by Mary Kubica
“Arlo, my son,” she explains, “he’s a lousy sleeper. We’re trying to sleep train, but easier said than done. Anyway, that night—the night that I saw someone—he was wide awake, crying. I was in his room trying to rock him to sleep. His room faces the street,” she says, and without her saying it, I understand that Arlo’s bedroom has a bird’s-eye view of Josh and Meredith’s home. “We never do pull the shades. We didn’t when we lived in Chicago. You know what they say about old habits.”
“They die hard,” I say. There’s a tremor to Cassandra’s voice when she speaks. Whatever she witnessed out Arlo’s bedroom window that night has her suddenly spooked.
“What exactly did you see?” Bea prompts. My pulse quickens in anticipation. I wrap my hands around my coffee but I don’t drink it. I hang on to Cassandra’s every word.
“It was dark out,” Cassandra says, “a moonless night. The streetlight outside has been out a month or two. My husband, Marty, called the city about it a while ago, but it still hasn’t been fixed. Our tax dollars,” she quips, “hard at work. The only light came from whatever porch lights were left on overnight.
“For as dark as it was, I still saw movement in Josh and Meredith’s yard. At first I thought it was my imagination. That I was seeing things. It was late and I was tired. Then, when it didn’t go away, I told myself it was their trees or a deer. A coyote, maybe. But the longer I watched, I realized it was someone, people, in Josh and Meredith’s yard. I watched for a while, not sure what they were doing, wondering if I should call the police.”
“Did you call the police?” Bea asks, knowing the answer.
“I wish I had,” Cassandra says regretfully.
“How many people did you see?” I ask.
“Two,” she says. “It didn’t look like a break-in attempt. The people I saw, they weren’t flush against the house. They were farther back, away from the door. I convinced myself—once I knew that what I was looking at was human—that they were college students heading home from the bars. It was after one. The timing felt right,” she says.
Bars in town close at one o’clock during the week. There is student housing, both off-campus housing and residence halls, just blocks from our home. It’s entirely possible that whoever Cassandra saw that night were overserved college students heading home from a night at the bar—in which case they were most likely doing something stupid but harmless that didn’t require intervention by the police. I probably wouldn’t have called the police, either.
“Did you get a good look at them? Do you know what they look like?”
She shakes her head. “It was so dark.”
“What were they doing?” I ask. “Could you tell?”
“I couldn’t,” she says. “But whatever it was, it didn’t last long.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know for sure,” she says. “Arlo had me distracted. He was all worked up, totally inconsolable that night. I was worried about him waking Piper, and then having to deal with two crying kids in the middle of the night. I thought about opening the window a crack to see if I could hear something, but with Arlo crying,” she says, “it would have had the adverse effect. He would have just scared them away. I should have called the police. Or, at the very least, thought to tell Josh and Meredith about it the next day.”
“Why would you?” Bea asks, trying to buoy Cassandra up. “Drunk college kids is hardly news. They probably stopped to take a pee on the lawn.”
“But what if it wasn’t just drunk college kids?” she asks.
“Listen,” Bea says, reaching out to lay a reassuring hand on Cassandra’s arm. “Don’t beat yourself up about it. The police will be at the Dickeys today. I’ll talk to them. Maybe someone on the block has a home security system they can pull. Video surveillance.”
I tell her, “That’s a good idea, Bea.”
I don’t know that any of our neighbors have video surveillance on their homes. Even if they do, I don’t know how much storage those cameras have. I don’t know if they keep footage for weeks, or if it’s the kind of thing that disappears after a day or two. But it’s worth a try because maybe it was drunk college kids heading home from a night in the bars, or maybe it was someone else.
Bea and I drink our coffees quickly. I’m anxious to get back on the street and continue the search. We say our goodbyes. Cassandra walks us to the door, stepping outside with us. She watches us leave.
