A GOOD GIRL'S GUIDE TO MURDER

BOOK 1: A GOOD GIRL'S GUIDE TO MURDER

WARNING: An innocent doggie (presumably a golden retriever) gets kidnapped and indirectly killed.

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“Nothing gets between me and my homework, not even a little danger” (120).

Pip, a 17-year high school senior, uses her capstone project as an excuse to take a closer look at a murder case that happened in her town 5 years ago. Popular girl Andie Bell disappeared and was allegedly murdered by her sweet and smart Indian boyfriend, Sal Singh. Although Andie’s body was never found, Sal’s was found a few days later after he sent a confession text to his dad.

Pip begins the project only with the goal of pointing out reasonable doubt that the case was closed prematurely.

These are her initial theories:

1. A 3rd party killed Andie. Sal didn’t do the killing but maybe helped bury the body (so he was involved as an accessory). The guilt leads him to suicide, but killer is still out there.

2. A 3rd party killed Andie. Sal killed himself due to reasons unrelated to Andie.

3. A 3rd party killed Andie, and then they also killed Sal to frame him.

4. Andie is still alive and she killed Sal.

After rounds of interviews, these were Pip’s main suspects:

Andie’s dad (Jason Bell). Andie always flaunted her money (and she liked the fact that no one, even her two best friends, knew where she got it from). Andie did know that her dad was having an affair (with a woman he later divorced her mom to marry), so maybe Andie was blackmailing her dad to get that extra money?

Howie the drug dealer. Andie was Howie’s “in” to the young high school crowd. The night that she disappeared, her car was found on his street.

Max Hastings. Max was known for throwing banger “calamity” parties. He claimed that he didn’t know Andie well, but he regularly bought drugs from her and had a picture of her in her underwear that he “found” at school.

Nat da Silva. Andie had a history of bullying Nat. First Andie forced Nat to drop out of the lead role of the spring play by threatening to tell the whole school that she hooked up with Nat’s older brother (Daniel) when he worked as a janitor (while Andie was still a minor). Later she pranked Nat by making her think that she was texting her crush, asking her to send a topless video to “confirm” that it was Nat, and then sending that video to the whole school. Later, the same day that Nat comes to Pip’s school to apply for Daniel’s old janitor position, Pip receives a threatening note in her locker telling her to stop digging (similar to how Nat once put a threatening note in Andie’s locker before Andie went missing).

Daniel da SIlva. Daniel now works as a police officer. He has been known to shut down leads in Andie’s disappearance that pointed to anything other than Sal being the murderer. Because he helped with conducting search warrants five years ago, he could have removed any evidence that pointed to himself.

What really happened?

There was not one but TWO killers!

Pip’s best friend (Cara) and Cara’s older sister (Naomi) lost their mother due to an illness. To deal with the grief, Naomi’s therapist recommended that she write journals. Cara’s and Naomi’s dad (Elliott) was so lonely after his wife’s death that when Andie started paying extra attention to him at school, he caved in and hooked up with her. When he later tried to cut things off with her, Andie threatened to expose him for being with a minor. It just so happened that he found out that Andie was the culprit behind Nat’s cyberbullying prank, and since pranks like that could lead to expulsion, Andie and Elliott reached mutually assumed destruction.

The night that Andie had disappeared, she visited Elliott at his house to try to pull him back into her games. Elliott was not having it, so in a fit of rage, Andie started destroying the paintings that his wife created while she was dying. Elliott pushed Andie a bit too hard to get her to stop and she hit her head. Elliott left to get medical supplies, but when he came back, Andie had already up and left. Her house was close enough to Elliott’s that she was able to walk home. At her house, her parents were still at a dinner party but her younger sister (Becca) had been waiting for her for some big sister advice. At a recent calamity party, Max spiked Becca’s drink with Rohypnol (that Andie sold him) and assaulted her. Andie rudely told Becca that she didn’t care, which prompted Becca to push her. Because Andie was already recovering from a head injury, she vomited, and the vomit choked her to death. Becca stood by without doing anything to help (thereby indirectly killing her). Becca loaded Andie into the trunk of Andie’s car (which was in the garage) and drove. The surveillance camera thus caught Becca (not Andie, but everyone assumed it was Andie). Becca dumped Andie’s body into the septic tank of an abandoned farm, and then she abandoned the car and walked home.

When Andie was declared missing, Elliott assumed that her head injury got the best of her while she walked away from his house. Because he didn’t want his daughters to lose their father by being locked up in prison so soon after they lost their mother, he decided to pin Andie’s disappearance on her boyfriend, who happened to be one of his trusting students. Elliott lured Sal to go on a walk through the forest and then killed him there. Then, he sent a text from Sal’s phone to Sal’s dad to “confess” to Andie’s murder. Because Elliott had Andie’s blood in his house from the head injury, he used tweezers to put some of it under Sal’s fingernails. Elliott then took away Sal’s alibi by forcing the friends that he was hanging out with that night (Max, Naomi, and a couple other people) to say that Sal left Max’s house sooner than he claimed to have left (to make it look like Sal had ample time for killing Andie). If they didn’t, Eliott threatened to expose their dark secret of paralyzing a pedestrian while they were drunk driving (which Eliott had read about in Naomi’s journals).

Elliott was so consumed with guilt afterwards that when he later found a girl with a learning disability who looked just like Andie in another town, he convinced himself that she was Andie, and he locked her up in his attic of his old home (which he claimed to have sold) and visited her 3 days a week (while he was “tutoring”) to cook meals for her and spend time with her. This girl somehow began to believe this tale that she was Andie herself.

