by Kit Frick
I can feel my cheeks burn red, and realizing he still hasn’t said a word, I hold up the plate of cookies, wondering if I can slide them through the gate and run. “Paisley and I baked,” I offer, cursing the tremble in my voice.
Caden presses something on the other side of the pillar, and the gate creaks and slides on its track, disappearing into a slot in the stone. He motions toward the house with his chin. “Come on.”
As we walk up the drive toward Windermere, cookies still clutched in my hands, I can feel Caden’s eyes trained on my face. I make myself look anywhere but at him. To our left is the pond he mentioned restoring; the lawn around it has been freshly mowed, and there’s a large pile of weeds and debris on the bank closest to the gate. My eyes skate across the lawn up to the house itself, which is still majestic in stature and has not been long enough neglected to have fallen into serious disrepair. If they would bring someone in to hack down the vines and clean up the landscaping, that would be 90 percent of the job, but I keep my lips pressed tightly together. Not my business.
“You look different without your hoodie,” Caden says finally as we near the porch. He pauses, so I pause too, and I make myself turn to face him. We’re both standing on the first step, suspended between the drive and the porch. Our bodies are suddenly close together. I’m in his space, but I didn’t mean to be. I want to take a step back, but can’t decide if that would be even more awkward. Before I can make up my mind, he reaches one hand slowly toward me and gently lifts a dark lock of hair between his fingers. “Raven,” he says.
Above us, I hear a flutter and series of cries, and then I do take a step back, off the stairs, feet returning to the drive. Caden drops his hand and shoves it in his pocket. I look up in time to see a cloud of black feathers lift off from the third-floor balcony, twenty birds or more taking to the sky.
“Ravens,” Caden says again, and I wonder if I misunderstood him the first time. “My mother keeps birds. Parakeets mostly, sometimes canaries. The wild birds can smell the feed; they’re always around.”
There’s something stiff about his voice, his posture. Not at all like the other night, his casual lean against the pillar, the easy conversation. I get the sense he’s being polite, and my stomach clenches. I keep my eyes trained on the balcony, and as the ravens disperse against the sky, I’m hit with a powerful wave of vertigo. It strikes hard and fast, the balcony tilting toward me, or the driveway rippling to waves beneath my feet.
I pitch forward. I’m falling.
I grasp at the house with my free hand, try to steady myself as Windermere careens around me, falling, everything falling. I shut my eyes and let the wall’s brown shingles take solid shape against my hand until the vertigo passes, and the world rights itself again. I draw a deep breath in.
“You okay?” Caden is squinting at me, concerned.
“Just dizzy for a sec. I think I looked up too fast.” It sounds good, but I’m not sure what that was. I’ve never been great with heights, but staring up from below has never been a problem. Something about that balcony tipped the world off-kilter.
Caden nods, satisfied, then turns abruptly and walks up the stairs to the front door. “You’d better come in, since you’re here,” he says, swinging the door wide. Immediately, I hear barking, and we’re met by a midsize brown and white dog, some kind of spaniel.
“That’s Jake,” Caden says, ruffling the dog’s floppy ears. “He’s friendly.”
I join Caden on the porch and let Jake sniff my hand, which he promptly fills with his warm muzzle. Jake’s coat is shiny and he looks well cared for, but as I crouch down to pet him, I have to hold my breath. He smells. Really smells.
I straighten up and take a step toward the house, and that’s when it hits me that the smell isn’t coming from Jake. It’s coming from inside Windermere.
In the entryway, the mysterious odor is immediately identifiable. The hall is absolutely teeming with birds—and bird droppings. There are cages hanging here and there, others propped on various pieces of once-beautiful furniture, but the doors have been unlatched, and the birds seem to have free rein of the place.
My mouth must be hanging open because Caden says, “You’re here all summer, right? You were going to see it sooner or later.”
I snap my jaw shut and try to breathe through my teeth.
“My mother isn’t well,” he says. “I think I mentioned the other night.” He gestures loosely toward a portrait of a pretty young woman with fair skin and glossy brown hair hanging at the base of a tall, gently curving staircase to my left. The banister, once a grand thing, is dusty and coated with bird shit. “She was in her late twenties or early thirties when that portrait was done. The man in the painting next to her was my father. Died when I was a little kid. I don’t really remember him.”
