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“I have no idea. I’m telling you, I don’t know.”
Josie said, “Mr. Collins, what do you think is inside that box?”
He stared at it. “I don’t know. Haven’t you opened it yet?”
Noah said, “It’s still being processed.”
Beau continued, “I don’t know what’s in it. I wish I could help you. I do, of course. Claudia—” He hung his head, shoulders shaking a bit.
Evenly, Josie said, “Mr. Collins, does your wife have a life insurance policy?”
He looked up at her, wiping tears from his cheeks. “Of course. We both do. We took them out when it became apparent that we were going to accumulate some wealth. What’s that got to do with anything?”
Josie said, “What’s the payout?”
“Three million dollars,” Beau answered easily. “But I don’t see what this has to do with my wife’s murder.”
Noah quickly jumped in, tapping a finger against the photo of the puzzle box. “The killer took time to do this, to leave this box, for you, is my guess. You have no ideas at all why someone would do this?”
Noah pushed the photo closer to Beau. Helplessness flashed in Beau’s eyes. “I’m sorry. I really don’t.”
Josie said, “You say you used puzzle boxes on your show. What else did you and Claudia incorporate into your show?”
A wobbly smile. “This may sound silly to you, but we use games.”
He stopped, waiting for more questions. Clearly the killer was familiar with the show. Josie was not. “Tell us more,” she urged.
“Okay. Well, the use of games and the concept of fun are a huge part of our message to couples. You see, most people don’t know nearly as much about their partners as they think they do, even after many years together. It’s a kind of intimacy when you know more about your partner than anyone else. From how they take their coffee to their deepest fear. Their favorite food to their deepest regret. We use games and the idea of play in general as a fun way for couples to deepen their bond and learn more about one another.”
Noah asked, “What kinds of games?”
“Anything. We’re still developing new ones.”
Josie said, “What do you do most often—or encourage your audience to do?”
“I can tell you what’s most popular, and those are our scavenger hunts and Five Familiar Facts quizzes. We feature the scavenger hunts on the show, but couples can take the Five Familiar Facts quiz right on our website. Then we encourage them to post the results on social media.”
Josie said, “Do you ever use the puzzle boxes in the scavenger hunts?”
He pushed the photo away. Exhaustion tugged at his posture. Suddenly it seemed a great effort for him to sit upright without leaning his elbows on the table. “Do you believe that discussing my show will help further your investigation?”
She touched the photo of the puzzle box. “A killer used something from your show to stage the scene of your wife’s murder. Yes, I think this might help us track him down.”
“Okay, okay. We have used the boxes in scavenger hunts before but typically, no, we don’t. Usually, when we do the hunts, we give couples a list of things they have to find that are meaningful to them and then they compare their findings. They can gather the items if they want but they can also just take photos.”
Noah said, “Things like what?”
Beau didn’t need any time to think about it. “A movie neither of you has seen; an album you both like; an item that represents you as a couple—that’s a really fun one—your favorite photo of one another; something your partner hates; something that represents a place your partner would love to visit. I could go on, but you get the idea. There are thousands of things we have couples look for. It brings them closer together and sometimes it exposes the gaps in their relationship, and they can work on bridging them.”
Noah asked, “What’s your most popular thing? The puzzle boxes? The scavenger hunts? Something else?”
By now, Beau was fully immersed in speaking about his work, the words coming easily, as if he’d said them a thousand times before, which he likely had. “Five Familiar Facts. It’s a quiz. It’s on our website, although we’ve been talking about rolling out an app of some kind. Our followers go on there and the idea is that a couple takes it together—answering five questions about their partner—and then they compare their answers. There are thousands of questions, and each quiz is different so you can take it over and over again and get a brand-new set of questions.”
Noah said, “What kinds of questions?”
“That’s the brilliant thing,” said Beau. “It’s five questions ranked according to different levels of intimacy. So you’ll get an easy one like, ‘what is your partner’s favorite dessert?’ and then each one after that gets a bit deeper until the final question, which is something like, ‘what does your partner value most in life?’ No couple ever gets all five correct. Well, it’s rare. We encourage people to share their results on social media. We even have a hashtag they can use to share what they didn’t know about their partner. It’s #whatididntknow. You should check it out.”
Josie asked, “Have you and Claudia ever done the quiz?”
