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“Not a problem.” She shrugged. “As the team trickles in I’ll pull in some of the techs to take turns. That’ll keep any one of us from going completely insane.”
Jo grabbed the mocha Arnett had brought for her and chugged half as they walked to their desks. “And to think when I was a little girl I loved doing jigsaw puzzles.”
They spent the next several hours going through the security footage, identifying all the attendees and tracking any suspicious movements. They watched every angle with eagle eyes once Brad showed up; with everyone’s attention diverted, the altercation would have been a perfect time for someone to try something unseen. But as far as they could tell, nothing untoward happened.
Once Jo and Arnett escorted the three men outside, Cecile and Fred Gagnon came over to console Chris, then led him back over to where they’d been stationed at the remembrance table. Based on his flailing gestures, it took a fair amount of time before they were able to calm him. Julia shifted to Chelsea’s side as soon as the drama began, and didn’t leave it until Jo and Arnett were back in the room.
“That’s an interesting choice,” Arnett said, pointing to Julia. “Was she protecting Chelsea or waiting for some sort of opportunity?”
“Hard to say.” Jo squinted at the screen.
After the dynamic returned mostly to normal, Jo tracked the blonde who had claimed to bring the Pellegrino to Chelsea before she collapsed; sure enough, she went to the drinks table, poured herself some coffee from the urn, then opened a new bottle of Pellegrino and poured some into a cup for Chelsea.
“Unless she’s related to Penn or Teller, she didn’t tamper with the drink,” Arnett said.
“No.” Jo watched the cup closely as Chelsea stood talking with the girls, checking to be sure nobody dropped something inside it when she wasn’t looking. Nobody did.
But Chelsea did begin to shift her weight more frequently, and looked around nervously. One of the women reached out and touched her shoulder, then pointed toward a group of chairs in a corner of the room. Chelsea shook her head and smiled weakly—the woman must have been asking if she needed to sit down.
Then, Chelsea sank to the ground. Smoothly, like her legs were folding under. Her head fell sideways onto her arm.
“Is it just me or was that the most elegant faint you’ve ever seen in your life?” Jo asked.
“I haven’t seen many faints,” Arnett said. “But don’t prep schools teach you how to do everything swanky? Or, maybe she’s got automatic muscle memory from sports. When I played hockey, the first thing they taught us was how not to split open our heads when we slipped on the ice.”
Jo winced at the visual. “You’re probably right. I can’t see the point of her faking it when she didn’t want me to call David.”
Arnett pointed his pen at her. “Unless she’s one of those Munchausen people, the ones who pretend they’re sick to get sympathy. Maybe she knew she was pushing the line too far with David, but couldn’t resist getting all that attention from all the people at the memorial.”
Jo’s brows bounced up. “That’s possible. Really likely, actually.”
“Don’t sound so surprised,” Arnett laughed. “I manage to say smart things every now and then.”
“Sorry.” Jo squeezed her eyes shut. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant I’ve been driving myself crazy trying to come up with an explanation of what’s going on with her, but nothing makes sense. That does. But it has a new name, now, right? Factitious disorder, something like that?”
He shrugged. “Search me.”
“And the streak ends,” Jo joked.
Nothing else happened for the remainder of the service. As the guests left, Julia made her way over to her brother- and sister-in-law; they turned to her as she approached, not in a hostile fashion, but not warm, either. They had a small exchange that, based on gazes and gestures, seemed to involve offers to help clean up. Julia shook her head repeatedly, at which point Cecile, Fred and Chris left. Julia remained and, with the help of Sandra and Janelle, restored the room to its previous state. Then, Julia, now in her overcoat and with her satchel over her shoulder, exited out to the office area of Triple-B.
Jo checked the time stamp. “That’s fifteen minutes before she left the building and I followed her home. What was she doing for fifteen minutes?”
“Could be taking care of some final errands before she left for the day. Like picking up some documents she needed to shred,” Arnett said.
Jo jabbed her pen in the air toward him. “Why not just shred them at the office? They must have a shredder there, and that would have saved her the expense of buying one.”
“She probably figured we’d be snatching up the contents of all the shredders, which our guys did. And maybe some of the documents she needed to shred were back at her house anyway.” Arnett glanced at his watch. “How is it already three? No wonder I’m hungry. I can’t face those hotline tips until I get some food.”
“Perfect. We can pick up the security footage from Staples on the way.”
An hour later they hunkered down into their desks with meatball grinders. After verifying Julia had in fact bought a shredder from Staples, they settled into a rhythm of writing down the new hotline messages and triaging them in order of priority. Then, as the sun went down, they worked their way down the list in turn, following up where possible. Several people claimed to have seen either Naomie or Madison out walking, but when questioned, the timing or other details didn’t match up. Several more claimed to have found evidence of Satanic cults around the areas in question, but when contacted, that evidence turned out to be unrelated.
When they were two-thirds of the way down the list, Jo’s phone rang.
“It’s Philby PD.” She shot Arnett a confused look, then picked up. “Jo Fournier.”
A young male voice came over the line. “Detective Fournier, I’m Officer Stanton of the Oakhurst PD. We have a murdered pregnant woman next to a culvert we think you need to see.”
