All Is Not Forgotten (6 page)

Jenny had no memory of her rape, but the terror lived in her body. The physical memory, the emotional response that was now programmed into her, had nothing to attach to—no set of facts to place it in context. And so it roamed freely within her. The only tangible thing that was left from the rape was the scar from the carving.

It is easy to say that she should have sought help. But she is a teenager. And to her teenage brain, eight months was “too long.”

She went to her bathroom, opened the drawer beneath her sink. She took out a razor, a pink disposable. Using the tools from her nail kit, she pried it open until the blades popped out. She set them on the sink counter, then returned to her bed, where she sat. Waiting.

 

Chapter Five

I feel I've gotten
ahead of myself. Let me go back just a bit.

Tom Kramer was in his own kind of hell. The feeling that he had failed to protect his daughter haunted him day and night.

It was completely irrational. We can't watch our children every second of every day, and bad things happen. That's reality. As a society, we have gone through various trends of protective parenting. It seems to me that it was the proliferation of information over the Internet that resulted in the last wave. Any abduction, any molestation, any sexual misconduct, pool drowning, sledding accident, bike crash, or choking incident was instantly known by every parent from Maine to New Mexico. It felt as though these incidents were on the rise. There were campaigns and infomercials, new safety products and warning labels. Babies could no longer sleep on their tummies. Kids could no longer walk to school or wait alone at the bus stop. It makes me laugh to think of my mother
ever
driving me down the street and parking behind other cars to wait with me for the bus. She wasn't even out of bed when I left for school as a child. But that's what people do now, isn't it?

There has been some backlash, the “free range” movement, admonition of “helicopter” parenting. The conversation is starting to shift from the danger to children from negligent parenting to the damage done to those who are overprotected.

It's all just noise. If someone really wants to hurt your child, he's going to find a way to do it.

The summer after the rape, Tom became obsessed with finding the rapist. With his family gone to Block Island, he spent his time looking. He did not see friends. He did not go to the gym. He stopped watching television. From eight to six, he worked his job, but the obsession only followed him. Being in car sales exposed Tom to new faces every day. Cranston is a modest city, but it has over eighty thousand residents. Add to that the fact that his employer, Sullivan Luxury Cars, had the only BMW and Jaguar showrooms in a sixty-mile radius, and you can understand that every day brought a new face in front of Tom Kramer, and every new face, to Tom's mind, could be the face of his daughter's rapist.

The police had done all they could, within reason. Every kid who had been at that party was interviewed. The boys, in particular, were questioned formally and at the police station. Many were accompanied by an attorney. Tom had wanted all of them examined. He'd wanted DNA and skin samples. He'd wanted their cars and rooms searched for the black mask and gloves. He'd wanted them inspected to see if any of them had shaved themselves. Of course, none of that was ever going to happen.

The neighbors were questioned as well, families who had all been at home, or out together, or out with others. Every person had an alibi. Every alibi checked out. One of the neighbors, a twelve-year-old boy named Teddy Duncan, had gone outside at eight forty-five. His dog, a curious beagle named Messi (after the soccer player), had found a hole in the fence and escaped because that's what beagles do. They dig and hunt and chase things. It is likely he was in the woods just before Jenny was raped. But he would have been on the far right side, not deep in the back, given where his house was positioned. He'd popped back out onto Juniper Road to continue his search down the street. He said he remembered seeing a parked car that looked out of place. What that meant was that it was not high end, or a massive SUV with sports magnets on the back. With some help from Parsons and Google images, Teddy was able to conclude that the car was a Honda Civic.

For most of the summer, this navy blue Honda Civic became the focus of the hunt for the Fairview rapist. Records from the DMV were cross-checked with sex offender registries and other criminal records. There were thousands of blue Civics in the state of New York. And Teddy Duncan only “thought” the plates were New York white and blue. Incidentally, before your mind starts to go off in the wrong direction, Teddy found the dog at a neighbor's house and was back inside his own house by nine fifteen. And he is twelve.

