Rating: ★★★★☆ Tags: Mystery Detective, General, Fiction

The Official Preppy Guide
, right?’
‘
Preppy Handbook
,’ Tanner corrected as he kissed
her on the cheek.
‘See? He actually knows,’ she said.
She ushered us into an impressive penthouse suite –
a living room sunlit by wall-to-wall windows, with bedrooms
shooting off each side. Tanner had sworn he couldn’t stay

---

in Carthage, at the Days Inn, out of respect for Amy’s
parents, but Go and I both suspected he couldn’t stay in
Carthage because the closest five-star hotel was in St.
Louis.
We engaged in the preliminaries: small talk about
Betsy’s family, college, career (all stellar, A-list, awesome),
and drinks dispersed for everyone (soda pops and
Clamato, which Go and I had come to believe was an
affectation of Tanner’s, a quirk he thought would give him
character, like my wearing fake glasses in college). Then
Go and I sank down into the leather sofa, Betsy sitting
across from us, her legs pressed together to one side, like
a slash mark. Pretty/professional. Tanner paced behind us,
listening.
‘Okay. So, Nick,’ Betsy said. ‘I’ll be frank, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘You and TV. Aside from your bar-blog thingie, the
Whodunnit. com thingie last night, you’re 
awful
.’
‘There was a reason I went to print journalism,’ I said. ‘I
see a camera, and my face freezes.’
‘Exactly,’ Betsy said. ‘You look like a mortician, so stiff.
I got a trick to fix that, though.’
‘Booze?’ I asked. ‘That worked for me on the blog
thingie.’
‘That won’t work here,’ Betsy said. She began setting
up a video camera. ‘Thought we’d do a dry run first. I’ll be
Sharon. I’ll ask the questions she’ll probably ask, and you
answer the way you normally would. That way we can know
how far off the mark you are.’ She laughed again. ‘Hold on.’
She was wearing a blue sheath dress, and from an
oversize leather purse, she pulled a string of pearls. The

---

Sharon Schieber uniform. ‘Tanner?’
Her husband fastened the pearls for her, and when
they were in place, Betsy grinned. ‘I aim for absolute
authenticity. Aside from my Georgia accent. And being
black.’
‘I see only Sharon Schieber before me,’ I said.
She turned the camera on, sat down across from me,
let out a breath, looked down, and then looked up. ‘Nick,
there have been many discrepancies in this case,’ Betsy
said in Sharon’s plummy broadcast voice. ‘To begin with,
can you walk our audience through the day your wife went
missing?’
‘Here, Nick, you only discuss the anniversary breakfast
you two had,’ Tanner interrupted. ‘Since that is already out
there. But you don’t give time lines, you don’t discuss
before and after breakfast. You are emphasizing only this
wonderful last breakfast you had. Okay, go.’
‘Yes.’ I cleared my throat. The camera was blinking
red; Betsy had her quizzical-journalist expression on. ‘Uh,
as you know, it was our five-year anniversary, and Amy got
up early and was making crepes—’
Betsy’s arm shot out, and my cheek suddenly stung.
‘What the hell?’ I said, trying to figure out what had
happened. A cherry-red jellybean was in my lap. I held it up.
‘Every time you tense up, every time you turn that
handsome face into an undertaker’s mask, I am going to hit
you with a jellybean,’ Betsy explained, as if the whole thing
were quite reasonable.
‘And that’s supposed to make me 
less
tense?’
‘It works,’ Tanner said. ‘It’s how she taught me. I think
she used rocks with me, though.’ They exchanged 
oh, you!

---

married smiles. I could tell already: They were one of those
couples who always seemed to be starring in their own
morning talk show.
‘Now start again, but linger over the crepes,’ Betsy
said. ‘Were they your favorites? Or hers? And what were
you doing that morning for your wife while she was making
crepes for you?’
‘I was sleeping.’
‘What had you bought her for a gift?’
‘I hadn’t yet.’
‘Oh, boy.’ She rolled her eyes over to her husband.
‘Then be really, really, 
really
complimentary about those
crepes, okay? And about what you were 
going
to get her
that day for a present. Because I know you were not coming
back to that house without a present.’
We started again, and I described our crepe tradition
that wasn’t really, and I described how careful and
wonderful Amy was with picking out gifts (here another
jellybean smacked just right of my nose, and I immediately
loosened my jaw) and how I, dumb guy (‘Definitely play up
the doofus-husband stuff,’ Betsy advised) was still trying to
come up with something dazzling.
‘It wasn’t like she even liked expensive or fancy
presents,’ I began, and was hit with a paper ball from
Tanner.
‘What?’
‘Past tense. Stop using fucking past tense about your
wife.’
‘I understand you and your wife had some bumps,’
Betsy continued.
‘It had been a rough few years. We’d both lost our

---

jobs.’
‘Good, yes!’ Tanner called. ‘You 
both
had.’
‘We’d moved back here to help care for my dad, who
has Alzheimer’s, and my late mother, who had cancer, and
on top of that I was working very hard at my new job.’
‘Good, Nick, good,’ Tanner said.
‘Be sure to mention how close you were with your
mom,’ Betsy said, even though I’d never mentioned my
mom to her. ‘No one will pop up to deny that, right? No
Mommy Dearest or Sonny Dearest stories out there?’
‘No, my mom and I were very close.’
‘Good,’ said Betsy. ‘Mention her a lot, then. And that
you own the bar with your sister – always mention your
sister when you mention the bar. If you own a bar on your
own, you’re a player; if you own it with your beloved twin
sister, you’re—’
‘Irish.’
‘Go on.’
‘And so it all built up—’ I started.
‘No,’ Tanner said. ‘Implies building up to an explosion.’
‘So we had gotten off track a little, but I was
considering our five-year anniversary as a time to revive
our relationship—’
‘
Recommit to our relationship
,’ Tanner called. ‘
Revive
means something was dead.’
‘Recommit to our relationship—’
‘And so how does fucking a twenty-three-year-old
figure in to this rejuvenative picture?’ Betsy asked.
Tanner lobbed a jellybean her way. ‘A little out of
character, Bets.’
‘I’m sorry, guys, but I’m a woman, and that smells like

---

bullshit, like mile-away bullshit. Recommit to the
relationship, 
please
. That girl was still in the picture when
Amy went missing. Women are going to hate you, Nick,
unless you suck it up. Be up-front, don’t stall. You can add it
on: 
We lost our jobs, we moved, my parents were dying.
Then I fucked up. I fucked up huge. I lost track of who I
was, and unfortunately, it took losing Amy to realize it
. You
have to admit you’re a jerk and that everything was all your
fault.’
‘So, like, what men are supposed to do in general,’ I
said.
Betsy flung an annoyed look at the ceiling. ‘And that’s
an attitude, Nick, you should be real careful on.’

---