“Right,” Christine said, thinking of Marcus.

“You know, I saw Jeffcoat there one night, I think it was on a Thursday.”

“Really?” Christine remembered that that was the same night that Jerri Choudhoury had seen him, too.

“Yes, it was late at night. I went to Gail’s because Grant had told me that he had a meeting at the hospital and I didn’t trust him. It’s hard to break the habit when you find out someone’s been unfaithful. You check receipts, you check his phone and email, things like that.” Joan paused, her expression darkening. “I even checked Gail’s house the night she was murdered.”

“You did?” Christine asked, surprised. “Did you see anything?”

“I went there because Grant said he had a business trip with Milton Cohen, you heard him.”

“Yes, I did.”

“But I wasn’t sure I believed him. I looked up online to see that the seminar was being held, which it was, but I didn’t know if Grant was really going or if it was just his story. I worried that he could sneak back to see Gail, so I drove over to her house.”

“Did you see Jeffcoat’s car or did you see him going up the stairs?”

“No I didn’t.”

“Do you know what Jeffcoat looks like?”

“Yes, he’s blond, but the man I saw wasn’t blond.”

“Oh my God. You saw a man there the night she was murdered?” Christine’s juices started to flow. Joan could have seen Gail’s murderer, and it evidently wasn’t Zachary.

“Yes, but I left after I saw him because I got a call from Grant, and I knew he really was at the seminar in New York.”

“Why didn’t you go to the police?”

Joan met Christine’s eye, newly defensive. “They said on the news that they caught the murderer red-handed, right at the scene, so I knew it couldn’t be the man that I saw.”

“Who did you see? Did you know him?” Christine had to contain her excitement.

“No, and I never saw him there before.”

“Did you take any pictures of him?”

“No.” Joan shook her head. “If it wasn’t Grant, I didn’t care who it was. I just wanted to make sure that he wasn’t lying to me anymore.”

“What did the man you saw look like?” Christine felt her heart start to pound.

“Let me think a minute. It was starting to get dark at that hour, too.” Joan frowned in thought. “He was white, decent-looking. I forget what he had on. A sweatshirt and pants?”

Christine knew that could be anyone. “Tall or short?”

“Medium?”

“What kind of car did he drive?”

“He drove a—” Joan stopped abruptly. “Come to think of it, he didn’t drive any car there. I just saw him on the steps going upstairs to Gail’s, without pulling into the parking lot in the back.”

“So he walked to her house?”

“I don’t know.” Joan shook her head. “All I know is, he didn’t drive there.”

“So he could have been anyone.” Christine’s mind raced through the possibilities. “A transient who parked somewhere else, maybe because he didn’t want his car to be seen at Gail’s house—”

“This man didn’t seem like a transient. He walked with purpose, went right up the stairs. Like he knew where he was going, like he’d been there before.”

“He could have been a man who lived within walking distance, even a neighbor.” Christine felt appalled by the thought. “I interviewed the neighbors to see if they had seen anything that night. Most of them were women, but they all had husbands or boyfriends. Maybe it was one of the husbands? One who was cheating with Gail?”

“Well, we know that’s possible.” Joan sniffed.

“Sorry.” Christine hadn’t intended to be so tactless, but she was getting excited. She looked over, apologetically, then happened to see in the rearview mirror that a car was coming down the road behind Joan’s Mercedes. “Oh, a car.”

“Does it have room to pass? I can’t see a thing for the fog and rain.” Joan turned around in the seat, and Christine squinted at the rearview to see that the car had just enough room to get by.

“It’s okay. We don’t have to move.”

“Good, I’m wet enough.”

“It’s also possible that the killer targeted Gail without their being in a relationship, because she was a nurse. They all knew she was a nurse. She gave block parties.” Christine grabbed her phone from her purse and started scrolling through the pictures she’d taken when she canvassed to see if they yielded anything, though she hadn’t been thinking of the neighbors as suspects.

“A neighbor killed her?”

“It’s possible. The only male neighbors I met were Phil Dresher, a student at West Chester who lives a few doors down from Gail, and Dom Gagliardi, who lives with his wife around the block. They were both at Gail’s vigil.” Christine realized that the car hadn’t passed yet, so she checked the rearview again. The car was parking behind Joan’s Mercedes, which seemed strange. “The guy’s pulling over, God knows why.”

“Probably thinks we need help.”

“In the rain?”

“That’s how people are here. They help each other.” Joan smiled.

“If he wanted to help, why not pull up beside us?”

“He couldn’t see inside my car, maybe.” Joan gestured at the phone. “So, you were saying.”

“Right.” Christine returned her attention to her phone and scrolled through her photos, which were all exterior shots of Warwick Street, but none of Phil. “Damn.”

“No luck?”

“Not yet.” Christine checked the rearview and saw that a man was getting out, hurrying toward them. She couldn’t see his face because he had the hood on his parka up against the driving rain, but she’d deal with him when he got here. Instead she scrolled ahead to the photos she had taken at Linda Kent’s, then pressed to enlarge one of Linda’s backyard, and in the corner of the picture, almost out of the frame, was Dom’s face.

“That’s him.” Joan pointed to the photo. “I recognize him. I saw him going up Gail’s back steps that night she was killed.”