Her eyes teared up. She tried to reach James, but it went directly to voicemail. She wanted to leave a message, but the words wouldn’t form. She hung up.
A crowd of onlookers had gathered on the sidewalk in front of the house. Kate didn’t feel like waiting on the porch anymore. She walked around to the backyard, where she lit a cigarette and watched the police dogs—there were two of them now sniffing around the trees.
A middle-aged man in a gray suit came out of the house and introduced himself as Detective Lucas. Kate told him everything she knew—about the flashdrive, and Julia’s autopsy report, and how she’d tried calling her father back but he’d already left his office.
“Detective Dyson gave you a flashdrive?” Detective Lucas asked. “Can I see it?”
Kate held it out. “He told me to give it to the chief.”
“I’ll take it to him.”
“No, he gave me explicit instructions.” She tucked it away in her bag.
“Wait here.” Lucas left.
She noticed a helicopter circling in the distance. A news chopper. Great, she thought angrily. The TV networks would dig into their archives and the Wolfe family tragedy would be splashed all over the media again. A police officer was leading a Labrador Retriever around by its leash, and the dog was sniffing around the base of a tree.
Chief Dunmeyer came out of the back door and met her at the bottom of the steps. He was fit and trim with a silver mustache and goatee—he hadn’t aged much in sixteen years. He wore dark slacks, a pinstripe shirt, and a red silk tie beneath the de rigueur BRPD parka.
“Do you have any idea what happened to my father?”
“We put out a statewide BOLO for Stigler’s SUV. We’ll find them. Detective Lucas said you had something for me?”
She unzipped her bag and took out the flashdrive. “Palmer said you’d know what to do with it. I haven’t been able to reach him yet, but I’m sure he’d understand why I’m giving it to you now.”
Dunmeyer frowned. “What’s on it?”
“His research on nine missing and murdered girls, as well as my mother’s suicide. He believes that Stigler’s responsible for all of them. He said it connects all the dots.”
Dunmeyer nodded. “Palmer and I were partners for a long time. I trust the guy with my life. But his theories never quite added up for me. I told him time and again—present me with some new evidence, something solid, and we’ll follow up.”
Kate nodded. “But you’ll look into it now?”
“We’ll look into everything now.” He glanced around and lowered his voice. “You’ve got to understand, Dr. Wolfe… half of these cases aren’t in our jurisdiction. Three occurred in other townships, two were suicides, and one was an accident. Kids go missing all the time. They run away. They do drugs and mess up their lives. Quade Pickler is highly respected, he’s been with us for thirty-five years, and I had to bow to his judgment on those autopsies.”
The news chopper swooped down low overhead.
“They’re going to rip my life apart again, aren’t they?” Kate said.
Dunmeyer looked at her sympathetically. “I’m afraid so. No way to avoid it.”
“Do you think my father’s dead?”
“I can’t say either way until Forensics gets here, but for my money, there isn’t enough blood in the house to infer that someone died there. But I don’t want to raise your hopes. Circumstantial evidence points to a homicidal attack, with your father as the likely victim, since it’s Stigler’s vehicle that’s missing. We’re going to run tests on the blood, fast-track the DNA. In the meantime, we’re doing everything we can to find them.”
“Will you catch him?”
Dunmeyer nodded. “They don’t usually get very far nowadays. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like one of our detectives to escort you back to the station for a more detailed statement. Also, we can help you with media contact or any other questions you may have.”
“Thanks.”
The barking dogs caught his attention. “Excuse me, I’ll be right back,” he said, tipping his hat and walking across the backyard.
All of a sudden Kate couldn’t handle the thought of sitting in the police station. She quickly walked back to her car, started the engine and pulled out cautiously between two police cruisers. Her phone buzzed with a text message. It was from Palmer. I’ll be starting the treatment tomorrow, Kate. Wish me luck.
She’d never felt so alone.
55
KATE TOOK THE PREDICTABLE cross-hatching of streets toward her father’s house, hardly aware of what she was doing. She spotted an old-fashioned clothesline in a front yard; it made her think about the rope Nikki had used to hang herself with. How had Nikki learned to tie a slipknot?
Her heart was banging in her chest by the time she pulled into her father’s driveway. She let herself in and stood in the front hallway for a moment, chilled by the silence. She felt so ripped apart inside, she wanted to scream. Was her father really dead?
She went upstairs to her parents’ bedroom and tore the place apart, searching for any links to the past. She dragged the storage boxes out of her mother’s closet and upended them on the floor. She felt like an archeologist digging through the wreckage of her family history, searching for evidence—still not sure what she was looking for.
She found another batch of her mother’s letters, all of them addressed to Bram, and read them quickly. Julia swung between grandiosity and depression, happiness and misery. “You can barely rub two words together in my presence. And yet, when you finally talk to me, you always say the wrong thing. A word of advice: stop crowding me, Bram. People need space to fall in love, and they need space to remain in love.”
There were wild accusations and crazy denunciations. Julia wanted her freedom and she wanted her family. She wanted to fling her life away, and she wanted Bram to forgive her. She wanted an abortion and she wanted more children. Kate overturned the sequined jewelry box, searching for the silver necklace with its crescent-shaped pendant, but only found her mother’s Zippo lighter—compact with a retro paisley pattern. Julia used to claim that her mentholated cigarettes helped to ease her headaches. Maybe Kate should give it a shot. She put the Zippo in her bag and dug through her mother’s old steamer trunk, sorting through piles of linens, tennis rackets, and knick-knacks.
She found Julia’s high school yearbook and thumbed through the pages. Julia Knight was one of those girls you just knew was going places. She was gorgeous, athletic, and whip-smart. She was a member of the Honor Society, Girls’ Leadership, the chorus, the photo club, the pep squad, and captain of the swim team. She’d been voted Most Popular, and her yearbook quote was from Love Story: “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”
Instead of bedtime stories, Julia used to regale her young daughters with tales of her wild, irresponsible youth. She drank and drove. She got stoned and played musical chairs. She jumped off the highest cliff into Moody Lake and had her pick of boys. It had taken Kate years to process how inappropriate her mother’s behavior was, to be sharing these stories with her impressionable children, but you couldn’t stay mad at Julia for very long. There was a tragic depth to her that made you want to protect her.
At the bottom of the trunk, Kate found a battered shoebox stuffed with snapshots spanning decades of Julia’s life: birthday parties, high school graduation, college years, her wedding day. Bram and Julia on their honeymoon. The early years of their marriage. Dinner parties. Sunbathing in the backyard. Her first pregnancy. Her second pregnancy.