Both of Caden’s parents appear to be white, and I wonder if he was adopted. It doesn’t seem like the right time to ask.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “About your dad.”
Caden shrugs but doesn’t say anything.
“And that your mom is sick,” I add. I feel like an intruder in their home. It was clearly beautiful once; the furnishings in the entry hall look old and sturdy and probably very expensive. A dust-covered tapestry lines one wall, and to my left, beyond the staircase, is what appears to be a formal living room or parlor. The curtains are drawn across floor-to-ceiling windows, and the room is swallowed in musty darkness. Did he invite me inside to gawk? Or is this some sort of test of my character? If it is, I’m not sure I’m passing.
“I brought cookies,” I say again, holding out the little plate. “We baked way too many. I hope you like peanut butter.”
Caden’s thick eyebrows arch suddenly toward the ceiling, and he looks at the plastic-wrapped plate in my hand for the first time. Without warning, he reaches out and takes it from me, a little too sharply.
“What are these?” he asks.
“Um, peanut butter and jelly cookies?” A dark cloud passes over his face, and I feel a lump take shape in my throat. “I thought, um, we used three different kinds of jam,” I start to ramble. “But if you don’t like them, I’m sure we’ll do more baking later.”
“Please take them back.” Caden’s voice is cold. He holds the plate out toward me, his arm stiff and eyes hard. I try to swallow, but my mouth is completely dry.
“Okay, sure.” I grasp the cookies, wishing I had a bag I could shove them into. I’ve done something horribly, irrevocably wrong. Made some mysterious faux pas. Jake brushes against my legs, and I pat the top of his head, more to reassure myself than anything else.
“You should go,” Caden says as I’m already turning toward the door, ready to leave Windermere and never return. Maybe Paisley was right. This place is haunted. Not by the dead, but by the flinty secrets of the living.
I stumble down the porch steps and back to the gate, which Caden has mercifully left open as if he knew my stay inside the Windermere grounds would be brief. I turn the corner onto Linden Lane and sprint toward Clovelly Cottage, punching in the code at the end of the drive with trembling fingers. I mess it up the first time, then make myself stop a moment, take a breath. Down the road, just past Claudia Cooper’s house, Tom’s Lexus is parked on the street. He’s standing outside, leaning against the SUV’s driver’s side door, and raking his fingers through his hair. I raise my hand to wave, but he doesn’t see me. He’s clearly involved in a very intense phone call that doesn’t seem close to ending anytime soon, so I get my shit together and punch in the gate code again.
Instead of going in through the front door, I duck around the side of the house and cross behind the pool, waving feebly to Mary and Paisley, who are carrying glasses and a stack of plates out to the table on the porch, then slip into my cottage. I jam the plate of cookies into the trash, then collapse on the bed, tears filling my eyes.
I swipe them away, angry at myself for letting Caden get to me. He was the rude one, stormy and harsh for no good reason. I didn’t do anyt
hing wrong. Did I?
The clock on my phone says there’s still an hour until dinner. I need to move, to get this funk out of my system. I won’t have time to shower again, but I don’t care. I slip out of my sundress and into my one athletic outfit and sneakers, then grab my phone and earbuds and start jogging back around the house, down the drive. When I turn onto Linden Lane, the street is empty where Tom’s Lexus was parked a few minutes ago. Instead of music, I pull up my podcasts and hit play on the second episode of Missing Zoe.
TRANSCRIPT OF MISSING ZOE EPISODE TWO: THE BOYFRIEND THEORY
[ELECTRONIC BACKGROUND MUSIC]
YOUNG FEMALE VOICE: They were “that couple,” you know?
YOUNG MALE VOICE: I thought something might have happened, but I didn’t want to ask. But then Zoe was with Caden at the gospel choir’s winter concert right before break, and everything seemed fine. That was the last time I saw her.
