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box wrapped in white paper with a swastika drawn crudely in pen, Walsh noticed, on the side of it.
    Rejniak, perhaps a bit embarrassed, called the police back and told them the good news: that they had to come back.
    It had taken hours for the Massachusetts State Police bomb squad to arrive. While they were en route, the ward had to be evacuated and every single patient taken out of his room and brought to another ward.
    Within moments, the bomb squad determined that it was nothing more than what everyone had presumed—a box of Kleenex wrapped in white paper.
    The patients were then brought back into their rooms, and life went on.
    The nurses later referred to the night as being their own little version of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, for the simple reason that a tiny cardboard box painted to look menacing had caused so much confusion and panic.
    Some of the nurses later speculated it was Gilbert who had planted the box.
    Why?
    So she could bask in the glory of finding it?
    Still, in the eyes of many of her colleagues, Gilbert was the perfect mother. The perfect wife. The perfect nurse. She was a caring individual who spent time during the holidays setting up a Secret Santa program for area needy kids and volunteered at local homeless shelters. Having a separate room in her home dedicated to sewing, she loved to make Christmas stockings and quilts from scratch and give them away.
    But it was all part of the façade.
    At work, Gilbert told people her mother’s real name was Tiesha, a name given to her by a royal family. She told people she had spent time as a child living and studying in England. She told people her parents were wealthy socialites. She said her family was connected to English royalty. All were lies.
    â€œShe was so Martha Stewart . . . so L.L. Bean-ish,” former friends later said. “Kristen always had to have the best of everything. And she wasn’t afraid to let you know about it when she got it.”
    As time went on, Gilbert, her coworkers began to notice, became obsessed with clothing and home items. Whether it was Gucci, Calvin Klein or Playschool, she not only had to have the latest in fashion and high chairs and toys for her kids, but it had to be the best. Even linens. Whenever someone came over, there she was, like a Price Is Right model, showing off whatever new bedspread, set of curtains or piece of furniture she had recently bought.
    â€œYou’ll never believe what I just bought. Come on over and check it out,” Gilbert would say.
    Yet her buying habits became tangled in a web of something just short of fraud. She would order expensive clothing from magazines for an up-and-coming dinner party, work outing or night out on the town with friends, only to return them after the event was over.
    She also felt the need to one-up just about everyone whom she felt threatened by in some way.
    Rachel Webber was an attractive young nurse who had worked with Gilbert during the early nineties, and they became good friends almost immediately. Gilbert had thrown baby showers for Webber in 1992 and, later, in 1994. But something happened one day that gave Webber pause to think about how differently Gilbert had viewed the relationship.
    At work one night in 1993, Webber told Gilbert that she was thinking of buying a new Jeep Grand Cherokee. Webber loved the new design, she said. But she wasn’t sure her husband would agree. So she wrote it off as a pipe dream.
    â€œSomeday, Krissy,” she said. “If it’s the last thing I do, someday . . . I’m going to get me that Jeep!”
    Weeks later, Gilbert came into work and began talking about the vehicle as if she had engineered the thing herself.
    â€œWow,” Webber said. “How do you know so much about it?”
    â€œConsumer Reports!” Gilbert bragged. “I read up on it.”
    â€œWell, it is a nice vehicle.”
    â€œSure is,” Gilbert said. “Guess what, Rachel?” she