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Black Diamond Fall

Page 15

by Joseph Olshan


  Kennedy continues, “I want you to consider our point of view, despite your assertions. On one hand, Heather Finlayson clears you from being able to get up to Carleton on the night of February eleventh. But on the other hand, she doesn’t clear you because she tells us that Luc Flanders often hitchhiked down here to see you. Combine all this with the bizarre circumstance of somebody coming to your house the morning, stealing your car and then running her off the road. If you had to, how could you explain that?”

  “My only explanation is the Valley News article. Somebody must have read it this morning and got angry enough to do what they did.”

  Agreeing with Sam’s assessment, Jenkins remarks, “That’s plenty angry. The question is: Why?”

  “I don’t know why.”

  Kennedy goes on, “Luc told you he liked to hitchhike because he didn’t want his roommates to know he was driving down here. But how would they even know where he was going?”

  Sam turns to Jenkins. “I actually remember a conversation Luc and I had that might help explain this better.”

  “When was this conversation?” Jenkins asks.

  “Early last December, a few weeks before Luc broke it off.”

  * * *

  They had their coats on and were headed for the snowmobile trails that wind through the fields across the road from Sam’s house. The temperature was down around ten, there was a stiff, punishing wind, and they are winding scarves around their faces when Luc, who was jamming his phone in his pocket, received a text. From Taft, who apparently wanted to know where he was. And Luc complained that Taft was always keeping track of him. And Sam joked with him and said, “I thought your roommates were straight.”

  Luc turned toward him with his disarmingly pale eyes and said, “I don’t know if it has anything to do with that. Anyway, when you and I first met, you thought I was straight.”

  Bewildered by this remark, Sam replied, “I never thought you were straight. How could I think that?”

  “No, I mean . . . all the women I’ve been with and . . . will be with.” Luc said the last bit without real conviction.

  Discouraged by Luc’s persistent self-delusion, Sam led the way outside into a terrific wintry wind. That first week of December the mantle of snow had already arrived. Mid-afternoon winter skies are often striated with a plumage of pink and purple bands, noticeably different from the more orange and red eventide of summer. They crossed the street and picked up one of the Vermont Association of Snowmobile Trails that snaked across the fields and meadows of South Woodstock. Because the thoroughfare went narrow for a hundred yards, they were forced to walk single file. Luc was wearing his goofy, thigh-length coat, which looked vaguely like some military knockoff. He was whistling. But then he pivoted around and faced Sam with a baffled look on his face, his longish hair sticking out of the sides of his khaki-colored woolen cap. “Taft treats women pretty shabbily. He mainly has had physical relationships with them, and he always seems to end them without warning.”

  “He sounds like a player,” Sam said.

  “Maybe he is a player,” Luc replied.

  * * *

  “Why didn’t you mention this when I first questioned you?” Jenkins asks.

  “Because for me, that conversation was about Luc telling me he still might want to be with a woman. Not about Taft. Taft was incidental. I only just remembered that part of it.”

  “Okay. I get that,” Kennedy says and turns to Jenkins. “I’m done here. How about you? Any more questions?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  Kennedy opens the door, walks down a corridor and finds Lieutenant Kessler standing next to a water cooler, reading a printout. She looks up. “I need you folks out here. Can you grab Nick?”

  Once the three of them are in an adjacent office, Kessler shuts the door. “We just got this.” She pauses. “One of my guys just spoke to the young woman who comes by every day to help Solomon. She arrived at his house, saw his car wasn’t there and kept going. Presumably when his car was out ramming into Heather Finlayson. But she happened to notice a Jeep Wrangler . . .”

  “Camo?” says Kennedy.

  “Yup.”

  Both Jenkins and Kennedy stare blankly at Lieutenant Kessler.

  “How much bail did those knuckleheads pay?” she asks.

  “Around 50k,” Kennedy says.

  “You’d think they’d lie low,” Kessler says. “And not kick up any more dust.”

