Not That I Could Tell: A Novel

by Jessica Strawser

  “Well,” Clara said, “if it makes anyone else feel any better, I don’t think I was that far gone Saturday. And I don’t remember anything significant. Just normal stuff. Kristin being Kristin.”

  “She didn’t seem too broken up about the divorce,” Izzy said. “Maybe it was somehow easier to take off rather than deal with the bullshit?”

  “Uprooting the kids seems kind of drastic, though,” Rhoda said, biting her lip.

  “Not to sound gossipy,” Clara said, “but did the detective tell you they aren’t Paul’s?”

  “They’re not? Whose are they?”

  “He said she was married before. Her first husband died.”

  The women stared at her in horror. “Gosh,” Randi said. “When the twins were babies?”

  “I guess they had to have been … Aaron and Abby are four, and she and Paul have lived here a couple of years at least.” She shook her head. “I felt ridiculous. I’d been going on about how Kristin and I were getting to be good friends, and then obviously had no clue about, like, this major thing. So who knows what else we didn’t know.” She stuck a finger into the blinds and closed one eye. “Seen anything over there?”

  “Not a thing,” Izzy said. “I was imagining Kristin’s minivan pulling in. And then her flipping out that Paul is in her house when he doesn’t even have a key anymore.”

  The blinds clattered closed. “He doesn’t have a key? How do you know that?”

  “He flagged me down, coming home from work—before he’d called the cops. Told me he had to break a window to check on them. Said she changed the locks.” Izzy knew the words sounded bad even as she was saying them. They always investigated the husband, even when the husband was … well, Paul. “I’m surprised he didn’t knock on your door too.”

  Clara thought for a moment. “I was probably at the grocery store,” she said. “One of the few luxuries of my lifestyle is that I get to avoid that madhouse on weekends.”

  Izzy pictured Paul going door to door, getting no answer, his panic mounting with each passing moment. That look on his face as he stood in her driveway, as if she, a total stranger to him, might be able to explain everything … “I felt awful for him,” she blurted out.

  “But why would she have changed the locks?” Clara shifted on the cushion. “Like he’s going to, what, start taking the furniture while she’s at work?”

  Natalie shrugged. “Maybe her lawyer advised her to. Maybe she changed them for an unrelated reason and just hadn’t given him a key yet. Who knows.”

  “Tons of explanations,” Clara agreed quickly. “I’m just thinking out loud. It’s better when no one can hear me think.” She was twisting the end of her ponytail around her fingertips so ferociously that Izzy half expected the whole clump to detach itself from her head in surrender.

  “Do you know if they have family in the area?” Izzy asked. “I can’t believe no one else has pulled up over there.”

  The other women stared at one another blankly, and an uneasy silence filled the room. “How is it possible that I’m such a shoddy friend to have never asked that?” Clara mumbled.

  Izzy was about to answer when she caught the station logo flashing on the TV screen. “Oh! It’s on!” She dove for the remote and turned on the volume.

  “New developments tonight in the missing persons case of a local woman and her two children,” the anchor said, on cue. “Authorities are broadening their search and issuing the AMBER Alert across additional states, after the estranged husband of Kristin Kirkland has alleged that certain funds are unaccounted for, and she may be traveling with a large sum of cash.”

  The women exchanged looks again. Large? How large?

  “Given that it’s uncertain exactly when Kirkland and her children went missing in the thirty-six-hour window between Saturday night and this morning, that raises additional questions about how far they may have gotten and how fast. So far, searches for the vehicle in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana have come up empty. Let’s have another look at the make and model of the minivan…”

  A photo from a car lot flashed on the screen with the license plate number in bold print beneath it. Then the picture changed to one of Kristin and the kids, taken at a Fourth of July picnic just a couple months ago from the looks of the flags and banners in the background. She had one arm around each twin and was smiling serenely into the camera, as if everything she could ever need was right there in her arms.

  “Kirkland is the mother of four-year-old twins from a previous marriage: Aaron and Abigail. Their biological father is deceased. Authorities are calling this a critical missing persons case, assembling a team of detectives and working around the clock, so we expect to know more by our morning report.”

