Trouble is a Friend of Mine

‘I don’t know who these guys are. Is that all you wanted to ask me?’


‘I know who they are. This one’s Dr Leo Schell. He’s a gynecologist,’ Digby said. ‘Specifically, your mother’s gynecologist.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘I watched her go in his office.’

‘You’re kind of a shady guy, you know that?’

‘Schell is one of my two favorites for who took Marina.’

The cheeseburgers came and Digby poured ketchup all over the bun, the fries, the coleslaw. All over.

‘Can you even taste the cheeseburger under all that?’

‘I can’t taste. Not much, anyway.’

‘You can’t taste? Is that, like, a genetic thing?’

‘Doctors say it’s the Celexa, but I think it’s the Paxil. It started with the Prozac I used to be on,’ he said. ‘I usually take Adderall to get decent, but I don’t use it too much because it’s, you know …’

‘Addictive?’

‘Expensive,’ he said. ‘I need my stash to last.’

‘Ah.’ It’s not like the kids back home didn’t take meds, but Digby seemed to be on all the meds I’d ever heard of.

He bit into his burger. ‘My other favorite suspect is a retired principal named Kenneth Dale. But this guy, Dr Schell, he’s a better bet.’

Digby pulled out a marked-up map of River Heights. ‘This red cross is Marina’s house, the green ones are Schell’s and Dale’s houses, and the red lines are possible ways they might’ve driven away. Now, we could ask people who live in the area if they saw anything that night …’

‘Please stop saying “we.” I’m not knocking on random people’s doors. I’m already tired just thinking about it,’ I said. ‘Besides, haven’t the police already checked?’

‘Yup. The police canvassed the neighborhood. Plus Marina’s street is crescent-shaped, with a bank, convenience store, gas station, and library at the top of the crescent. They all have cameras. But since no photos or sketches were released, we can assume the cameras and the people didn’t see anything … which works in our favor.’

‘How d’you figure?’

‘Because now the cops need to get creative. And most cops are miserable paperwork drones who suck at being creative,’ Digby said. ‘They’re probably just treading water, hoping Marina’s parents’ investigators find something.’

‘Let me guess – you think you’re going to swoop in and solve the case for them,’ I said. ‘Superman complex?’

‘Wouldn’t this be a more interesting topic for our project?’

‘I don’t think anyone’s going to give us any grade for a detailed record of how we stalked and harassed random people … much less a good one.’

‘It doesn’t have to be about the abduction itself. It could be a report on police procedure, say.’

‘That sounds even harder than the other fake project you made up.’

‘I’m telling you, it doesn’t have to be as good as you’re imagining. Steve will barely read it. Seriously.’

I wiped off the ketchup blobs and looked at the map.

‘What makes you think one of these guys kidnapped Marina?’ I said.

‘Kenneth Dale’s a possibility because his house backs onto Marina Miller’s. He’d fought with her dad about cutting down some trees and didn’t have a confirmable alibi for that night,’ Digby said. ‘He was also forced into early retirement for sexually harassing a student.’

‘And Schell’s a better bet than that? This Dale guy sounds like a total creep.’

‘Schell lives three blocks away, but neighbors said his car was parked outside the Millers’ that night and was gone by morning. He claimed his car was leaking oil, he didn’t want it staining his driveway, and that the space in front of the Miller house was the only one for blocks,’ Digby said. ‘He also doesn’t have a confirmable alibi for that night.’

‘Sounds like a coincidence …’

‘Another coincidence is that Marina’s parents didn’t know she was Schell’s patient.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Let’s just say that the way I found out was less wrong than his not telling the police she was his patient,’ he said. ‘But what interests me is that no alien fingerprints were found in the bedroom except for a whole lot of blurred ones.’

‘How’s that a clue?’

‘Eight years ago, just like Marina, a little girl was taken from her bedroom in the middle of the night while the rest of the house slept. No one heard or saw anything. No one knew she was gone until morning.’ He passed me a fingerprint analysis report and pointed at the notes. ‘All they found were the family’s prints and the blurred prints on the windowsill.’

‘Blurred prints aren’t clues … they’re the absence of clues.’

‘But these aren’t prints that got smudged. Look, they’re perfectly finger-shaped. The prints are blurred on the fingers themselves.’