Lie in Wait (29 page)

 

Chapter 75

“
D
O YOU WANT
to tell us the truth now?” Test said.

Jon Merryfield sat in the interview room. He'd sat there all night, refusing to speak.

Then, an hour ago, Test had given him the newspaper to read.

She'd read the article for a second time, keeping an eye on Merryfield as he read his copy.

K
INGDOM
C
HRONICLE

Father of Murder Suspect Killed Saving Man

Victor Jenkins, a physical education teacher and coach of Lamoille High for decades was killed yesterday evening while attempting to break up a fight between two other local men, Jed King and Gregory Sergeant on the village green.

Mr. Jenkins was killed when Jed King struck his head with a rock. King, a vocal opponent to the proposed gay marriage bill and openly vocal against homosexuality had, according to witnesses, confronted Mr. Sergeant who is one of two plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the State of Vermont.

“He saved my life,” Mr. Sergeant said. “Plain and simple.” Mr. Sergeant spoke with considerable pain and difficulty from a hospital bed where he is recovering from injuries that include broken ribs, a broken jaw, lacerations to the face, and a concussion.

Witnesses corroborate Mr. Sergeant's statement. “He saved his life,” Larry Branch said. “He got right in there. He was the only one of us. He just did what was right. I'm not surprised. He was a good friend.”

King was arrested for aggravated assault and second degree murder and will be arraigned on Tuesday afternoon. He will be charged with a hate crime. A search of his house also revealed evidence that he may have poisoned Mr. Sergeant's dog.

Mr. Jenkins is the father of Brad Jenkins, who is charged with the murder of Jessica Cumber, 15, with whom he'd had a relationship. Jessica Cumber was murdered in the home of Jon Merryfield, the attorney for Gregory Sargent and his partner.

“He was on his way to tell the police something about our boy,” said Mrs. Fran Jenkins, Mr. Jenkins's widow. “He'd learned something. Was going to set Brad free. I don't know what it was,” she said, sobbing. “He was a good father. A good teacher and coach.”

Detective Sonja Test said that Mr. Jenkins had stopped by the Canaan Police Station while she was out and left a message for Richard North, lead detective with the state police, that he had something to say that would free his boy.

“Whatever his son may be charged with,” North said, “Victor Jenkins should be commended for his bravery to protect another citizen from an act of hatred.”

Apparently, Victor Jenkins had come into the law office of attorney Jon Merryfield earlier in the day. “He was distraught. Angry,” Cheryl Bloom, the assistant to Jon Merryfield said.

Mr. Jon Merryfield himself has been brought in for questioning regarding the murder of Jessica Cumber. It is unclear why the police are interested in questioning him.

Detective North stated that he believes there is no link between Brad Jenkins' crime and what occurred last evening on the village green. He would not comment on the questioning of Jon Merryfield. “That's a local police department issue. Separate from us.” Junior Detective Sonja Test, who brought in Jon Merryfield and another yet to be identified man for questioning, had no comment.

Merryfield set down the paper.

“Ready now?” Test said.

Merryfield wrung his hands, his face grave.

“I—­” He took a sip of water.

“Tell me about the money in the metal box.”

Merryfield put his fingers to his left eye, swollen and bruised by Randall Clark.

“I was going to pay him. Pay Randall to go away.”

“Was he extorting you?”

“Not technically. Not for money.” He touched his wounded face. “Obviously he didn't want the money.”

“What did he want?”

Jon leaned back so his head was hanging off the back of the chair. He stared at the ceiling and moaned.

“Where did you go when you sneaked out of the restaurant the night of the murder?”
None of the pieces yet fit
, Test thought,
but the pieces were there to be assembled
.

“I—­”

Test was sure he was going to ask for a lawyer. He sure could use one.

“I . . . was going to meet him.”

“Who?”

“Randall.”

“Randy Clark?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know he's been going by the name of Daryn Banks?”

Jon shrugged. “What's it matter what name he goes by?”