  “Um,” Izzy said, as she clicked off the TV. “How much do gynecologists make, exactly? Do you think she cleaned him out?”

  “Her college administrator’s salary can’t be much,” Rhoda said. “They had to have been mostly living off Paul’s. How much could possibly be left?”

  “What if someone else took the money, and took Kristin and the kids too?” Randi asked, tears blinking into her eyes. “What if we’ve been sitting here joking around when they’re in real trouble? It hadn’t occurred to me they could really be anything other than fine.”

  “Let’s not get carried away,” Rhoda said. “I mean, I’ve never heard of someone staging a crime scene by packing up the china.”

  “Right,” Natalie said. “As a military wife, I’ve seen some pretty cold divorces. Custody battles can get nasty when one parent’s home address is at the mercy of their next deployment. Women who seem sweet as pie will do crazy things to cut those ties. And I wouldn’t call Kristin sweet as pie. There was always something too perfect about her, wasn’t there?”

  A silence descended. Clara turned and lifted the slats again, and she and Izzy peered out, shoulder to shoulder, like children. No. Like sisters. She and Penny used to do the same thing, looking for the curious but regular sight of Mrs. Timmons coming down the sidewalk with her Siamese cat on a rhinestone-studded leash, back when all Izzy coveted of her sister’s was her rainbow-colored headband.

  “It might be turning out I didn’t know Kristin as well as I thought,” Clara said finally, turning back to the group. “And I never claimed to know Paul at all. But whatever’s going on here, I’m willing to bet she didn’t do anything he didn’t deserve.”

  “Team Kristin?” Izzy asked.

  “Win, lose, or draw.”

  6

  People who tell you, “Don’t sweat the small stuff,” mean well, but I’ve noticed that the more you sweat, the healthier you get!

  —Flyers for Clara’s mother’s aerobics classes, circa 1985

  Clara loved Yellow Springs. They’d come here from Cincinnati last year, from a cookie-cutter town house complex she’d never quite felt at home in, and she still reveled in the newness of it. Or, rather, the lack thereof. She loved that the houses here were as eclectic as the people who lived in them, that century-old farmhouses like hers were adjacent to towering beauties like Kristin’s, midcentury additions like Izzy and Natalie’s, and earthy bungalows like Randi and Rhoda’s. She loved that the backyards didn’t meet neatly, that even though hers wasn’t fenced, she wasn’t peering out her kitchen windows into someone else’s. She loved the outbuildings—the old art studio that Benny used for his tools and odd projects, the chicken coop behind Randi and Rhoda’s that yielded so many eggs Clara would sometimes find a basketful on her back porch, and Kristin’s honeysuckle-rimmed detached garage that afforded both of their properties privacy but not total seclusion.

  She loved that she could walk Thomas to school and cross paths with other families on the way. She loved that the roads to town weren’t gridded out but curved generously, and that what was around each curve might surprise you—even if you’d walked the route the day before. She loved that she could stroll by Benny’s accounting firm on the way to the market or the library and surprise him with one of his
favorite lattes or join him for lunch. She loved that she could window-shop while Maddie napped in her stroller. She loved the weekend visitors who you could tell wished they lived there, and the college students with their big ideas and sometimes ridiculous clothes, and the mystery surrounding the exact address of their most famous resident, Dave Chappelle, who had traded in an entertainment deal worth millions for this and who occasionally could be spotted at Dino’s Cappuccinos.

  And she’d always loved, as she suspected Dave did, that it was an unlikely place for a media circus.

  But it was there in the morning, cluttering the sidewalk to the edge of her lawn. From her vantage point at the window, Clara watched the reporters huddled around their vans drinking four-dollar coffees brought from Dayton as they gave instructions to their cameramen, checked their equipment, and readied themselves for the early broadcasts.

  She crawled back into bed. Benny turned to face her and reached over Maddie’s sleeping form to lace his fingers in hers. For once, last night Clara had welcomed Maddie’s cries in the darkness, had jumped at the chance to snuggle her back to sleep. She’d been awake anyway.

