I’m no stalker. But any journalist worth her salt would know how to find Mari’s address—public information—and at least attempt a visit to Hamilton in the hopes of casually running into her at Crosby’s.
The town that fall was beautiful—misty, wooded lanes with overhanging trees the color of scarlet and gold, little roadside coffeeshops, and farms with chalkboard easels advertising fresh eggs and pumpkins like an aesthetic Instagram fever dream. The lyrics of “September Rain” came easily to mind—You drove me down that autumn lane, September long ago / I drank you in like gentle rain and never thought of snow.
I started at Mari’s house and drove up the long, winding lane looking for signs of life. The houses here are modest but set atop large plots of land with plenty of privacy. When I reached the end of the drive, I came to a quaint green cottage with white shutters and flower beds in the front yard.
At the door there was no answer.
I waited in my car thirty minutes, forty-five. When I got sick of turning the engine on and off for warmth, I pulled away to regroup.
I drove past the house where Ryan grew up, long since sold for more money than it was likely worth. It’s a two-story colonial on an acreage, facade now modernized with slapdash board-and-batten and startling black shutters and trim.
I personally found Mari’s house much cozier.
The wide oak tree in the front yard is referenced lyrically in Ryan’s first album, in “Honeywine”:I loved you deep and tall just like the oak in my front yard / You left me alone and hollow with your crooked, wooden heart; and visually in her final music video, where a gnarled papier-mâché representation looms over Ryan as she plucks her banjo on an ornate stage. The final part of the video, in fact, was filmed right there in Hamilton.
I was just wondering whether I should check the grocery store for Mari when my phone buzzed in my pocket.
When I lifted it to answer, I was surprised to see her name on the screen.
“Mari?” I answered.
“It looks like you’re in town,” she said. Her voice wasn’t exactly friendly, but it at least wasn’t as hostile as I’d expected.
“I am,” I said. “I just stopped by your house, actually.”
“I’m well aware.” She let out a long sigh. “You still want to talk?”
Below, along with our other key witnesses, I present Mari’s story in her own words.
Mari Stevens
No, I don’t know what happened to Ryan. That’s the first thing I want to say, so I’m saying it. I changed my mind about talking to you because ... I don’t know. I just miss her.
I think what you’re doing is a cheap cash grab, if you do in fact want me to be completely honest. I don’t want to say that I’ve given up hope, but I don’t know how much good any of this is going to do. I mean, it’s been a year. What’s the rule—the first forty-eight hours in a missing persons case are the most important, and after that, the chances of finding them diminish exponentially?
By the time anyone realized Ryan was missing after the VMAs, likemissingmissing, it had been longer than that.
Maybe I decided to talk to you because ... I still feel like that’s my fault.
I was with her that night, yes. Ryan was supposed to ride with the rest of our group to the after-party, but she told us to go ahead because she wanted to stop back at the hotel and work out some lyrics that were in her head. That wasn’t unusual—she would run off at all hours of the day and night, try stuff out, record something that she’d been working over. I figured she probably got some ideas from everything surrounding the awards show. So I let her go, and I went on with my night ... I should have known something was wrong. Picked up on signs. Trusted my gut. She was ... off, in a way.
But I didn’t act fast enough. I—
I don’t know. It’s hard to talk about. I haven’t talked to anyone but the police, really. You must know that. It’s a big part of the reason I moved back here, to get away from it all. I never liked LA in the first place. Plus, it eventually became apparent that I was out of a job, running Ryan’s marketing team and having nothing to market. And I’m not going to say that the cost of living is much cheaper here, but what with buying my parents’ house at a discount and investing my savings from Ryan’s tours, I’m pretty comfortable. I do the marketing for North Shore Music Theatre now. It’s nice.
But ... it’s easier to miss her here. Or to feel like that whole whirlwind was a bizarre dream, and now I’m back where I started. Some days it feels like I could just walk down the road to her house like I used to—I’m sure you know how close it is. You probably already drove over there. Did you see what they did to it? It used to be this beautiful brick, with lanterns by the front door ... Yes, they put that shitty plywood right over the brick.
Anyway.
Ryan and I met at the tiny elementary school in Hamilton. She was the new kid in fourth grade, since her parents had just moved into town. I remember seeing her in front of the class, all twiggy with this curly red hair up in a thick ponytail. I thought to myself,These girls are going to eat her alive.
I’d had some trouble with my classmates, see. Kids can be really cruel. I don’t even remember how the bullying started, but there was a group of girls who would pick up on the dumbest, most insignificant things—the ones that just happened to be the very thing you were most insecure about. Like, I have a birthmark on the back of my neck. No big deal, right?
But for whatever reason, this little clique decides it doesn’t like me, so one day when I was wearing my hair up, one of them shouted, “Look at Mari’s neck! Gross! Is that dirt?”
“It’s just a birthmark,” I said.
“It looks like dirt,” said another one. “You look like Pigpen from Charlie Brown.”