  “You’d think,” Kennedy agrees. Then to Jenkins, “Well, we’re in the neighborhood. Why don’t we go tackle the boys about their Jeep?”

  February 22; South Woodstock, Vermont; 31 degrees, blustering winds

  Cradling the phone to his ear while he swipes crumbs of toast into the kitchen sink, Sam tells Mike about his car being stolen and Heather Finlayson being run off the road.

  Mike goes suspiciously silent. After a lengthy interval, he says, “So I guess really the question I have for you, Sam, is: Was Heather lying? On your behalf? Did she actually call when she said she did?”

  “Like I told you, I remember her calling me earlier. But a lot has happened since then. So my memory could be skewed.”

  “So you defer judgment to her,” Mike says.

  “Wouldn’t you if you were me?”

  “So how did it get into the paper so quickly?”

  Sam had known that the interview he did with Pete Skalski was about to run. “I called Pete to say Heather cleared me. And he verified it with her before the paper went to press.”

  At this very moment, Panda rounds the corner and clicks into the kitchen, and without hesitation, comes over and puts her head in Sam’s lap. Nervously stroking her head, he says, “It sounds like you’ve had doubts about my story all along?”

  Mike hesitates. “I didn’t at first. Then Detective Jenkins asked me if I thought you were deliberately reckless when you skied down Black Diamond. I started to rethink what happened. I told him that from my vantage point, you looked fine when you were heading down that first headwall. That your turns were consistent, that you chose a great line, but then suddenly you were somersaulting down. You must know, Sam, you’re alive only because you’re unbelievably lucky. Look what happened to Billy Poole. He tried to recover while he was falling and he didn’t make it.”

  “But Billy Poole went down a different chute, didn’t he? Wasn’t his descent more extreme?”

  “Not really—it was pretty much the same degree of vert. And I’ll be totally honest with you now, Sam. From where I was below, it almost seemed like you were being deliberately reckless.”

  “We both skied the same chute!” Sam cries.

  There is a brief, perturbing silence. “Not exactly,” Mike says at last. “You made a turn and went off a cornice that we said we’d avoid.”

  “I honestly don’t remember doing that.”

  “Well, I do. And you took it. You got air. Too much air.”

  Sam is stunned into silence. His only recollection of the Fall is being down, skis broken, his limbs radiating the agony of the injury. The most pain he’d ever felt in his life, so much that he actually forgot his constant grieving ache over losing Luc Flanders—that sorrow passed from his body like his soul leaving him. There were a few moments before a certain numbness gave way to the deeper agony, when he was glad to feel a vacant peace inside him where the hurt and rejection had been constantly churning; it was a fragile yet precious relief. A mini death of the love that had only resurrected itself later when he was in the hospital.

  Mike comments, “I told Jenkins that before the accident, Gina and I were really worrying about you.” He pauses. “Worrying that you’d lost your will to live.”

  “Well, I didn’t!” Sam insists and then more quietly, “I fought my way back.”

  “After you got injured.”

  But now, Sam’s confusion ha
rdens into raw anger. “But I still don’t understand why my accident in Utah would have anything to do with Luc going missing.”

  Mike tells him, “Well, if you saw Luc Flanders the night you left and something bad happened between the two of you, maybe that would cause you to be really reckless out there.”

  “Like what could have happened between us?” Sam cries. “Like I did something to him?”

  “I have no idea. I don’t know,” Mike says.

  February 22; Randolph, Vermont; wind gusts up to 25 miles per hour, overcast

  Their less viable option would have been confronting Mark and Howard Newcombe at their downtown Bethel home, which is cheek by jowl with a row of other homes. From having arrested them once before, however, Barb Kessler knows the twins spend around four hours every day at the gym at Vermont Technical College.

  Once they pull into the parking lot, Kennedy spots the camouflage vehicle immediately. “Is that their rig?” she asks Jenkins.

  “Looks like it. Have to check the license plate. Last time I saw that baby, it was clean, spanking shiny in Portsmouth. Doesn’t even look like the same car.”

