“No, I didn’t discover the body. It had already been discovered. I came in through the front door and there were people milling around. The door to the study was open and the body was inside.”
“Were there any people inside?” Borstoi asked.
“No,” Gregor said, “not when I first saw the room, but I’d be very surprised if there hadn’t been some traffic in and out beforehand. It’s natural, really, to go up to a body and see if it’s really dead. There’s always the chance that there’s something you can do about it, some help you can give, or that if you called an ambulance you could revive them.”
“But this body was dead,” Borstoi said.
“As a doornail, as the saying goes,” Gregor said. “I knew it as soon as I saw it. But I’m used to seeing dead bodies. These people aren’t.”
“And you don’t know who she is?”
“No,” Gregor said, “and the impression I get is that none of the people here do, either.”
“But the Merion police will know,” Len Borstoi said.
“You’d think,” Gregor said. “I really mean it when I say that I haven’t been investigating this. All I know I heard from Miss Dahl, the woman we were just talking to, and the last I heard, this girl wasn’t talking. At all. To anybody. She was just sitting in jail and keeping her mouth shut. More than that must have happened or she wouldn’t have been released, but I don’t know about it. I don’t think anybody here, including me, even knows her real name.”
“She gave a false name?”
“I couldn’t tell you. She did apparently tell this girl she talked to, Janice Ledbedder, that her name was Emily. Whether that was true or not, I have no idea. Whether Ms. Ledbedder is remembering correctly or not, I also have no idea. But there is one thing you ought to be aware of.”
“What?”
“This is a reality show,” Gregor said. “If you look up toward the ceiling, you’ll see that there are cameras mounted practically everywhere. They film these girls twenty-four seven. They film everything they do.”
“Really?” Borstoi said.
He looked up at the foyer ceiling and spotted two of the cameras. Then he went to the door of the study and looked around.
“There seems to be only one in there,” he said, coming back. “But it is aimed at the door.”
There was a sound on the stairs. They all turned to look. Olivia Dahl was leading a sobbing girl by the hand, practically tugging her to get her to come downstairs.
“It’s not the end of the world, Janice,” she was saying. “It’s just Mr. Demarkian, and the Bryn Mawr police. You talked to the Merion police without going to pieces.”
TWO
1
Janice Ledbedder had never seen a dead body before today, and she was already sure she never wanted to see another one. She’d known it was a dead body, too, as soon as she’d set eyes on it. It didn’t look at all like anything she’d seen in the movies or on television. It didn’t even look like the pictures of the real dead bodies she had seen on shows like Cold Case Files and City Confidential. It was unmistakable even so. She had come running into the house, laughing a little because it was fun to try to outrace the rain. She had skidded a little in the foyer. Then she had started to take off her jacket, and when she’d done that she’d turned, and there it had been, right near the fireplace, where anybody could see it.
Now she came down the stairs, being led by Olivia Dahl. She could see a lot of men standing in the foyer, and to the left of the stairs, where the study was and the body was, there were people going in and out in with strange equipment and things on wheels.
One of the men standing in the foyer was somebody Janice had seen before—Gregor Demarkian, who was some kind of important detective, and who was sometimes interviewed on those true crime shows. She didn’t know if she was pronouncing his name right in her head. She thought she could get away with not actually saying it as long as he was right here. The other girls were standing in the doorway to the living room—or most of them were. Janice looked around for Coraline and didn’t see her.
Miss Dahl got out of her way at the bottom of the stairs. Janice walked up and looked at the two men. Miss Dahl nodded.
“This is Janice Ledbedder,” she said. “Janice, this is Detective Borstoi. He’s with the police. The taller one is Gregor Demarkian. He’s—”
“He’s a detective, too,” Janice said quickly. “I’ve seen him on television.”
“Maybe we could find somewhere to go,” Miss Dahl said. “It’s such a huge house. There must be an empty room you could use somewhere.”