“Have you seen someone go into my office? Spence? Raj?”
Her colleagues shook their heads. “No, Kate. Sorry.”
“What about Jerry?” she asked.
They shrugged. “Don’t think so.”
She thanked them and hurried down the hallway to Jerry’s corner office.
“Did you take those peanuts out of my office?” she asked him heatedly.
“Peanuts? What peanuts?” His face was as round as an old-fashioned clock, with two small wet eyes.
“Come on, Jerry. Admit it.”
“Admit what?”
“That jar of roasted peanuts. Very funny.”
“Sorry.” Jerry shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“A jar of peanuts showed up in my office one day, and now they’re gone.”
“Wow. Nuts? That’s lame.”
Kate went back to her office. She sat down at her desk, answered a few emails, and was about to turn on her email out-of-office and leave when she noticed her answering machine was blinking. She played back her messages. Three were work-related. One was from her father.
“Hello, Kate. You told me to call you sometime, and I just heard what happened. Bad news travels fast around here… I’d like to be the kind of father whose children can rely on him, not this person I’ve become… Anyway, I’ve taken the day off to run a few errands, but I’ll be home for most of it. Give me a call if you’d like. Goodbye.”
It was the warmest message she’d ever received from him. Maybe this was her chance. Kate scooped up her car keys, put on her parka, and left the hospital. If they were going to have a heart-to-heart about her mother, she wanted to do it in person.
An hour and a half later, she pulled into her father’s empty driveway. The Ford Ranger was gone. Okay, he’d said he was going to run a few errands. Fine. She would wait as long as it took.
Dark clouds were accumulating on the horizon. She took the spare key from under the flowerpot in the garden and let herself in. The house was silent and museum-like. What kind of errands? she wondered. What did her father do in his spare time? Drive around aimlessly? Visit friends? Did he have any friends? Was he fucking his secretary—that white-haired old lady with seven grandchildren? A high percentage of physicians got hooked on drugs. Was he addicted to pharmaceuticals? Did he pick up prostitutes? Gamble? Volunteer his time for good causes? Go to church? She had no idea. Her father was a mystery to her.
She went upstairs to her old room, which hadn’t changed in over a decade. The shelves were crammed with books by Carl Jung, Jean Piaget, and Abraham Maslow. On the bureau were her old beauty products and garish makeup. On the walls were music posters: U2, Nirvana, Pink. The drafty old-fashioned windows overlooked the backyard. She used to watch the changing seasons from that painted rocker, while dreaming about becoming a famous psychiatrist and discovering the cure for her mother’s madness.
Now she heard a noise and stepped out into the hallway. “Dad?”
Nothing but squirrels on the roof. Or mice in the walls.
She hadn’t set foot inside her parents’ room in decades. The maple door creaked on its hinges. The hardwood floor popped and snapped in all the familiar places. A few years ago, Bram had moved his belongings downstairs, but he’d left Julia’s things intact, along with the four-poster bed with its scrolled walnut posts, the matching nightstands, the sturdy bureau, and the faded Persian rug. Kate sat down on the bed and listened to the springs squeak. She and Savannah used to climb all over their parents in the mornings, waking them up. Her father used to laugh a lot back then.
She got up and stood in front of the bureau and rummaged through the drawers, fingering her mother’s lacy nightgowns and camisoles, her imitation Louis Vuitton handbag and her dark Ray-Bans. Julia’s birth control pills had been abandoned mid-cycle. Everything smelled faintly of Dior Poison.
The closet was crammed with 1990s clothes. Kate found several labeled storage boxes tucked away behind the dresses and skirts and slid them out past a flotilla of high heels. She popped the lid off WINTER STUFF and examined the mothball-smelling clothes, scarves, and gloves. Tucked in between two cable-knit sweaters was Julia’s jewelry box.
Kate grasped it with delight, and opened the lid. She scooped out a handful of bangles, beaded necklaces, and hoop earrings, looking for her mother’s Man-in-the-Moon necklace, her favorite piece. Then she grew chilly with sweat, remembering the long silver chain with a smiling silver crescent pendant. A pendant about the size of the injury on Susie Gafford’s throat.
