Hannah
Detective Thompson covered the space between the sisters’ houses at approximately the same speed that the backhoe traversed Hannah’s driveway. Slow, plodding, careful. Hannah couldn’t tell if he was walking at his normal speed or drawing it out, wishing he didn’t have to deal with her. She had the impression both detectives were growing tired of all the women they had to talk to on this case. The prospect of having two male suspects must be a relief to them. She’d seen on television the empathy cops showed when interrogating guilty men. They probably preferred fucked-up male suspects to ordinary female witnesses. Harsh but true. Easier to relate to a criminal surging with testosterone than a woman trying to describe what she saw and remember what time it was.
The only thing in Hannah’s eye line moving swiftly were a couple of neighbors, drawn down the hill by the flashing lights. Not Susan and Tara this time but a man and woman Hannah didn’t recognize. They lifted their phones as if they were about to take video, and Hannah wanted to scream, run to them, throw their phones to the ground. But how would that look? Who exactly would that help?
She took a deep breath and met Thompson near the backhoe. He was calm enough, showing her the paperwork, explaining they were digging a few places where they’d found evidence.
“A dead animal is not evidence of a crime.”
“So you say,” he said. “But as we said earlier, we found more linking her here, so we have to look further.”
“What do you mean, you found more?”
“We found the girl’s necklace with her key ring.”
“What? Where?”
“On the edge of your property.”
“No,” she said.
“I’m afraid so.”
“How do you know someone didn’t plant it there?”
“With all due respect,” he said with a sigh, “how do you know someone did?”
He went on to explain that they were digging everywhere they’d found evidence of note, not just her yard. He was watching her face to see whether she was surprised or not surprised. Whether she would say in response, “You mean there’s other places?” or to whether she’d simply be nonchalant and accepting. How should she behave? She had no clue. And the thought of not only Carelli but her sister watching this from their perch on the hill made her crazy. Are you happy now, Hillary?
“So this is what, a dirt-only warrant?” As she said it, she was suddenly aware of the symbolism, the double meaning.
“One thing at a time.”
She almost laughed. Was he warning her? That soon they’d be inside her house, too?
They stood on her porch, facing off, in the very place where she’d imagined so many lovely moments. Gin and tonics with her sister as they sat in the waning light. Looking at the fall decorations, the pumpkins and hay bales and mums, enjoying and maybe comparing. So what? Comparing was part of life. Watching people she would meet someday walk their dogs, their clothing changing slightly with the seasons, the gloves and hats added, the small clouds of frost escaping from their mouths as they spoke the quiet, ghostlike hellos of people just getting to recognize each other.
Would that never come now? Were all her porch dreams—of raising her kid next to her sister’s kid, the cousins running between houses like it was a lush college campus, like the world belonged to them—were they all gone?
“Isn’t there someone else on your radar?” she asked suddenly.
“Not sure what you mean.”
“Besides these two houses, besides someone connected to these two particularly, spectacularly unlucky sisters.”
“Are you saying your sister is unlucky? Is there—”
“No! No, goddamn it. My sister and I are fine. Normal, upstanding citizens. People who pay their taxes and don’t run red lights, okay? So I am wondering if you don’t have someone else you are looking at, Detective. Someone whose background would actually indicate they have a problem? Instead of maybe tangentially, oddly, circuitously connecting the dots, how about actual fucking dots?”
He didn’t answer, and she wanted to shake him. Of course he couldn’t tell her; of course there were rules. Rules that he broke when he wanted to and rules that he stood by when it suited him. He turned suddenly, and she stared at the nape of his neck, his modern haircut, and was angry, furious at herself for noticing how youthful that part of him seemed. Like you could see the boy still within him, the one who believed in fighting crime, who thought he was after the bad guys after all. Where was that part of him? The part that wasn’t beaten down with cynicism, the part that believed in innocence? The innocence of boyhood, when had he lost that?
“Well?” she asked, but he didn’t answer. She followed his gaze and saw a woman standing in her driveway as if she were waiting. She was just a dot of blond.
“Hey,” Kendra said, waving a hand.
“Do you need me, Mrs. Harris?” Thompson called down to her.
