Whatever Happened to Kelly Kilcher?

Part 2: I Never Do This Sort of Thing

On Saturday morning, I drive up to Hartley to meet Todd Radke for breakfast—a café downtown. Daphne and I used to study here in college, but today it’s filled mostly with elderly people. Todd sits down across from me wearing a vintage Def Leppard Hysteria T-shirt. He still has the same long hair and tattoos.

“Thanks for driving up,” he says. “I couldn’t believe it when I got your message.”

“I didn’t think you’d actually respond,” I tell him. “It’s been thirty years.”

“It feels like yesterday.”

Todd confirms that he and Kelly were planning to move to California after he finished college in December. She’d been accepted to Cosmetology school and was going to start in January.

“She didn’t even really need school,” Todd says. “She practiced every day. Read all the magazines. She could pretty much make me look like anybody.” It’s obvious from the way he lights up that he still has love for Kelly. “The guys at work razzed me, but I didn’t care.” Todd worked nights at a factory back then. It wasn’t easy, but it paid his way through college.

“Where is she now?” I finally ask.

Todd hesitates. “I have no idea.”

I’m not thrilled with that answer, having just driven three hours—wasting an entire day and pissing off my husband. “Seriously?” I say. “You have no idea?”  

“We had our ups and downs,” Todd admits. “She was… volatile.”

He’s right. One Friday night, Kelly bitched a woman out for stealing a linen napkin from another table instead of asking for one like a “civilized human being.” She scolded the lady and asked if she’d ever eaten in a fine restaurant before. The woman complained and Kelly got written up.  

“We had fights,” Todd continues. “When she was mad, she’d scream at me and say she didn’t know why she was waiting for me to graduate. She threatened to leave for California without me. Sometimes she’d even drive off in the middle of the night.”

“So you guys eventually broke up and lost touch?”

“Not exactly.”

Todd says the last time he saw her was July 1st, 1994. He remembers because it was July Fourth weekend and they were planning to go to the parade on Monday. They had a fight, but nothing out of the ordinary. When he went to pick her up Monday morning, Kelly’s roommate told him she packed up and left—for real this time.  

“I didn’t believe her,” Todd says. “But I never saw Kelly again.”

“Do you think she’s in California?”

Todd stares out the window, like he’s not sure he should say what he’s thinking out loud.

“What is it?”

“I think something happened to her. That’s what I think.”

Todd says he found her mother’s phone number—a Massachusetts’ number—but the family didn’t want anything to do with her. Said she was a bad seed. Nobody even filed a missing person report. Ever.   

Todd shakes his head. “That’s weird, right?”

“Yeah. But still… she could be in Hollywood right now, living her best life.”

“Maybe. But… I called every Cosmetology school in the greater Los Angeles area. None had any record of a Kelly Kilcher ever attending. Then I posted in the Missed Connections section on Craigslist for every city in California. For years. Met with countless goons who claimed to know something. And I kept calling her family—until every number I had got disconnected. To this day, I scan the credits of every movie and television show I watch in hopes of seeing Kelly’s name.” Todd fiddles with an empty creamer container.

I begin to wonder what I’ve gotten myself into. “That all sounds a little…”

“Obsessive?”

I smile kindly.

Todd sets his coffee down and stares at the table. “My brother’s a cop in Nevada. When I wouldn’t let it go, he got worried about me. Thought it would help if he…” Todd pauses as our waitress checks on us. He gives her a forced smile as she refills our coffees, and he doesn’t continue until she leaves. “My brother used his resources to do some digging.”

My eyes widen. I was not expecting that.

“It went nowhere. Kelly never registered her car in California, or any other state.”

I nod, not quite sure where this is leading. Cars get sold or junked. It doesn’t mean anything.

“In fact,” he says, “After her plates expired in October that year, there’s no record of her ’82 Nissan anywhere.” His knuckles go white on his coffee mug.

I shift in my seat. He’s making this sound more ominous than it really is. It’s weird, sure, but not criminal. People get married and change their names. They move to farms and raise goats for making cheese and soap. I came here to find out what became of an old friend, not get wrapped up in a conspiracy.

Todd leans forward. “It’s like she just…vanished.”

“What about her roommate?” I ask, refusing to bite. “Did they keep in touch?”

“They weren’t friends. Kelly just rented a room from her.” Todd looks out the window as he thinks. “Truth be told, she couldn’t stand Kelly. They didn’t get along.”

“Why not?”

“Typical roommate stuff, I think. Kelly was always late with the rent. And being the free spirit that she was, she was… messy.”

“Messy?” I smile. “She was a hoarder! Her purse weighed a hundred pounds.”

Todd chuckles. “She hit me with it once. Sent me to urgent care.”

“Remember when Nicki opened it up and looked inside?”

“Kelly freaked out,” Todd says, smiling.

 “It was packed with tiny shampoos she’d been stealing from the hotel.”

“They were discarded from vacated rooms,” Todd clarifies.

“What did she say when Nicki dumped them on the counter?”

“Moisturized hair is a God-given right.”

“She did have great hair.”

“She had great everything,” Todd sighs.

A waitress heading into the kitchen suddenly drops a tray of dishes onto the floor. Plates, coffee cups, and silverware scatter everywhere. As she clamors to clean up the mess, Todd winces. “Her buggy must have hit a rut.”

“It sure did,” I say, our eyes locking as we laugh. Kelly always used a lot of old-timey expressions like that, and this is one that’s stuck with us. It’s a connection we have to a woman we both knew thirty years ago.

When the laughter fades, we realize that we’ve overstayed our welcome. The café has thinned out. All the waitresses have huddled around the register, waiting to cash out. Todd and I say our goodbyes and I begin the long drive home.  

I don’t necessarily share Todd’s belief that something sinister happened to Kelly, but I feel for him. He loved Kelly, and her disappearance prevented him from getting closure. He’s never gotten over her, never moved on. He’s trapped somewhere in 1994.

And I know exactly what that feels like.

© Scott Thomas Henry, 2025. All rights reserved.