“It is them. These are the owners of the house you attended for dinner.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I think I’m going to pass out. I—I need a doctor.”
As Rossi helps Daisy up and assists her to the door, he glances over his shoulder and says to Mal, “The missing maid was a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl who accused Jon Rittenberg of aggravated sexual assault? Sounds like you have motive for the husband right there, Detective. Imagine finding out your maid was the same woman who tried to sink your career and take you down all those years ago.”
They exit. The door swings shut behind them.
Mal hurriedly gathers up her file and photos. Before going to interview Jon Rittenberg, she stops by the bullpen.
“Any word on Saelim?” Mal asks Lula.
“Negative,” Lula says as she reaches for her phone. “He’s still MIA. How’d it go with Daisy Rittenberg?”
“She’s seen the writing on the wall,” Mal says. “She just threw her whole husband under the bus. Now to hear what he has to say about that.”
MAL
November 2, 2019. Saturday.
Ex-Olympian, double gold medalist “JonJon” Rittenberg, once a shining example of male athletic prowess, sits slumped with his head in his hands on the table. His lawyer—a woman who puts Mal in mind of Tamara Adler—comes sharply to her feet as Mal enters the interview room. She offers a manicured hand. “I’m Sandra Ling, Jon Rittenberg’s counsel.”
Mal grips the lawyer’s slender, soft hand and pumps it hard. “Sergeant Mallory Van Alst.” She takes a seat and puts her file on the table in front of her. The room is warm and stinks of body odor and metabolized alcohol radiating out of Jon Rittenberg’s pores. He’s unshaven, disheveled. The bandage on his hand is filthy.
“I’m going to call you Jon, if that’s okay?” Mal prefers to use first names in interrogations. It hits harder, closer. More personal.
Jon lifts his head from the table and glares at her. A bitter hatred coils in his eyes.
“No comment,” he says. “You have nothing to charge me with, no right to hold me. I have done nothing wrong. Tell her, Sandra,” he orders his lawyer. “Sandra will say whatever we need to say.” He puts his head down with a small groan. Clearly unwell. The scratches down his face and neck appear infected.
“My client needs medical attention,” Sandra Ling says. “Police officers caused him bodily injury during arrest, and—”
“I heard you attempted to flee and fell because you were intoxicated, Jon,” Mal says. “And those scratches on your neck and the injury on your hand—I saw them myself prior to your arrest. How did you get those cuts?”
“He was pushed to the ground by police officers during arrest,” says Ling.
“Oh, please,” Mal says, turning her attention to the lawyer. “You can see yourself those scratches are not fresh. They look to me like defensive wounds incurred during a violent assault. Is that how you got them, Jon? What happened? How did you hurt yourself?”
Jon refuses to lift his head to look at her.
“How about you tell me in your own words what happened when you and your wife arrived at the Glass House at six fourteen p.m. on Halloween evening?”
He still doesn’t move. His lawyer says, “He was never at the—”
Mal raises her hand, halting the lawyer. “We don’t need games. Jon. We have your wife’s statement. She says you both arrived in your Audi at the Glass House around six fourteen p.m. We have witness statements that corroborate this. We also have witnesses who saw your car enter the ADMAC construction site in North Vancouver later that night.”
He glances up sharply. “That’s bullshit. I was never there. I—”
His lawyer places her hand firmly on her client’s arm and shoots him a warning look.
But he continues. “I wasn’t at any ADMAC site. I did return to the Glass House, okay, I—”
“Jon,” his counsel snaps. Heat flashes in her eyes.
His gaze darts to his lawyer. “I’m not having this pinned on me.”
Ling leans forward and says very quietly near his ear, “I told you. You don’t need to talk. We just need to hear what the police have got. They’re fishing.”
Mal says quickly, “So you do admit you returned to the house?”
“Look, Sergeant,” Ling says, “unless you’re prepared to bring my client in front of a judge and charge him so we can discuss bail terms, we have nothing further to contribute at this moment.”
“When those DNA and fingerprint results come back, we—”
“If you have something to say at that point, you know where to find my client. Come, Jon. We’re leaving.”
Jon pushes himself to his feet.
Mal says, “When did you learn that your maid is the same person who once accused you of sexual assault?”
His body stiffens. His gaze bites into Mal’s. His lawyer moves quickly toward the door, opens it wide. “Jon?”
He starts toward his lawyer and the open door.
“Who is Mia, Jon?”
His eyes flicker. His features tighten and his mouth flattens. His lawyer reaches quickly for his arm, refocusing her client on herself, and they step out into the corridor.
Mal leans back in her chair. As she watches them go, her mobile rings. It’s Benoit.
She connects the call.
“They’ve got her, Mal. The divers have found her and the rug. She’s deep down, trapped under rusted metal debris at the bottom. Lots of silt. She must have been pushed there by the current. They’re strategizing how to safely bring her up now.”
AFTERSHOCKS
Mal feels flattened and tired. The divers were not able to free the body before nightfall due to tidal-current windows and visibility issues, but they did bring up the rug and a white sneaker with an orange stripe that matches the one found next to the king-size bed at the Glass House. Mal is now home for the night. She sits beside Peter on the sofa in their crowded little living room, surrounded by bookshelves, but her imagination is filled with mental images of Kit Darling’s body trapped deep underwater, covered with silt, her soft blonde hair flowing about her face in the darkness. Peter stares at the TV. They have the news on. A cat curls in his lap. He also looks tired, Mal thinks. Her husband seems more vacant than usual tonight. She feels a bolt of loneliness and moves closer to him. She places her hand on his thigh. “You doing okay?”
He glances at her. For a moment he looks confused.
She smiles. “Had enough supper?”
He frowns, then nods. “I think so. How was your day?”
Peter already asked this when she arrived home, and she told him about the body finally being found. She explained how the divers would go down and try again first thing tomorrow. But now she just says, “It was fine. I’m looking forward to the early retirement, though.” It’s a lie. But also a necessity. Peter clearly needs someone at home. She could hire a caregiver—Mal thinks suddenly of Beulah stuck alone upstairs in her home with her carers. Peter and Mal long ago promised they would be there for each other when times got rough. In sickness and in health. And times are going to get rougher much sooner than Mal ever anticipated. Her mind dwells on Beulah. She decides she’ll pay the old woman a visit once this case is wrapped up, and thank her for making that 911 call.