“I know you were caught off guard yesterday, as everyone was. We’ve been interviewing friends and family, coworkers, teachers—covering the bases, of course. But we wanted to circle back and see if anything else has come to mind, now that you’ve had some time to process this.”
She bit her lip. “I’ve been replaying Saturday night over and over. But everything just seemed so normal.”
“Your other neighbors don’t seem to recall Saturday night very well,” he said. “Sounds like you ladies know how to have a good time!” He laughed good-naturedly. “So if you could tell us more about it, that might be a help.”
She cleared her throat, hoping she didn’t appear as nervous as she felt.
“You mentioned she talked a bit about her divorce, that it wasn’t really affecting the kids. What about her? Did she say anything about how she felt about things?”
Clara thought for a moment. “Just kind of dismissive stuff,” she said. “I don’t think she really wanted to talk about it, but someone asked.”
“What kind of dismissive stuff?”
She shifted in her seat. Being here felt like betraying a confidence. “She said she wasn’t cut out to be a doctor’s wife. She mentioned the rough hours, like I told you before.” Clara tried to picture Kristin in the firelight, wineglass in hand, tangle of dark curls billowing around her head. And suddenly, she could see her saying something else. “She said he would sink into horrible moods when something went wrong with a patient.”
“And that was often?”
“‘More often than you might think,’ she said. I think those were her exact words.”
“Okay. Good. Anything else?”
What had happened next was something Clara had been replaying in her mind since yesterday. “At least two good things came from the marriage,” Clara had reassured Kristin, alluding to the twins, expecting her to agree. But Kristin hadn’t given her so much as a nod. She’d merely stared off into space, allowing an awkward silence to wrap around the fire circle. Clara had suddenly, inexplicably felt so foolish that her face had flushed.
Now, of course, she understood why. The twins hadn’t come from the marriage. That would have been as good a time as any for Kristin to tell her. But she hadn’t.
Clara shook her head.
“Mrs. Tiffin—”
“Clara.”
“Clara. As far as we can tell, you knew Kristin just about as well as anybody did.”
If that was a fact, Clara couldn’t help thinking it a bit sad. Much as she loved Kristin and their young friendship, she could list a whole host of people who surely knew her own self better than the woman she’d lived next door to for just over a year. There were her college roommates, still tightly bonded though they’d scattered like seeds after graduation, and old coworkers back in Cincinnati, who kept a standing lunch date every other month at a midpoint restaurant, and the wives of Benny’s old friends …
Although she had to admit, she’d seen less and less of all of them since she’d had kids and followed Benny here, an hour away from their old home base. Maybe the same had been happening to Kristin, for longer.
The detective continued. “I’ve interviewed a whole group of women who had regular playdates with Kristin and her children, and no one can tell me much about her. It’s almost odd.”
Feeling a surge of loyalty toward her friend, Clara leveled her gaze at him. “Have you ever been on a playdate with kids that age?” she asked.
“No kids.”
“Well, take it from me, you can’t get a word in edgewise.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Then why have playdates at all?”
She had wondered the same thing many times, usually when bundling up kids cranky from an afternoon of overstimulation, her own stomach growling because she’d barely managed a bite of the potluck lunch. “I guess to make ourselves feel like we’re socializing with adults, even though really we’re just wrangling even more kids than we started with?”
He glanced sidelong at Detective Marks, who hid a smile and shrugged. Clara recognized the look of a fellow mother and relaxed a little. Funny how that was all it took to relate to another person, once you’d had children. A biological similarity. It was ridiculous, if you thought about it, but that didn’t make it less true.
“Great,” he said dryly. “Okay. Try to think about the words you did get in. She ever talk about the rest of her family?”
Clara had given it some thought after Izzy asked about it last night. “Saturday she did say something about not being on the greatest terms with her sister. I remember because it was the first I’d heard that she had a sister.”
“What did she say exactly?”
“Izzy was talking about an issue she was having with her own sister. And Kristin said”—she could still hear it—“‘My sister is shit.’”
He looked at her expectantly. “That’s it?”
She shrugged. “That’s it. I think someone changed the subject.”
He changed tack. “Your kids went with Kristin’s to the Circle of Learning preschool. Was Kristin well liked among the moms?”
The twins were so recognizable that everyone in the school seemed to know Kristin. Never once had Clara seen her just rush in and out to drop off or pick up Abby and Aaron. She was always cooing at a baby in the lobby, or talking up a pregnant teacher, or stopping by the director’s office to offer help with whatever new activity they were planning. She wasn’t one of those moms who seemed skittish about coming too close to anyone else’s kid, as if at any moment someone was going to jump out and accuse her of overstepping. She regularly had a crowd of four-and five-year-olds lined up behind her own kids for high fives out the door.
“Very.”
“Do you ever read the school’s collaborative parent blog?”
“Occasionally.”
“She made some guest posts there, and I have to say, some of those comments threads devolved into flame wars over seemingly trivial things. On one, she was getting attacked just for admitting to serving her kids chicken nuggets.”
She shook her head. “That has nothing to do with Kristin. Every parenting blog is like that.”
