Dating Is Murder

“We stayed out of here, except for Lupe, once a week for cleaning, so I can’t say if anything’s missing.” Maizie raised shades and cranked open windows. “I came in last night. I didn’t see a passport, but she always carried that in her purse. Which isn’t here, of course.”

She seemed to assume that no female would leave the house without a purse. I remembered A

“What about that?” I pointed to a computer, hooked up to a small printer. “She wouldn’t leave that behind.”

Maizie squinted at it. “You don’t think so?”

“No. She’d been saving up for it forever.”

“It does look brand-new.” Maizie switched on a Tiffany lamp to get a better look. “I’m afraid my husband is the computer person here. And Emma. It’s scary how quickly children pick up technology. Are these expensive?”

“Expensive enough.”

“I guess anything’s expensive on a hundred forty a week. It’s a selling point, how cheap au pairs are, but it’s embarrassing to pay someone so little.” Maizie perched on the edge of the bed, as if afraid to get comfortable, not having been invited. “You know, she’s due to go home next month, so I can’t understand why she’d leave early. The agency imposes a financial penalty if they don’t finish out the year, and she’s very frugal.”

“It’s true,” I said, still startled by the small salary. “Have you called her mother?”

“Oh, God.” Maizie looked at me and glanced away. “I don’t have the heart for it. What do I say? I spoke to her once last summer; it’s painful. Her English is bad and my toddler knows more German than I do.” What she’d done, she said, was call the au pair liaison, a woman named Glenda, who’d notified the agency. They, in turn, would contact Mrs. Glück, using someone who spoke German. “I’m sure she’s heard from A

“You don’t think something happened to A

“Such as-?”

“I don’t know, whatever happens to people who disappear. Kidnapping, or…” I hesitated to say anything worse out loud.

“You know, I really don’t.” Maizie pressed her lips together, then shook her head. “Two months ago, I might’ve thought so, but now…”

I waited for her to finish her sentence, but she seemed to be struggling with a decision. Then she stood, grasped the footboard of the mahogany bed, and moved it out from the wall.

There were dust bu

It was a tiny jar with a screw-on top and a miniature spoon attached by a chain. Memories of an old boyfriend came flooding back, not pleasant ones. An old boyfriend with bad habits, one of which had killed him. “Is it for cocaine?” I asked.

“That’s my guess. There’s white residue inside. I haven’t seen one of these since college. And how about this?” She bent down and plucked the pill from the floor and handed it to me. She had a craftsman’s hands: short nails, no polish. Like mine.

The size of a vitamin, it was round and blue, with a marking pressed into it.

A kind of symbol, or maybe a short word, with letters so stylized I couldn’t recognize them. I shook my head and handed it back. She set the pill and vial on the floor and pushed the bed against the wall once more.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said. “Or why I’m leaving them there. I found them last night. Should I get the pill analyzed somehow? Obviously, if she has a drug habit, I can’t have her around Emma, but I hate to think this of her. She’s so not the type.”

“No, she’s not. Did you tell the agency?”

“God, no. They’d have her on the next plane to Germany. My husband too, he’d just-. I can’t tell him this. I can’t just ruin her life without talking to her first. What would you do?”

It was my turn to look away. I didn’t want her to see in my face that I was holding back, that I had my own secret knowledge of A

“No. We have two guest rooms. And we bought the bed the week she came, so no one else has even slept in it. Of course, she has friends over occasionally. And Lupe-” Maizie gave a short laugh. “Well, let’s just say if Lupe had a cocaine habit, I expect she’d clean a lot faster. God. I’ve been trying to figure this out. A

All I knew about drugs was that unless the person was pretty far gone, it was hard to tell who did them and who didn’t do them, especially if you’re someone who doesn’t do them. Joey was good at drug detection. I wasn’t.

“What about her boyfriend?” I said. “Have you heard from him?”

“No. So maybe she’s with him, maybe they took off together. I wish I could remember his last name. Rico-but whether that was a nickname, or short for Richard…”

Richard. I remembered a tutoring session I’d had with A

Maizie opened a door to a bathroom. “The agency’s doing that, they have procedures for when girls take off. Apparently it happens enough. I don’t mean to sound uncaring, but for a seven-thousand-dollar fee, these are the problems you hand over. Or so my husband says.”

I nearly choked. “Seven thousand-and A

Maizie explained that the fee covered interviews, psychological evaluation, translating references, airfare, and training in child care, CPR, and first aid. The host family was interviewed too, their house inspected and their references checked. An au pair was less an employee than an instant teenage daughter, and the girls weren’t in it for the money but for a year in America. “Otherwise,” Maizie said, “you may as well hire a na

It still seemed there was something missing here, something we should be doing. “If she’s not in trouble, why hasn’t she called anyone?” I said, thinking about the gun. “Her mother, for instance. Why not leave a note for you?”

“What if she’s doing something she thinks we’d disapprove of?” Maizie switched off the bathroom light and leaned against the wall, cuddling the bath towel. “I don’t know what’s happened to her. But I know what I wish, and that’s that she comes walking in the back door at di

Glenda Nacy worked at Williams-Sonoma, a housewares store in the Westfield Shoppingtown Promenade, farther into the Valley. I decided to go there rather than wait for a return phone call, which Maizie warned me could take a while. Glenda was a volunteer, she explained, although why anyone would volunteer to supervise foreign teenage babysitters was something Maizie had wondered about all year.

I found my way to the mall and to Glenda Nacy, a sixtyish woman in orthopedic shoes with lipstick on her front teeth. As I explained my mission, she stocked packs of potpourri on a display table alongside boxes marked “Snowflake Spice Balls,” spreading the scent of ginger, cloves, and nutmeg. This was the kind of store I avoided these days, a sensory reminder that I had no husband, no children, and no cooking skills. Glenda offered me a cup of hot apple cider and said, “I can’t give you much time. My boss puts the kibosh on personal business during shifts. She’s off-site, but if she comes back, ask me about crockery.”