[END BACKGROUND MUSIC]
MARTINA GREEN: Hi, listeners, and welcome back. Today, I’ve got the second episode of Missing Zoe for you. But if you didn’t catch Episode One, you should probably start there to learn about Zoe Spanos, the young woman who vanished without a trace from her Herron Mills hometown last New Year’s Eve, and why we’re discussing her case here. Go ahead and listen; I’ll be here when you get back.
[BRIEF PAUSE]
Okay, everybody ready? Today is Tuesday, February eighteenth, and it’s been seven weeks to the day since Zoe disappeared. Zoe Spanos is still missing. And we’re missing Zoe.
[MISSING ZOE INSTRUMENTAL THEME]
MARTINA GREEN: If you know Zoe personally or if you’ve been following the media coverage of her case, you may have noticed that I left out something—or rather, someone—important in last week’s episode: Zoe’s long-time boyfriend, Caden Talbot.
And that’s because I’m going to devote the majority of this episode to Caden and his relationship with Zoe. If you follow true crime media at all—or read murder mysteries or missing girl stories or watch Law & Order or CSI—you know that the husband or boyfriend is the first person the police bring in when a woman goes missing or is the victim of a violent crime.
In July 2017, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report that showed over half of women killed in the United States are victims of intimate partner violence. I spoke with Judith Corrado Smith, assistant director for Communication at the CDC, over the phone from her Atlanta, Georgia, office. Here’s what she had to say:
JUDITH CORRADO SMITH: Our study looked at 10,018 murders of women in eighteen states from 2003 through 2014. Of those deaths, fifty-five percent were intimate partner violence related. We say “intimate partner violence related” because crimes committed by a family member or friend of the victim’s partner are included within this classification, however in ninety-three percent of the intimate partner murder cases we examined, the perpetrator was a current or former romantic partner of the victim.
Strangers perpetrate just sixteen percent of all homicides where a woman is the victim. The popular narrative of a random killing by a mysterious stranger may be great fodder for urban legends and ghost stories, but it’s just not a likely scenario.
MARTINA GREEN: While tales of stranger danger certainly haunt our cultural psyche, today’s crime dramas and murder mysteries also frequently explore the narrative that the CDC’s study confirmed: In real life as in fiction, there’s a very good chance that the husband-slash-boyfriend did it.
But let’s take a step back. You’re probably asking: Does Martina Green believe that Caden Talbot was responsible for Zoe’s disappearance—or that he may have even killed her? The short answer is no, I don’t believe this to be true. We have no evidence that Zoe is dead, nor do I think it likely that Caden was the perpetrator of violence against her.
CAROLINE FOX-RIGG: I can’t speak to his mental state; I’m not a mental health care practitioner. But in terms of personality? Caden was never anything but a kind, conscientious member of our Jefferson community. Very bright, one of our academic superstars. Especially in the humanities, although he held his own in my class too. And he was very devoted to Zoe.
MARTINA GREEN: That’s Miss Fox-Rigg, a chemistry teacher at Jefferson High School. You’ll hear more from her in our third episode.
The more complicated answer to the question of “why look so hard at Caden” is this: Because the police latched on so quickly to their Zoe-as-runaway theory, I don’t believe they did their due diligence in this regard. And this was a grave oversight, because whether or not he had anything to do directly with Zoe’s disappearance, Caden is the one person in Zoe’s life most likely to be in possession of valuable information in her case—information that may seem trivial or unrelated, but which could be extremely useful to police.
ASSISTANT DETECTIVE PHILIP MASSEY: Both Caden and Meredith Talbot were identified as persons of interest early in our investigation. They are not suspects. As the investigation remains open, I cannot comment further on our interactions with the Talbots.
MARTINA GREEN: You might remember AD Massey from our first episode as an officer on Zoe’s case. While the detective would not delve into particulars, to the best of my knowledge, Caden Talbot and his mother Mrs. Meredith Talbot were each brought in for questioning only once by police following Zoe’s disappearance.
I tried to get Caden to speak with me for this episode, but those requests were declined. I’ll keep pressing for future episodes. While police have refrained from further exploring what I’m calling the boyfriend theory, it’s my belief that buried somewhere in the contours of Zoe and Caden’s relationship lies the key that will unlock the mystery to what happened on New Year’s Eve.
