Dark thoughts spread like blood branching through water. She clicked out of Savannah’s folder without opening the rest of the documents. She’d seen enough.
Kate ejected the USB and sat in a state of agony. Everything seemed to be crowding in on her. She felt a creeping terror along with growing nausea. Had William Stigler buried her sister alive in order to both punish and frame Henry Blackwood for getting Julia pregnant? It was vicious payback. Here’s your biological daughter, and guess what? You’re going to spend the rest of your life rotting on death row. Blackwood’s fingerprints were on the shovel. The police found his hairs tangled up in the rope. Stigler must’ve stalked Henry and gained access to the property prior to the murder. He must’ve known where Blackwood kept the shovel and rope. Perhaps he’d gained Blackwood’s confidence and had been invited into his house. The crime took cunning and careful planning. In one Machiavellian masterstroke, Stigler had inflicted great pain on not just one, but two of his rivals for Julia’s affection: Henry Blackwood and Bram Wolfe.
She tucked the USB drive back into her bag and took out her phone. Her father would be at his Sunday surgery. She decided to call him at his downtown office.
“Dr. Wolfe,” he answered with bland professionalism.
“Hi, Dad. It’s me.”
“Hello, Kate.”
“Look, I’m sorry about what happened.”
“That’s okay. We were both a little emotional,” he said.
“I love you. You know that, right?”
His voice ticked up a notch. “I love you, too, Kate.”
“Something’s come up. Do you have a minute?”
“I’m a little busy right now—”
“I wouldn’t interrupt if it wasn’t important.”
He paused. “All right. I have fifteen minutes before my next appointment.”
“I was just wondering… what if Mom didn’t commit suicide? What if she was murdered, and it was made to look like a suicide?”
“Kate, this is getting out of hand…”
“I have her autopsy report right here. She had a head wound that could’ve been made by a tire iron, according to a detective. She had what could have been defensive wounds to her arms and hands; it’s possible she was hit on the head and then pushed into the river. Witnesses claim that she and Stigler were fighting a lot, enough to call the police, and he didn’t have a solid alibi for that night. There’s evidence to indicate—”
“What are you saying? Are you suggesting that William Stigler killed Julia?”
“Detective Dyson thinks so. He believes it was staged to look like suicide.”
He hung up.
“Dad? Dad?” Kate tried to get him back, but the line was busy.
She sat, stunned. What had she done?
53
KATE TRIED REACHING HER father again, to no avail. She gathered up her belongings and left the hospital. Boston’s winding streets and left turns were difficult to navigate at the best of times, let alone the dead of winter when the roads were full of potholes and icy patches. She drove through the angular streets past office complexes, strip malls, and gleaming contemporary buildings, afraid Bram might’ve done something stupid, like gone off half-cocked to confront Professor Stigler at the university. She could almost picture him barging into the professor’s office and looming over his desk, hurling accusations, maybe threatening physical violence. What if he lost it completely—that hair-trigger temper of his? The campus police would haul him off in handcuffs.
And it would be all her fault.
At every stop light, she dialed her father’s office number and listened to the busy signal. Finally, his secretary picked up and told Kate that he’d cancelled all his appointments and stormed out of the office without a word of explanation, leaving the phone off the hook. Kate thanked her and hung up.
By the time she reached her father’s house on Three Hills Road, Kate had worn herself out with worry. His car wasn’t in the driveway, so she headed back to town and parked a few blocks away from the university. She crossed the snowy campus to the Clarence Oberon Building, where she took an elevator to the fourth floor, only to find that Stigler’s office was dark and his door locked.
She found the Sociology Department main office at the other end of the corridor and stood in front of the administrative assistant’s desk, tapping her nails anxiously on the wood. The middle-aged woman seemed mildly annoyed to be interrupted. “Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for Professor Stigler.”
“He had an early class then went home for the day. Would you like to leave him a message?”
“Actually,” Kate confessed, “I was looking for my father, Bram Wolfe. I think he might have come to see the professor.”
“Oh!” the woman exclaimed. “You must be Kate. I’ve heard so much about you. Dr. Wolfe has been our family physician for years. He’s taking care of my grandkids now, can you believe that?”
Kate nodded. “So he was here?”
“About an hour ago. I sent him over to the lake house.”
“Lake house?”
“He said it was urgent, so I gave him Professor Stigler’s home address.” She searched her computer database. “623 Lakeview Drive.”
Kate thanked the woman and left. She drove north of town, where the million-dollar homes hugged the lake. She passed renovated neo-Gothic bungalows and stately mansions where some of the wealthiest residents of Blunt River lived: university faculty members, small businessmen, and local politicians.
623 Lakeview Drive was located at the end of a private road, separated from its nearest neighbors by a tall cedar fence and thick pine woods. She parked next to her father’s Ford Ranger, then got out and stood for a nervous moment. There were no other vehicles parked in the driveway and no garage. She wondered where Stigler’s car was. Where was her father?
The wind picked up, howling through the pines. Stigler lived in a lacy Victorian wedding cake of a house with Baroque-style turrets and a wraparound porch. Down by the lake, a wooden dock stretched out over the ice. The view was wild and desolate.
She was heading toward the house, boots crunching over gravel, when something caught her eye: a set of drag marks in the gravel, two slender grooves made by a pair of heels, accompanied by a trail of blood drops.
Kate froze. Someone had been dragged out of the house, down the porch steps, and across the driveway. The blood drops stopped where Stigler usually parked his car—she could see tire impressions in the gravel, deep wells made by something rugged, perhaps an off-roader or an SUV.
Kate took out her phone and dialed 911.
“911, what’s your emergency?” the operator answered.
Her mind went blank.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“I think my father’s dead,” Kate blurted out.
54
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, KATE stood shivering on the wraparound porch, where Chief Dunmeyer had told her to wait. It was freezing, maybe thirty degrees. My father must be dead. According to the police, no bodies had been found inside the house, but there was blood in the upstairs bathroom and the shower curtain had been torn off its rings.
She could figure the rest out for herself: her father had come over to confront Stigler, and Stigler had killed him. Then Stigler had dragged the body out of the house, dumped it in the back of his car—a BMW X5 SUV, according to the police— and sped away. Her father was dead. Simple deduction.
Her fingers and toes were growing numb. She moved around in aimless circles to keep the blood circulating. She peered through one of the windows, cupping her hands over the glass.
She called Palmer, but he wasn’t picking up. He was probably in the middle of the operation, or maybe post-op by now. Heavily drugged in the recovery room. She left a voicemail. “Hi, it’s Kate. I hope the operation went well.” She paused. “I really need to talk to you. Something’s happened. When you’re feeling better… please give me a call.”