Not That I Could Tell: A Novel

by Jessica Strawser

  “But what?” Clara squared her shoulders.

  “Most of the time they don’t really want help. They call us to intervene in the middle of a fight, but as soon as we try to arrest the scumbag, forget it.”

  She bristled at the stereotype even as she checked herself that her own experience with the subject was more limited than his. More limited, maybe, but also more personal. “So you might argue that if she did take off for that reason, she did the sensible thing.”

  He shrugged. “You might. Unless you’re me, with the open file stuck on your desk.”

  “Or Paul.”

  “Yes, or Paul. He’s not likely to give up so easily, though.”

  So he might go through with the investigator, then. She nodded, trying to keep her expression impassive. “I’m sure he, uh, misses the kids.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Like I said, you get cynical working these things.” He stood. “You might see me around the neighborhood this week, dotting i’s, crossing t’s. You’ve saved me a trip to your front door, so thanks.”

  Clara’s mind was racing as she collected her purse from the floor and got to her own feet. “My neighbor across the street, Isabel. Were you going to check in with her?”

  “With everyone I can get to. Why?”

  It wasn’t as if she could tip him off without involving herself further. The best she could hope for was that Izzy would let slip something that might prompt the detective to warn her away from Paul. “Oh, I think she was just wondering, too, what would happen from here. That’s all.”

  He nodded, holding her gaze. “I just wish someone who knew something that could actually help me was wondering about it too.”

  She made her way to the door, then turned once more.

  “You said you couldn’t help someone disappear. But do you think disappearing is possible?”

  “For someone who has money, resources? Yeah. I can’t say I haven’t given it thought. I think I could do it. It’s definitely possible.”

  A warm reassurance spread over her. This, then, was what she’d choose to believe. That Kristin and Abby and Aaron were gone of their own volition. Safe. No matter about the broken window Paul had jumped the gun to repair. No matter about the tattered book cover Abby wouldn’t have left home without. No matter about the computer search history, or the plea from her sister, or the other odd threads found dangling. No matter about this feeling of unease that had taken up residence the moment they’d left and grown in intensity as small, heart-tugging truths had been revealed.

  She had to listen to Benny, to the detective, even to Izzy. There was truth in their admonition to stop projecting her own past on the present. Kristin was not her unsuspecting coworker from the holiday retreat.

  In fact, it was obvious that by the time she’d vanished, Kristin had suspected plenty.

  Clara had to try to stop worrying that something had gone awry. She had to believe the best, whatever that was. She had to let go.

  Leaning against the conference room doorframe, she flashed Detective Bryant a sad, sideways smile. “So how would you do it?” she asked.

  “Disappear? Start over?” He shook his head. “Why don’t you ask any of the thousands of illegal immigrants who do it every year.”

  With that, he raised his hand in a wave and strode past her, down the corridor that led deeper into the station. The strange smile stayed on Clara’s lips as she stepped out onto the sidewalk, the sunlight warming her face. What an unexpected relief, that there was nothing left to ask, and nothing left to answer.

  36

  Please join us in welcoming Adele to the wide world. Can’t you just see it in her eyes—her whole life ahead of her? We can’t wait to watch her grow.

  —Printed birth announcement from Randi and Rhoda, captioning a stunning baby photo

  Izzy caught sight of Randi through the boutique window and slowed her stride, clinging tighter to her slim hope that she and Rhoda had somehow missed hearing her on Second Date Update. Randi was sliding a new cash drawer into the register, likely just starting her late-afternoon shift, and the store appeared empty. Here it was, a chance to face something head on for once, to clear up any misunderstanding or gossip, and before she could stop and think about it she found herself pushing through the door with a sheepish wave.

  “Izzy! How’ve you been?” Randi tossed her long braid over her shoulder. Even as her face lit up in a genuine enough smile, something in her eyes seemed to be weighing her options.

  “Well, it hasn’t been a boring week,” Izzy said cautiously, approaching the counter.