  Kennedy looks out the window toward the entrance of V-tech’s gymnasium and two ledges of plowed snow on either side of a walkway that leads to a drab, one-story building hewn of institutional red brick. “Lemme go inside to make sure they’re here. They don’t know me.”

  She is absent longer than Jenkins would expect.

  At last, Kennedy exits the building and is soon back in the car, her cheeks red from the spiteful cold and a delighted look on her face.

  “You know, you really should cover your head,” Jenkins says, affectionately rubbing his knuckles against her brush-cut scalp.

  “Didn’t realize it was so frigging freezing out there.”

  “Anyway, what took you?”

  She turns to him with delight. “Pure and utter fascination is what took me,” she says, shivering and chafing her hands against the blasting car heater.

  “How so?”

  “These guys are total, bat-shit freaks. You should see how they work out. They’re all over the place, grunting and throwing weights like two orangutans. There is no rhyme or reason to what they do.”

  “Well, they look pretty jacked so they must be doing something right.”

  Kennedy dismisses this. “Hello . . . it’s all drugs, steroids, HGH. Like the pro athletes did before they all started getting caught.” She goes on to say that one of the twins right now is on the elliptical machine, going at a frantic pace. “The guy has this glaze on his face. Like he’s getting himself off.”

  At last, the two men emerge dressed head to toe in matching tan Carhartt coats and trousers, and black woolen fisherman’s caps, looking like tradesmen—which Jenkins and Kennedy know they are anything but. “Talk about workman drag,” she remarks.

  “They claim not to be gay,” Jenkins says.

  “You don’t have to be gay to be in drag,” Kennedy says. “If a farmer went around town wearing an Armani business suit, that would be considered ‘urban drag.’”

  “Is that what it says in the urban dictionary?”

  “In my urban dictionary, that’s what it says.”

  They watch the twins crossing the parking lot. At one point, both men stop to have a short conversation.

  Jenkins turns to Kennedy. “Okay, so surprise them.”

  Exiting the car once again, Kennedy begins strolling toward the twins, who are just about to climb into their Jeep. Sensing her progress toward them, they stop and look at her warily.

  “How’s it going, boys?” she says to them both. “Good workout today?”

  “Who the hell are you?” says the twin about to climb in the passenger side. His eyes, glittering beneath the band of his fisherman’s cap, are a penetrating, wall-eyed blue.

  “I’m about to tell you, Marko,” she says. “If you’ll come back inside where it’s a little warmer.”

  “How do you know who we are?” asks Howard, standing at the driver’s side.

  “How do I know who you are? You’re the famous Newcombe twins of Bethel, Vermont. Everybody knows who you are.” Kennedy swipes her glove along the army fatigue flank of the Jeep and looks at the dirt on it. “Wow, you let this get dirty.”

  “Come on! Who are you?”

  “Detective Kennedy from Carleton. I work with Detective Jenkins, who is right over there in that car and whom you’ve already met.”

  “So you’re a cop?” Howard asks.

  Kennedy reaches inside her coat, grabs her badge and flashes it.

  “Okay, so then why are you here?”

  “Detective Jenkins and I drove down here to remind you that one of the conditions of your bail is that you cooperate with us.” Kennedy glances back toward where Jenkins is waiting and flicks her head upward. Both twins look furtively in that direction.

  Jenkins leaves the car and heads over to them. Both twins go motionless and stare. “Fuck!” Mark Newcombe says.

  “Shut up!” says his brother.

  “We’ll explain it all to you,” Kennedy assures them. “Let’s go on into the gym.” And without waiting for Jenkins to catch up, the twins dutifully pivot and head back into the building.

  They all pass a room in which two scruffy-faced students are playing a fast game of Ping-Pong. Noticing the twins, one of the students says, “I thought you guys split.”

  “So did we,” the twins say in unison.

  For a moment the students stare after them, and then put their paddles on the table and start following.

