“Okay, yeah, I did.”
“Why?” Kennedy asks.
“Because it was gross.”
“What was gross?”
“I mean, come on, the guy was way old. Almost thirty years older.”
“And it made you upset enough to commit computer fraud?”
“Well, they broke it off so obviously they didn’t care that much. It made Luc miserable.”
Jenkins and Kennedy look at one another.
“When did you start hacking into their computers?” Kennedy persists.
Taft runs his fingers through his hair and then rubs his scalp. “Around November.”
“And after it ended between them in December, you made sure Sam Solomon never got Luc Flanders’s messages,” Kennedy says.
Taft nods his head but doesn’t answer.
“So why exactly did you go back to the pond?” Jenkins says. “On the night of February eleventh.”
“Because I wanted to talk to Luc.”
“About?”
“To tell him that I deleted the emails.”
Jenkins’ cellphone rings, and he digs into his pocket and harshly silences it.
Kennedy continues, “So why didn’t you say what you had to say after the pickup hockey game?”
“Because she showed up. At the time I took that as a . . . I don’t know, a sign.”
“A sign?” Kennedy sounds dubious. “I have trouble believing that there was to be a sudden confession after months of snooping. Why that night in particular?”
“Why not?” Taft says, surprising both Jenkins and Kennedy with what seems to be a momentary gush of sincerity.
Jenkins picks up. “Okay, so you say you saw Sam Solomon walking away from the pond. Do you have any idea of what time that was?”
“Like I said before, somewhere around six thirty.”
“And what did you tell Elizabeth?”
“Nothing then. Later on, after Luc disappeared, I told her I thought I saw Sam.”
“So she’ll corroborate this . . . telling,” Kennedy says.
“She will,” Taft says.
Jenkins nods to Kennedy, who now says, “So you’ve driven down to Woodstock a few times?”
Taft looks at them both questioningly.
Kennedy says, “On the floorboard of your car, McKinnon found a receipt from the local Sunoco station in Woodstock. Your family lives in Newport, in the Northeast Kingdom. Even a flatlander like myself knows that Woodstock is not exactly on your route home.”
With a gloomy expression, Taft looks down at the table. “Yeah, I went down there.”
“To spy on them,” Kennedy says.
He looks up at her. “I’m not that fucking desperate.”
“So why then?”
“I just wanted to see where Luc was going all those weekends and coming back so fucking happy.”
“I thought you said he was miserable,” says Kennedy.
“Later he was. In December he was happy.”
Jenkins asks, “How many times did you drive down to Woodstock?”
Taft holds up two hooked fingers. “Twice last fall.”
“And did you drive down there recently?”
Taft leans forward and shakes his head miserably.
Kennedy nods to Jenkins, who says, “A woman who works for Sam happened to see your friends, the twins’ Jeep parked down the street from his house.”
Taft looks up now, first at one detective and then the other.
Kennedy says, “Do you want to tell us why you drove to Mark and Howard Newcombe’s house and borrowed their Jeep?”
Taft exhales forcefully. “I didn’t drive to their house to borrow their car. They live a mile from the Route 12 turnoff. My car kept stalling out. On bad gas. I didn’t think I’d make it, so I just stopped at their place and asked to borrow theirs.”
“Hell bent to get to South Woodstock,” Kennedy intones.
“Did the Newcombe twins know where you were going when you borrowed their car?” Jenkins asks.
“No.”
“You didn’t tell them where you were going?” Kennedy asks.
“No.”
“So they just let you borrow it?” Jenkins says.
“They like me. They like hanging with college kids and giving them workout advice.”
Jenkins says, “So you borrowed the Newcombes’ car. Drove to Sam Solomon’s, stole his car, and then drove to the house of his dog-sitter. And waited. Why?”
“Because she helped get him off. Because I knew exactly where he was at 6:28 p.m. on February eleventh.”
“But why did you steal Sam’s car?”
“Why did you let him off because of what a fucking dog-sitter says?” Taft fumes.
“You thought that if you ran her off the road with Sam Solomon’s car, she would change her story and take back what she said,” Kennedy says, incredulous.
“Would have done it with my own car if I’d had it.”
“Oh, so you didn’t want to bring any heat on your drug dealer friends.”
“Right.”
“Their car was still spotted,” Jenkins says.
“Got to say, your thinking here makes no sense,” Kennedy says.
Taft shrugs. “It is what it is. I don’t care anymore.”
“So let’s get back to the Newcombes,” Jenkins says. “They met you in Carleton the night Luc went missing.”
“Right.”
“You went to them directly from going back to the pond?” Kennedy says.
“Yes.”
“Where did you meet them?”
“Just a bit south on Route 7.”
“More specifically?”
“There’s a pullover spot.”
“What if we told you that somebody spotted their camo Jeep driving on the road Luc took after he left the pond.”
Taft goes still and then shakes his head resolutely. “Look, I borrowed their car. I met up with them. But they have no connection to the rest of this.”
“How can you be so sure?” Kennedy asks.
“Because I told you that I saw him—Sam—leaving the pond.”