In a panic, she dug her hands into the jewelry box, searching for the silver necklace, but couldn’t find it anywhere. Dr. Holley had said her mother believed some of her jewelry had been stolen. Maybe Julia hadn’t been so crazy, after all? Maybe whoever had stolen it had killed Susie Gafford? Maybe William Stigler…? But wait. Julia believed her jewelry had been taken before she’d gone to the asylum. Before she’d met Stigler. So it couldn’t have been him. Kate shook her head. Or maybe the whole thing was ridiculous. There must’ve been a million silver crescent pendants sold in the nineties.
Kate dragged the rest of the storage boxes out of the closet, hoping to find the missing necklace. She opened a box labeled BABY STUFF and pawed through tiny baby clothes, rattles, and booties. Hard to believe she was ever that small. She found her favorite childhood sweater, a blue cardigan with an orange tiger patch sewn over the breast pocket, and shook it open. Out fell a stack of letters. She stared at her mother’s meticulous handwriting. All the envelopes were addressed to Bram. She started reading.
Dear Bram,
How can I say this without sounding crazy? I’m being studied. Observed. As if I’m part of some huge experiment. Okay, that does sound crazy. I found a dead squirrel in the yard yesterday. What does it mean? And my doll, too, my favorite doll—I told you what happened, didn’t I? I can’t tell if some of these things I’ve been experiencing lately were done deliberately or not. Does this happen to other people? Or is it just me? I’m convinced somebody’s been in our house, an intruder, and I know you don’t believe me, but they must’ve broken in without leaving any proof behind. They must’ve taken that picture down off the living-room wall and put it on the dining-room table—don’t you remember? The landscape with the barn? Am I crazy? And my favorite doll taken? Who would do such a thing? We need to do something. You have to believe me.
Julia
Dear Bram,
I know you want me to suffer. You must. That’s the only explanation I can think of for your coldness, your remoteness, your barely disguised hostility toward me. Here I am in this awful place, because I came close to slitting my throat, and that scared the daylights out of me. I could’ve killed myself, and I’ve explored the many ways and possibilities… but I chose to seek professional help instead. Well, it was the best decision I ever made. Dr. Holley is so understanding and sympathetic. The people here are wonderful. You wanted to punish me, I guess, and that’s why I’m here. You punished me every day with your harsh criticisms. I can never do anything right. And even though my mental state isn’t the best right now, I’m still stronger and healthier than I used to be, and I’m getting stronger every day, and soon I’ll find the courage to leave you. There, I said it. I’m taking the girls with me, and you can’t stop me. Maybe if you’d listened to me sooner.
Julia
Dear Bram,
I love you, I honestly do. But the question is—where did you go? Where is my loving husband? What caused you so much pain that you’d pull away from the only person in the world who loves you so much? Because I do, Bram, with all my heart. But I don’t understand your behavior, and I can’t live with it anymore. You make me feel bad about myself. I’m alive and emotional and I feel and I want. But I can’t live within the walls you’ve constructed around yourself. It feels like a dungeon. Things have to change. We either face this together or we face it apart.
Julia
Kate devoured the rest of the letters.
Some were filled with paranoid ramblings that supported Dr. Holley’s memories of Julia’s delusions: mysterious shadow figures following her around; the walls talking to her in “scratch language;” ordinary objects were in fact microphones. But other letters were sober and introspective. A few hinted at past love affairs, practically taunting Bram with her infidelity. Julia accused him of cutting her off from old friends and not letting her be herself. She’d given up so much to marry him—her freedom, her college education, her independence. She felt suffocated and unloved.
Julia’s final letter to Bram bragged about her life with William Stigler—how supportive he was, what a good listener, how he didn’t expect her to stay at home and take care of him. At last, here was a man who wanted her to be happy and fulfilled. How liberating! How exhilarating! She ended the letter by demanding a divorce. She wanted full custody of their daughters.
Kate pictured her father’s impotence in the face of her mother’s betrayal. She couldn’t wait any longer. She needed answers now.