  “I guess this means Kristin isn’t back,” he said softly. “Do you want me to stay home?”

  Clara shook her head. “What good would that do? Save your vacation days for something happy.”

  He frowned. “I don’t like this. You know they’re going to be knocking on the door as soon as they see a light on.”

  “No comment.” Clara smiled weakly. “Did that sound stern enough? I’ve been practicing in my head.”

  His expression didn’t change. “It’s not that I don’t have faith that Kristin and the twins are fine. I do. It’s just that the questions people are asking … I’m worried they’re going to dredge up bad memories for you.”

  She didn’t blame him for bringing it up—he’d worked so hard to help her move past all that—but she had somehow hoped he wouldn’t. “I can handle it,” she told him, her eyes begging him to leave well enough alone. But what if that sounded like an admission that there was something to handle? “I mean, they won’t,” she rushed to add, her voice firmer. “But if they do, I can handle it.”

  He brushed away a strand of hair that had fallen across her face. “But Thomas. How are you even going to get him to school without him wondering what the hell is going on?”

  “We can sneak out the back, through Natalie’s yard. Thomas will think it’s an adventure.” She only hoped the chaos outside wouldn’t be mirrored at the preschool.

  “He’s going to catch wind of it, you know. Even if he doesn’t, he’ll still be asking after Aaron and Abby.”

  “We’ll tell him they’ve gone on a trip.” Clara squeezed his fingers. They had a pact never to lie to the kids. Benny had caught his own parents in a lie at a young age, and it still bothered him. “Best as anyone can tell, that’s true.”

  It occurred to her now that Benny had never made her promise to tell him only the truth. She supposed that part went without saying. He was right: It was sad that lying to kids was up for debate. Funny how it was their innocence that so often could complicate the truth.

  And their questions. Thomas was doing a fine job of picking that up from Hallie, so Clara had a feeling she was in for it.

  Benny pulled her to him and kissed her gently on the lips. “Divorce is an ugly thing,” he murmured. “Let’s never get one.”

  Oh, Benny. Somehow she could still be taken aback by his sweetness, even though he’d been exactly this way ever since she’d met him. If she was going to keep her vow of honesty, she’d never be able to tell the kids when they headed off to college that nothing good ever came of a frat party. Clara had been leaning against the wall of a crowded fraternity kitchen, killing time in line for keg beer she didn’t really want while the friend who’d dragged her there ignored her (quite predictably, it turned out), when she’d heard a chorus of enthusiastic greetings from the brothers—“Benny boy! Hey, Benny’s here!”—and turned expecting to see a jazz musician or an old-timey baseball player. And there he was. Benny Tiffin. Dimpled, blue eyed, and soon to be hers.

  “Done.”

  “Done!” The clarity of the tiny voice startled them both, and they looked down at the pillow between them to find Maddie’s blue eyes open wide, her jack-o’-lantern grin glistening with drool. All three burst out laughing.

  “She’s so good at talking, she wakes up doing it now!” Benny beamed. Maddie wasn’t really talking much on her own yet, but she was on the brink of a successful career as a mimic.

  As Clara carried the baby down the hall to the changing table, she heard the shower come on full blast. She closed her eyes and breathed in the normalcy of the morning here inside, trying to pretend that nothing outside was different. Sometimes when it was just the four of them, warm and safe, she’d get this overwhelming urge to lock the doors and keep them here, where everyone was accounted for and together. She knew this time with the kids was limited, that one day not many years from now they’d spend more of their hours away from her than with her, and think of her less and less when they were apart. She wasn’t about to let their earliest childhood get away from her unappreciated. Every time Thomas ran to her, arms outstretched, yelling “Mommy!” at the end of his preschool day, something in her heart would click back into place, and she’d realize for the millionth time, with an awe that never quite dimmed, the fierce depth of her love and the maternal fear that came imprinted, like it or not, on the other side of her most precious coins.