“Oh, no. I…do not.”
“She’s here for me,” Hannah said, waving and walking down.
“You two are friends?”
Hannah ignored him. “Give me a second to change,” she said. “I’ll be right down!”
Thompson shook his head and went back to Hillary’s.
She went inside, pulled on sweatpants and a long-sleeved T-shirt.
“Miles,” she said, “stay inside and do your homework, okay? I’m locking the door while I go for a walk.”
He stood in front of his window watching the backhoe turn over the earth.
“Have you ever been in one of those?”
“No,” she said. “Did you hear me? Stay inside. And don’t go to the door. You can play a video game when you’re done.”
“Okay.” He nodded and she set off across the street, toward the path.
“I figured you might need a walk today,” Kendra said.
“Yes, about that—”
“You don’t need to explain.”
“Oh, I think I do.”
“No,” Kendra said, stepping nimbly off the street onto the path, “I know it’s not your son.”
“What? How—”
“I’ve seen him,” she said. “On my walks. Seen him watching butterflies landing on his wrist, letting caterpillars crawl up his arm.”
“He loves animals.”
“I can tell. I can also tell he’s gentle.”
“He is. But how…I mean, I hate to say this, but shouldn’t you suspect everyone? How can you not?”
Kendra stopped, ran a hand across her mouth. Hannah couldn’t help thinking that she was an example of the phrase small but mighty. There was a force field around her, a kind of armor. As if she’d grown a protective shield simply because of her size, her blond hair, all the things about her that made people underestimate her. It saddened Hannah to think of Kendra’s little girl, too young to have grown the armor, that she couldn’t protect herself. Hannah felt tears starting to pool in her eyes and blinked them back.
“Because if I did, I would be filled with rage. I am incapable of believing the whole world is evil. I can’t do it. I just can’t. I’ve already lost my daughter. I can’t lose all of humanity, you know?”
Hannah nodded. “Yes, I guess so. Yes.” She tried to imagine walking through the world suspecting everyone was evil. That was like living in a hell, a prison. How could you even sleep at night?
“It’s a man, not a boy. And half the men around here are gone all the time, so that narrows things down. They should be on to someone else soon, let your boy off the hook. Besides, they’re digging up every time capsule and Barbie doll any kid has ever buried under a pile of leaves. They’ll find something else to fixate on besides some pet hamster.”
“I hope so.”
She wanted to tell Kendra more, that it wasn’t a pet hamster, that it was both better and worse than that, but she knew she couldn’t go that far. It was too dangerous to tell anyone too much, but especially her. Hannah liked her, but she couldn’t lose her head.
They walked down along the creek, partly in silence, listening to the water rise and fall over rocks and branches, changing direction, gathering speed. It had finally receded a bit after the rain. It wasn’t that deep, and she supposed after a few frosty nights, it would freeze; there’d be a crackling layer of ice trapping all the tadpoles and frogs. She’d never considered that thought before, and she realized with a kind of horror that it was something that Miles would think of and be upset by. That it would keep him up at night, worrying.
They started the gradual rise, headed to the highest point, where the light hung in golden ribbons between the trees.
“I wonder what it was like when this was all one property,” Hannah mused. “To have all of this as your view.”
“Yes, our street was just the driveway, I think.”
“Really? All those twists and turns?”
“They did it intentionally, to keep people away. I’d heard the family preferred horses, hated cars. That for a long time before it was subdivided, they’d just show up in downtown Wayne and hitch them to a parking meter.”
“No.”
“Yes, there are pictures at the library, 1945, ’46, something like that.”
“That’s hilarious.”
“There’s a boy at Haverford School, one of their descendants, who still does it.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Nope.”
“What does the horse do while he’s at school?”
“The janitor built him a little lean-to.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah, literally. It’s kind of manger-y.”
“I bet.”
“My daughter used to beg to go see it.” Kendra paused and picked up a stick, tossed it off the path. “She wanted to ride horses. We were just waiting for her to be big enough. She loved animals, too. Like your son.”
“They might have been friends.”
