Detective Rosebud sat at Lorraine Taylor’s kitchen table, listening to yet another round of how wonderful their high school chastity club was.
“Even though high school ended quite a few years back for you, you’re still part of that club?”
She lifted her left hand in the air in a move that reminded Rosebud of Beyoncé’s Single Ladies video he may have watched a time or two. “You see a ring on that finger, Detective?”
Annoyed as he was by her reply, he let it slide. She was no Beyoncé. “No.”
“Then I will remain chaste.” She pursed her lips and nodded once.
He exhaled loudly, realizing the woman’s lasting chastity had probably more to do with her looks and behavior than a vow she made with a bunch of friends. If he hadn’t known better, he would have assumed the woman was a nun. A nun with an attitude, though. Her demeanor, combined with the medallion of the Virgin Mary pinned onto her gray turtle neck, was certainly not a strong mating call.
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“Why would you need to know that?”
“Just trying to identify those associated with your chastity club, either directly or indirectly—as in girlfriend or boyfriend—so we can talk to everyone.”
“Ah.” She frowned. “Well, no. Not at the moment.”
“And the same would have been true a few weeks ago?”
“Yes.”
Rosebud refrained from smiling. It was definitely not his place, and she didn’t need to hear his opinions as to why she was still single.
“Going back to the list of original members,” he said.
“I have a photo of us if you’d like.”
Her statement had made his ears prick up. “Yes! I’d like to see it, please.”
While the photo in itself would be helpful, if only to post on the board in the conference room and give the other detectives a visual representation of every member of their club, a tiny part of him wanted to see who among that group had joined of their own merit—i.e., who would have been in a situation to not be chaste if they had chosen—versus those who’d followed the “cool” kids. Hair-dos, braces, and acne coverage would easily answer that.
“Here we are,” she said, handing a portrait of twelve teenagers neatly lined up by height. The black sign with white lettering spelled out “Chastity Club 2013-14.”
Rosebud took hold of it. “Can I keep it?”
“Sure. I have a few of them left.”
None of the kids had been that bad looking, instantly shutting down the theory he had begun to build in his mind.
Was he the only one who looked like shit in all of his high school photos?
He flipped the picture and noted that names had been neatly printed in uppercase on the back.
“And that’s everyone’s name. In the order in which they appear in the photo.”
“That’s incredibly helpful. Thank you.”
“I always did that right after I had my photos printed. Now Facebook tags people for me.”
Her comment triggered a thought in Rosebud’s mind. “Is there a Facebook group for your chastity club?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.”
“Would you mind showing me?”
“No problem. I have nothing to hide.” She dug out her phone.
“Any chance you have a desktop computer or laptop so we can see more information at once?”
“Sure, follow me.”
They relocated to the living room where she kept her laptop.
A minute later, without having to enter a password anywhere—not to unlock her computer, not to enter Facebook—her fingers flew on the keyboard and she turned it toward Rosebud.
“Here it is.”
“May I scroll through?”
“Do what you need, Detective.”
Rosebud slowly went down the list of memes, animated GIFs, excerpts from the Bible, celebrity gossip (with lots of holier-than-thou comments from the group), and even posts about the odd celebrity like Selena Gomez who had also made chastity vows.
But what he had hoped to see was nowhere to be found. There was absolutely no slander toward Lori Davis.
“Can I see the list of members?” he asked, returning the laptop to her.
“Sure, but it’s the same people from our group. We don’t add or remove anyone.” She slid her finger over the mouse, then tapped it to display the members. “Well, that’s odd,” she said.
“What is?” Rosebud asked, now looking over her shoulder.
“It says eleven members… Lori is missing. Does Facebook know she passed away? Maybe it removed her?”
“Unlikely,” Rosebud said. “Can you look at her profile?”
She typed her name in the search box and her profile appeared, her timeline filled with condolence messages.
“Who are the admins for your chastity group?” Rosebud asked.
“Just me and Amanda.”
Rosebud spent the rest of the afternoon interviewing more members of the chastity club. After sharing his latest discovery with Chainey, he split the rest of his interviews with him.
Unfortunately, none of the chastity members claimed to have noticed Lori had been removed from the group a couple of weeks ago. So much for his theory that another member could have had something to do with her death.
And he also confirmed David’s and Amanda’s comments about Lori’s fiery temper. Everyone knew to avoid her for days when they had disagreements. It all added up. But that meant Amanda’s motive was weak at best.
Now, sitting at his desk, he went over his notes, trying to make sense of what he’d learned.
Perhaps passive-aggressive behavior or jealousy had led Amanda to do that, but at least she hadn’t posted publicly about one of their members being booted out of the group by breaking its only rule.
But that certainly didn’t eliminate any of the other members who could have noticed. However, Rosebud’s gut didn’t think it was worth pushing.
He grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair and was putting it on when Murphy walked in, coffee and brown bag in hand.
“What’s new?” he asked.
“Not much. Talked to neighbors and Amanda again. I’m still not finding enough for a warrant. With the wide berth on our time of death, it makes it near impossible to check for alibis.”
“The forensic entomologist is still working on it,” Rosebud said.
“I get that he can tell how many cycles of various insects hatched, but there’s no way he’ll be able to determine when those bugs got there. You know how chilly it was in that house. We don’t know if the temperature stayed that cold the entire time or not.”
“All we can do is go with the scene markers. Let the mail dictate the most probable date.”
“Last seen on Sunday morning, on all accounts I got. Did anyone you speak to see her after that?”
Rosebud shook his head.
“The oldest mail on the porch was dated Wednesday. So that means it arrived Thursday or later. That’s a long time. I’ll call that bug expert myself and ask. Do you have the number?”
Rosebud shook his head again. “The medical examiner will have it.”
“Yeah.”
“What do you have in there?” Rosebud asked, pointing to the bag.
“One of those chocolate muffins from across the street. Want half of it?”
“Do I?” He reached in while Murphy dialed a number.
He watched her write down a number as she talked on the phone. She soon dialed another one.
“Hi, this is Detective Murphy, is Dr. Mark there?”
She moved the receiver away from her mouth. “Break me off a chunk before you eat it all, will you?” Her hand extended, she waited.
Rosebud gave her a third of it, having already eaten half but wanting just a bit more.
Murphy had time to eat it before Dr. Mark came to the phone.
“Yes, thanks for taking my call. I just wanted to ask how you’re doing with the timeline for Lori Davis’s death. Our other evidence gives us a seventy-two-hour window. Is there any way you could narrow that down for us?”
She hummed and nodded as Rosebud finished off the crumbs from the inside of the bag. “No idea. No evidence to the contrary. Please assume the temperature remained constant.” She moved the mouthpiece away for a second. “Hand me the calendar, would you?” She returned the receiver to her mouth. “And what would that be in days?”
Rosebud watched her pen count the days from the time Lori’s body was discovered. She circled Sunday and Monday. “That’s very helpful. Thank you.”
She hung up. “He’s not completed his calculations. But based on the cycles, it can’t be as late as Tuesday or Wednesday.” Kate lifted the bag and peered into it. “I should have known and bought two.”