She Told a Lie

by P. D. Workman

  “What is it?”

  “Missing girl. You haven’t had any teenagers in the morgue in the last few days, have you?”

  “No. It’s been pretty quiet, thank goodness. Have you checked around? Jail? Hospital?”

  “Not yet. Just started with some background today. See whether she was likely to be involved in anything criminal or being bullied.”

  “And?” Kenzie removed the pot from the burner and poured the pasta into a strainer sitting in the sink.

  Zachary remembered trying to juggle a hot pot and get out a strainer at the same time. One of the problems with cooking was that the recipes didn’t remind you to do things like that. Put a strainer in the sink before you start. Set a timer when the water starts to boil. How to coordinate everything so that the sauce and the pasta were both done at the same time. Kenzie seemed to flow through the meal preparations easily. Zachary’s executive skills had never seemed to be quite up to snuff for the myriad individual steps required for cooking.

  “She has some alternate profiles. Not quite so innocent as her standard ones. But still… I don’t see anything criminal or really bad. I’ll get in touch with her family tomorrow and find out what they know. Maybe she isn’t even missing at all.”

  “Who’s hiring you, if not the family?”

  “A friend.”

  “Oh, okay.” Kenzie nodded. “Well, I hope there’s nothing wrong. A lot of times, kids are just staying over with friends and didn’t bother to tell Mom and Dad. They had a fight and didn’t feel like going home. Or things are too strict at home and they want more freedom.”

  Zachary didn’t bother to point out that he was a private investigator and this wasn’t his first gig.

  He was fully aware of the reasons kids ran away from home. Or walked away.

  He’d been one of those kids more than once. He’d normally stayed wherever social services had placed him, but there were times when it had been too much, and he had bolted. And times when he had just lost track of time and supervisors had called the police.

  But Madison had been gone for too long. She hadn’t just lost track of time.

  6

  The call to Mr. and Mrs. Miller had been awkward, since they hadn’t been the ones to contact him about Madison’s disappearance. But they agreed to see Zachary and made time for him.

  Zachary arrived at the house and took a minute to consider the home and the neighborhood before going in. It was a nice suburban area. Not a slum and not a gated community. Just the kind of neighborhood with white picket fences and a basketball net on the outside of the garage. Playgrounds close by. Madison went to Rhys’s school, which Zachary had been to before. It was a nice place. No graffiti and only low-key security. They had a football team and a basketball team. He imagined they had girls’ teams too, but he hadn’t taken the time to find out.

  Probably both Madison’s parents worked. Office jobs or blue collar, enough to pay the mortgage for a nice house. Madison hadn’t listed any siblings on her main social profile, so she was probably an only child.

  Zachary got out of his car, locked it, eyed the locks to make sure the lock had engaged, then tried the handle. He armed the security system and forced himself to move on. The lawn in the Millers’ front yard was neatly trimmed. There were a few spring flowers along the sidewalk and some flowering bushes at the front of the house.

  He didn’t have to ring the doorbell when he got up to the house. They were watching for him, and Mrs. Miller opened the door as soon as he reached it.

  She looked him over. Zachary had been sure to shave and wear a neat, clean, collared shirt so that he was presentable. He was still not the best-looking guy. Too short. He still hadn’t been able to gain back enough weight after his last major depression, so he looked gaunt and he frequently had bags under his eyes from chronic lack of sleep. Hair kept short in a buzz-cut so that he didn’t have to worry about maintenance.

  He nodded at Mrs. Miller and held out his hand. “Mrs. Miller? Zachary Goldman.”

  She shook his hand. She was taller than he was. Curvy, but not dressed provocatively. Medium length blond hair in a ‘mom’ style.

  “Of course. Come in, Mr. Goldman.”

  “Please, just Zachary,” he told her, stepping over the threshold.

  She escorted him into the living room and motioned to an easy chair. Zachary sat down, leaning forward instead of lounging back. Mr. Miller entered the room, and Zachary jumped back to his feet to shake his hand. Mr. Miller was a young-looking man, his hair receding but still dark and not quite what Zachary would consider balding. He was a bit taller than his wife, in good shape, with a strong handshake. They all sat down.

  “So… you’re a police detective?” Mrs. Miller asked tentatively.

  Zachary shook his head. “I’ll coordinate my investigation with the police, but I’m a private investigator.”

  “But we didn’t hire you. And if you’ll pardon me saying, we’re not going to pay you,” Mr. Miller said bluntly.

  “No. One of Madison’s school friends asked me to make some inquiries. He’s a family friend, so I said I’d find out what I could for him.”

  Mr. Miller still looked suspicious, like he was sure Zachary was going to try to take them for something, but he shrugged and sat back.

  “What friend?” Mrs. Miller asked.

  Rhys hadn’t said to keep his name out of it, but Zachary decided to give him at least a semblance of privacy by not mentioning his last name. If the Millers really wanted to, they would be able to figure it out.

  “His name is Rhys. He goes to school with Madison.”

  They both looked at Zachary blankly, not recognizing Rhys by name.

  “She’s never mentioned him,” Mrs. Miller said.

  “Does she talk to you a lot about her school friends?”

