Never Ask Me

by Jeff Abbott

  She stands before the Butler house.

  They hate you. They didn’t get a baby, and you did, and they hate you and Kyle. And they hated Danielle. She could see the hatred for Danielle under their honeyed explanations. Sure. But that she and Kyle had gotten a child when Russia still offered them, well, it was crazy to hate them for that. The Butlers’ shortcomings as potential adoptive parents were their own issue.

  But people weren’t logical when it came to babies, or happiness, or the lives they think they should have and don’t. She wasn’t.

  Never ask me how much I would love this baby. Her words to Danielle that had managed to find a sticking spot deep in her brain.

  What would the Butlers do? Imagine the unimaginable: Kyle and Danielle have an affair. Somehow the Butlers find out about it. Could they have blackmailed Danielle into taking them back on as clients? Would she place an innocent child with them for their silence? Maybe she agreed and then changed her mind and Steve Butler aimed that massive fist at Danielle’s throat and…

  She walks up the Butlers’ empty driveway. She rings the front doorbell. Waits. There’s no answer. She knocks on the door. No answer. They’ve gone to work. Steve works for a software company, he said. Is Carrie working a nursing shift, or has she gone to run a few quick errands?

  She turns to leave and then she thinks: This might be your only chance. If there’s something inside that incriminates them…or Kyle…there’s no one to do this but you.

  Iris turns back to the door. She lifts the two potted plants that stand sentinel by the front door. Empty beneath. She walks, nonchalantly, around the house. There’s no backyard fence; the Butlers back up to a curve of greenbelt. If anyone jogging or walking along the trail should see her in their backyard, well, she’ll wave like the good neighbor she is. She keeps her gaze locked on the house, moving from window to window. All the curtains and blinds are drawn. She reaches the patio and knocks again. Maybe the Butlers, being somewhat antisocial, just don’t answer the front door but a back-door knock will get their attention. Nothing. She searches the wood above the back door, tries the potted plants. Under a brick with the words STEVE AND CARRIE hand painted on it, she finds a key.

  Iris decides if an alarm system starts beeping the moment she enters, she’ll just run. She has no excuse to be here.

  The door unlocks and she’s in, stepping into the house’s silence. She doesn’t call out. She leaves the door open because if she gets caught, she’ll lie and say the back door was open; she noticed it while walking on the greenbelt and came to investigate, in case her neighbors and new friends were in trouble.

  She reminds herself that Steve put that gun in a drawer in the foyer. It may not still be there. Or it might be, if she needs it.

  The back door opens onto a breakfast nook and kitchen, which are both empty. She notices the carafe of coffee is partially full, but the heat light is off. Dishes in the sink. She stands and listens to the silence. No distant sound of running water or television hum. No one’s here.

  Iris moves quickly through the house, nearly staggering with the idea that she’s done this, but also energized by it. You want to mess with me? My husband? My family? Bring it. Then she thinks of Steve’s awful face when she came here, the sickening false smile of Carrie’s.

  She isn’t sure what she’s even looking for. She goes to their cordless phone, perched on its charger and answering machine. She glances through the call log. She doesn’t see Danielle’s number. Or any number she recognizes. She listens to the messages. A dentist office calling about an overdue bill, a couple of telemarketers cut off by the answering machine’s time limit, an aunt Judy calling and urging Steve to please call his mother, a real estate agent calling for Firebird Holdings, asking if this was the right number. Iris recognizes the real estate agent’s name… She’d cold-called their house as well last week, asking if they were interested in selling. It wasn’t uncommon. The influx of corporate relocations to Austin meant it was a seller’s market, and all the new people from California and New England arriving in Austin needed houses.

  But who was Firebird Holdings? There is a small built-in desk, with a built-in file cabinet, and she goes through the folders: phone, cable, lawn service, insurance.

  There is no mortgage file. They bought this house right near Danielle. That always struck her as too much coincidence to swallow. Now a real estate agent calling here, asking for a different owner?

