H&K: Path of Knowledge

Chapter 4

“He what?” Katharine exploded.

“Please, Kitty,” Karen said, placing her hand on her closest friend and business partner’s hand.

“Are you sure he only slipped you ecstasy at the cookout?” Katharine asked, aghast at the very thought.

“Almost certain,” Karen began. “I know I can trust you, so I’m going to tell you what’s happened between Michael and me.” Karen laid all her woes out for Katharine.

Karen was a strong, confident, independent woman, who was devoted to her family and loved her husband with every fiber of her being. She dedicated every free moment she had to her family and made sure every Thursday night was her husband’s and her date night. Thursday nights were strictly for them. No work, no kids, just them being together feeling and acting like it was their first date all over again.

In return, Michael Mitchell felt the same for his wife and family. Their two children, a son named Michael Jr. and a daughter named Cyndi, were but an extension of their love and devotion to one another. He was drawn to her confident bearing. He admired her drive from the moment they met at an Autistic Awareness fundraiser cosponsored by Thomas Jefferson University and Princeton University. They had dated for a year before getting married even though he was in the final year of his doctorate in accounting and business administration at Princeton University and she was finishing her fourth year of residency at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. He was twenty-six and she was thirty-one. From the beginning, they were soulmates. A year after getting married, she gave birth to their daughter. She relished motherhood, deciding to remain at home until their daughter was able to start school. Then their son came along the very next year. By the time both children were in school, she was thirty-seven. Unable to be a stay-at-home mom, she opened her own concierge business a year after her daughter was born. She excelled at it, growing the company by leaps and bounds. Michael was just as driven, becoming the CEO of an international accounting firm by the time he was thirty-two.

At forty-eight years old, Karen was the model of the perfect businesswoman, doctor, mother, and wife. All those who knew her marveled at how she was able to juggle all her responsibilities and still have a happy marriage.

Karen met Katharine at a fundraiser sponsored by her husband’s company for an international medical aid group sending medical supplies and personnel to Liberia, Africa, in 2000. Katharine was a nurse practitioner who had worked with the group years before when the organization had sent her to Columbia, South America, to help villagers being harassed by drug cartels and rebels. It was a fast friendship. A year later, Karen brought Katharine on as a consultant and within a few months had asked Katharine to become her partner in the business. The two worked extremely well together.

Every year, Karen would have a get-together for all the different contributing physicians’ partnerships, hospitals, and other companies they dealt with professionally as well as a few they were hoping to build a relationship with. Karen decided last year’s get-together would be at her house for a cookout barbecue in the suburbs where she had a huge backyard for entertaining. It had been the first business get-together Karen had held at her home. All the others had been at hotel conference halls or downtown Philadelphia fine restaurants. Doctor Jim Martin and his wife Samantha Craig had been in attendance since his physicians’ partnership was one, she had been trying to build a professional relationship for some time. Karen had minimum dealings with him and only on a professional basis.

Doctor Martin seemed always to be hovering close by as Karen went about being the gracious hostess, apparently leaving his wife Samantha to indulge in business accounting discussions with Jeff. At one point, Karen had mentioned she needed to get more hotdogs from her refrigerator. Doctor Martin offered to take over the grill for her. When she had returned, Doctor Martin had handed the cooking off to Karen’s husband Michael who was still talking accounting business with Samantha. Doctor Martin had offered her a hotdog and a glass of wine. Karen had accepted the food and drink without question. Doctor Martin had made some excuse to speak to her alone concerning a possible permanent relationship with his contributing partnership.

Once inside, she began to feel strange. Doctor Martin stood behind her as she entered the kitchen. As she was losing consciousness, Doctor Martin stepped up behind her to catch her as she slipped to the floor. The last Karen remembered was Doctor Martin lifting her from the floor to carry her toward the basement door.

Karen awoke several hours later, naked in the basement family room. She was disoriented and confused. Her clothes were on the floor next to the couch she had been placed. She got dressed the best she could before staggering upstairs. She found her husband Michael frantically searching for her. Doctor Martin had explained that she had passed out. He told them he had carried her to the family room and had gone to his car to retrieve his medical bag.

Doctor Martin had offered to take her to his office to examine her which Michael agreed was needed. At his office, Doctor Martin had extracted several vials of blood to be analyzed and left Karen in the exam room alone. Suspicious, Karen took a vial of blood to have analyzed herself.

Two days later, Doctor Martin reported that the test results came back that she had food and alcohol poisoning. However, Karen had sent the vial of blood to the lab Doctor Martin had used. The toxicity screening test came back showing that she had ingested ecstasy, a hallucinatory drug, and a sedative. Karen tried to speak to Michael about it, but he refused to listen to her.

As the days went by, she continued to have foggy memories of having sex. Then her son asked her to look at a video he had taken at the cookout. Being fourteen years old, he was video recording everything he could with his first digital recorder. At one point in the video, he captured Doctor Martin injecting a hotdog he had taken off the grill with a syringe. Karen’s breath froze as she watched him hand the hotdog and wine to her before leading her into the house.

Karen had confronted him about it, but he threatened to ruin her business and reputation. He explained how prominent and influential his physicians’ group was. Then there was the reputation of her husband, which Doctor Matin threatened to publicly say that the business get-togethers were just a prelude to wife swapping and orgies. So, out of fear, after that day she kept quiet and left all business interactions to Katharine concerning contributing partners. Her self-esteem plummeted, and her once confident and driven personality was replaced by a withdrawn, distracted person. She neglected her children. Thursday date nights became nights where she would drink herself into unconsciousness. The one thing she continued was working out in an attempt to drive the thoughts and memories away.

Then two months later, she found out she was pregnant. She gave birth to a baby girl, but the pregnancy had caused Michael to question her fidelity. She swore she had not cheated on him. Michael had a paternity test was done which proved he was not the baby’s father. He immediately filed for divorce. Karen tried to explain what had happened, even showing him the video, her son had taken. Michael was so angry, accusing her of luring Doctor Martin into an affair that he refused to listen to her. Michael questioned if he was the father of either of her other two children.

Michael had left and would have nothing to do with the children. Their children had heard the argument and the accusations. Her daughter sided with her father, doubting her mother. Her son believed his mother, with the evidence on the video supporting her denial of infidelity. But her children were the ones who paid the highest price as they lost their father and were on the verge of losing their mother to depression and self-destruction.

Now at forty-nine years old, she found herself humiliated, disgraced, and depressed. With her personal issues made public by an anonymous source, she began to lose clients. She explained to Katharine that it was why she had left the business for Katharine to administer. Katharine had been concerned but didn’t want to pry into her friend’s affairs.

“I have tried to explain to Michael, but he won’t listen. And that monster that did this to me has his whore of a wife backing him up. The blood test was deemed inadmissible by the court. Doctor Martin told the judge that I had taken the drugs myself and offered him some. I don’t know what to do now. The divorce was finalized several months ago. My kids hate me and think I’m a slut. The business is going to hell from the rumors.” She broke down crying.

“We’ll get through this,” Katharine told her, putting her arm around her friend to comfort her. “He tried something similar with my cousin. He has to be taken down, and that’s exactly what we are going to do. You’ve got to stay strong,” Katharine told her.

“I’m trying. I have to protect my children and things are getting out of control,” Karen replied as her tears ran down her face.

Katharine reached up and tenderly wiped her tears away. The two women smiled at each other as Karen regained some of her composure.

“Your kids love you. I would bet they have talked about everything. I have seen how Michael Jr. and Cyndi look at you and act toward you. There is no incrimination there, only worry,” Katharine told her friend.

“I wish I could believe you,” Karen whispered.