A Girl's Life Online (20 page)

I did have to continue with the whole legal process, however. None of us had a choice about that. And the case was about to take a serious turn. Because Mark had used the Internet to find me, and I had crossed state lines to meet him, the case was covered by federal laws. The FBI was taking over the investigation, and I would have to go to their office in New Haven for yet another interview and a polygraph test, which Mark's lawyers had demanded in exchange for his agreeing to take one, too.

For some reason, the New Canaan police were going to be involved in transferring the case to the FBI. On the day of the polygraph test, David and I drove to the police station early in the morning. It was just the two of us, because my mom was in Minnesota on a business trip. We spoke the night before, and she emphasized that I must tell the truth, the whole truth.

The New Canaan sergeant who had been investigating the case planned to drive us to the FBI office in New Haven, where the polygraph test would be given. I was afraid—I didn't want to be hooked up to machines that would determine whether or not I was telling the truth. Even though I knew I was telling the truth, at times I doubted myself. I think I expected the machine to tell me whether I was telling the truth, even though I knew I was.

The police car we rode in was equipped with a barrier that turned the backseat into a rolling jail cell for arrested suspects and protected the officers riding in front. I, of course, had to be the one who sat back there while David rode in the front.

When we pulled up to the federal building in New Haven, I immediately spotted the FBI shield. Inside, photographs of the president and vice president were hung over the doors to the elevator. I was feeling more and more intimidated and afraid. When the elevator finally came, the three of us rode silently up to the floor where the interview would be conducted.

When we arrived, Special Agent Ronald Barndollar, who would be handling the case, was waiting for us. He shook my hand and then immediately focused on David. “Can you wait outside for a few minutes?” he asked me. I stepped into the hallway, feeling cold and a little small. Men and women scurried by—I guessed they were lawyers or FBI agents—and each one glanced at me, probably wondering what a teenager was doing there.

When David and Agent Barndollar returned, they said nothing about what they had discussed. “We're going to do this in a special room,” said the agent, and he led us to a tiny, windowless little space that was completely bare except for a polygraph machine, a table, and three chairs. A two-way mirror filled one wall.

Two agents and I crowded into this small place. “That's a two-way mirror and there are people on the other side,” said Agent Barndollar. “Assistant United States Attorney Gates Garrity-Rokous, who will handle your case, and some other people. First we'll do a regular interview, and they're going to listen. Later we'll do the polygraph. Okay?”

In our conversation Agent Barndollar seemed to labor over the smallest points. We had to first establish what I called this man they knew as Francis John Kufrovich. I told him that I called him Mark, because that was the person I met on the Internet and came to know as a close friend. Frank was a different person, a stranger everyone was determined to put in jail. I didn't know him, and so I continued to talk about Mark.

They took out several copies of an affidavit Mark had signed and placed them on the table. I began laughing when I saw the word
affidavit
was misspelled in the middle of the page, dark and bold. I read it to myself as one of them read aloud. Mark admitted to meeting me on-line. He failed to mention that he had asked me if I was a virgin during one of our talks. And he falsely claimed that we kept our relationship secret to protect my mother because “at age 15 she had had a very bad sexual experience with an older man.”

Many of the things Mark said made me begin to lose sympathy for him and start to see why everyone else wanted him locked up. He said that I had pressed to see him in person, which was the absolute opposite of the truth. He said I proposed different “circumstances where we could meet.” And it was only after he had mentioned he was going to Dallas for business that I informed him of my swim meet there. In short, I was a stalker. In Dallas, “the presence of Katie standing in a robe at my door concerned me quite a bit,” he wrote. Throughout his statement he claimed he told me that I should have made my parents aware of this relationship.

When we finished going over Mark's version of things, the agents asked me why I had ever trusted him. They wondered why I didn't recognize him as a creep. I told them that I had thought I was getting involved with a much younger and respectable person. My parents weren't really home a lot and I just looked to Mark as someone to talk with. I couldn't see anything wrong with that.

We then went through some e-mails. They would read them and ask me to interpret them, or explain to them how they made me feel. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out. Mark's e-mails often said things like, “Katie I think you are the most wonderful person in the world.” Even though I tried not to show that even now I had feelings for Mark, I think they could tell.

The most difficult thing for me was explaining in vivid detail the physical contact that night in the hotel, and the series of events that followed. They wanted to get it exactly right so they asked many follow-up questions. I explained how I was wearing three shirts that night, and it wasn't as if I was making it easy for him to grab me. He had to put some effort into it. I apologized for not being able to look them in the eye while I spoke. I told them it was a problem that I had, and it wasn't them.

When we were finished with all the questions, the agents said we could take a break before the lie-detector test. We walked down the hall to a little kitchen where I got a Diet Coke.

When I walked back into the room, the chair I had been sitting in was turned to face the wall. I had told everyone I was willing to cooperate, and I was still willing, but I had to fight the impulse to flee. No matter what anyone said, I felt like I was on trial. Now I was going to be strapped to this machine, like a murderer condemned to the electric chair. I looked at the setup and decided to just stand there until I was told to do otherwise.