  Do the Butlers not own their own house?

  She shakes the thought away. This can’t matter. She searches the desk but finds nothing of interest. No signed confessions. The computer—an older iMac—takes up much of the desk. She tries to access it; it asks for a password. She knows nothing about the Butlers other than they want a child and were denied. And that they’d lost two children. Carrie had mentioned their names. John and Addie. She tries both names, then the two names together. It doesn’t work.

  She gives up on the computer and goes into their bedroom. She searches the dressers, the cabinets, the closets. Nothing…until she finds a phone. A cheap plastic phone, like the one found in her and Kyle’s trash.

  What? The same cheap burner phone, with its silvery-green plastic edging, that Danielle gave to Kyle? She could visualize the odd shards of green in the bag Ponder had shown them. But why would Danielle give a phone to a pair of rejected parents who she had then mended fences with?

  After a moment’s consideration, she checks the call log. Just one number in it. She memorizes the number and puts the phone back where she found it. It is hard for her to leave it; what if it could prove some relationship between the Butlers and Danielle? But if she takes it, they will know someone has been in the house. The phone is here. Carrie is not the only one who can make an anonymous tip.

  The last time she’d seen a phone with one number programmed into it, it had been slid across a teashop table in Saint Petersburg, a woman asking her to do the impossible.

  Iris goes upstairs, wondering again if Carrie had maybe just run to the grocery store or to a morning workout. She’s terrified of being caught here. But she goes. Upstairs is an office with a small desk, a computer, and a bookshelf full of computer and business books—Steve’s study. Pictures of two children, one with Steve’s red hair, are carefully framed and cover most of the wall. The next room is a guest bedroom, with pictures of Steve and Carrie and their children. The Butlers are smiling; she hardly recognizes Carrie. Their children are laughing. This was a happy family, once.

  The last room is a nursery. It looks as if it is immediately ready for a baby.

  She feels a chill inch down her spine. Her palms grow sweaty. The Butlers don’t have a baby yet. They’ve been turned down, and even if Danielle was helping them again, there are no guarantees. When one nation says no, it’s easier for another nation to say no.

  But they have a nursery.

  She checks the closet. Linens, with the fresh smell of having been laundered. Unopened toys. Stuffed animals with the sales tags still attached. She studies it all for a moment and then she closes the door.

  Carrie Butler claimed to be upstairs when she saw the mysterious man go past. So she was either in her husband’s study, the guest room, or…this room. The rocking chair is close to the window. Does Carrie Butler sit here, waiting for a baby, staring out at the night? Was she sitting there when someone went by? Or is she lying?

  She hears the rumble of a garage door opening.

  Iris runs down the stairs, exits the house, closes the door to the patio, and hurries out to the greenbelt. She walks along the trail to her house, hoping she was unseen by whoever arrived home.

  And then she walks back to the Butler house and rings the doorbell.

  Carrie Butler answers the door, dressed in workout clothes, hair pulled back into a perfect ponytail.

  “Iris.”

  “Is there something you want to say to me?”

  “You mean other than ‘good morning’?”

  “You talked about seein
g someone on the street the night Danielle died.”

  “And?”

  “Do you think it’s Kyle you saw that night?”

  “Hard to say. It could have been.”

  “It wasn’t him. Why are you doing this?”

  “Doing what?” Her smile is toothpaste-ad perfect, bright, infallible.

  “Coming after my family.”

  “I’ve done no such thing.”

  “Danielle couldn’t get your personal failings past the foreign adoption services and so…you move onto her street?”

  “We told you, that’s a coincidence. We wanted a home in Lakehaven and this house became available. What does it matter?”

  “You hated her. You blamed her.”

  The smile doesn’t waver. “I’m sorry if I left you with that impression.”

  “Do you have emails proving that you resumed your business relationship with Danielle?”

  “She’d come over and we’d talk.”

