The washing machine in the basement was making a weird chugga-chugga noise, so she went downstairs to investigate. Cobwebs dangled from the ceiling and the water heater rumbled in a far corner. Bram’s handyman tools were arranged by size and function on a large wooden pegboard: wrenches, hacksaws, band saws, hammers, screwdrivers. His workbench was cluttered with paint cans and plastic organizer caddies—nails, bolts, and screws segregated into little drawers. Duplicate keys dangled from hooks on a smaller pegboard— the spare house keys, the garage-door opener, extra keys to his downtown doctor’s office, the storage unit on Carriage Road, and finally, keys to the old farmhouse in Four Oaks, Maine, where Kate’s grandparents used to live. Her father couldn’t seem to part with the rundown farmstead.
The washing machine’s balance-indicator light was blinking. She lifted the lid and struggled to free the twisted clothing inside the agitator basket, until the light blinked off. She dropped the lid and the clothes began to spin around again. No more chugga-chugga. No more banging and bumping, like angry ghosts.
She went upstairs and felt a nervous flutter in her stomach. The revelation that her mother had had an affair was still hitting her. And what if Palmer was right? Had Julia fallen in love with a serial killer? Do we really know the people we love?
She went into the living room and took a seat in the wingback chair, then powered up her iPad and googled Professor Stigler. His university profile popped up. He was handsome in a George Clooney sort of way, and had an impressive CV.
She heard a noise and jumped. She went over to the window, but didn’t see her father’s car. Where did he go on his days off and what did he do? She couldn’t just ring him up and ask, because he didn’t own a cell phone, the Luddite. He refused to buy into smartphones, let alone Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Skype. He only had the landline and an old-fashioned pager that was off-limits. The pager was for patients and emergencies only.
It wasn’t difficult for Kate to understand why Julia had left him. His daily schedule was rigidly timed. Every clock in the house had to be accurate. He washed his hands methodically— typical for a doctor. He followed an elaborate grooming routine that couldn’t be interrupted. He was controlling and didn’t like to be challenged. Everything had to be perfectly aligned, perpendicular or parallel. His worldview required order and control.
When you lived with a doctor, you got used to the daily lectures on hand-washing and tooth-brushing. Kate had grown up without breaking a single bone. She’d never been seriously ill. Her father had managed to protect her from the hazards of everyday life, but what good were clean hands when your mother was dead? What good were straight As when your sister was gone?
Kate had seen pictures of Bram as a young boy, a skinny beanpole who towered over his classmates. Her mother once told her that Bram had grown up in a village full of rowdy farm boys who’d picked on him mercilessly, calling him Ichabod, Mantis, Lurch, and Chewbacca. No wonder he was so uncomfortable in his own skin. Grandpa Wolfe had been demanding and controlling of his son, although not of his grandchildren. The girls used to visit their grandparents’ farm, and by then Gramps had been like a scary schoolmaster with a gooey center. All bark, no bite.
Kate drank her coffee and waited for her father’s return, determined to confront him. She would bring up William Stigler and ask Bram why he’d lied about Julia going back to the asylum. She checked her watch and grew restless. She got up and wandered around the house, pausing in the living room to study the old gifts she and Savannah had given their father: smooth river stones painted orange and green; ceramic ashtrays they’d impressed with their fingertips; papier-maché puppets that looked like mangled rats.
She circled the first floor, and finally entered his dark-paneled study—a forbidden place. She really shouldn’t be in here, but her curiosity got the better of her. Maybe it was time to ignore his million little rules.
Sturdy oak bookshelves held her father’s cherished medical textbooks, and the cracked-leather chair was older than Kate. A chrome light from the desk lamp fanned across his paperwork. Six steel cabinets bulged with decades’ worth of medical files. Her father wasn’t required to retain the medical records of all his patients, but he had a fear of malpractice suits. Once a patient’s record was destroyed, it would be difficult—if not impossible—to mount a defense.
The urge to snoop became overwhelming.
She walked over to a file cabinet labeled A–F, opened the top drawer, and scanned the little plastic tabs, until her gaze landed on Blackwood.
Her heart skipped a beat. She pulled out Penny Blackwood’s patient file from its hanging folder and rifled through the pages. She read her father’s meticulous handwritten notes. Bram had been Penny’s general physician from birth, right up until her senior year in high school. He’d stopped seeing her around the time Savannah was murdered.
Throughout the years, he’d carefully documented all of Penny’s illnesses and injuries. Starting at around age eleven, Penny began to complain about a lack of energy. She started having bad dreams and insomnia. In her early teens, she was treated for several yeast infections and vaginal soreness. There were unexplained bruises on her upper thighs and other possible signs of sexual abuse. What amazed Kate was her father’s response to all these red flags. He dutifully recorded the details without drawing any conclusions or confronting the parents about the possibility of abuse in the home.
The front door was slammed open and shut by a determined hand. She heard footsteps in the living room. Dread settled in Kate’s stomach. She wasn’t fast enough. She froze with the file in her hands.
Her father appeared in the doorway. “Kate? What are you doing here?”
Her face flamed. She knew how wrong this looked. Her father was a private person, and it was such an invasion. But the medical file was splayed open in her hands—no sense denying it. “Penny Blackwood was a patient of yours?”
Bram snatched the file away from her. “You have no right. What’re you doing here?”
Kate stood her ground. “Vaginal soreness? At age thirteen? Come on, Dad! You had to know what was going on. There was a pattern of possible abuse, and yet you ignored it.”
He couldn’t hide his fury and embarrassment. He jammed the file back in its sleeve, slammed the metal drawer shut and said, “You have no right to go rummaging through my stuff, Kate. What the hell were you thinking?”
“Didn’t you see the abuse?” she pleaded, wanting him to defend himself. Maybe there was a reasonable explanation? Information she wasn’t privy to?
“It was a complicated situation.”
“Complicated? She was clearly being raped.”
“I had my suspicions,” Bram said, red-faced. “But if I’d lodged a formal complaint, then social services would’ve taken the child away permanently. I had to be sure about my facts. When I asked Penny about her symptoms, she denied anything was wrong. She refused to talk about it. Some girls mature early and start experimenting with their friends. I didn’t know anything for sure.”
“Yeast infections? The bruises on her upper thighs?”
“Don’t you think I discussed those things with her mother, Kate? More than once? Several times, I separated Penny from her parents and asked her if everything was okay at home. But she insisted nothing was wrong. Her mother thought it might be the new laundry detergent or perhaps an allergy. Penny had sensitive skin. I’d treated her for contact dermatitis as a child. I also thought maybe she had a boyfriend and was covering for him. Her father seemed like a decent guy, not some animal who’d hurt his own daughter.”
“That’s because it wasn’t her father,” Kate practically shouted. “It was her uncle, Henry Blackwood.”
Bram looked like she’d slapped him.
“He was molesting her. I just found out about it myself. But maybe if you’d done something about this years ago, maybe if you’d dug a little deeper instead of sweeping it under the rug… then maybe…” She stopped herself. “I have to go.”
“What exactly are you blaming me for?”
“Dad… I’m leaving.”
He let her pass. She was afraid to touch him. She refused to look at him. She could feel the sorrow and fury emanating from his body in waves.
Out in the foyer, she stepped into her damp winter boots, grabbed her coat and gloves, and left without saying goodbye.