Again he looked at Detective Marks, and again she shrugged with a small smile. “What happened to ‘it takes a village’?” he muttered.
“The village has gotten pretty judgmental,” Clara said. Detective Marks laughed out loud.
He sighed. “What about her dad? Any feelings about not knowing him, or maybe wanting to find him?”
Clara shook her head slowly, taking it in. If Kristin had grown up without a father, then being faced with raising her own children without theirs must have felt like the worst of ways for a life to come full circle.
“She ever talk about her mom being in an Alzheimer’s facility?”
She cringed. Detective Bryant was right. None of them had known Kristin. It had nagged at the back of her mind since his visit yesterday, and it was filling her with all-out shame now. How could these questions be about her most outwardly together friend, who took everything in stride and transformed it into something they could laugh about? She shook her head.
“Did it ever strike you as strange that she never mentioned her parents?”
It was Clara’s turn to shrug. “Not really.”
“Any reason why not?”
“Well, my mother is a water aerobics instructor in Florida who only occasionally remembers she has grandchildren and calls to check in. So I don’t mention her much either.”
He put his pen down on the table and sat back in his chair.
“I’m sorry,” she said, meaning it. Somehow this conversation had taken a cheeky turn. Staying home all day with kids made her occasionally impatient with adults, but she knew now wasn’t the time for that. “I know I’m not being very helpful.”
“You were a little.” He gave her a brief smile.
Clara hesitated. “I have to ask,” she said. “Do you have any reason to think she isn’t okay? Gone of he
r own volition?”
“We’re exploring every option.”
She couldn’t resist pressing. “Izzy said Paul told her he broke a window to get in. Do you have any way of knowing that he didn’t break it earlier? Like, whenever she went missing?”
His face revealed nothing. “Not really. It’s under an overhang, so the rain wouldn’t have come in on Sunday. I take it you saw Dr. Kirkland on camera this morning?”
“I did.”
“And what did you think of it?”
She hesitated. “I guess something about it didn’t sit well with me.”
“That’s obvious from your demeanor.”
Clara sat up straighter.
“We understand you have prior experience as a witness to a domestic violence incident.”
Clara was surprised, though she supposed she shouldn’t have been. It was probably routine for them to check records, and her subpoena would be on file. “Years ago.”
“Would you say that might be coloring your perceptions of things here?”
She looked pointedly at Detective Bryant, and then Detective Marks, whose role in this partnership remained unclear. She’d neither spoken nor taken notes. “No. But I’d say it might be coloring your perceptions of my demeanor.”
The detectives exchanged a glance.
“Why do you care what I think?” Clara asked, genuinely curious. “What does it matter?”
Detective Bryant sighed. “We don’t, necessarily. It’s just that you were right next door. And you were among the last people to see her.”
“Can I ask you an honest question? Have you ever been the last person to see someone? Someone who never came back?”
He hesitated, then shook his head.
“Well, I’m glad for you. Because as I guess you know, I have, and it’s not something I’d wish on my worst enemy. I’m certainly not gunning for that to be the case here.”
She glanced at the clock, hoping Maddie wasn’t wearing out her welcome with Randi and Rhoda. “I guess what I don’t get is this picture that’s being painted—about the money. If Kristin was sitting on a million dollars, and then had the good fortune to marry a doctor, why would she take a job at Antioch? It’s not like admin is the kind of rewarding career you can’t pass up.”
No one offered a rhetorical answer, so she continued. “Seems to me she wanted to contribute financially and not rely on Paul. So to see a mom work hard to try to do it all—especially now that I know what she’s been through, being widowed, for crying out loud—and now it’s being suggested that she left just to deny Paul what he thought was his due? While he’s up there alluding to all the money he’s spent raising her kids? I don’t necessarily blame Paul for grasping at straws, but it doesn’t ring true to me.”
Clara took a deep breath, realizing she’d been ranting. It was all a roundabout way of getting to say what she was really thinking, “And that leaves the question: If that’s not why she left, then why?”
“We do appreciate your help, Mrs. Tiffin. And we encourage you to continue to let us know if you think of anything else that could be relevant. But understand, we can’t discuss the details of the investigation with you. It’s ongoing.”
“One last question.” It was the first from Detective Marks, but something in her tone made Clara think it would not be the last after all. “When you were all sitting around the fire, did Kristin happen to throw anything in? A scrap of paper, even?”
Clara frowned. “Not that I saw, no.”
“You wouldn’t mind if we swung by later to take a look around the patio? We don’t need to further infringe on your day. You won’t even know we’re there.”
Another wave of the anxiety she’d felt earlier this morning swept over her. Just how much scrutiny was she under? “Of course not.” Detective Marks granted her a smile, but it did nothing to set her at ease. She took a deep breath. “I’d feel a lot better if I could leave here with you assuring me that you have confidence that nothing dangerous is going on. Kristin and Abby and Aaron might be gone for the time being, but Paul Kirkland is right next door, and my concern about that doesn’t have anything to do with what else I may or may not have witnessed years ago. Any mother would feel the same. Any friend or neighbor would feel the same.”
“We always look at the husband—or ex-husband—regardless,” Detective Bryant said. “But we can’t get in there with a forensics team unless he lets us at this point.”