We move on, following a path of stepping stones through her sodden lawn, leaving Cassandra on her front porch alone. We stop at other homes on the block. When we reach the end of it, we turn the corner and keep going. Along this next block, many of the houses belong to the college. Some are administrative buildings or the private homes of professors, while others, the more unkempt of them—those with sofas on porches and beer bottles in plain sight—belong to students. Graduation was a few weeks ago; the summer session hasn’t begun. Most of the houses we come to are vacant; no one is home. We keep walking.
It’s midafternoon when, a few blocks from our own home, we come to the house of Shelby Tebow. We know which is hers because it’s been all over the news. Hers sits outside the historic district, and is one of the last original homes that remains on a block of teardowns. It’s midcentury, surrounded by brand-new custom homes that start in the seven figures. There are yellow ribbons tied to the trees up and down the street. A street pole bears Shelby’s face, the word Missing in big, black print, the sign itself encased in a plastic sheet protector to save it from the rain. I’ve seen this same sign around town, in store windows and on restaurant doors. There are flowers laid on the sidewalk just before her home. A kind gesture and also a grim reminder of what’s happened here.
I tell Bea that I think we should skip the Tebows’ house. Something about going to the home of a missing woman to inquire about another missing woman feels in poor taste. But Bea disagrees. “We should go to their house because of the similarity, not despite it,” she says, and I know then that she’s right.
I’ve heard Jason Tebow has a temper. I’ve seen it in press conferences on TV. But Bea isn’t scared. She takes the lead and, again, I envy her assertiveness. Bea is a born leader. With hesitation, I follow her down the narrow walkway, up a single stoop and to the front door. She knocks on the storm door. The sound of it is empty, hollow. It would never get someone’s attention. She rings the doorbell instead and immediately the sound of footsteps on the other side of the front door startles me. I’d been wishing no one was home.
The door pulls abruptly open. Jason Tebow stands there before us. There’s an infant in his large arms, drinking from a bottle that Jason holds. He’s bullnecked. He’s not tall, but he’s well built and wide. He fills the doorway, the storm door still separating us.
I can tell straightaway that he’s annoyed we’re here. He huffs, curses under his breath. “For fuck’s sake,” he says, words full of vitriol, and instinctively I step backward. Bea doesn’t. She’s not scared. I don’t think there’s a thing in the world that could scare Bea. He scowls and asks, “What’s the problem? Can’t you read?” while pointing to a No Soliciting sign on the front door. Truth be told, I didn’t see the sign. But I don’t know that it would have stopped Bea if she did. He looks us up and down, taking in our sweatshirts and jeans, our sneakers.
“We’re sorry to bother you,” Bea says. “Mr. Tebow, isn’t it?” she asks, introducing herself and then me. I watch the manner in which he holds that baby. It’s awkward and stiff. He doesn’t know what to do with it.
“Our friend,” Bea begins, “has been missing for almost a day. Since yesterday morning. We’re out knocking on doors, to see if anyone has seen her.”
At this, Jason Tebow turns gray. He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple prominent in his neck. I watch him. Jason is built like a bodybuilder. His arms are as big as my thigh.
“Is this some kind of fucking joke?” Jason
asks, stepping outside, letting the storm door slam shut, as the baby begins to cry. The bottle has moved from its mouth and is dripping milk onto its cheek. I don’t know if the baby is a boy or girl because the onesie it wears is white but dirty, stained with spit-up.
There’s hardly a person in town who doesn’t think that he did something to hurt his wife. Twice that I know of he’s been hauled down to the police station for questioning. At random times, police cars are parked in the street outside his house, watching him. He thinks we’re harassing him, baiting him.
I speak up. “You don’t understand. This has nothing to do with your wife, Mr. Tebow. Our friend, our next-door neighbor, didn’t come home last night. Neither she nor her little girl. Her husband is worried sick. His little girl, Delilah, is only six years old. You, more than anyone, can understand what he’s going through. We’re just trying to help find them. We’ve been to every house for three blocks, asking if anyone has seen them. Meredith Dickey,” I say, reaching into the back pocket of my jeans for my phone, so I can show him the picture. We’re a few blocks from where we live. Jason Tebow wouldn’t know who she is.
