Mari

Mari, a character in Dirty Little Secrets, is one of your Downstreet neighbors. She is first seen in Chapter 2, although her name isn't revealed until Chapter 3.

Appearance
Mari has long wavy red hair, gray eyes, and light skin. She wears glasses, a light blue top with blue patterns, white pants, and a white and golden bracelet on her left hand.

Personality
Mari is a kleptomaniac. She is defensive when confronted about it, but eager to smugly show off what she stole to anyone who doesn't know it was stolen. Given how quickly and easily she comes up with stories to cover her theft, she is clearly comfortable with lying.

In Chapter 14, it's revealed that she only steals things which have sentimental value because she's jealous of her neighbors' loving families. You suspect she's lonely, regrets not having children, that her husband doesn't pay much attention to her, and her outward persona of a happy suburban housewife is an attempt to get the attention she craves from other people instead.

Background
Mari has a good reputation among her neighbors and is well-known for being an excellent cook. She makes a "five-star" green bean casserole for the Fourth of July potluck every year, which the neighborhood always looks forward to. She is asked for the recipe often enough to have a long-standing joke about her recipes being buried with her.

Despite having this reputation, in the past, Mari attempted to have a Bed and Breakfast business which failed. According to Kelsey, she sold boxed-mix cake and had given her guests food poisoning. This is confirmed in Chapter 14 when you discover for yourself that Mari has been lying about her cooking and baking prowess. If you decide to look through the items she had stolen, you find out that she tends to steal items that have sentimental value to the original owners.

Dirty Little Secrets

 * Chapter 2: Comfort From a Stranger
 * Chapter 3: Potluck of Secrets
 * Chapter 4: A Date with Danger (Mentioned; Determinant)
 * Chapter 8: F is for Philanthropy
 * Chapter 9: War of the Car Washes
 * Chapter 10: Sweet Sadie-Anne
 * Chapter 11: On The Outs
 * Chapter 13: Detective Lawson
 * Chapter 14: Happy Kitchen, Happy Life
 * Chapter 17: Fires Are Lit
 * Chapter 18: Crimes of Passion

Your Character
Along with the rest of the neighborhood, Mari gathers outside your house following Valerie's death. She initially assumed it was your death, but upon learning it was Valerie's and the circumstances surrounding it, she immediately begins speculating that this was a murder. She seems nervous to see you at the potluck, and you later see her stealing a pearl bracelet from an Upstreeter's house. You can choose to listen in while her husband confronts her for resuming her habit of thievery, which she had apparently paused after getting caught by Valerie. Though she is defensive and argumentative with her husband to his face, you see her struggling not to cry after he leaves. If you ask why her husband was upset, she easily lies that the food didn't agree with him. If you compliment the stolen bracelet, she preens and claims it was an anniversary gift from her husband.

Mari is generally friendly towards you and happy to have you join her and the other Downstreeters during HOA meetings. After Sadie accuses you of murdering Valerie, she begins to avoid you, though you later learn this is because Sadie is blackmailing her and not because she believes the accusation.

Valerie Wright
If you choose to snoop on Mari, you learn that Valerie once caught her trying to sneak a cake mixer out of her kitchen. Valerie's threat to go to the police precipitated Mari's promise to her husband that she'd stop stealing. Now that Valerie has died, however, Mari thinks there's no longer any need to worry about the police.

When you see Mari dumping trash bags full of poisonous foxgloves on Christine's lawn at night, you briefly suspect she killed Valerie by serving her poisoned food. Your suspicion grows when you learn Valerie made her tear up the flowerbeds containing her beloved foxgloves, which she referred to as her "children." However, when you and Carpenter snoop in her house for evidence, you quickly realize Mari has never cooked or baked anything despite her reputation. From this, you deduce that she couldn't have murdered Valerie because she couldn't have hid poison in one of her culinary creations.

Sadie Hotchmitch
Like most Downstreeters, Mari dislikes Sadie but is hesitant to cross her. You learn during a premium scene in Chapter 11 that Sadie is blackmailing her with evidence of her disastrous attempt to host a bed-and-breakfast out of her home. Mari's lawyer got the lawsuits thrown out and scrubbed her Welp page clean of comments about food poisoning and used band-aids left in undercooked cake, but Sadie retains screenshots of those negative reviews and uses them to keep Mari from defying her.

Trivia

 * Her character model resembles a version of Laura from Rising Tides.
 * Her crimes include theft.
 * Mari has lived on Vermillion Lane for over 20 years.
 * In Chapter 14, you learn that she maintains a cooking and lifestyle blog called "Happy Kitchen, Happy Life." You also learn that it's a complete fabrication. Her kitchen is pristine because she never uses it, she mostly eats takeout, and her pantry is devoid of basic staples like flour.
 * In a Chapter 11 premium scene, Kelsey mentioned that Mari hosted a bed & breakfast out of her home while her husband and children were on vacation. In Chapter 14, however, Mari's lack of children is a well-known fact which you and Carpenter discuss freely. You also speculate that her lack of a loving family has led to her habit of stealing sentimental items from her neighbors. Considering that the previous reference to children was a throwaway mention while her childless status has plot relevance, it seems clear that the line about her having children is an error.