Whatever Happened to Kelly Kilcher?

Part 6: A Crack in the Foundation

Turns out, Don Fable is dead.

But Jean—his obnoxious wife—is alive and kicking. She still lives up in Hartley, in the house that she and Don built thirty years ago. I tell her I’m a freelance writer working on a commemorative book for the Sterling Hotel’s 50th anniversary, and I’m interviewing only the most prominent past guests. She’s more than willing to participate. Her availability is limited, so I make an appointment to see her Friday afternoon.

Nathan takes off work and makes the three-hour drive with me. He’s excited to help with the “investigation” but I’m sure he hopes that this will be the end of it. He wants me to put my search for Kelly Kilcher to rest. He’s grown tired of my preoccupation with the past.  

“What are you expecting her to say?” he asks as we turn off the interstate.

“I’m not sure,” I tell him. Now we’re driving on a winding country road. “I thought I’d be talking to Don. I was hoping he’d tell me what happened the night Kelly got back to Wisconsin, and that it would give some insight into where she might be now.”

“I think she’s dead.”

“Nathan!”

“What? It’s a possibility.”

“Yeah, I know it’s a possibility, but you don’t have to say it. Anyway, Todd’s brother checked. No death certificate was filed in any state, so she’s probably not dead. Maybe Jean knows something useful. People don’t just disappear into thin air. But we’re gonna have to tiptoe around it. I don’t want to tell her about the affair if she doesn’t already know. That would be a cruel thing to do to an old lady.”

The house sits a quarter mile back from the road and is surprisingly weathered for a house built in the ‘90s. Its wood shingles have faded and a few are missing. The wrap-around porch is freshly painted, but the boards are visibly rotted beneath the gloss, and the entire structure slopes forebodingly towards the house. I ring the doorbell and we wait. A cool breeze wraps around the porch, sending a shiver down my spine. It’s got a melody about it, an eerie poouuurr sooome su-gar on meeee, and I instinctively start humming the song to myself until the words slip out of my mouth.

Nathan looks at me like I’m crazy.

“Must have heard it in the car.”

“We were playing Kylie Minogue in the car.”

I glance down at my watch. A full minute has passed since I rang the doorbell, and I begin to wonder if she’s blowing us off.

“Come in,” a leathery voice beckons from deep within the house. Nathan and I exchange a look. I open the screen door. The heavy oak door is ajar.

“You first,” Nathan says.

We walk into the dark foyer and Jean tells us to take off our shoes. She’s in the living room, cozy in her Lay-Z-Boy chair. A blanket covers her legs. She’s in her late seventies now but looks ten years older. Her thin gray hair is pulled back just enough to frame the outline of her skull. Her face is all makeup and liver spots. The house is not clean, but it’s not dirty either. It’s cluttered with too much stuff—and dusty, the way a person’s home begins to look and smell when they can’t take care of it anymore. If she has a cleaning person, they’re not very good. Or perhaps, after Don died, she just stopped caring.

Jean gestures us in, her voice clipped but polite. She tells us to make ourselves comfortable, though nothing about this feels welcoming. I sit on the wingback chair to her right and Nathan sits across from me on the davenport. Jean has a cup of tea nestled in her lap and there’s another on the coffee table. She motions that it’s for me. I thank her but tell Nathan to have it. He likes tea more than I do. Jean does not offer me a replacement. She seems miffed that I didn’t come alone.

“I was quite surprised by your call,” she says, once we’re settled. “Budget hotels don’t typically hold anniversaries in such high regard.”

“The Sterling is the finest hotel in Hartley, and an important part of its history.”

“True,” she concedes. “I served on the board of the Hartley Historical Society for a number of years. We put a blurb about the hotel in one of our monthly emails.”

 “How long did you and Don stay at the hotel?”

“Three months perhaps? Longer for Don.”

“Well, you made quite an impression. The family remembers you fondly.”

“I’m not surprised. Don was a brilliant businessman. I’m sure he gave them plenty of tips to improve their little business.”

“Maybe he’s the reason they made it fifty years.”

Jean smiles proudly.

“Did you ever go back, over the years? For dinner maybe? Or to reminisce.”