But he does. The recognition is evident right away. He falls a step back, turns slowly to me and asks, “Did you say Meredith?”
I take a breath. “You know Meredith?”
He pauses. As he does, his anger wanes. His tone softens, becoming civil, less vitriolic. “I know Meredith,” he says.
“How?” I ask.
“She was Shelby’s doula,” he says.
I stiffen. My stomach churns.
“She was?” I ask, my mouth like cotton. It’s gone suddenly dry at the realization that Meredith and Shelby knew one another. I try and swallow but the saliva gets stuck in my throat. Meredith and Shelby had a connection. Now they’re both gone. Is that a coincidence? Or is that something more?
“How long had Shelby known Meredith?” Bea asks.
Jason shrugs. “Not too long. A few months.”
“They were friends?”
“Not really. Shelby liked her, sure,” he tells us. “But it was a business arrangement. Shelby was worried about giving birth. This was her first, and she doesn’t have a high threshold for pain.”
“So you hired a doula?” I ask, and he nods. “Why Meredith?”
He shrugs. He doesn’t know how Shelby came upon Meredith.
“How old is your baby?” I ask.
“Six weeks. Grace, ’cause that was Shelby’s middle name. Shelby Grace,” he says. His use of his wife’s name in the past tense isn’t lost on me. “This one here is Grace Eloise.”
“That’s lovely,” I say.
Bea asks if Shelby and Meredith kept in touch after Grace was born. “Some,” Jason says, shrugging. From what we know, Meredith remained close to many of her clients even after they’d given birth. They’d call with questions on breastfeeding, diaper rash. Meredith humored them because she’s a selfless person, though contractually she wasn’t required to do anything after the baby was born.
“Were you at the birth?” asks Bea.
“Yeah,” Jason says. “It was a fucking nightmare.”
“A nightmare how?” I ask.
“It just was,” he says, turning reticent. “I can’t talk about it.” His eyes drop to the baby in his arms, and only then does he see the spilled milk, does he notice that the baby is fussing. He inserts the nipple back into the baby’s mouth and the baby settles. Her squirming limbs become inert. When Jason looks back up at us, his eyes are wet.
He asks about Meredith and Delilah. “How long have they been gone?”
“Her husband saw her yesterday morning. That was the last time,” Bea says.
“Shame,” says Jason. From his tone, I can’t tell if he’s being sincere. I find myself watching him. I wonder if he’s the kind of man capable of hurting his wife. And if he is, is he the kind of man capable of hurting Meredith and Delilah? But why would he?
What kind of person hurts a child?
There are holes in his story about the night Shelby disappeared. There are accounts from friends and neighbors that Jason and Shelby fought often, that Shelby was seen with bruises on her arms and legs. Jason’s excuse was that Shelby was on medication that made her easily bruise. It seemed he had an excuse for everything. Why had she gone out running so late that night? She’d just been given permission to exercise and was trying to shed the baby weight. According to Jason, Shelby thought that she was fat; after the baby was asleep was the only time she could run. The way he said it came off as misogynistic. I told her not to go, he said then. It’s not my fault that she’s gone. In essence, what he meant by that, was that it was Shelby’s fault. He tried to retract that later, in a press conference, when asked by a reporter. He said it wasn’t what he meant to say, that he wasn’t actually trying to blame his wife for her own disappearance. But by then, it had already run in the paper. There was no taking it back. Public opinion of him had already formed.
“Any leads on Shelby?” Bea asks.
“The cops used their dogs to track her scent a couple of blocks. Then it disappeared. They think that was where she was snatched. They used luminol and found blood there, on the street. Someone tried to clean it up. Or the rain washed it away.”
