“Well, even now that you’re separated, you do text her an awful lot. Texts that some might classify as checking up on someone.”
“Checking in, maybe. We’re still married. We have kids together.”
“An outsider might observe that you text her much more than she texts you.”
“I … my work schedule is irregular, and when I’m at the hospital, I usually can’t talk. It cuts down on phone tag if I take the lead on communications.”
“The sheer volume of texts, some people might find it overwhelming. Oppressive, even.”
Paul said nothing.
“Do you still love your wife?”
His sigh was audible. “Our marriage is over.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“If you want to know the truth,” he said, his voice turning cold, “I’m not sure I ever really did. I felt sorry for her. She’d been widowed young, and there she was, saddled with twin babies, totally overwhelmed, and … I guess I thought I could ride in on my horse and help the damsel in distress. Sweep her off her feet. Be that guy.”
“Do you think your wife thought of herself as saddled with the twins?” Detective Marks cut in. Clara couldn’t help but admire the way she was interjecting doubts with casual precision. Suddenly, her relative silence during Clara’s own interview didn’t seem like a bad thing.
“My word, not hers.”
“So you felt saddled by them.”
Frustration was almost audible in the beat that followed. “It was the wrong word, okay? My point is, I think I got caught up in playing Prince Charming. But it wasn’t a fairy tale. It was a mistake. I was sort of taken in by her, I guess.”
“And when you realized it was a mistake, that’s when you decided to separate?” Detective Bryant again.
“You know how relationships are. They don’t just end one day. Things kind of accumulate.”
“Did it make you angry, the realization that she had ‘taken you in’?”
“Angry? At myself, maybe. Not at her—not then, anyway. Do you think it was fair, her keeping all that money in separate savings, untouched—for the kids, she said—while I spent all mine sustaining our lifestyle—the mortgage, the memberships, those astronomical day care bills? If that was your wife, you wouldn’t feel a little taken advantage of?”
“Well, if we’re being fair, Kristin did work too, though her salary was smaller than yours,” Detective Marks said.
Yes, Clara had definitely misjudged her.
“We’ve already gone over this.” Detective Bryant’s voice had taken on an air of calm and patience, as if he hoped it might permeate the room. “We have your statement on the life insurance as a possible motive, and we’re looking into it.”
Paul coughed. “Am I a suspect or something? Do you have reason to think something happened to Kristin and the kids?”
“No reason. Of course, we also have no forensics—”
“I told you, I just don’t feel right about letting you tear the place apart. I think of it as her house now.”
“Even though your name is the only one on the mortgage? Even though you’ve basically moved back in?”
“I’m just waiting for them to come back! Where else would I wait? I don’t know what to do with myself!” There was a loud noise, the sound of maybe his hands slapping down onto the wooden kitchen table, and Clara and Hallie both jumped.
“Understandable.” Detective Bryant’s voice was calmer than ever. “And we are just trying to make some sense of this Internet search. Also understandable, I’m sure you’d agree, given the fact that it’s the last thing she did before she disappeared.”
“I’m a doctor,” Paul said, incredulous. “I took an oath to do no harm. That’s all you need to know about me. Are we finished?”
Hallie swiped the screen on her phone, and the recording stopped.
Clara stared at Hallie in stunned silence. Her mind was reeling. She shook her head vehemently, as if to physically jolt herself out of it. She’d think about what she’d just heard later. Right now she had to deal with what was in front of her. Hallie was looking at her expectantly, beaming as if her Pulitzer was surely coming any day.
Clara looked levelly into the girl’s eyes. “Hallie,” she said sternly, “this is not how reporters operate. Sneaking around on private property? Eavesdropping on police? Recording their neighbors without their knowledge?”
Hallie’s face fell. She crossed her arms defiantly across her chest. “Could have fooled me,” she said. “We learned about Watergate in school.”
Clara was caught off balance for a moment, trying to remember exactly which grade Hallie was in. Watergate? Seriously? Clearly the lesson hadn’t quite come across, at any rate.
“You have to listen to what I’m saying. Not only is this kind of snooping around illegal, it’s dangerous.” She flashed on an image of an unhinged Paul discovering Hallie outside his window—not while the police were there, but on a dark night, alone. Clara shuddered. “You can’t print anything you overheard in your paper, Hallie. And you can’t go sneaking over there anymore. Promise me.”
“But it shows that she had a reason to leave! It’s important evidence! Everyone thinks Kristin was heartless or something. The kids at school are calling her ‘stone-cold,’ and ‘gold digger’! This shows another side to the story.”
Clara cringed. Kristin, stone-cold? Paul had done that. Paul had made people think that. What else had Paul done? Still, she had to be careful not to show even the slightest sign of agreement that the girl had a point. Hallie was far too easily encouraged. Clara had to focus on conveying that this must not go beyond this kitchen.
“All it shows is that Kristin Googled those things before she left,” she said calmly, stealing a glance at Thomas. He was zoned into the television—something Benny often poked fun at by pretending to tap-dance around him, to no reaction whatsoever—and for once, she was grateful. “Like Paul said, she could have Googled them to help a friend. She could be off with that friend right now, helping her. It doesn’t prove anything about Kristin, or about Paul.”
Hallie’s face bore such disappointment and disbelief that Clara wanted to take it all back, to give her a hug, to tell her she understood the urge to plaster this over the front page but they couldn’t, because that wasn’t the way the world worked, and they had to let things take their course and hope the police would sort it out.
And to tell her what a bunch of bullshit that all was.
“Have you played this for your mom?” she asked.
“No…”
“Well, I’m going to get Maddie up from her nap, and as soon as your mom comes home from class, we’re all going to walk over there and have a talk.” Clara felt a twinge of guilt at her relief that she wouldn’t have to keep what she’d just heard entirely to herself. Natalie had seemed so unconvinced that there was more to Kristin’s story. What would she make of it now?
Hallie stuck out her lip. “She’s always telling me I ask too many questions. This time all I did was listen, and apparently that’s wrong too. How am I supposed to get answers about anything?”
“Sometimes we’re not meant to have the answers, Hal. Sometimes the answers aren’t any of our business.” Clara knew it was the responsible, adult thing to say, but the words pained her.
“If you’re not going to let me report on the only real news going on around here, Chief, this paper is going to be L-A-M-E lame.”
“Well, maybe now isn’t such a good time to be starting a paper after all.”
Hallie hung her head. The toe of her shoe thumped the cabinet in a sullen rhythm.
“Listen. If you have your heart set on doing this, why not make your paper different from all the others? Why not report on good news?”