All Is Not Forgotten: The bestselling gripping thriller you’ll never forget. Wendy Walker
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The conversation is starting to shift from the danger to children from negligent parenting to the damage done to those who are overprotected.
It’s all just noise. If someone really wants to hurt your child, he’s going to find a way to do it.
The summer after the rape, Tom became obsessed with finding the rapist. With his family gone to Block Island, he spent his time looking. He did not see friends. He did not go to the gym. He stopped watching television. From eight to six, he worked his job, but the obsession only followed him. Being in car sales exposed Tom to new faces every day. Cranston is a modest city, but it has over eighty thousand residents. Add to that the fact that his employer, Sullivan Luxury Cars, had the only BMW and Jaguar showrooms in a sixty-mile radius, and you can understand that every day brought a new face in front of Tom Kramer, and every new face, to Tom’s mind, could be the face of his daughter’s rapist.
The police had done all they could, within reason. Every kid who had been at that party was interviewed. The boys, in particular, were questioned formally and at the police station. Many were accompanied by an attorney. Tom had wanted all of them examined. He’d wanted DNA and skin samples. He’d wanted their cars and rooms searched for the black mask and gloves. He’d wanted them inspected to see if any of them had shaved themselves. Of course, none of that was ever going to happen.
The neighbors were questioned as well, families who had all been at home, or out together, or out with others. Every person had an alibi. Every alibi checked out. One of the neighbors, a twelve-year-old boy named Teddy Duncan, had gone outside at eight forty-five. His dog, a curious beagle named Messi (after the soccer player), had found a hole in the fence and escaped because that’s what beagles do. They dig and hunt and chase things. It is likely he was in the woods just before Jenny was raped. But he would have been on the far right side, not deep in the back, given where his house was positioned. He’d popped back out onto Juniper Road to continue his search down the street. He said he remembered seeing a parked car that looked out of place. What that meant was that it was not high end, or a massive SUV with sports magnets on the back. With some help from Parsons and Google images, Teddy was able to conclude that the car was a Honda Civic.
For most of the summer, this navy blue Honda Civic became the focus of the hunt for the Fairview rapist. Records from the DMV were cross-checked with sex offender registries and other criminal records. There were thousands of blue Civics in the state of New York. And Teddy Duncan only “thought” the plates were New York white and blue. Incidentally, before your mind starts to go off in the wrong direction, Teddy found the dog at a neighbor’s house and was back inside his own house by nine fifteen. And he is twelve.
Detective Parsons did an adequate job, given his skill level. He was not lacking enthusiasm in the beginning, and indeed seemed “civilian” in the way the facts of the rape piqued his interest. But his focus was always turned outside Fairview. He reached out to police stations across the region, inquiring about similar rapes—teenage girl, ski mask, no physical evidence left at the scene, blue Civic. And, of course, the carving on her back. Dozens of other rapes matched some of the fact pattern. None of them matched all of it. His colleagues in other departments promised to keep an eye out. The trouble was that the rapists who had been caught were all in prison. And the ones who were not caught could not be traced. It’s hard to know how many women are raped, because it is the most underreported violent crime in the United States. But experts estimate that only 25 percent of reported rapes actually get solved. Things were not looking good for Jenny’s case, and by Christmas, Tom was the sole driving force in his tireless quest for justice.
Tom’s parents came for Christmas every year, and the family decided that this year should be no different. They arrived midweek, just as school was letting out. Tom’s mother, Millie, was an intelligent woman with an exceptional sense of perception. This was disconcerting to Charlotte, who found it difficult to hide her secrets (we will get to that) when Millie was in town. Tom’s father, Arthur, lived more in his head than in his heart. He was a retired professor from Connecticut College. He was a stoic and, in this regard, got along very well with his daughter-in-law.
Tom recalled the visit like this:
I felt like a child again, like I wanted to run into my mother’s arms for a long cry and then sit on my father’s lap watching a hockey game. I wanted them to tell me everything was going to be all right—my mother with some complex analysis of the situation, and my father with a look that would make me get my shit together, no matter how bad things were. They were so great with Jenny. My mother took her shopping and talked to her about the future, about colleges and careers. She asked her all sorts of questions about her activities and her friends and what she might want to do over the summer. My father was also helpful. He kept Lucas busy, took him skating one day, built a Lego in the basement. Guy stuff. But I was looking at it from the outside, you know. I couldn’t be in it with them. It was too normal, too … calm. Inside, I was going wild. Kicking and screaming against the fate that the universe had handed my family. I would not accept it. I had failed to protect my daughter, and I would not fail at this. And yet I knew with every passing second that the chances of finding this creature were vanishing. I wanted to be a man. I wanted to feel like a man again. And I walked around silently and with a blank expression, looking like a strong man. But inside, I was a child having a tantrum. And part of me desperately needed my parents to see it.
It was during this week that Charlotte starting having her dream. She knew the origins—some wildlife documentary they’d watched a few weeks back about wolves. In one of the scenes, a lone wolf chased a lone impala through the woods to the edge of a cliff. The impala, being deft and sure-footed, slowly made its way onto the steep rocky side of the cliff, while the wolf frantically ran along the edge, looking down at his meal, so close but unattainable. He didn’t give up for nearly an hour.
In the dream, Charlotte watched this scene from a distance. Though she knew the ending, each time, she relived it as though the impala might just get caught in the woods before making it to safety, or perhaps this time the wolf would venture off the side of the cliff onto the rocks and find his own footing. As it played out, always with the same ending, her heart would pound wildly and she would awaken to find herself tangled up in sweaty sheets and fear.
The dream was haunting in so many ways. The hunter and the hunted. Tom and the rapist. Injustice and Tom. The rapist and Jenny. Tom’s family and Charlotte’s secrets.
I asked her which character she was in the dream, the wolf who loses his meal, or the impala who cleverly escapes but will always be in danger on level ground.
I don’t know. It wasn’t clear in the dream. I mean, I always saw it from the distance, watching both animals. One running for its life. The other out to kill. So I can’t say from any feeling or perspective I had. But, I did think about it. It tortured me nearly every night when the Kramers were here that Christmas, and it continued on and off for weeks after they left. I suppose I could be the wolf, endangering my family and the entire life I’ve built. But then I think I’m actually the impala, running for my life. I do feel like that. Like I’m always one step away from being found out. It sounds paranoid, I’m sure, but I think Tom’s mother knew. I could see it in her eyes. And I hated her for it. I know she was helping Jenny. I should have wanted her to stay longer. But all I could think, all through Christmas Eve dinner and caroling and opening presents the next day and church and another dinner, was that I wanted her to get the hell out of my house.
Charlotte had her secrets, but I believed there was more to her dislike of Tom’s parents, his mother especially. I mentioned her childhood earlier. I suppose this is a good time to elucidate, and I ask for your indulgence.
Charlotte grew up in New London. For those of you not familiar with this part of the country, New London is home to the United States Coast Guard Academy and a naval sub base. The military is strongly present. Her mother, Ruthanne, was a promiscuous young woman who became a single mother at age twenty-three. She had not attended college and worked at a small factory, making decorative candles. Charlotte can remember vividly the smell of scented wax that would follow Ruthanne through the front door of their apartment after work. Ruthanne’s family lived in town. Her parents, after doing some readjustments to the dreams they’d