42
KATE DROVE ACROSS TOWN toward the sprawling university campus. She found a place to park and powered up her iPad, searching for more information on Professor William Stigler. Hundreds of articles and scientific papers popped up. She found his university profile again and checked out his lengthy CV. He’d attended Columbia University as an undergrad and received his PhD in Sociology from NYU. He’d come to Blunt River for his postdoctoral fellowship and had racked up an impressive number of private and government grants. He’d co-authored hundreds of articles. How could such a high-profile tenured professor be a serial killer? She studied his picture again. He was in his late fifties, around the same age as her father, and yet they were light-years apart. Stigler was swaggeringly handsome, with hipster eyeglasses, a fashionable tweed jacket, and a charming smile.
The Clarence Oberon Building was located a few blocks away from The Dude, a popular campus coffee shop. She stood outside the glass-and-steel structure and listened to the blustery wind. A massive storm was brewing, gray cumulous clouds towering ominously in the distance.
Inside, the vast open-concept lobby was sleek and modern, and the adjacent student lounge was crowded with young men in Sherpa hats and women in Patagonia jackets sipping mochaccinos and chai lattes. Tall windows and skylights soaked the place with a muted winter light. Kate signed in at the front desk and headed for the bank of elevators.
According to the directory, Stigler’s office was on the fourth floor. Kate pressed the button and waited, feeling skittish. Palmer would be furious, but her curiosity was all-consuming. Anyway, Kate would be careful. She just wanted to catch a glimpse of the man who was Palmer’s prime suspect.
She rode the elevator up to the fourth floor and stepped into a long corridor. Stigler’s office was at the far end, past dozens of faculty offices and seminar rooms. She stopped about ten yards away and lingered in front of a bulletin board. Stigler’s office appeared to be empty—she didn’t detect any movement behind the etched glass.
A girl in a quilted parka hurried past, stopped in front of Stigler’s door, and knocked. “Professor Stigler?” She tried the door but it was locked. She scribbled something on a piece of paper, folded it in half, slid it under the door and left.
As soon as she was gone, Kate ventured down the corridor for a closer look. She stood in front of Stigler’s door, and studied the New Yorker cartoons taped to it. How many sociologists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? One, but the lightbulb needs to sign a consent form.
She felt a presence behind her.
“Hi. Can I help you?”
Kate nearly jumped out of her skin. “I was just reading the captions.”
“Ice-breakers.” William Stigler held a Starbucks in one hand and his keys in the other. He looked just like his photograph, with striking blue eyes and neatly trimmed hair going silver at the temples. He projected an aura of upbeat friendliness and openness—as if here was a teacher you could trust. No hint at the man Palmer claimed he was. “Can I help you?” he repeated.
Kate blushed. “I’m applying for a position in the psych department, and I’m interested in the work you did at Godwin Valley,” she lied.
“In that case, come on in.” Stigler balanced his drink as he unlocked the door and stepped aside. He gestured for her to go in first. “Sorry about the mess. I’m sure there are a couple of health code violations going on, but whatever.” He flashed a rakish grin.
Kate hesitated on the threshold. Stigler’s window offered a sweeping view of the winter-wonderland campus. Heaps of messy paperwork tumbled across his desk. She went inside, and it felt like walking into a buzz saw.
“Have a seat.” Stigler let the door swing shut behind them and waved at the leather chair angled in front of his desk. He scooped up the note from the floor and dropped it onto his desk without looking at it.
She sat down and nervously crossed her legs.
“What can I do for you? Sorry—I didn’t ask your name.”
To her utter amazement, Kate said, “I think you knew my mother.”
“Who’s your mother?”
“Julia Wolfe.”
There was a conspicuous pause, during which Professor Stigler sipped his coffee, then set the cup down and folded his hands on his desktop. “Ah. You must be Kate.”
She nodded stiffly.
He studied her for a moment. “You know, I’ve always wondered if you’d ever get in touch. And here you are.”
Kate could feel the heat creeping up her neck. “I had no idea you existed until yesterday,” she said. “I just found out about your affair with my mother.”
“Really?” He gave her a skeptical look. “Your father never mentioned me?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Somebody else told me.”
