Trouble is a Friend of Mine

Looking through the forms, I realized that he’d already filled out most of them for me, even the parts about my favorite subjects and potential college majors. Economics or pre-law, he’d said.

In a separate pink pamphlet was the essay question: ‘Virginia Woolf said, “Almost any biographer, if he respects facts, can give us much more than another fact to add to our collection. He can give us the creative fact; the fertile fact; the fact that suggests and engenders.” Be your own biographer, go beyond fact, and tell us about yourself.’

He’d answered it. In fact, he’d answered it well. I even kind of recognized myself in his answers. But reading about this go-getter fantasy daughter who volunteered and read The Economist was … confusing. Even I liked that Zoe better than me.

Maybe he’d anticipated the queasy feeling I’d get when I saw that he’d written it for me, because Dad had included a note on a Post-it. ‘Time to leave the sheeple behind, Zoe. Get ready to run with the wolves,’ it said. In the world according to my father, there were only two kinds of people: wolves and the sheeple (people so meek, they were practically sheep) who deserved every bad thing the wolves did to them.

‘Are those samples of someone else’s application?’ I hadn’t noticed Mom sidle up behind me. I ripped off the note and crumpled it up before she could see it. Mom read aloud from the essay section. ‘“I take my citizenship in the classroom seriously”? I smell your father’s aggressive Wall Street bull crap. Are you kidding, Zoe? It’s come to this?’

‘He just rewrote a few things, Mom. It’s not a big deal.’

‘You want to go to that school so badly, you’d cheat to get in?’ Mom said.

‘Oh, and you don’t think the other kids get help? Tutors? Interview prep? I’m applying out of public school!’ What I didn’t say but she probably heard anyway was the reminder that she was the reason I was in public school in the first place. We were in Nowhere, New York, chasing her dream of being an English professor. ‘Getting help from a supportive parent is probably just the minimum they expect!’

I shouted the words supportive parent and took advantage of the emotional chaos they created to make my exit.

‘Where are you going?’ Mom said.

‘Walk.’

‘When will you be back?’

‘Why are you worried? Safe town, right? It’s what you told the judge.’

And with that, I left.

Olympio’s was a vinyl booth diner with a long counter and a weirdly huge assortment of pies arranged in an old-timey pie display. I heard a tap-tap-tap as I walked past. Digby was in a booth, knocking on the glass and waving. I went inside.

‘Hey, Princeton, I was just going to text you,’ he said. ‘We need to talk.’

‘Yeah, we should start our project,’ I said.

‘Project?’ he said.

‘“Convicted in Absence”, you called it. Remember?’

‘Oh, that. Later. There’s something else I want to talk to you about.’

His took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. A stack of files lay in front of him.

‘Those look like police reports,’ I said.

‘They are police reports,’ he said.

‘Why do you have police reports?’

‘Four weeks ago, Marina Miller disappeared from a slumber party at her house.’

‘These files are from the Marina Miller case?’

‘No, these are from when another girl disappeared from River Heights eight years ago.’

‘They’re related?’

‘Yup. Maybe. Definitely maybe,’ Digby said. ‘Hey, are you hungry? I got to eat.’

‘Not really.’ I looked at a menu. ‘Maybe something small.’

Digby held up two fingers at the waitress, who walked into the kitchen, writing on her pad.

‘Uh … did you just order for me?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Rude much? How do you know what I want?’

‘I’ve had everything here. Trust me, you want the cheeseburger.’

‘How d’you know I’m not vegetarian?’

‘Leather boots, leather bag, leather belt – if you’re a vegetarian, you’re the kind who doesn’t mind being a hypocrite sometimes, in which case, trust me, their cheeseburger’s worth being a hypocrite for,’ Digby said.

I looked at the table next to us. The guy’s cheeseburger did look juicy.

‘Anyway, the cops arrested a suspect, but they couldn’t make it stick.’

‘Wait, the girl who disappeared eight years ago, or Marina Jane Miller?’

‘Marina. It doesn’t matter, though, because he’s a dud – no way he did it,’ he said. ‘David Siddle.’

‘Oh, you think he’s a dud? Are the police aware of your conclusions?’

‘Not yet. I’ll call them when I know a little more.’

‘I thought it’d be clear I was being sarcastic.’

‘Oh, no, I got that.’

‘I seriously doubt they care what you think.’

‘We’ll worry about that later.’

‘“We”? I don’t know about “we”.’

Digby passed me two photos of middle-aged men. They were probably just normal guys, but who doesn’t look like a murderer when they’re secretly photographed through a telephoto lens?