Let’s start at the beginning, with some background on the Talbot and Spanos families. I checked in again with village historian Alfred Harvey, for a dose of family history.
ALFRED HARVEY: The Talbots are old Herron Mills. The family has been in the area since the late eighteen hundreds—shortly after Herron Mills was incorporated as a village. They’re one of the few families in the area who have been here since the beginning and still have a presence.
MARTINA GREEN: What can you tell us about the recent generations of Talbots?
ALFRED HARVEY: Well, Laurence and Faye were the fifth generation at Windermere, the family’s Linden Lane estate. They were born to parents Daniel and Martha in 1968 and 1971, respectively. Daniel and Martha relocated to London in the early nineties, leaving Windermere in their son Laurence’s care. Faye lives in the Boston area with her wife Carla, and to the best of my knowledge, the two have never shown an interest in taking over management of the estate.
Laurence Talbot, known to his friends and colleagues as Larry, was a very successful art dealer until his death in 2006. Stomach cancer, he was only thirty-eight. Laurence left Windermere to his wife, Meredith, and son, Caden, who inhabit it today.
MARTINA GREEN: And the Spanos family?
ALFRED HARVEY: There’s less to tell. George and Joan Spanos are much newer to Herron Mills. They moved to our village from Queens, New York, in 1995, when George established his landscape architecture practice in the East End. Joan was then an assistant editor and is now the editor in chief of Wayfare + Ramble, a New York City–based travel magazine. As your listeners will know, they have two daughters, Zoe and Aster.
HARRIET BENYON: At three years apart, you’d think things might have been competitive between them, but it was never really like that.
MARTINA GREEN: You’re hearing from Harriet Benyon, a friend of Aster’s—and mine—from school. While I could talk all day about the Spanos sisters, I wanted you to be able to hear a perspective apart from my own.
HARRIET BENYON: They fought sometimes, they were normal siblings. I wouldn’t exactly describe them as best friends; they each had their own groups. But even though Aster was younger, she was always taking care of Zoe. I remember one of the first times I went over to their place. I think Aster and I were eleven and Zoe was fou
rteen. We were watching this movie about witches, and Aster held Zoe’s hand through all the scary parts. That’s a pretty good metaphor for their relationship. Her sister’s disappearance has been really hard on Aster. I mean, obviously. But she feels like she let her guard down, like she should have been there personally to stop anything bad from happening to Zoe.
ELLE COLERIDGE: George and Joan? They’re typical Herron Mills parents.
MARTINA GREEN: Again, I wanted to bring you an outside take. So now you’re hearing from Elle Coleridge, another classmate of Aster’s and mine. Elle is the president of Jefferson’s DECA and FBLA chapters, and she and Aster are both on swim team.
Elle, can you tell us what you mean by “typical Herron Mills parents”?
ELLE COLERIDGE: Oh. Well, you know. Busy. Career-focused. Big ambitions for their kids. They were thrilled when Aster made captain this year. Aster’s a little short for a swimmer, but she’s a total powerhouse. It’s usually George in the bleachers at meets; I think Joan’s in the city a lot for work.
MARTINA GREEN: Do you get the impression they aren’t around enough for their daughters?
ELLE COLERIDGE: No, I’m not saying that. I think like most parents around here, Mr. and Mrs. Spanos are balancing demanding jobs with raising a family. It’s like there are a lot of expectations placed on modern parents, especially mothers, to be everything all the time. It’s just not realistic. They’re good parents. Everyone saying they dropped the ball, trying to shove responsibility off on the family—it’s gross. You know no one has ever solved the Long Island Serial Killer murders, and that’s mostly because those girls were escorts, and no one reported them missing. For years, law enforcement didn’t care. It’s so sad. I’m not saying LISK had anything to do with Zoe, but this is a case where her family cares deeply. I can’t even look at Reddit anymore. What we need is a real lead, so people will stop passing judgment on the family, as if letting their college-aged daughter go to a New Year’s party was some kind of sin.