  “The police got an anonymous tip about my husband,” Iris says. Confessing this to anyone, especially a gliding snake like Carrie, is agony, but she suspects Carrie already knows this.

  “How unfortunate,” Carrie says.

  “Are you trying to get a child now? I mean, without Danielle to help you. Had she started this process?”

  “Excuse me? How would that be any of your business?” Now there is a tremble on her lips.

  “You tried before. I’m just asking.” And you have a completed nursery in your home.

  “We have a family member, a distant cousin of Steve’s, who is expecting. She’s unmarried and not prepared to care for a child. She wants us to raise the baby.”

  “I’m happy for you,” Iris hears herself say. So they didn’t need Danielle. And they’re getting a child. A baby is going to arrive here soon. With a tidy explanation.

  For a moment her response seems to mollify Carrie.

  Iris says, “But you have to know, whoever you saw, it wasn’t Kyle. It wasn’t.”

  Carrie looks at her as if she holds their lives in her hands. It’s a terrifying moment, a strange, odd grin.

  “Did you and Danielle laugh at us? Talk about me and Steve being unfit?”

  “No. Never. I had no idea you wanted kids. I didn’t even know you. Danielle never mentioned you to us.”

  “I find that hard to believe, since you were one of her success stories.”

  Iris felt dizzy with the realization that her…not knowing this neighbor, not learning about them, was going to have a horrifying effect on her family’s future. How different would it have been if she had reached out? Oh, you know Danielle, too? Yes, she can be a headache. Iris could hardly breathe with the shock.

  “She never talked about you. Not after you moved in.”

  “She mocked us. I know.”

  “Not to me. You being mad at her has nothing to do with me or my family.”

  “I watched you all once. I followed her, saw her meeting with a group of women at that coffee shop off Old Travis. I understand they’re all mothers she helped. Of course she talks about me. How did you find out about me?”

  You followed her. That sounds healthy. “She mentioned your name to another mom. Not to me.”

  “One of her successful moms.”

  “Only because she was afraid of you.”

  “She misunderstood us being so upset. We would have done anything to get a child. Anything. You know what that’s like.”

  Despite herself, Iris nods. She is suddenly afraid of this woman. Steve is all bluster, but Carrie is the knife in the shadows. There’s something unconnected in her gaze, as if more than one voice plays in her head and she’s trying to decide who to listen to.

  “We. Would. Be. Wonderful. Parents.” Carrie Butler’s dazzling smile was back. “We already were. That’s clear to most people. I don’t know why that was not clear to Danielle. Or you.”

  “I’m sorry for everything you’ve been through,” Iris says. “I hope everything works out with your new baby. I just want you to leave my family alone.”

  “If you don’t want people to think that your husband’s guilty, Iris,” Carrie says helpfully, “stop acting like he’s guilty.” She closes the door.

  Iris stands there. Somehow, the answer to Danielle’s murder is with these people. She knows it in her gut.

  Her phone pings. Julia, texting: have the police arrested Dad? Ned knows.

  41

  Excerpt of Transcript of TCSO and LPD Interview with Kyle Pollitt

  Detective Ames: This is Detective Carmen Ames, interviewing Kyle Pollitt on January 8 with TCSO Detective Jamika Ponder. Also present is Mr. Pollitt’s lawyer, Kip Evander.

  Detective Ponder: Mr. Pollitt, can you tell me where you were on the night of January 6?

  Pollitt: Yes. I was at home with my family. We had dinner together, the kids went off to do schoolwork or play video games, my wife went to go read the novel for her book club, and I watched a basketball game on TV. Then I went up to my office to work for a bit.

  Detective Ames: You keep an office on the second floor of your home?

  Pollitt: Yes.

  Detective Ames: And does this office face the street or your backyard?

  Pollitt: The street.

  Detective Ames: So you can see the street, and the sidewalk, from your window.

  Pollitt: Yes.

  Detective Ames: And presumably be seen.

  Pollitt: Well, yes, but normally I have the shades drawn.

