“Zachary tries harder. He charms everybody. He’s always closing, that boy.” Tim frowned slightly. “But Dan thought Zachary was a BS artist, which I get.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m in sales. I manage salesman. It’s a mentality. Some salesman, they’re made. Others are born.” Tim smiled. “Zachary was a born salesman. He could sell ice to the Eskimos. It’s a cliché, but it’s true about him.”
Christine didn’t know if she wanted her baby to be a born salesman, and if that was a good thing or not. “What makes a born salesman?”
“In my opinion, it’s a knowledge of people. Zachary can clue in on what somebody wants and give it to them. He knows how to work people.”
“That’s manipulative.” Christine couldn’t help but wonder if Zachary was manipulating her, like Gary had warned.
“It is and it isn’t.” Tim shrugged again. “Sales requires you to understand people and to a certain extent, yes, manipulate them. To tell them what they want to hear, so you can close.”
Christine thought it sounded worse and worse. “So is he a liar?”
“No more than I am.” Tim chuckled. “We’re just trying to sell you something. You need it, and we make it, so it works out. There’s no harm, no foul. Zachary’s very good at his job, the best young salesman I’ve seen in a long time. Zachary was a star. Not everybody likes that. Dan thought Zachary was arrogant, but I want my account managers to be arrogant. You know who are the most arrogant people on the face of the earth?”
“No, who?” Christine asked, because he seemed to wait for a reply.
“Surgeons. Surgeons think they’re God. They will cut into the human body without hesitation. They will save a life. They’re brilliant men and women, and they don’t respect dumb. I want my account managers to be arrogant and confident enough to earn the respect of surgeons.”
Christine understood. “Could Zachary?”
“Yes, totally. He could walk into a hospital, collar a surgeon when he’s on his way to the OR, grab whatever three minutes he can, and convince him that we make a better instrument than the next guy. If my guys don’t have that confidence, I’m not gonna be able to feed my family.”
Christine tried to understand. “So Zachary’s arrogant and manipulative, but you like him anyway?”
“No.” Tim smiled. “Zachary’s arrogant and manipulative, and I love him anyway.”
Chapter Forty-four
Christine hurried down the busy sidewalk, crowded with students carrying backpacks, businesspeople scrolling through smartphones, and Temple University employees in red lanyards, hurrying back to their offices after lunch. It had taken her almost an hour to drive into the center of Philadelphia, then another half an hour to fight the traffic going up Broad Street, which was evidently the city’s main artery. Hannah had said she only had twenty minutes between classes, so Christine had driven like a maniac, sensing that Hannah didn’t want to meet with her at all.
The air was impossibly humid, and Christine wiped the sweat from her brow as she passed a bustling campus bookstore, then made a beeline for the cheesesteak place that Hannah had specified. She threaded her way to the restaurant, pushed open the door, and breathed in the delicious smells of sizzling steaks. Her eyes adjusted to the dim, cramped rectangle, mostly a take-out joint with an order counter, open griddles, and cooks on the left, and on the right, two rows of small brown tables.
A young girl sitting in the back waved to Christine, but it didn’t make sense. The young girl was tall and thin, with long dark hair, which didn’t fit the description of Zachary’s girlfriend that Christine had gotten from the CO at the prison, the first day. Christine remembered the CO describing Zachary’s girlfriend as a “redhead” and “a pretty little thing,” and the woman standing up was neither little nor a redhead, though she was adorably pretty. She had a soft, round face, with dimples and a turned-up nose, full lips, and a dazzling smile, with perfect teeth.
“Christine!” the young girl called, impatiently motioning her forward, and Christine walked past the noisy crowd lining up at the counter and headed for the back of the restaurant.
“Hannah? I thought you were a redhead.”
“No, why would you think that?” Hannah sat down, brushing smooth the hem of a summery purple sundress with skinny straps. “Please sit, I don’t have long.”
“The guard at Graterford told me you had red hair.”
“How would they know? I’ve never been to Graterford.”
“But you visited Zachary, didn’t you?” Christine sat down, bewildered.
“No, no way.” Hannah shuddered. “A maximum-security prison? Uh, no thanks.”
Christine didn’t understand. “But the guard said his girlfriend was there.”
“He has no problem getting women. Such a player. Whatever, dude.” Hannah snorted. “Why would I visit him? We broke up. We’re over.”
“Well, I was under the impression that you cared about him as a friend.”
“Where did you get that impression?” Hannah drew back.
“From him. He said so.”
“Ha! He’s so full of himself!” Hannah rolled her eyes, which were a lovely shade of hazel, with only light makeup.
“It’s a reasonable conclusion, given the fact that you’re lending him money for his retainer.” Christine felt unaccountably defensive on Zachary’s behalf.
“What?” Hannah looked at Christine like she was crazy. “I’m not doing that. I’m not lending him any money, ever again.”
“Wait, hold on. Let me get this straight.” Christine felt confounded, beginning to realize why Zachary hadn’t wanted her to meet with Hannah. “You didn’t lend him $2,500 toward his retainer, in a cashier’s check? You dropped it off at his lawyer’s office?”
Hannah scoffed. “Are you kidding? No, not at all. My days of paying his bills are so over.”
Christine couldn’t get her bearings. Zachary had lied to her, but she didn’t know why. “I guess I was misinformed.”
“Welcome to the world of Zachary Jeffcoat. I don’t know what angle he’s working with you, and I don’t know what he told you. But if he’s talking, he’s lying.” Hannah sipped soda from a tall, plastic tumbler. “Don’t ask me why he’d lie about something that was so easy to catch him on. He’s usually better than that.”
“He didn’t know I was going to meet you.”
“Right, that’s it, and he would know that I would avoid meeting with you, which I totally tried to do.”
Christine had called Hannah five times, not about to give up. “I had that impression. Why, though?”
“My boyfriend getting arrested as a serial killer?” Hannah shook her head, newly somber. “I want nothing to do with that, believe me. I have nothing to do with that. It’s horrible, it’s embarrassing, it’s scary. My parents went ballistic. They liked him. They’re both doctors in town, in family practice. They’re beside themselves.”
“When did you break up with him?”
“The night they arrested him. He called me from the police station in West Chester. I went with my dad.”
“And you broke up with Zachary right then?”
“Totally, it was a no-brainer.” Hannah chuckled, without mirth. “He was sitting there in handcuffs and a white paper jumpsuit. He had washed up, but there was still blood under his fingernails and in his hair. I’m not one of those dumb women who stand by their man, no matter what. It was a long time coming, anyway. We hadn’t been that happy for a while.”
Christine wondered if she had become one of those dumb women. “Do you think he’s guilty?”
“Possibly, okay?” Hannah shook her head, curling her nose in distaste. “I hate to think I was with somebody who was that sick and didn’t know it. My dad is sending me links to articles about serial killers whose girlfriends and wives didn’t know it. It’s so freaky. I think they’re right. It could’ve been me.”