o'clock to reach Pennsylvania, because the driver was pregnant and had to stop every hour to go to the bathroom or eat McDonald's French fries, salads from Sbarro, and an iced lemon cake from Starbucks, plus assorted drinks. The sky was sunny and cloudless, and it would've been a pleasant drive if they hadn't been so tense about where they were going or why they were going there.

They drove through the town of Collegeville on Route 29, a winding two-lane road, and continued past colonial vintage houses, then rolling hills and pastured horses. The farmland turned into a vast open space, and Christine sensed they were approaching the prison. “I think we're almost there,” she said, glancing over.

Lauren straightened up in the passenger seat. “How do you know? It looks like more farms.”

“I read on the website. The prison is set on seventeen hundred acres.”

“So it's in the middle of nowhere. What else did you read?”

“Well, it's Pennsylvania's largest maximum-security prison.”

“Oh, great. Go big or go home.”

“It has about thirty-seven hundred adult men who have committed felonies, because that's who gets sent to maximum-security. It also has one of the two Death Rows in the state.”

“Now there's an idea for summer vacation.”

“It has a Facebook page.”

“Whoa.” Lauren chuckled. “Facebook for felons.”

“Its profile picture is a koala.” Christine gave the car gas, spotting the massive concrete complex that had to be the prison in the distance, to her right.

“Why a koala?”

“I've no idea.”

“And you're sure Jeffcoat will see us?”

“I called ahead and asked to be put on his visitors' list, which he has to approve, so, yes.”

“He must want the company.”

“Or the press. Remember, I told them we're freelance journalists.”

“Okay. No comment.”

Both women fell uncharacteristically silent as the prison complex loomed larger, and Christine took a right turn when the GPS told her to, even though there was no sign. She steered onto a long, asphalt road that divided an open field, and they came to a fork in the road; to the right was a visitors' parking lot, which was signed, but to their left, the road led to a massive concrete prison rising behind a fifty-foot-high wall of concrete, topped with coiled barbed wire. At the corners of the building, guard turrets pierced the blue sky.

“Oh boy.” Lauren grimaced. “Can we go home now?”

“Not yet.” Christine steered into the parking lot, which was about half-full, parked, and shut off the engine. “Here are the rules. We're not allowed to bring phones or handbags, but we need to show IDs. Apparently they have lockers for the car keys, and we're allowed to bring in our pads but not pens.”

“Can I bring my gun?”

“Do you even own a gun? It might be the one thing I don't know about you.” Christine looked over, sliding her laminated driver's license from her wallet.

“Of course not. I'm Jewish. Words are our weapons.”

“Good thing you're a reporter then.” Christine handed her a fresh legal pad. “Here.”

“Oh right, I forgot.” Lauren took the pad, then got her ID from her wallet.

“Remember, I'll ask the questions. All you have to do is take notes. They give us the pencils inside.” Christine slid the keys from the ignition, and they got out of the car.

“Here goes nothing.” Lauren squared her shoulders, walking around the front bumper.

“Thanks for doing this.” Christine met her, trying to ignore her case of nerves.

“It's okay. It'll be interesting.” Lauren patted her on the back.

“To say the least.” Christine shot her a shaky smile, and they fell into step, heading up the road toward the prison. It loomed even larger as they got closer, its high wall even more forbidding; up close the concrete looked stained and aging, and its barbed wire glinted sharply in the sunlight. The turrets at the corners of the building were of smoked glass, so she couldn't see the guards inside. The air felt so humid it was almost claustrophobic, but that could have been her imagination.

They reached the parking lot in front of the prison, passing a black van with white lettering that read,
CORONER'S OFFICE
,
MONTGOMERY COUNTY
, then a row of idling Department of Corrections buses, with wire grates over their windows. The women climbed the steps to the entrance, which had a grimy concrete overhang, and walked to the smudged glass doors of the entrance.