Stigler’s jaw muscles tightened. “Let me guess. Palmer Dyson. That’s why you’re here, right? He sent you to spy on me.”
Wow, that was dumb. She’d just blown everything in about two seconds. Palmer would be apoplectic. “No, he didn’t send me,” she insisted. “As a matter of fact, he warned me not to come.”
“Right. Because I’m so dangerous.” He laughed. “Right?”
She nodded reluctantly.
“Christ.” Stigler’s eyes grew cold. “After Makayla Brayden disappeared, I had the mistaken impression I could be of some use to the police, since I’d interviewed her family for one of my research projects. There was a history of alcoholism and domestic violence. But as soon as I came forward, it set off some kind of serial-killer radar in Dyson’s head. He’s been targeting me ever since, harassing the people I work for, violating my privacy, talking to colleagues, students, friends, neighbors. I swear to God, if it doesn’t stop, I’ll take legal action.”
“Like I said, he didn’t send me,” Kate said firmly. “I came here of my own volition.”
“Why?”
“I was curious.”
“Let me explain something,” he said, opening his top desk drawer.
Kate tensed, heart hammering. She had no idea what he was reaching for. She gripped the arms of her chair, ready to bolt.
Stigler held up a tin of Cavendish & Harvey Coffee Drops. “Want one? No?” He popped one into his mouth. “When Vicky Koffman disappeared, I was in Germany for a three-day conference,” he said, sucking on the drop. “When Maggie Witt went missing, I was delivering a lecture at Boston University. The police have cleared me of any wrongdoing. Detective Dyson knows this, but he can’t help himself. The guy needs a new hobby.”
“Palmer knows this already?”
“Of course.” Professor Stigler sighed. “Let me ask you something. Are you a perfectly normal human being? Because I’m not. I can’t help what attracts me. I have a morbid curiosity. Dyson and I are actually very much alike. We’re both obsessed with dysfunctional families and unsolved murder cases.” He leaned forward. “You look like your mother, you know.”
Kate gave a stunned nod.
“She created
quite a stir at the hospital. She was gorgeous and charming. And she had a great sense of humor. She’d bum cigarettes from me, and we’d go hang out on the veranda. We got to talking. She was devastatingly intelligent. That laugh of hers… Mostly I listened, and after a while, she began to open up. Eventually, I had to eliminate her from the study because… well, our relationship progressed.”
“You call that ethical? Falling in love with a patient?”
He shrugged. “Her marriage was already broken. Her relationship with your father was a farce. She was already going to leave him. Your father could be very controlling. Toward the end, she was even afraid of him.”
Kate frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“Shortly before she came to us they had a fight and he struck her.”
“No, that can’t be right.” Her mind felt foggy. “My father’s never hit anyone in his life. He doesn’t believe in corporal punishment.”
Stigler shrugged. “Maybe it happened when you weren’t there?”
Kate recalled her mother’s increasingly bizarre behavior, her violent outbursts. But Bram had never responded in kind. Instead, he would take off in his car or go to his study, leaving Julia to lick her imagined wounds. Silence and retreat were her father’s biggest weapons.
“She was determined to leave him,” Stigler said. “What can I say? We fell in love. We were going to get married. She asked your father for a divorce, but he refused. Worst of all, he threatened to fight for full custody of you girls. I think that’s what finally pushed her over the edge.”
Kate flinched. “Wait a second. Are you blaming him for her suicide?”
Stigler sighed. “Look, I made peace with my losses a long time ago. I have no agenda in this discussion. I’m just laying it all out there. You can make up your own mind. I only know what your mother told me.”
Kate recalled their beloved cat, Phoebe. It was Julia’s cat, actually. A neighbor brought over a basket of kittens one day, and Julia had picked the runt of the litter. But Bram was very upset because he hadn’t been consulted. The kitten was always underfoot. She peed on the rug and ignored the litter box. He would nudge Phoebe away with his foot and gripe about the high cost of cat food and vet bills. A few months later, Savannah shrieked when she found the dead cat in the yard, flies buzzing around the corpse.
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