them to come here, to the Bellamys’ front door. I still feel nauseous and a little unsteady, but the bees are gone. I set my pencil down and tuck the sketchbook away. With a grim, fixed determination, I turn on the shower and pull a red tank top and a clean pair of cutoffs out of my drawer. I’m going to get ready. And then I’m going down to the station myself.
PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT OF MISSING ZOE EPISODE EIGHT: THROUGH A TELESCOPE LENS
[ELECTRONIC BACKGROUND MUSIC]
YOUNG MALE VOICE: … a couple days after Christmas, she starts texting me. Wants to know if I want to hang out over break. … Then sometime midafternoon on New Year’s, she asks if I want to come out to Herron Mills for a party at this guy Jacob Trainer’s house.
[END BACKGROUND MUSIC]
MARTINA GREEN: Thanks for tuning in to the eighth episode of Missing Zoe. Today is Tuesday, October sixth, and it’s been two months and two days since Zoe’s body was found in Parrish Lake. Her death remains unsolved, and we’re still missing Zoe.
[MISSING ZOE INSTRUMENTAL THEME]
MARTINA GREEN: I’m going to cut right to the chase today. As you know if you’ve been following the action in the past week, Max Adler of Montauk, New York, was brought in for questioning in the Zoe Spanos case, identified as a person of interest by the Herron Mills PD, and then released without charge. I caught up with Mr. Adler over the weekend at his family’s home in Montauk, and I’m pleased to bring that interview to you today.
MAX ADLER: There’s a lot of misinformation out there, and I’ve seen a bunch about myself this week. To be perfectly honest, I don’t trust the mainstream media. But people are listening to your podcast, and I want to clear some things up.
MARTINA GREEN: Thanks for agreeing to speak with me, Max. Why don’t you go ahead and tell us what happened with police this past weekend.
MAX ADLER: Right. I got called into the station on Sunday morning. I agreed to go voluntarily; I was never arrested. Detectives Holloway and Massey said they had some questions about the night Zoe Spanos disappeared, following a conversation they’d had with the kid Anna had been babysitting this summer.
MARTINA GREEN: Did they tell you the content of that conversation?
MAX ADLER: They did. Seems she saw me through her bedroom window on New Year’s Eve; I guess the girl has a telescope in her room. The Bellamys live next door to the Talbots—Caden Talbot is the guy Zoe had been dating, as everyone knows. Apparently fireworks woke the kid up after she’d gone to bed that night. She went to the window to look and saw Zoe and me entering the stable, then me leaving alone.
MARTINA GREEN: And is that true? Were you and Zoe at the Talbot estate on New Year’s Eve?
MAX ADLER: Yeah, we were there for about an hour that night.
MARTINA GREEN: Can you tell us what you told police?
MAX ADLER: Here’s the deal. Zoe and I know—um, knew—each other from bio at Brown. I was two years ahead of her, and I had a girlfriend when she was a first-year. But then last year, I was single, and Zoe and I kept running into each other around the department. I finally convinced her to go out for a coffee with me, and she told me she was having a rough time at home. Stuff with her dad, although she didn’t say what. Things weren’t great with her boyfriend either. He’d been distant since the summer, she thought they were drifting apart.
Naturally I figured she was opening up to me about this for a reason. I thought she was interested. I asked her out a few times, and she kept saying not right now—but it wasn’t a hard no. I didn’t push, but I figured she was waiting to see how things played out with her boyfriend. I respected that. Then after Thanksgiving, she came back to campus and called me, super upset. She asked me to meet her in the library, so I went. Said while she was home over Thanksgiving, she’d found these pictures and emails on Caden’s computer. He was in love with another girl.
MARTINA GREEN: Zoe knew about Tiana Percy?
MAX ADLER: Tiana, right. She was in the news recently, provided Caden’s alibi for New Year’s Eve. Anyway, Zoe came to me about this, right? I figure she wants revenge at the very least, or even better, she’s