“Yes. But—they weren’t, were they?” She looked at Hannah with a searching sadness. Trying not to be too vulnerable, to make a mistake. Hoping against hope, Hannah supposed, that the world hadn’t punished her daughter again. For having trusted one person. For having made one single friend and believing her son was not someone she should fear.
“No. He doesn’t know anyone in the neighborhood except his cousin.”
“Who’s that?”
“My sister’s daughter, Morgan. Next door.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize,” Kendra said, trailing off. “We love Morgan. She was kind to Liza. We were hoping…”
Hannah waited, wondered, but didn’t ask.
“Hoping,” Kendra continued, taking a breath, “that she’d be old enough to babysit someday.”
Hannah nodded in agreement. They stood at the highest point of their walk, looking over the farmland stretching out in all directions, the split-rail fence, the mature trees spilling leaves. The gift of a stone house at the end of the path, a portrait of what used to be. When people valued land over houses. When people didn’t need a slew of extra rooms for their offices, their guests, and their hobbies. They were content to just let the land be enough. Who lived there now? Who were they even looking at?
“Do you know who lives there now?”
“One of the stepsons. Lives there alone, if you can believe that.”
“Wow.”
“You can see him riding around, repairing fences now and then.”
“I guess if he’s a loner, then the police have investigated him, too.”
“Yeah,” Kendra smiled. “He picked a terrible time to be an introvert.”
As they headed back, retracing their steps, Hannah asked her a few safe questions on innocuous topics (or so she thought). If she was in the book club (no), if she was friends with any of the other neighbors (not really), and if she worked (not anymore). The clipped answers made Hannah realize that Kendra was more interested in walking than talking, so they just walked. Hannah limited her remarks to a few about the terrain, the scenery, the temperature.
“I just don’t relate to the other women in the neighborhood,” Kendra said suddenly. “No offense to your sister.”
“None taken.”
“I just don’t like all the conversations about material things. What decorator you’re using, where you bought your antiques, where you got that necklace, where everyone is going on spring break. It’s like no one can have a real conversation.”
“I hear what you’re saying.”
“I mean, all the shit that’s going on in the world and even in the township, there should be plenty to talk about. Or kids, can’t we talk about how hard it is to parent kids? Instead of how hard it is to find a cleaning person?”
She was pretty but she wasn’t fancy, Hannah thought. That was probably the mistake others made. The book club, if it was indicative of the women in the neighborhood, was fancy.
When they got closer to Kendra’s house, a man waved from the patio. It was the first time Hannah had seen anyone on the property since that first day, the search party day.
“Your husband?”
“Yes, my groom. We just got married. I’m divorced from Liza’s father. He’s been cleared as a suspect, thank God.”
“Well, that’s a relief, I’m sure.”
“Yes. My first ex, too.”
Hannah was glad the police had crossed a few people off their list, that they hadn’t been idle. But why hadn’t Thompson told her that when she’d pressed? Why hadn’t he defended himself? Why did the mother of the victim have to be the one who filled her in?
“Are you on good terms with your exes?”
“I am now,” Kendra said and smiled. “No, seriously, I am. This has been devastating for them. For everyone. All the questions. All the interviews. All the DNA. The police have been thorough, though. And oddly caring.”
“Really?” Hannah tried hard not to scrunch her face in disbelief.
“One of the techs who was here told me that they had trouble weighing Liza during the…uh, autopsy. That the township has so few deaths and investigations that they didn’t have a scale the right size for someone so small. He said Detective Thompson held her in a blanket and stepped onto the larger scale.”
Hannah’s breath caught in her chest. It reminded her suddenly, forcefully, of Miles. Miles and the animals.
“Wow,” she said softly.
“So, there’s that,” Kendra said, wiping away a tear. “You always wonder if people, if bodies, are nothing to them, you know? If they are jaded or not. So that was…a slight counterbalance for all the annoyances, all the damage to the yard and the path and property, for all of us really. I just thought, well, it’s good to know they’re human, right?”
Hannah stopped, took a deep breath, and looked out over the path. Another backhoe ran below them, digging up one side of the creek. Rocks and shale and rusty red mud colored the creek water where it was digging. It looked like old blood, and Hannah had to look away, swallow hard. Everywhere in the neighborhood was touched by this investigation. How could Kendra stand to be here, to live in that house, to carry on?