“Just relax, Katie,” said one of the agents. “This doesn't hurt at all, and after a little while you'll even forget the machine.”

“Okay.”

“I'm going to ask you a series of questions, in different order, several times. These questions have simple yes or no answers. Some of them will be ordinary things, just questions about you. The rest will be about this case. Your blood pressure, pulse, and rate of breathing will all be monitored as you respond.”

I just stood there, frozen. He told me to sit down, so we could get started.

I sat down in the chair and the agent went to work. He clamped a sensor to the tip of my right index finger. A cord went across my rib cage to measure breathing, and a blood pressure cuff was wrapped around my arm. It was hard to believe that these machines were going to record and calculate whether I was telling the truth.

“Is your name Katherine Tarbox?”

“Yes.”

“Do you like to sing?”

“Yes.”

“Did Mark touch your breasts?”

“Yes.”

“Did Mark attempt to touch your crotch area?”

“Yes.”

“Other than the times we talked about, have you ever told a lie?”

“No.”

“Did you know Mark before?”

“Yes.”

The same questions were asked over and over again, but in a different order. I tried to stay calm, and eventually I did relax a little. When it was over, I asked the question that everyone probably asks at the end of a polygraph: “Was I lying?”

“You tell me,” said the agent.

“No, I wasn't.”

The agent got up, unhooked all the equipment, and then told me he would be right back. He left the room for about five seconds and returned with David. They stood and I sat as the polygrapher announced that I had been very consistent in my answers, except for one question, the one about lying.

I knew why. I was telling the truth, but thinking about the lies I had told had made me worry and that had made all the indexes—blood pressure, pulse, breathing—rise. That, they told me, was normal. Apparently everyone gets tense with that question.

When I was finally free to go, I went to a phone and called my mother, who was in Minneapolis on business. “Good news,” I said. “They say I'm not lying.” I was glad that it was on the record. I couldn't wait to hear the results from Mark's tests. I was certain they wouldn't provide similar outcomes.

While I was on the phone, I could overhear David asking the FBI agents a million questions about my case, how the polygraph worked, even how they investigated crimes. Even after I got off the phone, he just kept on talking, and I could tell by their faces they were exasperated.

“When will Mark be charged?” asked David. “When will this go to trial? What chance do we have for a conviction?”

It seemed to me that he was enjoying it, and as we left, one of the agents told him he had watched too many cop shows on TV. I smiled to myself and thought, That's probably true.

 

For a long time, all I wanted was for my life to be what it was before that night in Texas. But that was asking for the impossible. My life would never be the same. For one thing, I was through with swimming.

I had felt like quitting before, but this time I wasn't going to change my mind. I just hated the water. I never wanted to go to practice. It wasn't that it reminded me of the Texas incident. It was more that I just hated swimming because the people on the team and their parents had been so mean to me. I thought they were my friends, but they had turned against me and it wasn't hard, then, for me to let go of the team.

Other things began to change, too. The most significant was Ashley's decision to go to boarding school in England the next year rather than to New Canaan High. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Not only was I losing my best friend, I was losing my
only
friend. I would begin high school with its usual challenges without the comfort of even one kind face.

I said good-bye to Ashley on a Wednesday night in August. She and her mother picked me up at my house in their hunter green Land Rover. When I got in I was already thinking about saying good-bye. Still, all during the drive to the Japanese restaurant where we would have dinner, I tried to act as if nothing unusual was happening.

“You all packed?” I asked.

“I only have to buy a dressing gown in England,” she said.

“A what?” I asked, smiling.

“I guess you Yanks would call it a bathrobe,” she answered.

I walked into the restaurant feeling close to Ashley, deeply grateful for her loyal friendship. I couldn't help but think about that little hillside in Texas where we rolled over and over until we reached the bottom, laughing.

Ashley and I sat down at the sushi bar and ordered. The night passed so quickly that soon we had consumed our green tea ice cream and it was time to leave. Since Ashley's mom had dropped us off, my mom took us home, and when we pulled into Ashley's driveway I told her, “I'll see you soon,” knowing that I wouldn't.

I didn't cry. I knew she had to go, just as my older sister Abby would soon leave for private school in New Hampshire. The next morning, as Abby was leaving, I heard her shoes on the hardwood floor in my room. It was about six o'clock. I opened my eyes and got out of bed, feeling the legs of my pajama pants fall to the ground, covering my feet.

“Bye, Katie,” said Abby, as if it was no big deal.

“I love you, Abby.” I leaned over to hug her and pulled on her golden curly hair to see how long it was, just like I always did.

“I love you, too.”

And then she was gone. I pulled the drapes closed over the window, got back into bed, and started to cry. Everyone was leaving me. Soon I would be back at school, more alone than ever before. It was not going to be a good year.