  Downstairs, she occupied Maddie with some dry cereal in her high chair, turned the wall-mounted TV in the family room to the local news—traffic and weather, over and over, until the top of the hour—and set to work on a ham-and-cheese omelet big enough to share, trying to ignore the anxiety building in the pit of her stomach as the morning anchors droned on.

  Benny’s footsteps thudded down the stairs, and as he leaned over her shoulder to inspect the contents of the pan, the masculine smell of his aftershave and the dampness of his hair cooling her cheek momentarily eased the lump in her throat.

  “There’s something very twenty-first-century America about waiting for the local news to give you updates on your neighbor, isn’t there?” she asked, forcing a lightness into her voice as he plunked the baby monitor they still used for Thomas onto the counter.

  “And to think we thought we left all the excitement behind in Cincinnati.” It was the second time back in Cincinnati had come up that morning, and it was two times too many.

  Benny popped slices of bread into the toaster, humming “My Country ’Tis of Thee,” and did a cereal juggling act for Maddie, catching her airborne O’s in his mouth as she giggled.

  “Your phone rang upstairs,” he said, clearing his throat. “It was an unfamiliar number, so I answered—on the off chance that it was Kristin.”

  Clara whipped around, spatula in hand, only to catch Benny’s shoulder, leaving a smear of melted cheddar on his dress shirt. “Shit! Sorry.”

  “Usually I wait until my first clients come in to start being cheesy.” She rolled her eyes, though she suspected Benny knew his lame jokes had brought her back from the brink of fury or exhaustion or tears or loneliness more times than she could count. He crossed to the sink to wet a dish towel and started dabbing at the mess.

  “So who called?”

  “The police.” He seemed to be trying very hard to keep his voice casual, even as her heart kicked into high alert. “Someone on behalf of Detective Bryant. He wants you to stop by the station later this morning. I guess they have some follow-up questions.”

  She flicked off the burner and busied herself dividing the omelet into two larger pieces and two smaller ones as the blood pounded in her ears. At one point during her career-driven days, she’d considered going to the doctor for what she thought were anxiety attacks. They’d subsided, though, and she’d never known if they were truly beyond what most people experienced as ordinary trepidation. The once familiar sen
sation rising within her felt foreign now, and she concentrated on breathing normally.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about,” Benny said, in a tone that almost succeeded in being convincing.

  She was about to answer when Benny jumped for the remote on the counter. “Go time,” he said, gesturing toward the TV. He turned up the volume as Clara set their plates on the counter and slid unsteadily onto a stool.

  WOMAN AND CHILDREN STILL MISSING FROM YELLOW SPRINGS flashed on the screen in block letters as the anchors recapped the details, again sharing the family photo and description of the van. “Our own Stacy Sanders is live outside the house where Kristin and her children live. Stacy, what can you tell us?”

  The screen changed, and there was Stacy, standing in the driveway next door.

  “Well, Margot, it’s been a long night for Dr. Paul Kirkland, Kristin’s estranged husband and the man who’s been helping to raise her boys. He came out earlier and asked if he could speak on camera, address his wife directly. As you can imagine, this is a very emotional time for him, so he asked not to do it live. It took several takes to get through it, but we do want to roll that tape now.”

  The screen cut to a shot of Stacy standing in front of the Kirklands’ porch stairs in the dimmer light of the earlier morning, accompanied by a stoic Paul. He was disheveled in a wrinkled white dress shirt and pleated slacks—Clara guessed them to be his work clothes from the day before. She supposed he didn’t have clothes at the house anymore, and it occurred to her that maybe she should have sent Benny over to see if he needed anything. His hair was messed on one side, as if he’d fallen asleep on the couch, though the circles under his eyes didn’t indicate much rest. His hands were buried in his pockets, and he shifted from one foot to the other, his typical air of confidence replaced by clear discomfort in front of the camera.

  “Dr. Kirkland, how are you holding up?” Stacy asked with practiced concern.

  He cleared his throat. “All night, I kept hoping they’d come home.” His voice broke, but he forced himself to continue. “You’re all here, reporting, and the police are out trying to find them, and I was just sitting in there—” He coughed. “I guess I thought I should come out and say something. You know, in case she’s listening.”