Vodka Doesn't Freeze by Leah Giarratano Page B

bath, let the steam relax her. Interviewing the Kaplans that afternoon had been awful.
     
The glare of the late summer day had respectfully kept its distance from verdant Woollahra. Red brick and sandstone mansions rested sedately in the shade of huge Moreton Bay fig trees. Jill had removed her sunglasses at the last moment when they made their way up the flower-lined path of the Kaplans' three-storey home.
     
Carly Kaplan was eight, and captain of her softball team, when she begged her mother for horse-riding lessons at Centennial Park. Her parents, Marie and William, gave in quickly, using the two hours each Sunday morning to take a walk and have coffee in the park while their daughter rode, under the instruction of a man who'd advertised in an Eastern Suburbs community newspaper. When Carly had wanted to quit the lessons five weeks later, however, William had put his foot down.
     
'We've paid for six months,' he'd told her, 'and you can't just go from one activity to another without seeing things through.' He told Jill and Scotty hollowly that he'd been determined not to let their children take their life of privilege for granted.
     
Marie Kaplan had been alarmed by her daughter's change in demeanour that year, but because Carly had seemed to lose enthusiasm for most things, she had not honed in on the riding lessons as the source of her misery. Besides, she'd tried to reason with herself later, Carly's best friend, Brianna, also took the lessons, and the girls were out in the fresh air. It had seemed the right thing to do to encourage her to continue.
     
But the girls hadn't spent all of their time in the fresh air. Their instructor, David Carter, had told them that he had to take some photos for their horse-riding licences. Marie and William learned years later that Carter had taken the girls into a disused cricket stand in the grounds of the park. Under the isolated bleachers he'd encouraged them to dress in their riding clothes and later fairy outfits, snapping away as they changed and posed, giggling, in the costumes.
     
Face grey, eyes dead, William Kaplan told Jill and Scotty that even when Brianna had quit the lessons he had insisted that Carly see out the six-month contract with the riding instructor. His wife stared at the carpet as he spoke.
     
Under the bleachers one week, David Carter had convinced Carly that he could kill her mother any time he wanted to. He told Carly where Marie Kaplan shopped, the name of her best friend and their next-door neighbour. He knew where Carly's mum swam three mornings a week, and that she volunteered at the school canteen twice a month. If Carly ever told anyone what they did under here, he'd told her, he would kill her mother before anyone could do anything to save her. And it would be all Carly's fault.
     
Her parents recounted how Carly's marks had declined steadily from that year. She showed no respect at school any more, especially for male teachers, and she became a nightmare at home – harassing her sisters constantly and lashing out in fury when chastised by her parents. Their formerly quiet home was constantly ringing with the sound of Carly swearing and slamming doors. When Carly was eleven, Marie Kaplan found cigarettes in her daughter's backpack. At thirteen, Marie and William had been called to Carly's new high school, enduring an hour with an excruciatingly embarrassed principal who finally choked out that Carly had been caught having sex behind the gymnasium. Later that month they were back at the school to take her home, suspended for arriving back to class drunk after recess; vomit in her hair. School counsellors and changing schools twice hadn't helped at all.
     
It wasn't until Carly's fourteenth birthday, after yet another screaming row, that Marie and William Kaplan had found out what David Carter had done to their child. A sobbing Marie told Jill and Scotty how she had walked into the bathroom to find Carly slimy with her own blood, razorblade in