The Maid's Diary(95)

“Like I told you. We played these games. It wasn’t unusual.” He rubs his face. “At the end of September, she asked me to participate in another ‘game.’ She wanted me to pretend to be a character named Haruto North. She asked me to come to this bistro and fetch her. She was going to play Haruto’s wife, a woman called Vanessa. I arrived at the bistro to find Kit in the wig and the fake pregnancy belly she wore for her character, Mary, in this play we put on—The Three Lives of Mary. She was lunching with a woman I later learned was Daisy Rittenberg. I played along, improvised. I acted controlling, a little aggressive. Like a domineering husband.”

“And why did Kit ask you to do this?”

He inhales deeply, and for a moment Boon-mee looks like he’s deciding whether to jump off a cliff and end his life. “I—I wasn’t totally up front the first time we spoke, Detective. I did know what happened to Kit in Whistler at that ski lodge. I was there.”

“You were at that party? You witnessed the alleged sexual assault?”

He looks down at his hands in his lap. “I did. And I never came forward. I could have saved her and stopped Jon and the others ever doing that again, and I didn’t. I was an enabler, and the guilt became a monster inside me. Kit discovered recently that I was there. I said I’d do anything to make it up to her, anything that would help her find it in her heart to forgive me for lying to her by default all these years. She then asked me to do some things, including playing Haruto.” Boon looks up and meets Mal’s eyes.

“I did owe her, Sergeant. If I had spoken up eighteen years ago, maybe Katarina would have had her baby. Maybe her father wouldn’t have been disgusted by her and wanted to kick her out. Maybe her father would not have been so stressed that he had a heart attack and died. Kit was so smart, her grades so good—she would have gone to university. She’d have had her self-esteem. Her life would have been different. The cops would have charged Jon and the others. But I didn’t speak.”

Adrenaline zings through Mal’s blood. “You do realize there’s no statute of limitations for sexual assault in this province, Boon, and that anything you say right now might be used as evidence.”

He nods.

“At the time, why did you not come forward?”

“I was gay and had not come out at that time. I was horrifically bullied at school, and I still had half a year before I graduated. I was terrified to stick my neck out and put a target on my back. So I hid. I stayed quiet. I failed Kit. So, yes, Sergeant, I owe her.” He wavers and tears fill his eyes again. “There are many different kinds of love, you know? I love Kit. She is my world. My sister, my best friend, everything. I wanted her back. I hated myself deeply for deceiving her. So I did it. I played the parts she asked me to. Then, when I fully realized what she was doing, I warned her it was too dangerous. I told her if Jon Rittenberg or Daisy found out, they would do anything to stop her from exposing them. But she continued like she had nothing to lose. And maybe she didn’t have anything left to lose,” Boon says quietly. “Not after she found out I’d also betrayed her.”

“And what was Kit doing to the Rittenbergs, exactly?”

“Gaslighting them. Messing with their heads. I only know some of it. She’d troll Daisy’s Instagram account, leave threatening notes on her car, inside her car. She left threats in the mailbox at Rose Cottage. She even cost Jon Rittenberg his job. She asked me to follow him and take photos. Kit had access to Jon’s computer, so she knew on occasion where he would be. She posed as some siren named Mia, and I took photographs of her and Jon together. While I was following him, I learned Jon had engaged a private investigator, and Kit found Jon’s contract with the PI in his computer. She eventually had me deliver all the photographic evidence of Jon and Mia’s ‘affair’ plus a copy of the PI contract to TerraWest, where Jon works. He was fired that morning—the same morning of the attack at the Glass House. Jon drove from work to a liquor store, bought alcohol, and sat in a park, drinking all day. I—if I’d known Kit was planning to meet Jon and Daisy Rittenberg that same night, I would’ve stopped her. He was enraged, drunk.”

“What happened that night, Boon?”

He moistens his lips and hesitates as he seems to struggle with where to start. Or how much to tell.

“I don’t know. All I do know is . . . she’d ‘borrowed’ blood bags and other equipment from our friend who’s an EMT and who volunteers at a blood clinic. She took her own blood on three occasions over the months from July, I think. She stored it in the fridge at the Glass House because she knew the owners would be away for a period of time.”

Mal’s heart begins to beat hard and steady. “Kit Darling was planning a false scene?”

Boon swipes a tear from his cheek, nods. “She was setting the Rittenbergs up to be investigated for murder. Except it backfired. Jon Rittenberg returned to the house. And—” His voice breaks, and he drops his head into his hands and sobs.

Mal leaves the room to fetch Boon some water. While in the bullpen, she tells the others to watch the feed from the interview cam. She returns to the room and offers Boon a glass of water and more tissues.

Boon blows his nose, sips water, and composes himself.

“Go on, Boon,” Mal says. “Take your time.”

“Kit wanted it to appear as though she’d lost enough blood for police to believe she was dead. She also planted her own blood on shoes in Jon’s closet, and in his car. She pulled out strands of her hair and put them in the back of his car, too. She’d already scoped out the ADMAC site and collected a bucket of soil there one evening. She made mud and put some under Jon’s shoes. She later used this mud to plaster over his car registration plates. She accessed his and Daisy’s vehicles with spare keys from Rose Cottage. Kit returned his shoes, placed them at the back of his closet. She bought an identical pair to make prints in blood at the Glass House. She also took Daisy’s necklace from Rose Cottage to leave in the Glass House.”