  “I guess not,” Randi said, her forehead wrinkling. Izzy nodded. So she had heard it, then.

  “I hope you didn’t think that I—”

  Randi shook her head. “I didn’t think anything about you.”

  The words were a small kindness, and gratitude washed over Izzy. The only person she’d talked to, even a little bit, about anything to do with Paul was Clara, and that conversation had so much to do with Clara and so little to do with Paul that it hardly counted. She felt an urge to explain it all to Randi right here at the register, from the beginning, and realized with a start her own unlikely synergy with Kristin, albeit on a much smaller scale. For both of them, Paul’s side of the story was the only one anyone had heard. And far too many people had heard it.

  She’d tried too hard not to let that bother her about Paul and Kristin’s situation before—a fact she was realizing too late. It should have bothered her then. And it bothered her now.

  She cleared her throat. “Well, in case you did, it’s not happening. No second date. No first date, for that matter.”

  “Well, good,” Randi said. “I mean, it’s none of my business, but the whole thing made me a bit nervous.” She laughed uneasily. “I guess I shouldn’t have said that, I’m sorry. I don’t even know why you backed out. It’s just that ever since Kristin disappeared, I feel like the whole energy of the neighborhood is off balance.”

  “It’s okay,” Izzy said. “I know what you mean. And that’s not exactly the reason why. Or at least, it wasn’t. But then it kind of became part of the reason. I don’t know.” She sighed. “I told him later that same night that I’d changed my mind. To tell you the truth, I’ve been feeling horribly guilty about it. I can’t shake it.”

  “Guilty?” Randi shook her head. “It’s not your fault he decided to stage the whole thing on the radio. If you ask me, you need to be braced for some degree of embarrassment if you’re foolish enough or brave enough or whatever enough to make that call.”

  “Oh, I don’t feel guilty about him. I feel guilty about me.” Izzy leaned on the counter and peered into the pretty basket of impulse buys. The contents rotated, but today it was filled with little felt flower pins. She rubbed the leaf of one between her thumb and forefinger. Its fibers were unexpectedly rough against her skin. “I wasn’t entirely honest, with the reasons I gave. I said … oh, God, I don’t even know why I did it. In the moment it seemed like some kind of external factor would make everything easier for him to take.”

  “What did you say?”

  Izzy tilted the basket to get a better look at the array inside. She could picture her mother pinning one to the lapel of a coat. “I said my dad was sick, that I was going to be focusing on my family, driving back and forth to Springfield to help. It just popped into my head. I wanted to extract myself—completely, you know?—and I kind of panicked.”

  “But your dad, he’s—?”

  Izzy shook her head. “He had tests run recently, and you know how the subconscious works. It was a false alarm, but now I’m afraid he’s going to get sick. I’m terrified I’ve conjured bad juju—putting that out there, just asking for the lie to come true.” Izzy met Randi’s eyes in a reluctant attempt to gauge the scale of her disapproval.

  “Oh, Izzy. No one will ever know you said that. Forget it. You did what came to mind in the moment. And if it did the job, got through to him, then that’s what matters. Obsessing�
�that’s where the bad juju comes in. And trust me, I know juju. I sell juju for a living.” She gestured to the wall of charms, stones, and crystals on display behind her, and Izzy was enjoying her first genuine laugh in days when Rhoda burst through the curtain from the back room and looked around expectantly.

  “Hey, Izzy. Man, busy day for the neighborhood. Where did he go?”

  Izzy and Randi both frowned at her. “Who?” Randi asked.

  “Paul. I just went to check something for him, in the winter inventory—”

  “Right here.” To Izzy’s left was the alcove of garden things and other oversized décor, and Paul stepped out from around the partition into her peripheral vision. She froze, not turning to greet him, not moving even to breathe. Randi’s eyes bored into hers with all the questions Izzy herself was thinking: How long had he been standing there, so close? How much had he heard?

