I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes. I reasoned with myself why I should tell her, though the real reason had nothing to do with reason. It was my purely selfish desire not to be alone with my agony.
“Jenny Kramer had a recall yesterday. A memory from the night of the rape.”
Julie looked at me warily.
“It was the bleach, Julie. He smelled of bleach.”
Her eyes grew wide then as her hand drew slowly through the air to cover her mouth. That’s three things. Three things they could use against him!
“There were a lot of swimmers at that party. Half the team, you said.”
We both looked at the sweatshirt.
“He didn’t do it,” I said.
I know that.
“Do you? Do you know that the way I do? I know it! In my bones and in my heart. This man was a sociopath. Do you understand?”
Of course I do!
“He held her face into the ground. He gripped her neck and defiled her over and over for an hour!”
I know … I know.
“And then he took a stick, a sharp stick, and whittled away at her, at her flesh until he was all the way through her skin, every layer of skin!”
Okay! Just stop! Stop it. I know what he did to that poor girl!
“Then you can’t possibly be worried that our son did this.”
She took a long breath then and waited for me to calm down. I was indignant, and it was wrong of me to direct it at her. It didn’t matter what we thought, what we knew about our son. The world would accuse him, would doubt him. The world would want to believe. Tom Kramer would want to believe. Charlotte would want to believe. Jenny would want to believe. A thought rushed in, and I was too overwhelmed to stop it from coming back out.
“They won’t let me treat her anymore. If this goes any further. I’ll be out of the case. I won’t be able to help her get her memory back.”
Julie looked at me with contempt. That’s what you’re thinking? Our son could be accused of a brutal rape. His life could be ruined, and that’s what you’re thinking?
“He didn’t do it.”
It doesn’t matter, Alan. You know what will happen. The case will never get solved, and the suspicion will hang over him for the rest of his life!
She was right on all fronts. I don’t know why my mind went to the case and to treating Jenny. My selfishness was more powerful than I had imagined.
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
What do we do?
I didn’t have all the answers.
“Call the lawyer back. Tell him you were wrong. The sweatshirt was white with the red hawk. Anything. Just tell him you were wrong and that you’re so relieved. I don’t trust him. He could help his other clients by throwing Jason under the bus. It’s too great a conflict now. We’ll talk to Jason ourselves. We’ll come up with an answer that will work. Not a lie, but some kind of answer.”
Julie agreed. She asked me what then? Surely someone would remember the sweatshirt. And now with the chlorine and the shaving—those would go together, wouldn’t they? Parsons and Tom Kramer would be on that trail, on the trail of a swimmer. It made perfect sense. Every kid on the team who’d been at the party would be scrambling to get out of the way of that train.
As I’ve said, I didn’t have all the answers.
But I would.
Chapter Nineteen
Remembering these days and recounting them is extremely difficult. They were fraught with emotion. Fear, mostly. They are not well organized in my mind.
I saw Jenny on a Wednesday. She recalled that one memory. She remembered the bleach. The next day I saw the Kramers together to discuss this finding. Cruz Demarco had already admitted being at the party and said he’d seen a boy with a blue hoodie with a red bird on it walking into the woods. I have discussed this as well. Tom made me promise I would work on recovering a memory about the blue hoodie now that we’d found one memory of that night. The Kramers went home that afternoon. Thursday afternoon. Tom spent the rest of the day on the computer, searching for blue hoodies with red birds. Charlotte began to see the connection between her experience with her stepfather and what happened to her daughter. She reexperienced that night on the sofa through Jenny’s one recalled memory, and she held her daughter in her arms and tried to give her comfort and hope. Then she gave some to herself by making love to her husband. I went home to my wife and the blue hoodie with the red hawk.