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.”
“I understand your divorce was to be finalized soon?”
He nodded. “I thought it would have been by now. It takes longer than you think.” He lifted his eyes to look directly into the lens, and just like that he appeared himself again—the handsome man with the smooth bedside manner who was not unfamiliar with the task of delivering difficult news. “You say things you don’t mean. You have to divvy up things you don’t want to share. It takes a toll.” The camera zoomed in, cutting Stacy out of the frame. “Kristin, if you’re watching, I want you to know that whatever this is about, it’s fixable. If this has to do with the money, you can keep it, obviously. It’s yours. I wasn’t really going to make a play for half. All the money I’ve contributed to raising the twins these past years—it was the best money I ever spent. I don’t regret a cent.” He looked woefully at the reporter, as if it were worth breaking the spell to explain himself. “Like I said, you say things you don’t mean.”
She nodded, and he turned his attention back to the camera, eyes wide. “The police say I could petition the courts to make this a more serious charge, but I don’t want to file more paperwork in the courts. I don’t want the courts in our lives at all. Just come home, and I’ll make all this go away. I’ll give you whatever you want. That’s what I set out to do, back from the very beginning … Remember the beginning?” He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat.
“I know you don’t love me anymore, it’s over, and I accept that. But the idea of not knowing where Abby and Aaron are, not being able to give them a hug, or even just take them to their soccer game on Saturday—” His eyes filled with tears. “Please come home,” he finished.
“I hope she hears you loud and clear, Doctor,” Stacy said, turning back to the camera as he jogged up the porch stairs. Flashbulbs lit up the dim morning.
“Doctor, what can you tell us about the money that’s allegedly missing?”
“Doctor, why didn’t you adopt the kids when you married their mom?”
“Doctor, where do you think she went? Any theories?”
The barrage of questions from the other reporters on the lawn chased Paul up the stairs and into the house, the door shutting quietly behind him, and then the screen flashed back to the live shot of Stacy, standing in the brighter sun of an incongruously beautiful day.
“Police are working this case around the clock, and we’ve learned that the money Kristin is believed to be traveling with is a million-dollar life insurance payout she received when her first husband was killed, along with his parents and sister, in a tragic boating accident at Buck Creek State Park. Having worked in the insurance industry, her first husband left his wife and children well provided for. We don’t know how much of that money might have been spent over the last few years, of course, but we do know it’s been cashed out little by little over the past twelve months, which could indicate that she was planning this for some time. Unless, of course, the money was used for something else and she’s not traveling with it at all. More questions than answers today, Margot.”
Benny flipped off the TV, and they began to eat in silence. “I’ve never cared for the guy,” he said, “but I feel for him. He looks awful.”
Clara didn’t answer. She didn’t buy that Paul’s speech had been sincere, but if pressed, she couldn’t have said exactly why not.
“Wow,” Benny said. She looked up from her plate to find him staring at her.
“What?”
“The look on your face right now is something else.” She swallowed the bite she’d been chewing a bit too thoroughly and reached for her coffee, averting her eyes. “Penny for your thoughts?”
She took a long sip of the lukewarm drink and met his gaze. “It’s not that I don’t feel for him, but … don’t you think the doctor might be a bit of a spin doctor too? I mean, I don’t think he’s ever been to one of their soccer games.”
“So he was using that as an example. I bet he does wish he could go this Saturday.”
“I don’t like that he’s making her sound greedy. The obvious implication is that money is her motive. End of story.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Look. I know Kristin is your friend, but if I’ve learned anything from my years in accounting, it’s that you can solve a lot of so-called mysteries by following the money. Even when good people are involved. It’s predictable, and sometimes it’s a little depressing, but that doesn’t make it less true.”
She pushed her stool back from the counter and turned away to rinse her plate at the sink. There was no real reason to be irked at Benny, and yet she couldn’t help but think that his buying Paul’s story meant that Paul was somehow winning. “Don’t you think that’s a little too easy an explanation in this case?” she asked, her voice tight.
“Maybe.” He slid his own plate, unrinsed, into the open dishwasher and gave her a peck on the cheek. “But sometimes the most obvious explanation is the right one. Even if you don’t want to hear it.”
She waited until he turned away before pulling the crusty plate back out. As a general rule, she tried to reserve nagging for things she couldn’t just as easily do herself.
7
The missing, the hidden, the murdered, and the otherwise lost never get to tell their sides of the story. It’s the last and sometimes cruelest injustice. Because often the people left behind to shape the narrative have an agenda that doesn’t necessarily revolve around the truth.
It’s not always out of malice. There’s self-preservation to consider. One’s image, state of mind, well-being. The human desire to attempt to make sense of a world with no real order to it, to demand to know why when there is no reason—or at least no good one.