I intended my diary to be a confessional for the police to find. It’s why I left it sealed in my car. I wanted investigators to be able to read my words despite the car going into the water. Does this make my words misdirection? I don’t think so. Not really. Because while I might’ve started it that way, my diary became something else. It became therapy. A way for me to heal. My imaginary therapist was right. “Just put it down, Kit. Spill it out. Ask: Why why why”—and suddenly I did fall through the trapdoor. I met the hidden Kat on the underside of my consciousness. She spoke to me from the distorted fun house mirrors in the Jungian tunnels of my soul. Kat wanted to be seen. She wanted to marry herself to the Kit I eventually became after the attack. And I suddenly saw a whole different image of myself. And of the world. I saw what I was running from. I was running from Me. Myself. I saw how my addictions and quirks helped me hide from the hurtful things. My unconscious really did start to talk to me. The real Kat found her voice in the strokes of purple pen in a book with polka dots—
Kat glances up as an American tourist at the bar loudly asks the bartender to turn up the TV behind the counter. Kat goes still as she realizes what’s on the screen. It’s the Good Morning Global show. The anchors, Ben Woo and Judy Salinger, have invited a retired homicide cop and a criminal lawyer to comment on “The Mysterious Case of the Missing Maid and the Wrong Body.”
Quickly, Kat gathers her pen and diary, slides them into her straw bag, picks up her drink, and goes to sit at the bar counter. She watches intently.
Host Judy says, “A Vancouver family finally found closure when police divers searching for maid Kit Darling brought up the body of a missing senior with dementia instead. Sylvia Kaplan, seventy-one, was last seen on a street near her home in East Vancouver nearly two months ago. Extensive searches in the area for Kaplan yielded nothing. Until Monday, November 4, when divers found her body trapped below water. Investigators have since learned Kaplan boarded a transit bus that crossed to the North Shore. She disembarked near a park east of the site. Investigators believe she must have been confused, disoriented, and she wandered near the water, where she could have slipped and fallen in. The strong tidal currents likely washed her down toward the bridge, where her body became lodged in underwater debris.”
Ben says, “So where does that leave our missing maid, who staged a false murder scene in order to trip up the Olympic skier who sexually assaulted her eighteen years ago? Retired RCMP investigator Sergeant Leon Tosi and retired criminal defense lawyer Renata Rollins are here to help us solve this mystery that has riveted viewers across North America and even hit media in the UK and Australia.”
Leon leans forward and says, “Ben, a word of caution—while Jon Rittenberg has in fact been charged, he has yet to stand trial, so for now we’ll still refer to it as the ‘alleged’ sexual assault. As to where Kit is, all we know so far is that records show she used her passport to board a flight from YVR to Wattay International Airport in Laos the morning after the staged murder. And financial records obtained by the police show that Jon and Daisy Rittenberg transferred nine hundred thousand dollars US into Kit’s account, which Kit promptly moved into an offshore account in the Caymans.”
“So she tried to fake her own death and fled with the money,” Judy says provocatively and with a smile.
Renata says, “It’s unclear to me whether Kit thought she’d actually get away with it, or if her purpose was to dramatically toss the Rittenbergs into a media and legal hot seat.”
Judy says, “Will police chase her down to Laos? Will she be charged? That’s the question everyone is asking on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. Kit Darling has become a celebrity. An underdog’s hero. Everyone is rooting for her.”
“Charge her with what?” asks Ben. “Fraud? Extortion? Obstruction of justice? Staging a false scene—isn’t that a criminal offense?”
Renata says, “Usually a false scene relates to falsifying evidence in order to obscure or obfuscate a real homicide investigation. The scene Kit staged—she never claimed it was murder. No one was actually physically hurt.”
“I see her as the victim here,” Judy interjects. “The system let her down. Her community let her down. Her parents let her down. Her friends, too. She was denied justice all those years ago.”
“What about extortion?” asks Ben. “She took the Rittenbergs’ money.”
Leon says, “Daisy Rittenberg has stated on the record that the money was gifted to Kit. Jon Rittenberg is not denying this, either. Daisy claims that when she learned who Kit was, she felt terrible, and wanted to offer compensation.”
“It’s probably less than the Rittenbergs would have to fork out in legal costs if Kit filed a civil suit and won,” says Renata. “And Jon Rittenberg is mum on everything else. He’s facing a big trial. If convicted, it could put him away for a while. The other accused from that night also face serious charges. They’ll try to strike deals. Some might testify against Jon.”
“Plus there are the new claims of assault that more women have come forward with,” says Leon.
“Rittenberg is in grave legal jeopardy,” agrees Renata. “As for the police hunting Kit down across the globe, she’s smart. She chose Laos, and Laos has no extradition treaty with Canada.”
“But the government can still request extradition,” Ben says.
“Well, this kind of diplomatic effort would be weighed against costs, the severity of the criminal offense—a murder, for example—and the likelihood of conviction. My wager is on nothing happening. Kit is going free. Jon is going to prison. And his wife is facing obstruction of justice charges, too.”
“What about Kit’s friend who helped her?”
Leon says, “My understanding from a source close to the investigation is that Boon-mee Saelim has been offered a deal in exchange for his full cooperation and the identification of all the other participants in the drugging and sexual assault of Kit, or Katarina Popovich, as she was known then.”
“He’ll also testify at Jon Rittenberg’s trial,” Renata says. The retired lawyer smiles and shrugs. “As for the ‘murder’—it never happened. Just like the old newspaper headlines.”
An image of the old newspaper flashes across the screen. The black headline blares:
“It Never Happened”
World-class skier “JonJon” Rittenberg says claims of sexual assault are “all lies” and “it never happened.”
The camera pans back to Ben. “I’d call that ironic justice.”
“Or karma,” Judy says with a smile.
Kat’s mind wheels back to the night she posed as Mia and lured Jon up to the Airbnb she cleaned. She’d kissed him and been repulsed by it. But anger kept her going. After Jon passed out, Boon—using gloves—coated Jon’s penis with a sticky substance he had brought with him, and he rubbed Icy Hot medicated muscle pain-relief cream around Jon’s anal area. That stuff burns like all hell when it touches private parts. Kat wanted the psychological—gaslighting—effects. She wanted to sow doubt in Jon’s head. She wanted him to fret about what really happened on a deeply personal and sexual level. She wanted Jon to feel violated, to know firsthand what the women he abused might experience.