Jean frowns at the absurdity. “Never.”

“Well, let’s talk about your stay then. Don came to the hotel before you… is that right?”

“That’s right. He got a job here in Hartley and they needed him right away. I’d come every other weekend or so and then I moved in permanently at the end of the summer to oversee the final touches on our house.” She lifts her arms to indicate that this is the house she’s talking about. Her arms are dangerously thin, her elbows knobby. “I designed it all you know. Every last detail, down to the brass screws in the kitchen cabinets.”

I look over Jean’s shoulder and into the kitchen. The cabinets are oak with a honey-colored finish—a telltale sign that this house was built in the nineties. Two cabinets are hanging open. A walker leans against the wall near the back door and there’s a wheelchair tucked away in the hallway. It’s funny, no matter how much money someone has, in the end our bodies all break down the same. We’re all just prisoners of time.

“Would you mind if I grab a glass of water?” I ask Jean.

“Help yourself,” she says. “The spigot on the right is RO water.”

On my way to the kitchen, I trip at the threshold between the living room and dining room. I check the floor, but don’t see anything out of place. In the kitchen, I grab a water glass from one of the open cabinets. Out of habit, I close the door and quickly discover why it was hanging open. There’s so much tension in the hinge that it acts like a spring. The cabinet pops right back open.

“Don’t worry about it, dear,” Jean assures me. “It just needs a little oil.”

“Must be hard, keeping the place up on your own,” Nathan says.

Jean smiles. “I have a guy who comes to help now and then. I’ll have him look at it next time he comes.” 

On my way back to the living room, I retrace my steps, still curious why I tripped. Turns out there’s a one-inch height difference between the living room and the dining area—like a square of sidewalk lifted by a tree root. But here, the dining room hasn’t risen. The living room appears to be sinking. I look back towards the kitchen. The cabinets are off kilter. No wonder there’s so much tension in the hinges.

I sit back down in the living room, eager to keep the conversation moving. “Tell me Jean, what was your favorite thing about the hotel?”

“You know, I never wanted to move here,” she says. “I hated it. This city. The hotel. I hated everything about the place.”

Nathan and I look at each other. Miss Congeniality she is not.

“Well, did you have a favorite room at the Sterling?”

Jean stares at me blankly.

“Any staff in particular that you remember? Did you make any unexpected friendships?”

“We were from the East. We had the ocean. It was warmer. The winters were mild. The summers hot. It doesn’t get hot here. Ever.” Jean pulls her blanket up higher over her chest. I’m shocked by how gnarly and swollen her hands are.

“I can close the window,” Nathan says, jumping up. “That’s a cool breeze coming in.”

“Don’t bother,” Jean says. “It doesn’t close. It needs a little oil as well.”

I try not to smile, despite Nathan’s burgeoning smirk. “What about Don? Did he have any fond memories of the hotel?”

“He loved the prime rib buffet on Saturday nights.”

“That’s right,” I say, smiling. “Everybody loved that buffet.”

“And the Melmac plates were… colorful.”

“I love me a good Melmac plate,” Nathan snickers. 

“Was Don close to any of the staff?” I ask. “Perhaps a bellboy or golf caddy that he became friends with?”

“Not that I recall.”

“Some people have said… that there was a waitress.”

Jean exhales sharply, rolling her eyes and adjusting the blanket. “Don confessed to the affair—years later.” She lifts her hand and waves it off like it was nothing. “The guilt was eating him alive. We worked through it and chose to stay together for the sake of our family. That was the first and last time he ever cheated.” She turns her head away dismissively. This isn’t the first time she’s told this story. “Don’t put that in your little booklet.”

“I won’t,” I assure her, furrowing my brow. “Any idea what became of the woman?”

“I never met the bitch. Why would I want to?”

“I’m sorry that happened. I can’t imagine how painful that must have been.”

“Don was a good man. I’d hate for one indiscretion to mar his legacy.” Jean slowly pushes herself up in her seat and steadies herself on the armrest. From her chair to the credenza to the dining room table, Jean cautiously makes her way to the kitchen. Every step is a chore. Her knees are twisted and deformed. She must have rheumatoid arthritis. “I’m in the mood for wine,” she says. “You want some wine?”

