“Great,” Christine said, as Kimberly flagged down a trim, compact man in aviator sunglasses and a khaki suit, who was getting out of a parked blue BMW. Dom waved back, then walked over, hoisting a leather messenger bag to his shoulder. He slid off his sunglasses with a hooked index finger, revealing bright blue eyes and a lean, tanned face, with short gray hair.

“Hey, Kimberly, how are you doing?”

“Good.” Kimberly hurried to the Jetta, talking to him on the fly. “Dom, I have to go to work, but you should talk to this lady. Her name’s Christine and she’s a paralegal and she’s asking about Linda. Do you mind? We’re super late for work.”

“Not at all, take care.” Dom turned to Christine with a polite smile. “Dom Gagliardi. Nice to meet you. Which law firm did you say you were with?”

“I’m Christine Nilsson, a paralegal with Francis Griffith.” Christine handed him the business card.

“Griffith?” Dom eyed the card with a frown. “I don’t know his firm. I work in corporate insurance, in Philly. We use a lot of civil firms in West Chester, but I don’t recognize this one.”

Christine wanted to change subjects. “We’re looking into the circumstances of Linda Kent’s death, whether there was any negligence involved in her fall. Kimberly said that you found Linda. Do you think you could show me where?”

“Sure, follow me.” Dom turned toward the house. “You get to the second-floor apartment through this alley, here. Obviously, the front door’s only for the first floor.”

“Right.” Christine fell in behind him, and they walked through the long alley between the two row houses, which was only wide enough to hold a single person. “Do you know if there are any security cameras around here?”

“No, I doubt it. There’s not even security lights. It’s safe, or it used to be. People don’t even lock their doors. I do, but I grew up in Queens.”

“What about surveillance cameras, nothing like that?”

“No, it’s residential. Downtown or the campus may have, but not here.” Dom chuckled. “West Chester is a stop-time. My wife calls it Mayberry. She’s from the area.”

“Any traffic cameras that you know of?” Christine realized the answer as soon as she asked. “Oh, whoops. There’s no traffic lights.”

“Right, it’s great for runners. I never worry about getting hit, like I used to in Manhattan.” Dom stopped as the alley ended in a wooden stairwell and pointed down to the concrete at the bottom of the stairs. “Here. This is where I found her, at the bottom of the stairs.”

“I see.” Christine didn’t see blood or other marks on the concrete, and she scanned the small, narrow backyard, which was completely paved. Trash cans and recycling bins sat on the right, against an old privacy fence. There was a back privacy gate with a barrel lock, and a sign read PROPERTY OF COBBLESTONE REALTY MANAGEMENT.

“It was really pretty horrible.”

“I’m sorry,” Christine said, sympathetic. “I hate to ask you, but what did Linda look like? I mean, could you tell how she had fallen?”

“No, I couldn’t.” Dom grimaced. “I knew right away she was dead, because her neck was bent and her eyes were open, staring upward.”

“Was there blood or anything?”

“No blood.” Dom shook his neat head. “Her legs didn’t look broken, but they were bent underneath her, like she had fallen down the steps.”

“Was she lying faceup?”

“Yes, she was, and her head was right here.” Dom stepped over to the base of the steps. “Her head was facing near the steps, and her legs were toward our house.”

“What was she wearing?”

“Shorts and a T-shirt. She was barefoot, I did notice that.”

Christine made a note. “How did you happen to find her?”

“I run every morning before work. It’s a long commute with the traffic on 202, so I leave early. I get up and run at five thirty.”

“What were you doing out back?”

“I stretch in the backyard, then I leave by our back gate.” Dom gestured over the privacy fence to his grassy backyard with a bistro table, which ended in an iron gate. “I was stretching and I happened to look over the fence. You can see it’s not that high, and there she was. I went over to do CPR but she didn’t have a pulse. Her skin was cool.” Dominic wrinkled his nose in distaste. “I called 911, and they got here with an ambulance.”

“So do you know when it happened, did the police give you any indication of that?”

“You could probably get that information from the coroner, but I think I heard them say that they think it was around midnight.”

Christine noted that it dovetailed with what she already knew. “Did you hear any sound around midnight, that night? Any cry for help or even her bumping down the stairs, as grisly as that sounds?”

“No, but I go to bed early and I take Ambien. So does my wife. There’s a lot of stress on my job.”

Christine made a mental note, using the pause to switch tack. “By the way, my condolences on the loss of your neighbor, Gail Robinbrecht.”

“I know, Gail was a nice person, and we both liked her. We went to her parties, she included everyone, and she was so good to my neighbors on the other side, the Davidsons.”

Christine’s ears pricked up. It was the next house she was going to.

“They’re a retired couple, but they’re never home these days. They have a new grandbaby in Toledo and they’ve been there for three months.”

Christine crossed that one off her mental list of houses to visit. “How did she know them?”

“Bill Davidson had a procedure at Chesterbrook, and Gail went out of her way to make sure he was okay. It was just thoughtful, and Bill really appreciated it.” Dom frowned. “We’re so glad they got the guy who did it. It blows my mind to think that he was right here. Lately there’s been too much bad news.”

“Did you hear anything or see anything suspicious the night Gail was killed?”

“The police asked us, too, but we didn’t. Like I say, Ambien works.”

“By the way, did you ever notice people going to visit Gail Robinbrecht’s house, coming up the back steps?”