“My friends and I listen to you all the time.” Her cheeks pinked. “And you did that episode on Laurel, so of course everyone at school listened…”
“Great,” he said smoothly. “Then you already know I’m looking into her case.”
We were coming up to the Performing Arts Center. Edie spotted it, froze, then did an about-face, pivoting left. We scrambled to follow.
“Sorry,” she mumbled. “I don’t like walking past it anymore.”
“Edie,” I said, “I know this isn’t something you want to remember, but can you tell us about finding Laurel? It would really help us. And her, hopefully.”
She stopped in her tracks. Her eyes darted to Jamie. He seemed to be the winning factor, because she nodded. We settled down on a bench, Edie in the middle. All around us, students streamed by.
“Like I told the cops,” she said, twisting a ring, “I was on my way from Penfield—that’s where I live—to Cargill for swim practice. We meet super early, when the sun’s just coming out. I was passing by the theater when I saw her”—her voice thickened—“hanging from the tree. I didn’t think it was a person at first. I thought it was, like, a banner or something. But when I got closer, I saw.”
“What did you see?” Jamie asked.
She cleared her throat. “She was wearing a blue dress, kind of old-fashioned.”
Laurel could have made it herself.
“Light-blond hair, pale skin. Her head was…facing down…but I could tell she was pretty.” Edie bit her lip.
“It’s okay,” I said, resisting the urge to pat her.
Her voice grew smaller. “I’d never seen a dead body before.”
I gave up resisting and patted her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I know this is strange and painful, but these details are very helpful. There were cuts, right?”
She nodded. “On her arms and hands. Thin cuts, but they still looked terrible. Bright red and angry.”
Fresh, then. “This is going to sound weird,” I said, “but did they spell out any words?”
Edie frowned. “Words? No.”
“Okay. It was worth a—”
“But there was that symbol on her arm.”
I froze. On the other side of Edie, Jamie leaned closer. “There was no mention of a symbol in the police report.”
“What did it look like?” I asked.
Edie looked between us. “I told the officer who interviewed me.” She lifted her right arm and pointed to the soft flesh underneath. “It was right here. I could see it because her arm was twisted. It was the size of a quarter.”
“A tattoo?”
She shook her head. “Like a birthmark, or a scar. It was a triangle.” Edie drew the shape in the air. “With four little lines branching down from it, and a horizontal line at the bottom. Kind of looked like a frat house, like you see in movies. Whitney doesn’t have a Greek system.”
I tried to envision what she was describing. “Like a…temple?”
She brightened. “Or maybe a jail? It was hard to tell.”
Jamie’s eyes met mine over Edie’s head. Laurel had a symbol hidden on the underside of her arm, and the police hadn’t mentioned it in their report. Why?
“I record my lectures, so I don’t have paper on me,” Edie said. “But if you have some, I could draw it.”