  Mrs. Miller’s lips pressed together. “I’m not sure I like what you are implying.”

  “I’m not implying anything. Just asking whether she talks about everyone she knows by name.”

  “No. Not necessarily. But we have a good relationship with her. We’re a close family.”

  Zachary nodded. He pulled out his notepad and watched for their reactions as he opened it to a blank page. They didn’t object.

  “I assume, since you haven’t told me that Madison is just out of town visiting relatives or going to a new school now, that she is missing.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Miller looked at each other, weighing their responses. It was Mrs. Miller who finally spoke.

  “We reported Madison missing.”

  “So there has been a police report made?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did they respond? Have they reported any progress?”

  Both parents shook their heads. “They think she’s a runaway,” Mr. Miller growled. “We told them she isn’t that kind of girl. She wouldn’t run away. We didn’t have any problems.”

  Zachary nodded encouragingly.

  “We have a good relationship with her,” Mrs. Miller confirmed. “She isn’t the rebellious kind. She wasn’t into drugs and parties. There isn’t any abuse. She isn’t that kind of kid.”

  “How were her marks at school?”

  “They were good. She’s always been a good student.”

  “No changes lately? The last couple of months?”

  Mrs. Miller looked at her husband, asking a question with her eyes. He was reluctant, but eventually nodded. Anything to get her back.

  “She’s had a rough time the last little while,” Mrs. Miller admitted. “She said that the work was getting really difficult. And it was too advanced for either of us to help her very much. I don’t remember how to do quadratic equations and I was never good at essays. We were getting her tutoring. But she was very busy; it was hard to fit it into her schedule.”

  Zachary made a couple of notes, waiting to see if she would add anything else.

  “What was she busy with? Did she have a lot of afterschool activities?”

  “Kids
are so busy these days.”

  There were a few moments of silence. Zachary looked up from his notebook, raising his brows.

  “There are clubs and sports, doing things with friends, all of the homework. Special projects for some of the classes. And part-time jobs.”

  He noticed that she didn’t say that Madison had all of those things. Only that kids in general did.

  “Where did Madison work?”

  “She had a job at the mall. A sales clerk in one of the stores. You know, folding shirts, running the cash register…”

  “Which store?”

  “Pedal Pushers.”

  Zachary hadn’t been in there, but he knew the name. A sports clothing and bike equipment store. He made a note of it.

  “So that kept her pretty busy? Did she have enough time for her schoolwork? Socialization?”

  “Yes, of course. We told her that if it interfered with her schoolwork, she’d have to give it up.”

  “And you didn’t think that her drop in marks was anything to do with her work?”

  “She said it wasn’t. She said it was just that the work was harder.”

  “But she couldn’t fit in time for a tutor.”

  “We would have managed it.”

  Zachary nodded. They saw what they wanted to see. Even though they had told her that the job couldn’t interfere with her schoolwork, they weren’t willing to enforce it and make her drop the job.

  “How often was she at Pedal Pushers?”

  “Most afternoons after school let out. And on the weekends.”

  “When did she do her homework?”

  “There was time between school and work. Or sometimes it was quiet at work and she could do it there.”

  “How late did it go?”

  “I don’t see what this has to do with her being missing,” Mr. Miller interjected.

  “I’ll need to track her movements. Find out where she was when. Who might have watched her or had contact with her. When she was last seen.”

  “She is usually home by nine,” Mrs. Miller said. “They close at eight, then she has to help with cleaning up, clearing the till, all of that. Then she comes straight home. That still gives her time to do homework after she gets home too. She doesn’t go to bed until eleven.”

  “And weekends?”

  “Nine-thirty until five.”

  “And then she comes home?”

  “No, sometimes she has other things to do. Hang out with her friends. Maybe go out to eat, watch a movie. Sometimes she had a sleepover. But she’d still get into work the next day. I never heard any complaints about her missing. And they had my phone number in case there were any problems, I made sure of that.”

  “You knew the people she worked with? Did you ever stop by to drop off lunch or pick her up after work?”

  “I met her manager, the girl who hired her. I don’t go by there. You know, teenagers are embarrassed by their parents. They want to pretend they don’t exist. Like all kids don’t have parents too.”

  Zachary nodded.

  “When did she disappear? Can you give me the timeline?”

  “It was… Saturday or Sunday. She was sleeping over with friends Friday night and Saturday night. She said she would still get to work. I don’t think she worked both days, maybe just Sunday. But she never came home. We couldn’t reach her or her manager. I tried her friends… the ones whose phone numbers I could find. They didn’t know where she was.”

  “Do you know who she slept over with?”

  Mrs. Miller shook her head slowly. “She was always very responsible,” she said guiltily. “She’d tell us when she was going out and when she would be back. She’d usually say whose house she was going to, but it was so routine that… I didn’t always listen. I don’t know if she told me who she would be with. I’m sure she did. But it didn’t register and I didn’t have any reason to be concerned. And if I was trying to reach her, all I had to do was call her cell phone. It wasn’t like when we were kids, and you had to have the family’s land line.”

  “You never found out who she was with those nights?”