Test didn't know what it mattered. Or how. But she knew it must. It did matter that Randy, or Daryn, had befriended Victor Jenkins over the past months, through Jed King's inner circle. Become close to him.
Close enough to learn about Brad?
she wondered. Except Brad had told no one about Jessica, least of all his parents. What Randy calling himself Daryn meant, Test did not know yet. But it might come to light when she spoke with Randy, whom she'd left to simmer all night in the room down the hall.

She wanted North in on her interrogation of Randall Clark, but North was also occupied with the Jenkins murder.

“What did you see Clark about?” Test asked.

“Something that happened a long time ago.”

“What?”

Merryfield winced, as if he'd bitten rotten meat. “I'd seen something.”

“What?” He was going to make Test tease everything out of him. Not out of a game. Or a resistance to cooperate. But out of grief that was as clear on his face as if someone were pressing his hand to hot coals.

“Take your time,” she said.

“Can I stand?” he said.

Test nodded.

He wasn't cuffed. He wasn't a threat.

She'd never seen a more defeated man ready to talk.

He paced, swiped the back of his hand across his mouth.

“I saw. I witnessed . . . Victor Jenkins raping Randy Clark.”

Test gasped. She stopped most of the gasp, turned it into a sip of air. But she was breathless nonetheless. “You witnessed this? Where? When?”

“In the parking lot where you found us. I was seventeen. He was maybe eight.”

“You sure that's what you saw?”

He stopped pacing and looked at her and before he said it she knew there was no doubt about the veracity of what he was telling her. “I'm sure.”

“And you knew this how?”

He gave her an eviscerating look. “If you ever witness such a thing, and I hope you don't, you won't have any doubt. I could have told you what I saw, by the look in the boy's eyes alone.”

“Is that all you saw? His eyes?”

“I saw more. And heard more. Too much. But I saw his eyes. And he. Saw mine.”

Test felt her stomach go greasy, and her neck grow hot.

“And what did you do?” she said.

“Nothing.”

His eyes had gone cold. Not with hatred or lack of emotion. But cold for another reason she could not quite pin.

“Nothing,” he said again. “I did nothing.”

“You must have done something.”

“I did nothing.”

“Run away, at least.”

He shook his head. Laughed. “I walked away. And I put it out of my mind. I shut it out like it never happened. And I went home. And I had dinner with my grandparents. And I slept like a baby. And I never thought of it again.
Forget. Separate. Survive
.”

“What?” Test said.

Another laugh escaped Merryfield. A grunt.

“So, you just walked away and forgot about it?” Test said.

“Right.”

“Saw a boy get raped and wiped your hands of it. And how exactly did you do that? How do you expect me to believe that? Because, ­people can't just block out something like that.”

“No?” He fixed her with a look as hot with fury as his previous look had been icy. “How would you know the first thing about it? What a person can and can't block out?” he said. “Have you ever seen a boy get raped to know? Are you some fucking expert on boys getting raped, Detective?”

It was a mistake not to have cuffed him, or at least to have let him stand. He pushed himself off the wall, eyes taunting her. “Just what the fuck would you know about it, Detective?”

“I—­” His sudden command of the room sent Test off kilter. She stood and put her hands on the back of her chair. “I would assume that witnessing such a traumatic event would be difficult, if not impossible, to simply forget as if it never happened.”

“Not if you've had years of practice with willful repression and compartmentalization.”

“What?” Test said.

“Victor Jenkins raped me, too. When I was eight.”

T
EST PACED OUT
in the hall. She needed to find her bearings after what Merryfield had said. If it was a ploy to distract, it was convincing. But all she had was his word.

She called and left a message with North, apprising him of Merryfield's revelation. Then she went to the canteen and drank a glass of water.

When she entered the interview room, Merryfield sat slumped in his chair, looking ghastly. His dominion leeched from him. It was as quick a transformation as any Test had ever seen.

Test sat across the table from him, set her recorder on again. “You want more water?”

Merryfield's head trembled as if he had Parkinson's, and it took Test a moment to realize this was the closest he could muster to shaking his head no.

