He swallows. “She...Kit asked me to do some things that night without asking questions. I did. I told you, Detective, I owe her. I owed myself. I promised her on the beach that day I would doanythingto make it up to her, and she said nothing would be illegal, exactly.”
“What did she ask you to do?”
“Kit had rented a dark-gray Audi S6 sedan. Like Jon’s. She parked it near her apartment that afternoon, and she also plastered those plates with mud so the registration would not be picked up by the road cams.”
“So the vehicle could be confused with Jon Rittenberg’s?”
“Yes. She knew there were cameras at the ADMAC site, too. She got the idea when she saw the jumpers camera on the bridge when she was stuck in traffic. She looked down and saw how it might also capture footage of the area near the silos. She drove out to the ADMAC site one weekend, late in the evening when it was dark, to check it out, and she saw the dock.”
“Where she decided to dump her own car?”
He nods. “She asked me to fetch and drive the Audi from her apartment to the Glass House at a certain time on Halloween night. She told me to dress in dark rain gear and a cap. Incognito-style. She asked that I park behind her Subaru and enter the Glass House property via the yard gate, quietly, and to come around to the glass sliding doors by the pool. When I arrived and saw inside, I was shocked. Blood everywhere,upturned furniture. Broken glasses. Kit was impatient. Edgy. She was also dressed in rain gear, oversize, with a hood. She had her silicone belly underneath.”
“So she looked pregnant? Like she could be Daisy, and you could be Jon?”
“I realized in hindsight, yes. She was standing by a bloodied and rolled-up rug. It had one of her sneakers inside. She asked me to help her drag the rug along the pool deck, out to the driveway, and to help her put it into the Audi’s back seat. She said I had to heft it like there was a heavy body inside. I asked her what the hell game she was playing, and all she said was, ‘You promised, Boon.’” He clears his throat.
“So, just before we begin dragging the rug, she throws a bloody carving knife into the pool, and she lets out a bloodcurdling scream. We lugged the rug to the cars and loaded it into the back seat of the rented Audi. She got into the Audi, dressed as pregnant Daisy. I got into her Subaru. Then we sped away to the ADMAC site in both cars. We dumped the carpet into the Burrard in view of the ADMAC cameras. She was betting, I guess, that you guys would eventually locate the CCTV footage. Then we pushed her Subaru off the dock with her ID and wallet and phone and everything inside. Including her diary. Which she sealed in a ziplock bag so you guys—the police—would find it and read it. I don’t know what’s in it. I’m assuming it’s something that sets Jon up. I have no idea if there is truth in there, or some totally unreliable version.”
“So there was no body in the rug?” Mal’s brain is racing—police divers have definitely located a female body underwater, down current from where the Subaru went in.
“No.”
“Are you being truthful, Boon?”
“I am.”
“What happened next?”
“She asked to be dropped off several houses down from the Glass House. She said she’d forgotten something at the house. I then returned the Audi to the rental place.”
“And you left her there? Near the Glass House?”
His eyes fill with tears again. “I did. It was the biggest mistake of my life. Because as I drove off, I thought I saw another Audi parked farther down the street. I didn’t think much of it at the time, because I was reeling from the fact we’d just submerged Kit’s car. And now I am sure it was him. He came back. He could have followed us to the dump site.”
“Jon?”
He nods.
“It doesn’t make sense, Boon, that Kit would want to return to the scene. She screamed. Presumably to alert the neighbors. First responders would likely have been on their way—”
“She insisted. She said she’d left something important behind, and since we’d just drowned her credit cards and phone and ID and everything with her car, I could only presume it was a burner phone or a passport or something. From where I dropped her off, she had access to the sea walk that runs along the ocean in front of the houses. I imagined that if she saw someone like first responders inside the Glass House, she wouldn’t go in. She said we were done. She said goodbye. I—I never saw her again.”
“What time did you leave her there?”
“About twelve thirty a.m.”
Mal sits back in her chair and regards Boon in silence for a while. She tries to read him, looking for tells that he’s lying.
“Surely Kit didn’t actually believe Jon and Daisy would be charged with murder, Boon? Surely she’d consider forensic tests of the blood evidence would eventually reveal that the red blood cells showed signs of degradation from being stored outside the body, in a fridge? Or that her creative spatter would show anomalies to a spatter expert?”
“I don’t think Kit ever believed she’d be able to create a perfect murder that never happened. All she wanted was to definitively link Jon and Daisy to an apparently violent crime scene, and to have police arrive and open an investigation that was bound to attract media. She was theatrical that way, Detective. She wanted to be seen. She wanted it all to play out live on TV, in social media, in conversation, speculation. A false narrative. Just like her Instagram account. Designed to poke holes into our fake realities. But she made a lethal mistake—she underestimated Jon. He was too dangerous. She messed with a monster and paid the ultimate price.” Boon takes something out of his pocket as he speaks. He leans forward and sets a flash drive on the table. But he keeps his hand over it. Protective.
“What’s that?” Mal asks.
He sucks in a deep, shuddering breath, and says, “There are two recordings on this drive. Plus copies of two sets of legal documents. The first recording and the documents are what Kit found in a safe at Rose Cottage while cleaning. It’s what tipped her over the edge. The second recording—” His voice catches. He breaks down again, blows his nose. “It’s from Halloween night in the Glass House. Kit recorded her interaction with the Rittenbergs.”
“She captured theminsidethe house?”