  “Sorry that took so long!” Rhoda was using her saleslady voice, reserved for strangers. “But yes, we did have more of those come in this year, so it’s no problem to accommodate the late return. Happy to help.”

  “I appreciate this.” Paul held out a woman’s scarf and matching hat with the tags still on, and Rhoda took them. “I know she thought they were beautiful,” he said, his voice thick with apologetic charm. “I can’t imagine why she didn’t even take the tags off. She must have just misplaced them.”

  Izzy stood to the side so Paul could step to the register. “Hi, there, Izzy. I didn’t realize that was you.”

  “Hello.” Her cheeks were burning.

  “I’m always doing that myself,” Rhoda said, “getting all these Christmas gifts I just love and then forgetting about them. I have such a big family, it’s always chaos, and I’m sure it was the same with the twins.” The four of them collectively cringed at the mention of Abby and Aaron, none of them doing a very good job of hiding it, and Rhoda’s fingers moved hastily as she processed the refund.

  “Yes, it’s quite the project packing it all up for storage now. So thanks again for taking this much off my hands. It’s a small dent, but at least it’s something.” Paul took his receipt and nodded his good-bye at Rhoda. “Take care,” he said to Izzy, his face neutral as he pushed through the door in a tingle of wind chimes.

  “They weren’t her style at all,” Rhoda muttered. “I tried to talk him into this gray pattern she would have loved, but he already had his mind set on the display he’d seen from the street, without even taking a closer look.”

  Izzy let out a loud breath and dropped her head, groaning as Randi reached out a hand almost involuntarily. “I don’t think he heard, I think I would have seen…” Randi’s reassurance was weak, and she didn’t even bother to finish the sentence.

  Rhoda looked, confused, from one to the other.

  “What? What did I miss?”

  * * *

  Izzy was plopping her purse on the kitchen counter when the knock came at the front door. She froze, keys still in her hand, her muscles reflexively tensing. Finally, she’d cleaned the last of the boxes out of the garage so she could pull the car in, and she hadn’t seen anyone on the street. Who could it be but Paul? But even if he had overheard what she said to Randi, would he really put them both through the humiliation of having this out again?

  If it was him, he’d seen her arrive home. She had no choice but to answer.

  Detective Bryant stood on her step, hands in his pockets, brown leather jacket zipped tight against the cold. He cleared his throat and said her name, her full name, as if it were a question. Had he heard the Second Date Update too? What if he thought … Oh, God, what if he suspected she and Paul had been involved all along, even before Kristin’s vanishing act? She managed a blink of a “Hello” even as she looked past him, scanning the street for a vehicle she didn’t see.

  “I’m around the block,” he said, following her eyes. “Going door to door is not one of the more glamorous parts of my job, but I spend more time doing it than I’ll ever admit.”

  She smiled politely. “Has something happened?”

  “Just doing due diligence. May I come in for a moment?”

  “Of course.” Izzy led the way into the kitchen. “Coffee? Tea?”

  “A glass of water would be great, if it’s no trouble.” Izzy wondered if Paul had taken her request the other night the same way the detective’s sounded—unobtrusive, as if aware that by the end of this beverage they would still owe each other nothing. The detective hung back in the doorway and took a lengthy drink from the glass she handed him as she settled herself onto a counter stool.

  “I don’t suppose you have any new thoughts on the Kristin Kirkland case? Anything you’ve remembered? Or seen or heard since we talked last?”

  Did Paul whisking her away on the motorcycle Kristin had forbidden him to ride count? What about him being so ready to date again, and thinking nothing of saying so publicly, when anyone in town listening might recognize him from his voice and first name alone? What about him boxing up his family’s belongings? What about the fact that Clara seemed convinced that something wasn’t right with him, that he was, at minimum, an unnecessary risk?

  It was all just gossip where she didn’t have any room to talk, and judgment where she didn’t have any right to throw stones. Izzy shook her head.