“But you’re not completely positive you saw him,” Jenkins says.
“Okay, then I saw somebody who looked just like him.”
“Then all the more reason to have reported it earlier,” Kennedy says. “The fact that you never told us you went back to the pond undermines your credibility.”
Taft doesn’t respond. Kennedy nods to Jenkins, who says, “Did you drive down to Sam Solomon’s house last night?”
Taft hesitates.
“Did you drive—in your own car—down to Sam Solomon’s house last night?” Kennedy repeats.
Taft looks at each of them with bewilderment before saying, “Yes.”
“Did you go inside his house?” Jenkins asks.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Taft flares up. “To tell him that I was on to him. That I knew he was there. At the pond.”
“But you didn’t tell him?”
“I waited two hours for him, and then I just couldn’t stand being there anymore.”
Jenkins says, “And the gun we found in your car. What were you going to do with that gun?”
“Because if he killed Luc, maybe he’d try and kill me, too.”
Both detectives let this statement settle into the charged atmosphere of the room. Then, after several beats of silence, Kennedy says, “Look at me right here.” She points to both of her eyes with her middle and index fingers. “Did you put his dog outside?”
Taft looks bewildered. “No. Why?”
“Did you see the dog?” Jenkins asks.
“Of course I saw the dog.”
“You’ve
seen the dog before,” Kennedy says.
“Yes.”
“When you drove up in the Jeep and stole Sam’s car.”
Taft nods.
“She didn’t bark at you, then. Why is that?”
“Because I gave her meat treats.”
“And yesterday?”
“She barked at me, she was playful and then she ran away in the house. I didn’t see her after that.”
Jenkins says quietly, “Sam Solomon came home and found her dead.”
Both are watching Taft. “What do you mean?” he says, looking appalled.
Kennedy says, “He found his dog outside. Dead.”
“Somebody killed her?”
“We think you killed her,” Kennedy says.
“You think I shot her?”
“No, we think you left her outside, where she froze to death,” Jenkins says.
Taft is distraught. “Look, I did stuff, okay? I creeped into Luc’s computer. I went into his boyfriend’s house. I looked for shit. ’Cause I fucking hate that guy. But I didn’t do anything to his dog. I swear to God!” he screams. Tears are flooding Taft’s eyes. “I would never do something like that. I love animals. I grew up with dogs like her. I love mutts.” He breaks down completely and they allow him a minute to collect himself.
“You think maybe you didn’t close the door properly?” Kennedy says with a bit more sympathy.
Taft covers his eyes with his hands. “I closed it,” he agonizes. “But I don’t know for sure.”
They watch Taft carefully, and his reaction, his claim of innocence regarding Sam’s dog, strikes Jenkins as credible. “The wind,” Kennedy says at last. “I suppose the wind could have opened it.”
They wait until Taft has somewhat recovered from the news of Sam’s dog. Then Jenkins resumes, “If Sam had come home, what exactly did you plan on saying to him?”
There is no trace of anger left on Taft’s face, just misery and hopelessness. He’s barely able to articulate, “To tell him I know he did it.”
“Did what?”
“Murdered Luc.”
Both detectives stare at Taft and say no more.
“I don’t understand why you’re just letting him off!” Taft cries out at last. “I don’t understand, why you aren’t questioning him again?”
“Well,” Jenkins says. “If what you say is true, we will be questioning him again.”
February 24; Route 89 South from Carleton to Woodstock, Vermont; 21 degrees
“We’d like to come and see you,” Jenkins tells Sam. “Detective Kennedy and I. Can you make yourself available?” There is a dire yet flat tone to Jenkins’s voice, and Sam, in the midst of studying the depths and dimensions of a sunroom in a set of mechanical drawings of a house he is redesigning, watches the indigo lines of his carefully written specifications blur before his eyes. He manages to ask when and Jenkins says, “We’re ready to drive down there right now if that can work for you.”
There is a stunned pause. “Did you find Luc?”
“We have not found him.”
“Then can you tell me what’s going on?”
“We’ll be there soon, in an hour or so.”
“Can’t this be done now, on the phone?”
There is a strange lull before Jenkins replies, “I’d rather meet face-to-face.”
“Okay,” Sam says reluctantly. “I’m here.”
Looking ahead of them on Route 89 through the sheets of freezing rain that strike the windshield with a hollow popping sound, Jenkins says, “It’s well below freezing. I don’t understand, why aren’t we getting snow?”
“Inversion layer,” Kennedy remarks. “Happens more often now because of global warming. The guy who plows my driveway said fifteen years ago, they sanded driveways maybe once or twice a winter for ice. Now they’re up to seven or eight times.”
“And yet we still get plenty of below zero weather?”
“I think the flip side of global warming is polar vortex,” Kennedy says.
Jenkins snorts.
A small green Mazda Miata convertible that passes their unmarked car on the left momentarily diverts their attention. The top is down and they can clearly see the driver is a youngish guy, probably in his twenties. His longish hair is flapping in the freezing wind. He seems impervious to the weather.
