“I looked at it,” Olivia Dahl said. “I had to. There was no way to know from the doorway if the girl was still alive. And somebody called nine-one-one.”
Janice saw Detective Borstoi and Mr. Demarkian both look at the room together, and then at each other.
“I really didn’t know who she was,” Janice said. “I mean, I did talk to her that first day when we were waiting in line, but she didn’t say much. She didn’t say anything at all really, except for her name when I asked her. I sort of talk a lot when I’m nervous. But I’d never seen her before that time and I hadn’t seen her since, you know, until this. She was just sort of there and then she wasn’t there and then, you know, whatever.”
“Did you by any chance see where she went after you and she parted, that first day in Merion?” Mr. Demarkian asked. “From what I’ve been able to understand, all the girls were waiting in line, and then they were let into the Milky Way Ballroom, and there was a sign-in desk, and you went there—”
“That’s right,” Janice said. “We went to the desk and gave our names and there were people with clipboards who told us where to go.”
“Do you remember this Emily stopping at the desk?” Mr. Demarkian asked.
“I really don’t,” Janice said. “I don’t remember anybody. Oh, except for Ivy. She’s one of the girls who made it into the house. But everybody remembers Ivy because she’s white-blond and she has a neon green streak in her hair, so it’s hard not to notice. But I was so nervous, and I was trying so hard to go to the right place and not make a mistake, I really wasn’t paying much attention.”
“What about here, today?” Mr. Demarkian asked. “Was there anybody in the foyer when you came in?”
“Oh, no. Not that I noticed.”
“Could you hear anybody moving around?”
Janice shook her head. “It all happened really fast. It really did. I came in, and I left the door open when I did because everybody was right behind me. So I could hear the rain, and I could hear the other girls, and I could hear one of the judges, Johnny Rell. I could hear him talking. I couldn’t make out the words but I knew it was him. And then everybody else started coming in right behind me. So if there was something quiet going on someplace, you know, if somebody was dusting somewhere or something, I probably wouldn’t have heard it.”
Gregor Demarkian looked out over the sea of girls crowding in the doorway to the living room.
“What about the rest of you?” he asked. “Did any of you see or hear anything?”
There was silence.
“Did any of you touch the body in any way?” Detective Borstoi said.
Janice was sort of surprised to hear his voice. He had faded into the background when Mr. Demarkian was talking. Maybe that was why Mr. Demarkian was the great detective, and Janice hadn’t heard of Detective Borstoi at all.
The girls in the doorway were all murmuring, but they were all murmuring “no.” Janice tried to remember if that was right—surely, if somebody had touched the body, she would have seen it? Maybe not. She was still feeling a little sick, and she was finding it hard to remember anything.
“It’s like my mind is all jumbled up,” she said to Mr. Demarkian. “I’m not usually a scatterbrain, but I can’t seem to remember when things happened or in what order. I just saw the body and—but I knew it was dead. I knew right away. I don’t know why. I think somebody shot her. There were red holes in her chest.”
“And you could see that from the door?” Detective Borstoi asked.
“I could see it in the mirror,” Janice said, and suddenly it all started to make sense to her. “That’s what happened. That’s what I forgot. I got into the foyer and I looked into the study because the door was open. You know, not because there was anything for me to do, or anything like that, not that I was doing it deliberately. I just sort of did it because the door was open, and I was there. And then I saw the body near the fireplace and my head sort of jerked back, and then I saw the same thing in the mirror. There’s a big mirror tilted over the fireplace and I could see the body in that, and there were big red holes in her chest.”
Detectives Borstoi and Mr. Demarkian looked at each other. Then they both walked over to the study door and looked inside. Then they came back.
“Interesting,” Mr. Demarkian said.
Janice thought the entire day had been entirely too interesting, but that was something else.
2
Grace Alsop had waited patiently, while all those people were in the house, to be pointed out and exposed. She’d expected Sheila Dunham, at least, to have told that Gregor Demarkian person who her father was, and what she was assumed to be doing in the house and on the set. Of course, Grace only had the vaguest idea of what it was Sheila thought she was doing. She’d told the entire truth when she’d said that she hadn’t spoken to her father in years, but even if she had, what could she get for him by being a contestant here? It would be different if she were some kind of investigative journalist, or if she wanted to write a book about her experiences on a reality show. As it was, all she wanted was a diversion for a few weeks, and a chance to see if she’d be any good at it. She’d been at loose ends for a while. She had an excellent education. She was bright enough. She knew what she liked and what she didn’t like. She just couldn’t get herself to focus on any one thing for any period of time.