Who Killed Chrissy?: The True Crime Memoir of a Pittsburgh girl's Unsolved Murder in Las Vegas Read Free Page A

across the room at Chick
Conley or Bart Klemz, and she was my favorite nun. She was young, tough and
pretty, and eventually left the convent when I left the grade school.  She
confided in a few of us girls that there were things going on with the priests
that were wrong, she knew they were wrong and she had to get out.
    “What kind of craziness is that, I
mean, why would you enjoy a sharp knife being dragged all over your body;
doesn’t it hurt?”  I stare in amazement at her, swatting my blonde bangs away
from my eyes and lighting a cigarette.  I’m agitated and nervous, which will
inevitably lead to a chain smoking frenzy and will piss her off because she
doesn’t smoke and doesn’t like smoke. She seems amused, flashing her crooked
smile—she has shocked me, made me pay attention to her; it pleases her. She’s
dancing around the oversized kitchen, palming the little meatballs, rolling and
tossing them into the bubbling pot. The wonderful aroma of chicken broth and parsley
fill the kitchen, and I just want to eat Wedding Soup now and forget everything
else. My son is at my Mom’s house, and I’m sure she’s feeding him a lunch of
leftover roast beef, carrots and potatoes.  The thought makes me hungrier than
I already am.
    As I study her reactions to my
reactions, I realize that she is enjoying my disbelief, and this strange
feeling comes over me, as if I have connected with her psyche. I catch her eye
and she turns away from me; she knows I’ve connected with her and she rejects
the connection. I want to connect with her; I want to be a close friend because
I do not believe that she has close female friends, or at least ones that she
trusts.
    I also feel that there are two
distinct personalities going on here. The Chris that I see every day jogging
the park is not the same Chris that is now telling me this story of horror and
shock. I believe that Chris knows that I know she’s not the person in this
knife story at all. She just wants to have the whole world think she’s a bona fide
bad ass.
    Sometimes I just look at her and I
know that she is immature, flighty and opposed to learning anything from
someone older than her, but I am not a teacher either. I have my own life to
deal with right now. Quite often she annoys me with her reckless attitude about
life in general, but I have to remind myself that since moving back to
Pittsburgh, I have very few friends. I left in 1975, after being swept off my
feet in a romantic love rush by my son’s father, Rick, who was with the singing
group, the Drifters, and I lost touch with most of my old friends during that
time away.
    Chris and I are neighbors for now,
and I do like having someone in the building that I know and can confide in. I
am alone in single motherhood with my son, who is now the only person that I
care about in life, other than my family.
    Chris always wears sweatpants and a
tank top, sports bra showing halfway out of the tank, but it’s the gold jewelry
that is out of place on this permanent getup that I see her in most of the
time. Our first meeting was when she jogged out of the building one morning,
dressed in her running clothes with all the jewelry bobbing around her neck.
Gold chains, crosses, saints, I never understood how she was able to run with
all the jewelry, but I know that she cherishes it all; she won’t go anywhere
without every single piece of it displayed around her neck. It symbolizes
something to Chris—success maybe. I wouldn’t be caught dead in all that gold
jewelry, and every time I see her in it, I cringe. I cringe because I feel like
she’s inviting someone to grab it and rip it right off her neck and run with
it, and having lived in Manhattan briefly with my son’s father, Rick, I knew
that it was not smart to advertise your jewelry in public places.
    The apartments are all the same
size in this building, six units stacked on top of each other with enclosed sun
porches in the front of each, kitchens that are L shaped