“What the hell,” Kennedy says. “It’s twenty-one degrees. Why is he driving with the top down? Did he just get out of the mental ward?”
Jenkins says, “Maybe he’s an athlete training for some cold weather event.”
Kennedy says, “I think it’s reckless. I think that kind of thing should be illegal.”
Jenkins says, “We’ve got enough going on.”
Kennedy flips her hand in a dismissive gesture.
“I don’t think I’ve ever told you this. But the more time I spend in the state of Vermont, the more it reminds me of when I lived in California,” Jenkins says.
“How so?”
“Higher volume of wingnuts in Vermont than I ever thought.”
A few moments elapse and then Kennedy says, “Yeah, wingnuts.” Jenkins can feel her eyes carefully surveying him. “So where are you now, Nick?”
“Where am I now? Sam never got those emails is where I am right now.”
February 24; South Woodstock, Carleton, Vermont; sun and clouds, unseasonably warm, 43 degrees
“You can’t accuse me of lying to you,” Sam says quietly to Jenkins. “I told you when you first questioned me that Heather called me around five fifteen. I never tried to make it seem that I couldn’t get up to Carleton.” Panda’s strange, inexplicable death is weighing heavily on him, and he’s just plain weary of worrying. For the moment he feels curiously detached from it all.
“But why did she lie on your behalf?” Kennedy says.
“Why? I think she really believes she called me right before the evening news.”
Kennedy says, “Have you known her to have . . . cognitive problems remembering?”
“Not at all. She always seems to be pretty on top of everything. I mean, just the fact that she thought to call me because she was afraid I hadn’t brought enough food for . . . my dog,” he says, struck by a pang of desolation.
Jenkins ponders this for a moment and then says, “Speaking of your dog, I don’t think Taft is lying about that.”
“Oh?”
“Taft claims to loves dogs. I believe him.”
Sam now admits, “That door has always been a problem. I’ve come home a few times to find it flung open.” Then again, it’s a lot easier for him to believe that no malice had ever been directed toward his dog.
They are all situated in the living room, Sam sitting stiffly upright on a distressed leather loveseat, Jenkins occupying a wingback chair. Kennedy, who has taken a wooden ice cream parlor chair away from the kitchen table, is sitting right next to Jenkins, so that Sam can speak to both of them simultaneously without having to look from one to the other.
“So Taft believes he saw you leaving the pond,” Jenkins announces quietly.
The real reason why they’ve driven down there, Sam concludes miserably. He stares at the blue fiberglass encasement of his broken leg, feeling imprisoned by it, wishing he could release himself from it and pace the room in a frenzy. “Then why did he wait until now to say something?”
“Because we already suspected you,” Kennedy says. “That it was only a matter of time before we’d find proof. And that if he’d admitted to going back to the pond, he’d end up being a suspect himself. And that would only take the pressure off you.”
“And you don’t think that sounds suspicious?” Sam says with disgust.
“Of course it does,” Kennedy says. “But sometimes people who are innocent have more trouble trying to explain—or even extricate—themselves than people w
ho are guilty and know they have to concoct lies.”
Sam takes this in for a moment and then says, “Then I guess you have a choice. To believe him or to believe me.”
At this, they hear a car pull into the driveway.
“That must be Mike,” Sam says, catching a look of annoyance on Jenkins’s face. “He called me right after you did—he calls me every day to check in—and I told him you were coming and he said he wanted to talk to you. He has a light day at work,” he explains just as Mike bursts into the room.
“I need to say. . .,” he announces to them all as he shrugs off his leather bomber jacket and throws it on a spindled wooden bench chair next to the door. “And I probably should’ve said it way earlier.”
With a severe look on his face, Jenkins turns both his hands over. “You need to say?”
“I was at the pond on the night Luc Flanders disappeared. I didn’t do anything to him. But I was there.”
He didn’t do anything to him. Sam’s vision narrows with a rush of blood while the light in the room begins pulsing in strobe-like syncopation. He’s suddenly dizzy, even a bit nauseous, and can’t quite believe what has just been said. The confession, meanwhile, has caused a general commotion.
“Sit down,” Jenkins orders Mike.
“How could you have been there?” Sam demands.
“Just wait a second.” Pointing to an empty club chair that is some distance away from the gathering of other chairs, Kennedy says, “Bring that one over here.”
Mike complies.
“Okay,” Jenkins says. “So let’s have it.”
Mike begins, “It was literally a five-minute conversation between Luc and me.”
“A conversation,” Kennedy repeats.
“About someone we both really cared about.” He glances worriedly at Sam.
“What do you mean by ‘cared about’?” Kennedy asks.
“I mean like . . . best-friend-cared-about, at least from my end. I guess from Luc’s perspective, romantic-love-cared-about.”
“So wait, you drove up to Carleton from Boston and back to Boston in time to meet me at the airport?” Sam says.
“Yes.”
“Three hours both ways just to have a five-minute conversation with Luc?”
“Sam,” Jenkins warns. “You need to stop talking. This is not your investigation.”
Black Diamond Fall Page 32