Bitter Blood by Jerry Bledsoe

Author:Jerry Bledsoe [Bledsoe, Jerry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: TRUE CRIME/Murder/General
Publisher: Diversion Books
Published: 2014-04-07T23:00:00+00:00

27

Only bits of information about the troubling incident at the Klenner house filtered down to the Sharp family that summer. Fritz had blown a fuse, word had it, suffered some kind of temporary breakdown. He had pushed his mother down the stairs, and, most unbelievable of all, threatened to kill his father. But as usual, the Klenner secretiveness prevailed, and few details were ever forthcoming. Sharp family members thought that stress brought on by the breakup of Fritz’s marriage, about which they also knew little, probably provoked the trouble.

Soon after the incident, Fritz stopped to see John Forrest in Hillsborough, and Forrest quickly made it clear that he did not condone deception and wife stealing. Fritz was apologetic, sorry, he said, that it all had happened.

Forrest asked what Fritz planned to do now that his parents knew that he was a fraud and had wasted more than four years of his life, not to mention vast amounts of money his father had supplied for tuition and expenses. Fritz said that he wasn’t sure.

“Our relationship is ended,” Forrest told him, “but I won’t ever do anything to hurt you.”

“Well, John,” Fritz replied, “you meant a lot to me and you never have to fear anything from me either.”

Forrest couldn’t help but notice that Fritz was wearing a Second Chance bullet-proof vest, and he passed the information on to Sam Phillips, who still was wearing his vest, too, in case Fritz was not quite so humbled as he appeared.

Ruth talked to Fritz several times that summer of 1981, and she later told friends that he sounded contrite. He said he was glad that everything was finally out in the open, happy that he no longer had to pretend. He still talked of medical school, but Duke’s wasn’t the only one in the world, he said. He might just go to one overseas.

Instead, he enrolled that fall at Durham Technical Institute in a two-year dental laboratory course, keeping it secret from everybody but immediate family. It was a demeaning step down for someone who had so long thought of himself as a doctor, and his heart wasn’t in it. Although he would attend the full two years, his presence would hardly be remembered by teachers and classmates, and he would complete only 60 percent of the required work and never receive a degree.

The front of contrition that Fritz presented to his wife and John Forrest turned out to be merely another pose. The elaborate structure of pretense that he had built to prop up his life proved formidable and enduring. Neither he nor his parents could face the humiliation of disassembling it, and with his parents’ knowledge and complicity, Fritz continued his masquerade. He still worked at his father’s clinic; still led patients, friends, and family—including his cousin Susie Lynch, who came regularly for treatment—to believe that he was continuing at Duke Medical School, now involved in postgraduate studies and research, and that he eventually would take over his father’s clinic. To strangers and casual acquaintances he presented himself as Dr.

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