“Are you hungry?” Test said.

Another tremor.

This was not the same man she'd left in the room minutes earlier.

Test opened her notebook and scratched a meaningless note to gain composure.

“OK,” she said. “So, you walked away and forgot about it.”

“I was never any good at anything, as a kid. Sports, especially. The last kid chosen and all of that. But I wanted to be. That's all I wanted. To be good at sports. Be good at
anything
.”

She could only imagine the astonishment on her face at hearing this confusing non sequitur.

“One day during gym class, I pulled a muscle during floor hockey,” he said. He seemed nearly catatonic.

“When was this?” Test said.

“Fourth grade. After class, in the locker room, I remember how much it hurt. God. My groin felt taut as guy-­wires about to snap. And on fire. I couldn't bend to untie my shoes or take off my shorts, let alone put on my jeans. So. I'd sat in a toilet stall until the locker room emptied, then slipped into the equipment cage to find a pair of baggy sweatpants to slip on over my sneakers.”

Test had the sensation she wasn't present to Merryfield. That he was speaking aloud what he had harbored inside for a long time. Too long. Festering. Corroding him from the inside out. That was the word that struck Test now, the mutation Merryfield had seemed to undergo while she'd been out of the room. It was as if he'd been corroded. And now that he was starting to tell the story, to confess, there would be no stopping it, and his memories would corrode him until there was nothing left of the man who'd entered the room.

“A sign on the cage door said: ‘Do not enter cage without coach or coach's permission.' ”

“Can you speak up a bit, please,” Test said. “For the recorder.”

Merrryfield blinked and looked at her with as pained an expression as any Test had ever seen.

“I remember,” he said, and made a choking sound. He folded his hands in his lap, in the manner of a boy awaiting a scolding. He seemed to have regressed even more. “The cage stunk of sweat, and socks and jocks and the wet leather of footballs left in the rain.” He said the stink made him think of bodily fluids, spit and phlegm. Blood and piss. He sighed. Rubbed his hands together as if they were stained. Beneath the bodily stink, he said, lingered the faint odor of ointment. He was fishing through old gear for the sweats—­ “when his hand clasped my shoulder.”

“Whose hand?” Test said.

“Coach's.”

“I need a name, please.”

“Victor Jenkins.”

“Could you speak up again please,” Test said.

“Victor Jenkins. Victor fucking Jenkins. He startled me and asked, ‘What are we up to? You shouldn't be here.' ” Merryfield sighed. “Right away I was scared.”

“Why?”

“Because I wasn't supposed to be in the cage. And I liked Coach. I idolized him. I didn't want him to be
mad
. He was a big-­time star. He played football at Syracuse. He might have gone to the NFL if not for an injury.”

Even now he spoke of Victor Jenkins with a bizarre sense of misplaced reverence, his voice taking on a soft tone of juvenile adulation.

“I told him about my injury and that I was after some sweats. I could barely breathe.” Jon was whispering, lost to memory.

Instead of asking him again to speak up, Test slid her recorder closer to him.

“Coach relaxed his grip and turned me around so I was facing his chest. I remember.” Jon's eyes went dead. Not cold. Dead. “There was a sharp bite of aftershave, masking something animal, glandular. And Coach pointed to the sign and said, ‘You think the rules don't apply to you?' ” Merryfield said with a voice tinged with guilt, complicity.

“He started to rub my shoulders. I tensed up, terrified. But he kept at it. And, involuntarily, after some time, I relaxed. He asked where I'd hurt myself. And I told him inside my leg. My groin. He said, ‘Let's get you on the table.' He lifted me up like a doll, and laid me on the table. He was strong. He shut the gymnasium door, locked it. He put a hand on each of my knees and said, ‘Which side?'

Jon peered up at Test, eyes alive now, manic with shame and guilt. And rage. “He told me he was trained. It was physical therapy. That NFL players had it done all the time.” Jon closed his eyes. “He told me to close my eyes.”