  He nodded, running a hand through his close-cropped hair. Leaning on the doorframe, he looked more casual and less official than when she’d seen him last, out of place at the bonfire, and a bit more fit, as if maybe he’d taken up a new regimen at the gym. “I won’t be actively working the Kirkland case beyond this week, unless something else turns up. I’m just going over everything again before I file it.”

  She shifted in her seat. “Is that frustrating, having to move on from something that’s unresolved? Or is it more of a relief, to tackle something new?”

  “Even when I’m tired of banging my head against the wall, it still drives me crazy,” he said. She knew the feeling.

  “Do you get hunches about things?”

  The memory of Paul’s forced nonchalance when he’d overheard her in the shop crawled up the back of her neck.

  “In my experience, the more hunches I get, the better I am at my job. I do wish I got more of them.”

  All this time she’d been priding herself on being somewhat removed from the situation—the only neighbor who didn’t take sides, didn’t speculate, didn’t butt in. But maybe she’d been wrong. Maybe what was going on across the street was, just by that very fact, her business.

  And maybe there was some risk involved with proximity.

  Suddenly she desperately needed to know what Detective Bryant thought of it all. So she decided to be blunt.

  “If I had a friend who was interested in spending some time with Paul Kirkland, do you have a hunch how worried I should be?”

  He frowned. “Too much of what I’ve said about this case has already gone public. I shouldn’t speculate more.” He looked weary, and she caught herself glancing at his hand—no ring. What must it be like to do a job like his without someone to come home to?

  “Of course,” she said quickly. “I’m sorry.” Her eyes fell on the two tins she’d filled after returning from Paul’s the other night and gorging herself on the feast she’d left cooling on the counter. “Do you like pumpkin cookies?” she asked. “I overbaked. You could take them back to the station.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t—”

  “Take them as a token of the neighborhood’s appreciation.”

  He rewarded her with a laugh. “I admit, tokens of appreciation are less common than you might think.”

  She bent and rummaged through the closest cupboard in search of a disposable container with a lid, then crossed to the sink to wash her hands. Her back was to him when he said, “So as I said, I won’t be working the case anymore.”

  She nodded, dried her hands, and began filling the container with cookies.

  “That being a nonissue now, I wonder if you might let me take you to di
nner.”

  Izzy looked up and blinked in surprise, taking him in—the cut to his jaw, slightly on the rugged side of the boy next door, and the way he carried himself, as if only trying to appear as if he wasn’t on alert. In truth she hadn’t given him much thought after their initial meeting, aside from panicking and throwing her wine into the grass when he’d approached at the festival. She wasn’t sure she’d ever been caught so off guard by such an innocent request, though now she was remembering the way his eyes had lingered on hers in the glow of the bonfire, and his parting wink. Had what she’d taken as his attempts to put her at ease instead been an on-duty version of flirting?

  “Maybe you don’t like formal dates,” he said quickly. “I saw the feature about you, in the new edition of that kid’s paper? Reading between the lines, I got the feeling maybe you weren’t exactly enamored with that part of your job. The radio dating thing.”

  Hallie had dropped off her two “contributor copies” last week, and Izzy had been relieved at how much tamer it was than the earlier edition Clara had shown her. Still, though her own feature had been wiped mercifully clean of personality, it was nice to know he’d seen her in what Hallie had written.

  She managed a smile. “You do get good hunches,” she said.

  He lifted a hand as if to say, There you go.

  But she was already thinking of the bleak headlines in her in-box every morning—the crimes gone wrong, the mistakes turned deadly, the errors in judgment, the evil, the corruption. She knew that the stories were already too personal to her, the way she soaked up the sadness as if it were her own. And she knew that if someone she cared about was involved with so many of them, she’d never be able to stop. She’d carry the weight of it all; she’d worry day and night.

  “That’s a kind invitation,” she stalled, busying herself with the cookies again.

  Not a date in years, and now two offers in the same week. One from a potential suspect, and one from the lead investigator. Izzy could picture herself as a caricature, a little angel on one shoulder, a devil on the other, her eyes looking upward for help from above.