ON THE DRIVE over, following North’s car, Test sent a text to Claude:
Dartmouth Days Redux. All-nighter. But I think we got our guy.
Claude and the kids were long asleep now. Or so Test hoped.
From outside the raised ranch situated in a 1970s-era cul de sac, Test could see the glow of a TV flickering on the wall. Thin clouds cloaked the full moon, but enough natural moonlight remained for Test to see several Take Back Vermont signs stuck in the lawn. Pinecones lay scattered across the driveway, their massive trees crowding the house. Test kept stepping on the pinecones as she and North approached the home and went up the concrete steps.
North punched the doorbell.
The sounds of a football game, then a sports announcer’s voice bled through the door.
North pressed the doorbell again, keeping his thumb on it.
The porch light winked on above them.
The door opened slowly.
Victor Jenkins stood before them in khakis and a T-shirt and bare feet, digging a pinkie into his ear. He was in pretty good shape for a man his age. Test was surprised. He had a slight paunch, but overall his build would put a lot of younger men in their beer-swilling thirties to shame. He was not wiry or ropy, nor bulked up. He had, simply, an athletic build: the kind you thought of when you thought of a classic male physique. Wide shoulders, narrower waist. Good arms. His face, though, carried every bit of his age, and then some. Soft, pouched around the eyes, more than a little jowly. It seemed out of sync with his frame.
From behind him, in the shadow of the back hall, a woman peered at them. She was short and her face was made-up heavily, though she wore a bathrobe. She tightened the belt around the robe.
The voice of the sports announcer putting words to highlights drifted from upstairs. Jenkins blinked at Test and North, as if not sure he was really seeing them.
An uneasy look passed on his face. “Yes?” he said.
“Mr. Jenkins, I’m Detective North with the state police and this is Detective Test from the Canaan Police department.”
The woman, Jenkins’s wife, Test assumed, put a hand to her lips.
“What is it?” Jenkins said. His voice was phlegmy, as if he’d just woken up. Perhaps he’d fallen asleep watching Sports Center.
“We’d like to speak with you,” North said.
“Now?” Jenkins said, befuddled. He glanced back at the woman, who now had both of her hands cupping her lower face with dread.
“What’s this all about?” Jenkins said.
“We’d like to speak to you, if we might come inside. It’s cold out.”
North stared at Jenkins, his posture square and assured.
“Let them in,” the woman said as she stepped toward them, into the light spilling from the porch. She laid a bony hand on her husband’s shoulder. Resting it there as if blessing him.
Jenkins seemed to consider his options. Then, realizing he didn’t have any options, offered a strained smile and permitted North and Test entrance, closing the door behind them.
He did not lead them into another room, instead he flipped a light switch at his side and a harsh light illuminated the foyer where they stood. It was a small space, and though there was the pleasant scent of pine from the boughs wrapped around the stair rail, the space felt awkward for the four of them to stand there together. But Jenkins made no move to permit them farther into the house, upstairs.
“So?” Jenkins said.
“It’s about last night,” North said.
A nervous light flitted through Jenkins’s eyes.
The wife clutched her hand on her husband’s shoulder. It looked like an uncomfortable position to hold, as she was a short woman and Jenkins stood six feet two inches or better and she had to reach her arm up to full extension to do so.
“What about last night?” Jenkins said.
“Where were you?” North said.
“I was at the Family Matters meeting, with my wife.” He flicked his eyes to indicate Mrs. Jenkins. What is this about?” His voice was clearing, taking on a more forceful tone.
“You weren’t at last night’s meeting,” Test said.
“What are you—” Jenkins began.
“You weren’t, sir,” North said.
“He most certainly was,” the wife chirped.
“Not according to the roster,” Test said. “You were at several other meetings, according to the logs. But, not last night.”
“I was. People saw me. Dozens of people. I must have forgotten to sign the roster,” Jenkins said with calm confidence. It would be easy enough to check out, Test thought. If people saw him. His wife’s word had no value. Spouses lied for one another all the time, for endless reasons. Not the least of them fear. But this wife didn’t seem afraid. At least not of her husband. But her face did seem to have the look of fear of another sort blooming in it. One caused by confusion, of the sort when outside facts don’t meet one’s internal reality.
“You never forgot to sign in the other times,” Test said.
“What is this?” Jenkins said. “I demand to know.” He brushed his wife’s hand from his shoulder with the annoyance of one ridding a fly.
“You are in no position to make demands,” North said.
Test thought she heard a noise, coming from the top of the stairs. She peered up but saw nothing. It had sounded like a door creaking open. Or perhaps it was just the baseboard radiators turning on, or some other common house noise. Still, she kept one eye on the head of the stairs.
Jenkins crossed his arms over his chest.
“We will tell you what it’s about. If you tell us the truth about your whereabouts last night,” North continued.
The wife stuffed both hands in her robe pockets. She looked as though she were trying to chew off her bottom lip.
“You’ve been checking into who attends these meetings?” she said.