  “No. I don’t know if the police found out. They were going to make inquiries. But they haven’t told us anything. When we call and ask about it, they just say it is under investigation and that they’ll let us know when they find anything significant.”

  “And you don’t know if she was at work on Sunday?”

  “I tried and tried to reach the manager, but I couldn’t. I tried the store and they said it was the wrong number. The police…”

  “Said they would follow up on that as well,” Zachary supplied.

  Mrs. Miller nodded. “It makes us sound like irresponsible parents, but I can assure you that we are not. We always kept track of what she was doing, made sure that everything was okay with her. She wasn’t neglected or abused. She wasn’t bullied at school. She had good marks and a good job, and kids like that don’t just run away.” Her voice cracked, and she dabbed at tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes.

  Mr. Miller sat there stoically, not crying. But that didn’t mean that he didn’t feel the same way as his wife. He wore a stony expression that told Zachary that he was doing his best to suppress his own emotions and show his wife a strong, supportive front. His throat worked and he stared down at his hands.

  “I don’t think you’re irresponsible parents,” Zachary soothed. “This kind of thing could happen to anyone. I wonder if I could see Madison’s bedroom?”

  “The police wanted to look at it too, but they didn’t find anything.” Mrs. Miller stood to show him to Madison’s room. “Of course she didn’t leave her phone or her computer at home. She took those with her.”

  “Did she take anything else?”

  “Well… she was supposed to be away for a couple of nights, so she took changes of clothing, her toothbrush and deodorant. All of the usual things a girl needs if she’s going to be away overnight.”

  “Nothing that surprised you?”

  “No.”

  She opened the door and motioned Zachary into the bedroom. It was a typical girl’s bedroom. Pastel colors from when she’d been younger, with band posters and other memorabilia pinned or taped up. No more frilly princess bed. A plain blue bedspread, neatly made. A desk to study at. Shelves with a mixture of middle grade and reference books. A few prized dolls and stuffies still kept close to the bed. And a closet bursting with clothes.

  Zachary looked around. He walked toward the closet. “Who made the bed?”

  Mrs. Miller blushed. “It was me,” she admitted. “I hate an unmade bed. And I knew the police would want to come in here.”

  “But she didn’t sleep here Friday or Saturday. So it was unmade from Thursday night.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did she ever make it?”

  Mrs. Miller raised her hands, palms up. “She was a teenager.”

  Zachary turned his attention to the closet. If she had taken two or three changes of clothing with her, it was not obvious from the contents of the closet. It was nicely appointed with a couple of hanging rods, a shoe rack, and boxes on the shelf, but it was jammed too full of clothing to remain neat and tidy.

  “She liked her clothes.”

  “Yes. That’s most of what she spent her money on. I told her she had to put half of her money into savings for school, but she could spend the rest on what she wanted. I’m not one of those parents who demands rent just because she started working.”

  Zachary nodded. “Was she putting money away?”

  “Yes.”

  “You checked her bank account?”

  “No. But she told me she was putting money away.”

  Zachary spun in a slow circle, looking around the room. “Did she have a boyfriend?”

  “No. I told her she was too young for a boyfriend, and she agreed. She said that the girls at school who had boyfriends just ended up getting stressed and distracted, and she didn’t want to have to deal with that. She was much better off
waiting until after high school to start dating.”

  “She said that?”

  “I said she was better off. She said that she didn’t want a boyfriend while she was still in school.”

  “Didn’t she go to dances? Movies? Places where she would be expected to have a partner?”

  “A lot of kids her age don’t date yet.”

  “No, that’s true.” Zachary certainly hadn’t. Even if he had wanted to, he had moved from one school to another too often and was too shy or anxious to ask a girl out. Sometimes they flirted with him, started conversations with him, or even asked him out. Girls were sometimes attracted to the new boy, the shy boy, or one who was clearly the underdog. But he’d always been too awkward to follow through.

  “You have the names and numbers of some of her friends?”

  “Yes… I’ll write them down for you.”

  7

  In the car, Zachary made a few more notes for himself. He wasn’t a fast writer and wanted to get down as many of the thoughts and questions that were floating around in his brain as he could, before they flitted away. He turned to a new page and used the car Bluetooth to place a call to his friend Mario Bowman.

  “Police Department, Bowman here.”

  “Mario, it’s Zachary.”

  “Oh,” Mario’s voice warmed. “How’s it going, Zach? I should come by and see the new apartment, now that you’ve had time to settle in.”

  “Sure,” Zachary agreed. “Except the door was broken in by the cops this week, so I’m not there until it gets fixed.”

  “Oh, heard about that. That woman who was killed.”

  Zachary nodded. “Yeah. So that case is all wrapped up, and I’m onto something new today…”

  “What is it this time?”

  “Missing girl. Madison Miller.”

  He could hear Mario’s keyboard clicks and pictured him hunched over at his desk, pecking away with two fingers. Bowman had been a good friend to Zachary, letting him stay at his apartment for months after Zachary’s apartment was burned down. Much longer than the few days that he had initially agreed to. And when he’d helped Zachary to move in at the new apartment, he’d provided him with all kinds of kitchenware, towels, and other bits and pieces that he would need starting from scratch.