Rebecca’s car wasn’t there after all, where Melanie thought it was, in Brooke’s driveway. We didn’t know what had happened until later, when the details of the night started to sort themselves out. Apparently, Alexa’s Jeep was running funny. So she left her Jeep on Merrimac and took Rebecca’s Acura.
At some point Melanie decided she didn’t need to leave after all. Why should she be the one to leave, when she hadn’t been (in her mind) in the wrong? Let him be the one to leave. She was going to stay and enjoy the party, and, yes, she would like to have one of those Aperol cocktails! And when that was done, she just might have another one. Since the line was getting long, why didn’t she just grab two now?
Melanie found Rebecca, who was at one of the stand-up cocktail tables with the mystery man, whom by then we knew to be Daniel Bennett. Melanie told Rebecca she didn’t see the car, but never mind, she’d changed her mind anyway. Rebecca didn’t think much of Melanie not being able to find her car. By then the party was really very crowded, and the cars had more than filled Brooke’s long driveway and were snaking onto Merrimac Street. She’d probably just overlooked it.
Did we hear the sirens from where we were? Some people said later that they had. But most of us viewed that as unlikely. Anyone coming from the police station would have cut up to High Street almost immediately to get more quickly to Hale Street. And it would have been nearly impossible to hear the ambulance from Brooke’s backyard.
Somebody said later that before all of that happened, they saw Sherri Griffin throwing up in the bushes. That wasn’t a surprise. Did you see how much alcohol she drank in a relatively short amount of time?