Detective Parsons did an adequate job, given his skill level. He was not lacking enthusiasm in the beginning, and indeed seemed “civilian” in the way the facts of the rape piqued his interest. But his focus was always turned outside Fairview. He reached out to police stations across the region, inquiring about similar rapes—teenage girl, ski mask, no physical evidence left at the scene, blue Civic. And, of course, the carving on her back. Dozens of other rapes matched some of the fact pattern. None of them matched all of it. His colleagues in other departments promised to keep an eye out. The trouble was that the rapists who had been caught were all in prison. And the ones who were not caught could not be traced. It's hard to know how many women are raped, because it is the most underreported violent crime in the United States. But experts estimate that only 25 percent of reported rapes actually get solved. Things were not looking good for Jenny's case, and by Christmas, Tom was the sole driving force in his tireless quest for justice.

Tom's parents came for Christmas every year, and the family decided that this year should be no different. They arrived midweek, just as school was letting out. Tom's mother, Millie, was an intelligent woman with an exceptional sense of perception. This was disconcerting to Charlotte, who found it difficult to hide her secrets (we will get to that) when Millie was in town. Tom's father, Arthur, lived more in his head than in his heart. He was a retired professor from Connecticut College. He was a stoic and, in this regard, got along very well with his daughter-in-law.

Tom recalled the visit like this:

I felt like a child again, like I wanted to run into my mother's arms for a long cry and then sit on my father's lap watching a hockey game. I wanted them to tell me everything was going to be all right—my mother with some complex analysis of the situation, and my father with a look that would make me get my shit together, no matter how bad things were. They were so great with Jenny. My mother took her shopping and talked to her about the future, about colleges and careers. She asked her all sorts of questions about her activities and her friends and what she might want to do over the summer. My father was also helpful. He kept Lucas busy, took him skating one day, built a Lego in the basement. Guy stuff. But I was looking at it from the outside, you know. I couldn't be in it with them. It was too normal, too … calm. Inside, I was going wild. Kicking and screaming against the fate that the universe had handed my family. I would not accept it. I had failed to protect my daughter, and I would not fail at this. And yet I knew with every passing second that the chances of finding this creature were vanishing. I wanted to be a man. I wanted to feel like a man again. And I walked around silently and with a blank expression, looking like a strong man. But inside, I was a child having a tantrum. And part of me desperately needed my parents to see it.

It was during this week that Charlotte starting having her dream. She knew the origins—some wildlife documentary they'd watched a few weeks back about wolves. In one of the scenes, a lone wolf chased a lone impala through the woods to the edge of a cliff. The impala, being deft and sure-footed, slowly made its way onto the steep rocky side of the cliff, while the wolf frantically ran along the edge, looking down at his meal, so close but unattainable. He didn't give up for nearly an hour.

In the dream, Charlotte watched this scene from a distance. Though she knew the ending, each time, she relived it as though the impala might just get caught in the woods before making it to safety, or perhaps this time the wolf would venture off the side of the cliff onto the rocks and find his own footing. As it played out, always with the same ending, her heart would pound wildly and she would awaken to find herself tangled up in sweaty sheets and fear.

The dream was haunting in so many ways. The hunter and the hunted. Tom and the rapist. Injustice and Tom. The rapist and Jenny. Tom's family and Charlotte's secrets.

I asked her which character she was in the dream, the wolf who loses his meal, or the impala who cleverly escapes but will always be in danger on level ground.

