Notes on a Killing: Love, Lies, and Murder in a Small New Hampshire Town by Kevin Flynn & Rebecca Lavoie

Author:Kevin Flynn & Rebecca Lavoie [Flynn, Kevin]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781101619391
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2013-04-01T16:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

Puzzle

Since their discovery of the deadly fire pit the night of February 28, the state police had good luck keeping developments in the case under wraps. The Carpenter home was on the end of a Class VI road off another Class VI road, so the comings and goings of investigators were barely noticed by residents of the area. Normally conspicuous vehicles like the state police crime van simply vanished into the woods for hours at a time. While the Meyer disappearance was the talk of the town, few were able to keep tabs on what detectives were focusing on in their investigation, and reporters were unlikely to stumble across the property by accident.

Senior Assistant Attorney General Will Delker did a good job keeping the local media at bay. He had a knack for ignoring the loaded questions and gave quotes that were substantial enough to satisfy the needs of scribes on deadline. Unlike the serious, pointed questioning attorneys do with clients and with each other, Delker knew giving an answer to the press was more important than what that answer actually was. Perhaps it was because he was himself married to a reporter that he understood what they were looking for. He knew a dozen different ways to say “no comment” without actually saying “no comment.”

It’s the little bits of serendipity that often break news stories. For the TV reporter and videographer driving toward Goshen on March 2, 2005, that moment arrived when they spotted a state police flatbed truck driving in the other direction. The truck had a purple hatchback strapped to the back. They turned and chased the truck for a mile or so, shooting video through the windshield of their station’s white Ford Explorer. When the pair eventually arrived in Goshen for the daily briefing with SAAG Delker, they asked if the impounded car had anything to do with the weeklong search for Pen Meyer. Not expecting such a specific question, Delker hesitated for a microsecond before saying he couldn’t comment on any evidence gathered in the case. It wasn’t an official confirmation they were on to something, but the news crew felt like they very well might be.

After a fruitless search for people to interview in Goshen, the TV crew wandered farther down the road into Lempster. They stopped at the local garage and asked the mechanic if he knew anybody in town who drove a purple car—an unusual color for those parts. He said he knew of no one. The reporter struck out at the post office and the volunteer fire department, too.

The reporter and videographer grabbed lunch at Sturgeon’s General Store. The décor was rustic and wooden, like a prototypical general store from the prairie. Its shelves were stocked with the usual staples including farming supplies. There was a large handmade lunch counter where the owner and his wife served fresh deli sandwiches. The storekeeper was warm and hospitable to the reporter, a subtle yet positive departure from the other friendly-but-not-terribly-helpful residents he’d quizzed about the purple car.

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