“No idea who?” she asks.
“None yet, but I’ve got my ideas.”
It surprises me. “You do?”
“Shelby didn’t have many enemies,” he says, “but she had one.”
“Who?” I ask, on edge. I don’t know Shelby. I don’t know what kind of person she is or was, or if she was the kind to make enemies.
He thinks awhile. He isn’t quick to say. He looks around, as if we’re being watched. “Dr. Feingold,” he tells us in time, his words weighty.
“Who’s that?” I ask.
He waits a beat. He’s already said more than he wants to say. But then he says, “Her obstetrician.”
“Why were they enemies?” I ask.
“I can’t talk about it,” he says, and our conversation ends abruptly there. Jason decides that he needs to get the baby back inside, out of the rain, which only then begins to fall. It starts as a drizzle, but soon comes down in sheets. Bea and I watch as Jason Tebow turns with that infant awkwardly in his arms and pushes his way through the door. He lets it slam loudly closed, startling both the baby and us. On the other side of the door, the baby begins to scream.
We turn and make our way back down the walkway. “What do you think he means by that?” I whisper as we reach the sidewalk.
Bea shakes her head. She isn’t sure.
We move on. We go to more houses; we knock on more doors. No one has seen Meredith or Delilah. The lack of information, of answers, is wearing on us. We’re getting nowhere.
But then, at nearly noon, a text comes through the group chat.
A body has been found.
MEREDITH
11 YEARS BEFORE
March
I just barely make it to my nine o’clock vinyasa flow class on time. I start by grounding my class. I ask them to find any comfortable position. There we focus on breath. I invite my students into a deeper awareness of their current mental and physical state. I focus on mine. I use this time to try and shake off the fear I feel after having just received another threatening text. I’m not used to feeling so out of control, so frantic. But these text messages have me all worked up. I tell my class to breathe in through their noses. To let the air fill their bellies, then their chests. When they exhale, I want to hear them. I breathe as they do, trying to force myself to relax. There’s no one in the world who should want to hurt me. No one has any reason to wish me dead. I’m an extremely conscientious woman. I’ve done nothing wrong.
I lead my students in a short, guided meditation. We move into our warm-up. We work our way toward peak pose. I move around the room. I help my student
s find proper alignment, trying hard to distract myself from the thoughts inside my head.
The lights in the studio are turned down. The classroom is heated, the thermostat set to ninety degrees. There are humidifiers. Everyone sweats, including me.
We say, “Namaste,” and then everyone leaves.
After class, I have a meet and greet with a potential new doula client and her husband. Our plan is to meet at eleven. It’s standard protocol, to see if they like me and vice versa. We’ve made arrangements to meet at a public spot—a coffee shop—in case they turn out to be dodgy. For all the horror stories you hear about Craigslist—people being lured to strange homes by classified ads, only to be murdered when they arrive—it seems smarter this way. It makes me feel safer to meet in a public spot.
The coffee shop is new to me. It has scuffed wood floors, tin ceilings and tables the size of postage stamps. I spot my prospective client when I arrive. She’s easy to see. She’s the anxious, uncomfortable-looking one with a belly the size of a basketball. She waits at a table, alone. I go to her and shake her hand.
“Meredith Dickey,” I say, smiling.
“Shelby Tebow,” she says, shaking mine. “You want some coffee?” she asks. I do. The fatigue is taking over. Without caffeine, I don’t know how much longer I can last on my feet.
We drift in the direction of the counter. We order our coffees. Mrs. Tebow offers to buy mine. I don’t object. She asks if I want something to eat. I get a cinnamon scone because, on top of tired, I’m famished. I can’t remember the last time I ate, or if I even ate this morning. I remember feeding the kids and doing their dishes. I don’t remember having anything myself.
Mrs. Tebow gets nothing. “You’re not having something to eat?” I ask, feeling guilty all of a sudden. I take the scone from the barista.