“No, but thank you.”

“Sure!” Nathan exclaims.

“Let’s just get out of here,” I whisper.

I don’t want to be in this house any longer than we have to be. The cabinets are off kilter. The living room is sinking. The windows won’t close. The massive crack over the fireplace looks sinister, like something living within the house is trying to work its way out.

“She probably has really good wine,” Nathan insists.

I look over at Jean. The bottle is between her legs and she’s trying to turn the corkscrew.

“I can do that for you,” I tell her.

“No, no,” she says. “I can do it. This thing just doesn’t want to turn today.”

“Maybe it needs a little oil,” Nathan whispers.

Before I can laugh, the bottle slides from her legs and hits the floor, shattering on impact. Shards of glass fly across the room and red wine splatters everywhere. Jean looks mortified. “That was my last upstairs bottle.”

Nathan and I hurry to the kitchen to help clean the mess. “We’ll take care of it,” I tell her. “Don’t worry.” Nathan sweeps the glass, and I soak up the blood-red wine with paper towel.

After we finish, I join Jean in the living room. She’s seated again, Afghan over her lap, three empty wine glasses arranged on the coffee table.

“I thought that was your last bottle?”

“There’s more in the basement,” she says, looking towards the hallway leading out of the kitchen. “Be a dear and…” Behind her, Nathan waves his arms as if to say no fucking way. He hates basements. “…bring up a fresh case?”

“Sure,” I tell her, reluctantly. I drag Nathan towards the basement. “She probably has really good wine,” I tell him. He’s not amused.

The stairs leading into the basement are steep and uneven. Each step feels less secure than the last. We brace ourselves using the wall. The basement is unfinished. The original cement floor is exposed, surrounded by cinderblock walls. The air is dank. Floor joists and pipes make up the ceiling. Mildew covers the west wall and there’s water damage throughout. The glass block windows let in uneven streaks of light, cutting through the dimness just enough to make shadows. 

“She said the wine cabinet is to the right.” 

As I walk towards something that looks like a wine cabinet, Nathan grabs my shoulders and pushes me left. “Watch out,” he says, nodding towards a crack in the floor. It’s a crevice two inches wide surrounded by deteriorating chunks of cement.

“I can’t believe I missed that.”

“This house is really only thirty years old?”

“Apparently.”

I find the wine cabinet and fill the box that Jean gave us. When I turn around, Nathan gives me a gentle nudge, again nodding towards the crack in the foundation. Sun rays shining through the window are hitting it just right and a brilliant green light reflects back at us.

“Weird.”

“What do you think it is?”

“Who knows,” I tell him, taking the box and heading upstairs. “This house gives me the creeps. It makes me feel like the past is caving in all around me.”

“Maybe it is,” Nathan says—unnecessary dig. He still doesn’t understand why I’m doing this, why it’s so important that I find out what happened to Kelly.

We put the wine in Jean’s kitchen and thank her for meeting with us, forgoing having a glass with her. “It’s getting late and we have a long drive home…”

On our way out of town, we stop at Prose & Pints, the college bar where we all used to hang out—Daphne, Josh, Sheila, Geoffrey, me, and Kelly. I find the booth we’d always sit in and take a seat while Nathan gets us a couple of bourbon old-fashioneds. The booth still smells like Kelly’s CK One. I remember how she’d always finagle it so I’d end up sitting next to Geoffrey. “I might need to use the bathroom,” she’d smile. Inevitably, at some point during the night, Geoffry would press his thigh against mine, but I would never let myself believe that it wasn’t by accident. Kelly would see what was going on and nudge me with her eyes.

“Kelly could see me before I could see myself,” I tell Nathan after he sits down. “That’s why I’m doing this. I need to know that she’s okay.”

It’s not until we’re driving home that it hits me. The crack in the basement floor. The reflected green light. “Kelly’s favorite piece of jewelry,” I whisper, looking at Nathan. “Was an emerald-green cocktail ring.”

© Scott Thomas Henry, 2025. All rights reserved.