  Detective Ames: Did you have them drawn that night?

  Pollitt: I believe I did.

  Detective Ponder: We have a witness who says they were open and they could see you in your window at one point.

  Pollitt: They might have been open…at one point. I honestly don’t recall. There’s not much to see out on the street at night. It’s a very quiet neighborhood.

  Detective Ponder: Did you see Danielle Roberts that night?

  Pollitt: No.

  Detective Ponder: Did you talk to her on the phone that night?

  Pollitt: No.

  Detective Ponder: Did you have a special phone with which to contact her?

  Pollitt: Yes. She gave me a phone.

  Ames: Do you recognize this destroyed phone?

  Pollitt: I’m not sure how I would recognize something so pulverized.

  Ames: Do you recognize it or not, sir?

  Pollitt: I don’t.

  Detective Ames: This phone was found in a bag in your garbage the day after the Roberts murder.

  Kip Evander: I’d like to know why you searched my client’s garbage.

  Detective Ames: We received a tip.

  Evander: From whom?

  Detective Ames: An anonymous tip.

  Evander: So someone could have placed this broken phone into the Pollitt family’s garbage can and then called you and here we are, with these ridiculous accusations. I want to thank you both for the early Christmas gift.

  Detective Ponder: Is that what happened, Mr. Pollitt? You’re being framed?

  Pollitt: I don’t understand what this phone has to do with anything.

  Detective Ponder: We found a matching phone, a cheap one that Danielle Roberts used, at the site where her body was found. It had only one number called in it. She bought both phones at a local drugstore—prepaid ones. Sometimes in movies, they call them “burners,” because you use them up and throw them away.

  Pollitt: I’m familiar with the concept.

  Detective Ponder: You know, even with a cracked SIM card, we can determine if this phone you destroyed was the one phone she called.

  Evander: You have no reason to suspect my client in this crime. A phone proves nothing.

  Detective Ames: Your client had a long relationship with the deceased due to her work, and they had known each other for a long time.

  Evander: So? She knew lots of people. She had lots of friends.

  Detective Ames: How would you characterize your relationship with Danielle Robert
s, then?

  Pollitt: She was a family friend. She was a neighbor.

  Detective Ames: Were you particularly close?

  Pollitt: What are you asking me?

  Detective Ames: Were you having an affair with her?

  Pollitt: No.

  Detective Ames: Then why did you need a phone?

  Pollitt: (pause of several seconds) She approached me once, a couple of weeks ago, at a party at her boyfriend’s house. I was in the backyard, drinking a beer. She hinted that she would be open to seeing me. I was shocked, frankly, and I said no. I’m happily married, and I had no interest in her. She slipped the phone in my pocket.

  Detective Ames: Did she ever approach you again?

  Pollitt: Yes. I still said no.

  Detective Ames: Why not just throw away the phone and tell your wife?

  Pollitt: Danielle played a singular role in our lives, having helped us get our son. I didn’t want Iris to know her friend had behaved this way. And keeping the phone around seemed to placate her.

  Detective Ames: Or give her hope. Weird how there are no sexy texts. Usually when you’re offering to have an affair, there’s flirting.

  Pollitt: We didn’t flirt.

  Detective Ames: So, she had an unrequited passion for you?

  Pollitt: She had a boyfriend who was my friend. I don’t know what their set of issues was.

  Detective Ames: Did you tell him about her approaches?

  Pollitt: Of course not. Mike Horvath is my friend. So was she. I assumed there was a rough patch that they could figure out.

  Detective Ames: Where did you keep this phone?

  Pollitt: Hidden on a shelf in our garage, behind a box of pipe.

  Detective Ponder: I’m going to ask you again. Did you have any involvement with the death of Danielle Roberts?

  Evander: I’d like to confer privately with my client.

  (Break)

  Evander: We’d like to cooperate.

  42

  From Iris Pollitt’s “From Russia with Love” Adoption Journal

  2002

  I made my choice.