Who Killed Chrissy?: The True Crime Memoir of a Pittsburgh girl's Unsolved Murder in Las Vegas (3 page)

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 with pantries leading
into the dining room area, then a back door from the kitchen which opens to a
New York style heavy metal fire escape that snakes all the way up to the top
floor. There are three apartments stacked on the left side and three on the
right side, with the front doors right in the middle.  I live on the first
floor, right side, and Chris lives on the third floor, right side, directly
above me, with one apartment in between us. There are wooden steps with carpet
and double wooden doors to the street. No elevator.

It is the spring of 1981. I
returned to Pittsburgh in 1979, twenty-nine years old, pregnant and unmarried,
and I’ve been living in the Stanton Heights section of the city of Pittsburgh
since my son was born; he is now two years old. I was happy to have been able
to move from Stanton Heights back to the North Side where I grew up. I settled
in Stanton Heights when I returned to Pittsburgh so I could be close to West
Penn Hospital where my obstetrician was located—and until I could find a job,
with hopefully, a company car. My background is forever in sales, and I landed
a position with a local company as a regional sales rep when my son was close
to seven months old.

Chris balances herself leaning
against the sink and washing the spinach leaves and chard for her bubbling pot of
soup while I sit in deep thought about this creepy guy, Marty—the knife she’s
been using for her dramatic demonstration has been laid casually in the sink,
and she’s thinking about her next move. Who the hell is Marty I thought, as I
flicked ashes into the ashtray….

I sit straight up in my chair and
look at her, and I’m trying to think of the next move with her. I guess the
only polite thing to do is ask about the guy in this scene she’s describing. I
haven’t known her long enough to do much more, and besides, I’m a listener; I’m
the kind of friend who tries to be helpful without being overly critical. I
listen intently as she continues to tell me this story that I don’t want to
hear and have no clue why she’s telling it to me. I’m going to try to just listen
without being judgmental.

She is fanning the smoke that’s
drifting towards her and is now making excuses for Marty. “Marty’s a little
strange, but mysterious, and he’s from the North Side, you know, that’s where I
grew up, so did you, so you know all about that North Side deal. He tells me
stories about how it’s easy to kill a person and never be found out, how you
can stick a pipe down the throat, and no one can ever tell how the person
died.”

“A pipe Chris? What kind of a
pipe?” I said quickly, but it seemed weird saying it, talking about a pipe in
someone’s throat. In fact, when I pictured this, I thought of jungle soldiers
in Vietnam or something like that. I couldn’t think of anything else about a
pipe, it was just so damn weird to me.

“Why does he tell you way-out
stories like this about pipes, Chris?”….she ignores my question.

She has now gotten more intense.
“He’s a street guy; you know, the kind that isn’t afraid of anyone. He hates
niggers with a passion because of being a cop and with living on the North
Side; well, everyone knows how bad the nigger situation is on the North Side,
right?”

“Marty
who
, Chris?  Who is
Marty? Can you please explain to me who the hell this Marty guy is, how did you
meet him?”…I am nervously picking at my newly manicured nails, feeling an
explosion building up. I am quite even tempered, but once I reach the level of
feeling frustrated and vulnerable, I am going to respond dramatically.

I jump up out of my chair, somewhat
lunging towards her, my words are fast and furious, while she stands there with
her arms crossed, looking dazed. “What do you mean he hates niggers, Chris? You
know my baby is biracial, and you know his father is a black man. Don’t tell me
you think the same way this Marty feels, I mean, you’re going to generalize
about all black people now because you grew up on the goddamn North Side?”  

I acted shocked, but I wasn’t.  The
way she was describing Marty was just a typical Pittsburgh white Irish cop;
they were all racists—they’d seen enough from black crime in the local
neighborhoods and the ruination of houses and properties turned into trashy
ghettos. They were the ones who had to risk their lives at crime scenes and
endure their fellow cop friends getting shot. I understood these sentiments
well, but I didn’t understand the blanket racism that consumed this city, and I
certainly didn’t want to be grouped into the Pittsburgh mentality that if you
hang with blacks you are white trash. My son’s father wasn’t like those black
ghetto dwellers; he was an entertainer with the oldies singing group, the
Drifters, from New York. I had never been exposed to what these racists talk
about all the time in Pittsburgh, but I understood it completely because I
heard it from everyone I knew who lived in the city. I went to a city school on
the North Side, but technically we lived in Ross Township North Hills, which
was considered a suburb right on the city line. I escaped having to stay in
city schools after the eighth grade at St. Cyril’s, and moved on to better
schools in the suburbs by the time I reached my early teens.

My impressions of Pittsburgh are of
strong Irish or Italian roots, along with equally strong German Irish roots. Or
like myself, German Irish Crow. The Crow meant Croatian, and the Croatians
landed in a section of Pittsburgh called Troy Hill, where the hunky, muscled
Croatian men walked to work every day at the Heppenstall Steel Mill on the
river’s edge. They had to walk down “pig-shit hill,” which was a steep, narrow
unpaved hill to the river below. The pig part was because the farmers also
drove pigs down the hill to Herr’s Island, the meatpacking district. My
grandfather Zelkovich walked that walk to the Heppenstall Mill; other members
of my family worked at the slaughter houses.  The Croatians were branded
“hunkies” for this association of ethnicity and pure hunks of muscle, while all
other mill workers would forever be referred to as mill hunks in the Pittsburgh
dictionary of colloquialisms.  

Chris softens her voice and is
suddenly more demure as she stares at the large piles of spinach and chard on
the kitchen counter.

“It’s not me, I’m not prejudiced,
but Marty is beyond that.  It’s because of being a cop and trying to deal with
their bullshit every day, all the crimes and bullshit. His name is Marty Walsh;
he’s a city cop and he’s cool. I’ve known him for quite a while now, and he’s
teaching me things.  He says they…you know, his cop buddies and him, they drive
around Pittsburgh looking for blacks they can pick up off the streets and toss
in the paddy wagon. Then they drive about an hour or so out of town and drop
them all off in the middle of nowhere, maybe Butler County or further out; they
leave them there to walk back to town.  This is usually in the middle of the
night, so they’re pissed off and confused as all hell. Marty thinks it’s
hysterical.”

I sit back down in the kitchen
chair and I’m chain smoking and I can’t help but wonder what kind of crimes
against humanity have been committed by this heartless man.