Trouble is a Friend of Mine

The housekeeper showed us into the front sitting room.

Mrs Miller appeared after twenty minutes. She was one of those women who wore uncomfortable outside shoes at home. Her heels click-clacked across the marble. She had on a full face of makeup and a head of pageant-perfect goddess curls. She gave us ten minutes of scripted motherly concern before her high-gloss shell cracked and things finally got interesting.

‘The problem with Mari was …’ Mrs Miller pronounced it Mah-ree. ‘Well, frankly … she’d always been deeply troubled. Truly, I tried, but you can’t fight genetics. My husband had her with his first wife, you see. We didn’t emphasize that when Mari went missing because we didn’t want people thinking we were less than desperate to get her back, but now …’

I don’t think she knew how to end that sentence.

‘But now that everybody knows how upset you are, you can flesh out some details,’ Digby said.

‘Yes, exactly. Now everyone knows I’m worried sick … well, I suppose the facts should be told,’ Mrs Miller said. ‘But I’m not sure about photographing the house …’

‘Mrs Miller, to be honest, I overpromised these photos to my editor because I’m in trouble. Missed my deadline. She’s a hard case.’ Digby nodded toward me.

Mrs Miller looked at my face and softened. ‘Yes, I see.’

‘And what we really need’s a picture of you … in her room. Maybe if someone who knows something saw how this was affecting Marina’s family …’ Digby said.

Mrs Miller stood and checked her hair in the mirror above the mantel.

‘I’m a mess, but I suppose it’ll do. It’s not HDTV or anything. The news crews came every day for weeks … that was a challenge.’ Mrs Miller finished primping and snapped her fingers at us imperiously. ‘Come along.’

There were no pictures of Marina on the walls we passed on the way up to her room. There were plenty of weird, posed glamour shots of Mrs Miller, though. In one of them, she was naked on a fur blanket, cradling a newborn baby who I guessed was Marina’s half sister.

‘This is my Ursula.’ It was a picture of her on a yacht, hugging a teenage girl.

Ursula was surprisingly unpretty. I’m always shocked when rich girls aren’t pretty. How could you be unattractive if you had all the nicest clothes and makeup? It didn’t compute. But I guess there really were some things money can’t buy. Ursula was a hatchet-face. Even wearing a straw hat and a gingham bikini, she looked like she’d just murdered someone and was calculating how to dispose of the corpse.

‘Here we are. Mari’s room,’ Mrs Miller said.

It was empty. Not like everything had been cleared out. That would’ve been less weird. This room still had a bed, a desk, a chest of drawers. There just wasn’t much stuff: hardly any books, no stuffed animals, no photos or posters on the walls. It looked like IKEA, except IKEA has fake cardboard stuff to make the rooms look fake lived-in.

‘Was Marina always this … organized?’ Digby said.

‘I’m not sure. Mari kept the door locked.’ Mrs Miller tapped on the sign on Marina’s door. ‘Keep. Out. So I did.’ She positioned herself by the window. ‘How’s this?’

Digby directed and Henry snapped away. Meanwhile, I glanced around, trying to figure out where in the empty room to look. Then, when it started to feel like we were lingering, the housekeeper came in.

‘Mrs Miller, the pizzas are here,’ the housekeeper said.

‘What are you talking about?’ Mrs Miller said.

‘You ordered ten pizzas for the party,’ the housekeeper said.

‘Party? Don’t you think I would’ve informed you if I were throwing a party? And pizzas?’ Mrs Miller said.

Off they went, bickering all the way.

‘We have, like, three minutes to find something,’ Digby said.

‘How do you search an empty room?’ I said.

‘It’s not totally empty. This was on the closet floor.’ Digby held up a single CornNut and sniffed it. ‘Nacho.’

‘You want to eat it, don’t you?’ I said.

‘I’m seriously thinking about it,’ Digby said.

‘That’s disgusting. Anyway, other than that CornNut, this place is totally clean. We’re not going to find anything here,’ I said.

‘No, you’re not going to find anything.’ Marina’s half sister, Ursula, was in the doorway.

We were so busted. Digby was in the closet, Henry had a desk drawer open, and I’d lifted Marina’s mattress in case she kept her journal where I kept mine.

‘The police took stuff away and Marina didn’t have that much to begin with,’ she said.

‘You’re Ursula,’ Digby said.

‘I am. And you’re not who you told my mother you were,’ she said.

‘Sure we are,’ Digby said.

‘Brianna Wick is black, and Taylor Berry? Is a girl,’ Ursula said. ‘I’ve been to Marina’s school.’

Now we were fully busted.

‘What are you trying to do?’ Ursula said.

‘What do you mean?’ Digby said.

‘Are you trying to bring her back?’ she said.