“Did they…tear apart your house on top of everything else? I can’t really see much from where I am.”
“Oh my God, yes. Just the scraping of furniture on the wood floors alone—we have to get them resanded and sealed. And…well, everything was a disorganized mess, but that gave us something to do, to focus on.”
Hannah wanted to ask her how she could stand it, how she could stay. And yet she felt so close to her now. She wanted her to stay, desperately. So she didn’t broach it.
“Well, I suppose it’s worth it if they find something useful.”
“Yes, well, they don’t know what they’ve found.”
“How do you mean?”
“They didn’t find anything they wanted, like fingerprints or hair or I don’t know—mud or fibers. All they found were a couple of presents under her bed.”
“Well, she just had a birthday, yes? We saw the balloons.”
“Right. Well, seven girls RSVPed to her party, but none of them showed.”
“That’s terrible,” Hannah said. Didn’t say she’d known or suspected. Didn’t want Kendra to think she’d been watching, even then, before anything had happened.
“Exactly. So we…have no idea where the presents came from. If she was giving them to someone or someone gave them to her. They’re trying to figure that out. Not that it even matters. They don’t know. Here,” Kendra said, pulling out her phone. “They’re wrapped badly, like a kid did it. Probably someone at school.”
Hannah looked at the photo. Crinkled paper, the wide plaid ribbon not tied in a bow but a kind of off-center knot.
“What was in them?”
“Sort of cheap little stuff. Barrettes, butterfly jewelry. A little stuffed bunny. Nothing special. Like from those stores at the mall you never see adults in?”
“Well, maybe there’s DNA on them.”
“That’s what they’re waiting on. They probably asked all the kids in the neighborhood, all of her class at school. Some of the other moms told me that. And some of them felt terrible, too, you can bet that, after saying their kid was coming and then not showing up? And then my daughter dies? That’s some karma right there. So I guess, you know, the police saw the balloons, figured it out.”
Again, Hannah didn’t mention her observation, her role. It felt intrusive suddenly, her insight. Like she was mean and judgy when she was just trying to help.
“At school, I don’t think they asked Miles. None of the police asked him about the presents. Maybe they just asked at lower school.”
Hannah said this proudly, as if it was the only evidence of innocence she had left and not simply her refusal to cooperate. She didn’t know this woman after all. She liked her, but what did that mean? What could she feel safe sharing? Kendra could be playing her for information, just like the police. She doubted it. But still.
“Well, here, I’ll send it to you. You can ask him if he knows anything.”
Hannah told Kendra her phone number, and the photo showed up in her texts.
“All this—it makes you an expert, doesn’t it?”
“Expert?”
“You become accidentally steeped in this, this language you never understood and never wanted to learn. Autopsies. Excavating. Interviewing witnesses, crime photos.”
“Eloquently put. Yes, it’s like a hobby thrust upon you. A sink or swim sort of hobby. And it’s a lot. It’s a lot. But it’s also helpful, in a way. Distracting.”
They were back at Kendra’s house. She looked toward it with a kind of fondness Hannah didn’t fully understand. How could she not want to flee? To run away from it? Yes, the crime happened at the creek, not the house. But still. How could you separate one thing from the other?
“Do you want to come in for a drink?” Kendra said suddenly, touching her on the arm. “Come in and meet Robert?”
“I would ordinarily say yes, I’d love to,” Hannah replied, “but I don’t want to leave Miles alone for too long. He might want to carjack the backhoe and go wild.”
She regretted those words the minute they flew out of her mouth. As if she had no right to worry in comparison to Kendra.
“Rain check?” Hannah said quickly, lightly, she hoped.
“Yes,” Kendra said.
As Hannah crossed the street, she said a silent prayer. Please, she thought, let them have found nothing but one dead fox in her yard. One. She’d just bought the house after all; who knows what else had been buried there? The one skeleton, the innocent one, the one they were expecting, died of natural causes. Please, dear God, let that be all. Let her be the only occupant of the house, now or ever, who buried their secrets.
Not just because of her son. But because she had a friend, and she wasn’t going to let anything ruin it.