“So,” I said. “Tell me.”

“Where should I start?”

“With your father’s stroke,” I said. “That was three weeks ago, is that right?”

She nodded.

“Why cover it up?” I asked.

“Dad’s a writer,” she said. “He’s famous. It would have gotten into the news.”

“Is that a problem?” I said. “He’s sick. It’s not a scandal.”

Marlinchen pressed her lips together, thinking. “I wanted to protect his privacy,” she said.

“You told me he was up north finishing a novel, Marlinchen,” I pointed out. “I’m not a member of the media, and you were asking for my help, and you still lied to me. That’s a little more than protecting your dad’s privacy.”

She dropped her head. “I don’t want my brothers to go to foster homes,” she said softly. “In a few weeks I’ll be 18, and then I can be their guardian. But if Family Services finds out about Dad before then, they’d split us up.”

“That’s a pretty drastic expectation,” I told her. “Social workers don’t go around looking for families to break up. They take the whole situation into account. It’s very possible that if you’re getting along okay with the younger kids, they’d probably just want you to have a temporary guardian until you turn 18.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“It’s not a big deal,” I assured her. “You’ll call on an adult relative to step in until your dad’s better.”

“There isn’t anyone,” she said. Reading the skepticism on my face, she went on. “My mother had a sister, but she’s dead. All my grandparents are dead except for my grandmother on my mother’s side. She’s in an assisted-living facility in Berlin. She speaks mostly German.”

“Okay, I’d rule her out,” I agreed, pausing to think. “Listen, can I come in?”

Marlinchen led me up the back steps, onto the porch, and in through a pair of French doors. The Hennessy home was as graceful inside as out: good pine wood, a rough-beamed ceiling, and eclectic touches everywhere. We were in a family room, the modernity of a wide-screen TV offsetting the shabby-elegant furniture, a nubby throw blanket thrown over a velvety couch. Beyond, I could see the kitchen. There was plenty of space to work; pots and pans overhung a center-island butcher block.

“Would you like something to drink?” Marlinchen led me toward the kitchen, moving with the assurance people have in their longtime homes.

“Ice water is fine.”

Marlinchen fixed me a tall glass, and iced tea for herself. I wandered into the kitchen behind her and looked around. My request to come inside hadn’t been an idle one; as a social worker would have, I’d wanted to see evidence of how the kids were living, whether the house was clean, what they were eating. From my perspective, they were keeping better house than a lot of bachelor cops I knew. The kitchen was as clean as the family room we’d come through. A faint smell of cooking hung in the air, and there were vegetable peelings in the drain trap, suggesting a healthy diet. The houseplants I’d seen were green and healthy; they were being watered.

Marlinchen said, “Detective Pribek, can we talk about Aidan?”

“Sure,” I said. “But Aidan’s nearly 18, and on the road by choice. When he does turn 18, which you’ve said is a few weeks away, it’ll be no one’s business but his own where he is. If he doesn’t want his family to know his whereabouts, well, you may not like it, but that’s his choice.”

Marlinchen slipped into one of the chairs against the kitchen counter. “He’s my brother,” she said. “I have to know that he’s all right.”

I remained standing; I didn’t want to get mired in this situation. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I understand that you’re afraid for him. But with a runaway who’s been gone as long as Aidan has, there’s just not much the police can do. You’re solidly in private-investigator territory here. I can recommend several to you, competent people who, for a fee, will make finding your brother their job.”

“What kind of a fee?” she asked.

“Depends,” I said. “Somebody good will charge you at least a hundred dollars an hour.”

She winced.

“I know it sounds like a lot,” I said. “But I wouldn’t bargain-hunt in this case. If you don’t get somebody good, it’ll take longer to find Aidan. You’ll end up paying one way or another. And,” I added, “it’s not unheard-of for unethical investigators to set their rates low to get people in the door, then drag their heels and pad their hours. You don’t end up saving money at all.”

“I see.” Marlinchen was starting to look lost. “How many hours do you think it would take for them to find him?”

“I really wouldn’t feel comfortable estimating,” I said. “They could find him with three phone calls. Or it could take weeks.”

“I see,” she said again. Obviously, she wasn’t feeling any better about the situation, and it wasn’t hard to guess why.

“It’s money, isn’t it?” I said.

The Hennessys lived in a wealthy enclave on the lake; I’d assumed that not only was Marlinchen capably handling the household affairs but that, in doing so, she was drawing on a comfortable sum of her father’s savings. At least, I had until just now.

“I know we look in good shape financially,” Marlinchen said. “But I only have access to Dad’s checking account; he gave me his ATM number. But for everything else, I need to be his conservator, and I can’t do that until I turn 18. Even then, there might be some delays. He has aphasia; it’s a speech and comprehension disorder. Dad needs to recover enough that an officer of the court can see that he understands what’s being said to him, and that the mark he’s making really represents his desire to make me a conservator.”

She sounded surprisingly knowledgeable. “Does your father have a lawyer who’s helping you with this?” I asked.

Marlinchen nodded. “I don’t know that I’d call Mr. DeRose ‘Dad’s lawyer,’ but he helped with some things when Mother died, and when I called him, he was willing to do the conservatorship work on contingency. I can pay him once I get access to the accounts.”

I hoped DeRose was someone ethical; this slender, tentative 17-year-old with a wealthy father would look like a slot machine on two feet to a lawyer who wasn’t.

But with Marlinchen’s very next words, I had to reconsider the wealthy father part.

“Even then,” Marlinchen went on, “there’s just Dad’s passbook savings to tap, and each of us has a college-savings trust. But that’s not a lot of money. A lot of what Dad earned went to paying off this house. Which is fine, but we can’t eat the house and the great view,” she said, gesturing toward the lake. Then she amended her words. “Things aren’t that bad, yet, but there’s certainly not money for a hundred-dollar-an-hour investigator for an open-ended period of time. That’s why I was hoping that someone on the police here would find Aidan’s case had enough merit to take it on.”

I was starting to feel like those old-time aviators who took off from New York for the West Coast on a cloudy day, got turned around in a fog bank, and ended up committed to a trip to Europe. I’d wanted to help Marlinchen, but I’d also wanted it to be short and simple. And for a moment, it had seemed like it was going to be: I’d found Hugh Hennessy and determined that his daughter’s reasons for covering up his absence, while misguided, weren’t criminal. I’d thought, then, that I could simply reassure Marlinchen that Aidan was probably okay, recommend a competent private investigator, and forget the whole thing. I’d thought I could sum up the Hennessy affair in three words: Not My Problem.

Instead I found that Marlinchen was alone with a houseful of younger siblings with no adult relatives to call on, and despite her father’s literary successes, without a comfortable supply of money. Now I was summing up the Hennessys in four words: No End in Sight.

And my goddamn ear was starting to hurt again. The aspirin was wearing off, and the pain was beginning to ramp up from its dull, medicated ache toward the sharp throb I’d woken up with the last two mornings. It was driving nobler feelings from my mind.