“He isn’t letting you?”
“Something we said rubbed him the wrong way.”
She’d been feeling increasingly unsettled. But now, for the first time, she allowed herself to consider the real possibility, however small, that she should be afraid for Kristin.
“Can you at least tell me if I should be worried?”
“I can,” he said. “You should not. That’s our job.”
9
In 1825, Yellow Springs was inhabited by a cooperative community called the Owenites, and in 1862, the town welcomed a group of free slaves led by the Reverend Moncure Daniel Conway. Yellow Springs became a place for new beginnings and rejuvenation, aided by the healing waters of the springs themselves, as health spas and resorts cropped up in the village.
—Yellow Springs Historical Walking Tour
“No-brainer idea for tomorrow’s discussion segment,” Sonny was saying. “Share your nastiest divorce stories. Should make for some great calls, lots of Facebook shares…” He’d crashed Izzy’s postshow planning period, taking a seat in her office without asking and then loudly calling Day in to join them, and Izzy was trying to swallow her irritation.
“Seems a bit tasteless, don’t you think?” she asked, cutting him off.
“Not at all,” Day piped up. “It’s a natural tie-in to the buzz out of Yellow Springs.”
Izzy had chosen not to share that the buzz out of Yellow Springs was happening on her street. And this was exactly why.
“What’s so bad about asking people to share their experiences of marriage ending in disaster? Everybody knows of one.” Sonny laced his fingers behind his head, a sure sign that he was not about to let this go until she gave in, and the back of Izzy’s neck began to tense, vertebra by vertebra. She didn’t want to be stuck here any later than necessary. She’d hit the motherlode yesterday on clearance at Greenleaf Gardens, where someone who seemed to know what he was talking about had advised her on fall plantings, and she planned to spend the afternoon converting her neglected little fenced backyard of weeds into the sanctuary she’d been dreaming of. The forecast called for flash storms, but she was undeterred. An impulse to sink her fingers into the soil, to plant something that could take root, had seized her with surprising ferocity. She wanted to hang on to this urge, to show herself and everyone else that she could do this—make a life on her own. Maybe later she’d throw her hat into the air like Mary Tyler Moore, for posterity.
Sonny snickered, oblivious. “I mean, I’m as happily betrothed as they come, but I’ve got a whopper about a friend whose crazy, and I do mean cuckoo crazy, wife actually—”
“That’s not the point,” Izzy said. “The point is that someone should be able to have a personal tragedy without us polling the audience about it.”
“Oh, please,” Day said. “CNN can’t even host a presidential debate without consulting we the people of Facebook. Why should local headlines be any different?”
Izzy was feeling disproportionately testy, she knew. She blamed the tension that had settled over her neighborhood—there was no escaping it. Another day had passed with no developments in the search for Kristin, and no further sign of Paul, who seemed to have gone into hiding since his plea on camera yesterday. With nothing new to report, the network vans had been gone by the time she headed in this morning, and it was an odd relief, though it hadn’t stopped the anchors from devoting their early broadcasts to speculating live from their studios.
Speculation irked Izzy. How much nicer the world could be if people who didn’t know what they wer
e talking about would keep their mouths shut.
“While we’re at it, why don’t we recast Second Date Update as a breakup update?” she said. “We’ll give people a chance to call bullshit on the reasons they were given for the split. Now, there’s a shitstorm people would tune in for, am I right or am I right?”
Sonny cocked his head to the side. “I know you’re joking, but actually—”
Izzy let out a grunt of frustration so loud he jumped. “No ‘but actually’! Have we really sunk that low?”
Her cell phone buzzed, and she seized it from her desktop, grateful for the distraction. Penny’s picture toasted her from the screen, holding up a martini on a long-ago girls’ night, and she stifled a groan. Still, if she was going to acquiesce to a conversation she didn’t want to have, all the better if it got her out of another one.
“Sorry, I have to take this.” She didn’t give them a chance to protest, simply put the phone to her ear. “Hello?”
“Izzy! Finally.”
She mouthed “tomorrow” at Sonny and Day, and they got to their feet, exchanging a glance that was the optic equivalent of a shrug. Each gave her a silent wave as she pushed the door shut behind them.
“Sorry. I’ve been meaning to call—”
“Gosh, I hope so. I’m starting to feel like a stalker!”
“I really—”
“And nobody wants to see a pregnant stalker!” Penny laughed loudly. “That’s just weird!”
Izzy held perfectly still. Maybe she’d misunderstood. “What?”
“That’s why I’ve been ringing you off the hook! Geez, I was starting to worry you were going to find out from someone else! I’ve been trying to keep the cat in the bag, but Mom and Dad know now, so not only is it out, but it’s running around terrorizing the neighborhood.”
Izzy felt faintly aware that she was supposed to summon something—words, a laugh, an exclamation of happiness—but the bottom was falling out of her heart. She allowed the silence to go on a beat too long, and knew she had to speak. She moved her lips, but nothing came out.
“Wow,” she said finally. “Gosh, Pen. I didn’t think … I mean, you used to say you didn’t even want kids.”
Not That I Could Tell: A Novel Page 6