“I told you, that’s what they do,” Jenkins said, evidently to his wife, though he made no gesture to otherwise address her presence, as if taking for granted she would always be there, behind him. “That’s what they do. It’s a police state against good people like us. The families who stand for values are watched and monitored and harassed, while the deviants are—”
“We were looking into the Family Matter roster because certain information has come to light concerning last night’s murder of Jessica Cumber,” North said.
Test felt a flush of satisfaction at hearing North use Jessica’s name.
“Please leave,” Jenkins said.
North ignored him.
“Since you were not at the Family Matters meeting last night, do you have another alibi?” Test said.
“I was there. I didn’t sign the roster.”
“Were you there the whole time?” Test said. “What time did you leave?”
“You need to leave,” Jenkins said, his voice rising.
“Let’s all just, please, calm down,” the wife said, touching Jenkins’s shoulder tentatively.
“I want them out,” Jenkins said, more loudly, nearly shouting now.
“Please,” the wife pleaded. “You’ll wake Vic.”
Test felt her jaw drop. Her mind tripping over itself.
“Who?” she said at the same time North said it.
Test shifted her eyes to look up the stairs.
“Vic. Our son,” the wife said.
Test looked at North. He wore same look Test must have worn, one of confusion, but also of a certainty that the confusion was about to be cleared away by a revelation.
“Your son’s name is Brad,” North said.
Test heard a noise from upstairs. No denying it this time. The click of a door handle perhaps. A footstep on floorboards. North glanced up the stairs.
“To everyone else he’s Brad,” the wife said.
Now Jenkins wore the same look as North; but for other reasons, Test assumed.
“We, his father and I, call Brad Vic, at home,” the wife was explaining. “He hates it. So we refrain in public out of respect. But it’s his given name. Victor. Brad is his middle name, his father—”
“Enough,” Jenkins barked.
“Where is he? Your son?” North said, visibly coiling, alert to every sound, as was Test.
“Sleeping,” the wife said.
“Wake him,” North said.
“No,” Jenkins said. “We won’t. He’s needs to rest to have a good game this weekend. We request you leave our home now. Or we will—”
“Is he in trouble?” the wife said. “Is my boy in trouble?”
“No, he’s not,” Jenkins declared, and squeezed his wife’s hand. “Let me deal with this.”
A loud banging sound came from upstairs.
Like a fist pounding on a wall.
“Sounds like he’s awake now,” Test said.
There was a sound of smashing glass.
North pushed past Jenkins and bounded up the stairs.
“You can’t do this!” Jenkins shouted, but he made no move. Instead he drew his wife to him and held her; she looked faint.
Test ran outside to the front of the house and heard a clattering above her. A boy dangled from a window—a good fifteen-foot drop to the roof of an adjacent shed.
“Hey!” Test shouted. The kid looked back over his shoulder and lost his grip, falling hard to the steep shed roof and tumbling in a free fall. About to launch over the edge, he grabbed a satellite dish. It slowed him, but his momentum was too great and he plummeted off the roof into a heap, his right forearm taking the brunt as it folded and cracked beneath him. “My arm!” he shrieked, looking up at Test. “You broke my fucking arm, you fucking bitch!”
He leapt up in an athletic move that took Test off guard. He was set to run.
“Vic!” a voice cried. His mother’s voice. At the sound of it, the boy paused, and Test was on him. She knocked him down and shoved her knee into his lower back and yanked his arms back, cuffed him. His mother shouted as she ran to him in her bare feet. “Stop that! What are you doing!” she screamed, drumming her fists on Test’s back. “My boy’s done nothing wrong!”
Test spun, knocking the woman back as she drove her knee harder into Brad’s back. Brad grunted and the woman tripped backward. “Hit me again,” Test said, glowering, “and I’ll cuff you too.”
“I didn’t do it!” Brad shouted.
North rushed out of the house, Jenkins in lockstep, face puffed up with insolence. “Get off my boy,” Jenkins roared. “Get off him.”
“Not another step,” North barked. He grabbed Jenkins by the arm. Jenkins was the bigger of the two. But that did not seem to account for much against the glare North gave him. “Don’t make this worse,” North said. “Your boy needs you in charge of your God-given reason.”
Jenkins nodded and relaxed.
“What are they doing?” Jenkins’s wife said.
Test yanked the boy up by his cuffs.
“My fucking arm,” Brad said. “I swear, if you fucking broke it . . .”
“Stop that language this instant,” his mother scolded.
Brad gave her a look that seemed to wither and age her in an instant.
“You didn’t have to do that to him,” the mother said to Test, her voice feeble but nose flaring.
“Yes. I did,” Test said. She led Brad to North’s cruiser.
“We’re going to follow you,” the mother said. “Don’t you say a word to them!” she shouted after Brad.
“Mrs. Jenkins,” Test said as she shut the door to the cruiser. “You need to stay here, to answer questions.”
“I’m going with my son.”
“I’m afraid that’s not a choice,” North said. “Until you answer the detective’s questions.”
“I’ll follow,” Jenkins said. “Are you arresting him?”
“Not yet,” North said.