cheery Christmas music, it seemed hollow and pointless to Nancy. How could they celebrate without Cari? Nancy and Mark pushed through for Max. They put on brave faces for their grandson, and he did the same for them. They bought Christmas presents for each other and some for Cari, too. They prayed she would be home to open them.
On December 20, the skies opened, releasing an avalanche of white over the Midwest in a snowstorm so powerful that one CNN news reporter wryly noted that the timing was right for the anticipated eve of destruction. December 21, 2012, was the predicted Mayan doomsday, the writer pointed out, and while the furious storm was not exactly the end of the world, it zapped the electricity in nearly half a million homes in thirteen states. Some areas got over a foot of snow, and thousands of holiday travelers found themselves grounded when flights were delayed or cancelled. Iowa’s Interstate 35 suffered a thirty-vehicle pileup with fatalities, near Fort Dodge, about a hundred miles north of Des Moines. Drivers’ vision was obscured by the blizzard, and they had little control on the icy road, creating a snarled nightmare of crunched metal and human suffering for the Iowa State Patrol to sort out.
In her Macedonia home, Nancy stood at the window, staring out at what might have been a wondrous, white world under different circumstances. Now she worried about the fact that Cari had left her winter coat behind, and she thought, She could be out there. Is she freezing? It was hard for Nancy to enjoy the feeling of wrapping her hands around a hot mug of coffee or snuggling under a warm blanket. How could she take pleasure in the warmth when she didn’t know if her daughter could do the same?
Dave Kroupa was hunkered down in his apartment. He didn’t worry about whether or not Cari was cold. She seemed to be doing just dandy from where he was standing. The snow hadn’t slowed his stalker down. He continued to receive dozens of antagonistic emails and texts each day, all from someone claiming to be Cari. What had he done to make her hate him so much? In the space of a couple of hours, she had gone from being what seemed like the perfect woman to a spiteful fouled-mouthed nut. The behavior was so outrageous that Dave surely could not have expected a logical explanation. And yet, he asked for one. Maybe he was hoping that the wonderful woman he had known would shed the craziness and become herself again—if only for a moment—and explain why she had thrown everything away. Dave texted: Why did you start acting that way? It frankly blows my mind. It all came out of leftfield.
But there were no explanations, only more ugly words.
It didn’t help to block the calls. They came from multiple untraceable numbers. Someone had also gone to a lot of trouble to create numerous email accounts, most with addresses that were variations of Cari’s name, some with Dave’s name mixed in. The addresses registered with Google included DavesgirlCari, KroupaCari76, JustCari29, and leakroupa. Many times, Dave deleted the emails without opening them. Changing his phone number didn’t help. His stalker managed to almost magically find his new number, though he gave it to a short list of people. Liz and Amy told him that they were having the same problem.
It was as if the tormentor were invisible, peering over his shoulder as she obsessed over his every move. Liz dubbed her “Crazy Cari,” and they often vented to each other. “We’d both become victims,” Dave stresses. “We had something in common that we didn’t have with anyone else. We knew each other, and it was easy to talk to each other about the situation.” Some of the messages were more disturbing than others. In late December, an email, allegedly from Cari, was sent to Dave. I really am pregnant. I’m seeing Dr. Michael Woods. I love you, and we need to figure things out for this baby, so please talk to me.
If Cari were pregnant, he was not responsible. “I got fixed a long time ago,” he confides. Cari had had a hysterectomy before she met Dave, so the claim was ludicrous, clearly a fantasy of someone out of touch with reality. Liz complained that she, too, had been dragged into the baby drama. She showed Dave an email exchange that started with a message, apparently from Cari: Dave and I want