I don't know. It wasn't clear in the dream. I mean, I always saw it from the distance, watching both animals. One running for its life. The other out to kill. So I can't say from any feeling or perspective I had. But, I did think about it. It tortured me nearly every night when the Kramers were here that Christmas, and it continued on and off for weeks after they left. I suppose I could be the wolf, endangering my family and the entire life I've built. But then I think I'm actually the impala, running for my life. I do feel like that. Like I'm always one step away from being found out. It sounds paranoid, I'm sure, but I think Tom's mother knew. I could see it in her eyes. And I hated her for it. I know she was helping Jenny. I should have wanted her to stay longer. But all I could think, all through Christmas Eve dinner and caroling and opening presents the next day and church and another dinner, was that I wanted her to get the hell out of my house.

Charlotte had her secrets, but I believed there was more to her dislike of Tom's parents, his mother especially. I mentioned her childhood earlier. I suppose this is a good time to elucidate, and I ask for your indulgence.

Charlotte grew up in New London. For those of you not familiar with this part of the country, New London is home to the United States Coast Guard Academy and a naval sub base. The military is strongly present. Her mother, Ruthanne, was a promiscuous young woman who became a single mother at age twenty-three. She had not attended college and worked at a small factory, making decorative candles. Charlotte can remember vividly the smell of scented wax that would follow Ruthanne through the front door of their apartment after work. Ruthanne's family lived in town. Her parents, after doing some readjustments to the dreams they'd had for their youngest daughter, were helpful at first. But they were not healthy folks—drinkers, smokers, verging on obesity. They were both dead before Charlotte was ten years old. Two years later, Ruthanne finally married. His name was Greg.

This is Charlotte's first secret, and it was well kept. She did not reveal it to me until I had earned her trust. And that was not an easy task.

I was a beautiful girl. I had blond hair and blue eyes and my body was quite developed around that time. And my face, if you look at pictures, you can definitely see that Jenny is my daughter. My mother became the manager of the candle factory. They ran it twenty-four–seven, rotating the workers on day and night shifts. I guess they had enough customers that they needed to make all those candles. I'm sure it had something to do with the “illegals” they hired as well—maybe they knew there wouldn't be inspections at night. My mother used to talk about the two payrolls, the one on the books and the one that was cash. Greg worked on and off as a carpenter. He used to tell my mother to keep track of the cash, don't trust anyone. Especially the “illegals.” He had several tattoos. One of them was on his neck. It was a snake and then some words under it. “Don't tread on me,” they said. He wasn't a fan of the government. “The man” he used to call it. Anything that had any authority was “the man,” like some kind of hippie. He was an idiot.

The first night it happened, my mother was at work. I was seventeen. We lived in this little shithole apartment with one bedroom and thin walls. The kitchen was nothing more than an electric burner and microwave. We didn't even have a proper oven. There was one bathroom with a tiny shower that ran out of hot water every morning because the neighbors were also “illegals”—they must have had six or seven people crammed into that place. Greg disliked “illegals” almost as much as the government. He used to walk around, talking to himself. He and my mother shared the bedroom and I slept on the sofa, so I had nowhere to go when he came out of there. I heard a lot of crazy shit coming from him.

Anyway, I would be lying if I said I didn't see it coming. Women just know. Maybe men do, too, but I'm not convinced of it. We can tell when there's a shift, when a man has decided he wants to fuck us. I've felt it with guy friends in college. I've felt it in crowded bars. I've felt it with colleagues at work. And I felt it with Greg. I did my best to ignore him, stay out of his way. I started wearing more clothing, pants instead of skirts, flat shoes, turtlenecks. It didn't matter. It never does, does it? Like I said, once a man has decided he wants to fuck you, there's no getting him off that position. So the night it happened, I had come home from work. I was a waitress at a diner a couple of nights a week. I remember being really upset about a customer. I truly can remember every minute of that night—how this customer yelled at me for bringing him pie with ice cream on it when he'd said no ice cream. He was right and I said I was sorry, but he asked to see my manager, kept yelling, wanting his meal for free. I started to cry. I thought I was going to be fired. My boss told me to go home. God, it sounds so stupid now. It turned out the guy did this every time to try to get a free meal.

“That would be upsetting to any seventeen-year-old,” I told her.