  “Go back and finish your game, boys,” Kennedy orders them with an admonishing wave of her arm.

  Sensing the gravitas of the situation, the students advance no farther.

  In a room sparsely occupied with students drinking coffee and eating bags of chips and candy bars dispensed by a snack station at one end, there are a few empty and flimsy sofas made of cheap foam. Jenkins invites everyone to grab a seat, and removing their overcoats but not their fisherman’s hats, the twins perch next to each other facing the tall floor-to-ceiling windows, which look out onto forests and rolling hills that graduate to snow-capped mountains.

  “So what do you need?” Mark asks impatiently.

  Jenkins replies, “We’ve been wondering about those books of poetry that were found in your black duffle bag.”

  “We loooove poetry,” Kennedy adds. “We’re both Robert Frostniks.”

  “Is this some kind of joke?” asks Howard.

  “Why would it be a joke?” Kennedy says. “We found it very interesting, the contents in your black duffle bag. A combo of highbrow poetry, workout shorts, skimpy underwear, tank tops and let’s not forget those hypodermic needles.” She pauses and then says, “Were those rare poetry first editions going up for sale, too? Were you offering a two for one poetry/steroid special?”

  Howard says, “Like we told him, they belonged to our dad.”

  “But they have Frost’s signature in them,” Kennedy points out.

  “Frost stole them,” Mark says.

  “So Robert Frost put his signature in books that weren’t his?” Jenkins says.

  “Right,” Howard says.

  “Why would he do something like that?”

  “Why? Because he was a tool!” Mark Newcombe says.

  “Anyway, can you just tell us what you want?” says Howard.

  “It’s very simple,” Kennedy begins. “A camo Jeep Wrangler matching yours was seen early this morning down in South Woodstock.”

  “At nine o’clock a.m.,” Jenkins clarifies.

  “That’s early for us,” Mark says. His wall-eyed gaze is unsettling, menacing. “We’re late sleepers. So it’s somebody else’s Jeep.”

  “Can you prove it? That you were at home?” Kennedy asks.

  �
��Do we have to?”

  “Would make things a lot easier,” Jenkins says.

  “And how would that be?” asks Howard.

  Kennedy and Jenkins glance keenly at each other. She turns back to them. “How far a drive is it to South Woodstock from Bethel?”

  “Thirty minutes maybe, why?”

  “That’s probably about right,” Kennedy agrees with their assessment.

  “We told you. We didn’t drive to Woodstock!” Mark suddenly rages and Jenkins wonders if this is an example of what was commonly known as ’roid rage.

  She takes advantage of the opportunity. “When my partner was questioning the two of you up in Carleton, you happened to mention that you know the student who’s missing.”

  “No, we don’t know him. We know of him,” says Howard Newcombe.

  Raising his hand to catch Kennedy’s attention, Jenkins waits until she acknowledges him with a nod. Then he turns to the twins. “The night after the vandalism occurred, the night that this Carleton College student disappeared, somebody claims to have spotted a Jeep Wrangler that matches the description of yours in the general area of where he vanished.”

  This statement transparently unnerves both men. “Really? So what?” Howard says.

  Mark says, “Check the DMV. You’ll probably find lots of camo Jeep Wranglers driving around the state of Vermont.”

  “Lieutenant Kessler gave us the count.”

  “Oh, Lieutenant Kessler, I’m quaking in my boots,” Mark says.

  “You should be. She probably could kick your ass,” Kennedy tells him quietly.

  “How many are there?” Howard challenges her. “Camo Jeeps.”

  “Let us ask the questions, okay?” Jenkins says. “What time did you leave your house this morning?”

  “At eleven thirty. And there are plenty of students who saw us here and can vouch for us being here,” Howard says.

  Jenkins suddenly stands up. “No need. Okay, you guys can get a move on now.”

  The twins look alarmed at the abrupt way Jenkins has ended the discussion. “So that’s it?” Mark says.

  “You want more questions?” Jenkins asks.

 

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