Christine opened one door, which was old, its wood frame weathered, and let Lauren go first, then followed her into a dingy reception room that was a very long rectangle, dimly lit by flickering fluorescent lighting and small windows at the far end. The air smelled warm and dirty; if it was air-conditioned, it was too weak to do any good. A smattering of visitors talked quietly as they waited on old-fashioned wooden benches, under a sign that read
NO SPANDEX, NO HOODIES
. Tan linoleum covered the floor, and old beige lockers ringed the far side of the room. The place gave off the overall impression of being stop-time, circa 1960s, and oddly small-town for a maximum-security prison.

Christine spotted a large wooden reception desk across the room, staffed by a female officer wearing a black uniform with the yellow patch of the Department of Corrections, which looked incongruous with the pink scrunchy around her light brown ponytail. Christine took the lead to the reception desk, placed her driver's license on the counter, and introduced them both, then said, “We're here to see Zachary Jeffcoat. We called ahead to be put on his visitors' list.”

“Sure. Sign in, please.” The corrections officer smiled as she slid a clipboard with an old-school sign-in log across the counter, and Christine signed in while Lauren handed over her driver's license. The corrections officer examined the licenses. “You ladies come all the way from Connecticut?”

“Yes.”

“What newspaper you with?”

Christine told herself to remain calm. “I'm freelance, I'm a stringer.”

“Oh. You're the third reporter today.”

“Really?” Christine asked, surprised. She realized it helped her credibility as a cover story, too.

“Mr. Jeffcoat is our celebrity inmate. He made the Most Wanted List. We don't get many of those. He's here in our holding area, on account of his dangerousness. He should be at Chester County Prison but they're minimum security.” The corrections officer slid their driver's licenses back across the counter. “His mail already started, too. He had some waiting before he got here. Wait 'til you see him, you'll know why.” The corrections officer lifted a plucked eyebrow, then gestured at the lockers. “Car keys go in there, then take a seat. He'll be brought up in a minute. He just was sent back down after his girlfriend visited.”

“His girlfriend was here?”

“Yes, you just missed her. A pretty redhead.” The corrections officer winked. “He's a busy boy.”

Christine and Lauren exchanged glances, then went to the lockers, stowed the car keys, and sat down on the bench. There were ten benches half full of people, of all races and sizes. Christine caught snippets of a variety of languages, English, Spanish, and others she couldn't identify. Children fidgeted on the benches, swinging their legs or playing with toys, which made her despair. She tried not to think about what the life of her child would be like if Jeffcoat was her donor. Her hand went reflexively to her belly, and she prayed her baby didn't end up here, in a maximum-security prison.

“Zachary Jeffcoat!” a male corrections officer called out, as he stuck his head out a doorway on the left.

Christine and Lauren rose together, and the male corrections officer motioned them forward toward a grimy metal door, which he opened with a loud
ca-chunk
. They passed through the doorway together and entered a narrow room that held an old wooden table with wooden bins, in front of a metal detector.

“Ladies, take off any belts, shoes, and jewelry, and put them in the bins. Put your notepads in, too.”

“Thank you.” Christine and Lauren complied, the both of them in their agreed-upon outfit of jeans, white shirts, and dark blazers, which they had on with flats. They passed through the metal detector, grabbed their legal pads, were handed two yellow golf pencils, and had their right hands stamped and read by an ultraviolet light, then they were led through one locked door, then the next, under the gaze of prison guards silhouetted behind a smoked glass panel. The two women were escorted to a narrow staircase with painted cinder-block walls and descended concrete steps. The air grew hotter the lower they went, as if it were hell itself, and a standing fan with grimy white plastic blades provided no relief, merely circulating hot air.

They walked down a short hallway that led to a large, harshly lighted visiting room the shape of an L, filled with old, mismatched chairs. A smattering of young women, kids, and older women sat talking with inmates in brown jumpsuits who wore no handcuffs. A sign read,
Inmates and Visitors May Embrace When Meeting and Departing Only.
A brawny young corrections officer stood guard, sitting on an elevated wooden chair against the wall, wearing a white short-sleeved shirt and black pants with a gray line down the side. His eyes scanned the room under the black bill of his black cap, a walkie-talkie crackling in its belt holster.