Both Elliott and Becca try to threaten Pip to stop investigating, but Pip is able to put all the pieces together (even though Becca kidnapped her beloved dog and indirectly killed him by releasing him back into the woods, where he drowned instead of finding his way home). Everyone who deserved jail time gets their fair punishment, Ravi is cleared from being regarded as a murderer’s brother, and Ravi and Pip become an item!

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BOOK #2: Good Girl, Bad Blood

A couple decades ago, a serial killer named Scott Brunswick (dubbed “The Monster in Rochester”) used his child (Jack) to lure other kids away from their families and then kill them. Eventually, he got caught and sentenced to life in prison. Because Jack was just a child and his testimony was key to locking up his father, Jack was only sent to juvie for a few years and then given a new identity. “Child Brunswick” became the phrase that people used to reference his past identity.

The last child who was abducted by the Brunwicks was Emily Rowell. Emily and her twin brother Charlie were playing on a playground when Jack asked them if they wanted to play hide-and-seek. Because Jack was slightly older, Emily and Charlie thought that he was cool, so they agreed. While Charlie was slowly counting to sixty, Jack led Emily to the van. Once her body was found, Charlie’s life shattered. His dad hung himself (as Charlie discovered when he came home from school one day), and his mom turned to drugs to numb the pain. She neglected Charlie, so he spent the rest of his adolescence bouncing between foster homes. When Charlie was 18, he fell in love with Flora and confided in her that it was his mission to track down Jack and make him pay for what he did. Flora was supportive, so they changed their last name to Flora’s maiden name (Green) and moved several times as they followed leads.

For the past 8 years, Jack has actually been living in Fairview (Pip’s hometown) under the name Stanley Forbes. (In the previous book, Pip saw Stanley handing Howie Bowers money without getting drugs or anything in return. This was because Howie was blackmailing Stanley to not expose his identity. Stanley didn’t want to have to leave the friends that he’s made and start over from scratch.) After Howie got sent to a correctional facility from Pip’s last investigation, he told someone who told someone that he knew that Child Brunswick was in Fairview. Due to this rumor, Charlie and Flora move to town.

Charlie creates a fake Tinder profile and instagram account under the name “Layla Mayes” (photoshopping the hair of a local girl, so the account looks legit since the background shows familiar places). She targets men who fit the profile of grown-up Child Brunswick (white, brown hair, around 30 years old). Examples of men who she talks to online are Daniel de Silva, Pip’s new history teacher (Adam Clark), Nat de Silva’s boyfriend (Luke), and Jamie.

Jamie is the older brother of Pip’s friend Conner. Jamie has a crush on Nat, but since Nat is taken, he resorts to online dating. The profile that he created lists him as being 30 and successful (to make himself feel better and give him something to aspire to). This catches the eye of “Layla”, and Jamie falls head-over-heels for her. He texts her and sometimes even calls her (Flora). Because he really wants things to work out, he confesses to Layla that he actually lied about his age (so he’s really 24). Layla then ghosts him (since he’s now ruled out as being Child Brunswick), but since Jamie persistently sends messages saying that he would “do anything” for her, Layla uses this opportunity to help avoid getting her hands dirty.

Layla first tests Jamie to see what he would be willing to do for her.

Layla says that she needs to have a life-saving operation but needs $1200. Jamie borrows $900 of this from Luke (since his dad wouldn’t lend him money without an explanation of what it was for, and Jamie got caught/fired when trying to steal money from work).

Layla says that her dad got rid of her dead mother’s watch, which got sold at an auction to Charlie and Flora Green. So Jamie broke into Charlie’s and Flora’s house and only took a cheap, used ladies watch.

Layla tells Jamie to beat up a guy who was “trying to stop her from having access to the operation”, so Jamie beat him up (even though he didn’t even know how to fight).

Once Layla realized that he might even be willing to kill for her, he sent him after the top two guys that she narrowed her list down to: Luke and Stanley Forbes.

When Layla messages Luke to meet but then Jamie appears, Luke assumes that Jamie was the one who was catfishing him. He’s confused why Jamie says “Child Brunswick” to him (looking for a reaction, but the words mean nothing to Luke). Luke chases Jamie until he eventually loses Jamie in the woods.

Jamie meets up with Stanley Forbes next. This time, the words “Child Brunswick” yields a reaction, and Jamie attacks Stanley. In the fight, Jamie loses consciousness and Stanley locks him in his house until he figures out what to do. Later, Jamie explains his side of the story, but Stanley still can’t be completely certain that he isn’t actually Layla. So the two make a deal: Once Stanley finds Layla, he’ll release Jamie. Until then, he gives Jamie the food that he wants and takes as good of care of him as possible.

Pip eventually puts the pieces together and realizes that Stanley is Child Brunswick. She messages Stanley as Layla to come meet her, and while he’s out, Ravi and Conner break into his house to look for Jamie. They unknowingly set off a silent alarm, so the police show up there and find them and Jamie. Meanwhile, Stanley explains his story to Pip. Charlie overhears, and knowing that Stanley is indeed Child Brunswick, he shoots him (and Stanley does what he can to protect Pip). Charlie rushes home to gather Flora and some of their belongings, and they flee.

Overall, this book raises the question of what to do when the justice system fails. Not only in the Brunswick case, but in the Max Hastings case (who is declared “not guilty”, despite being a serial rapist). The police were slow to investigate since Jamie is an adult and has been known to run away before, and many of Pip’s followers thought this might have been a scripted conspiracy to gain more fame and sponsorships.

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BOOK #3: As Good As Dead

Pip is haunted by the PTSD of Charlie shooting Stanley 6 times. She imagines the sweat on her hands to be Stanley’s blood, and she imagines her heartbeat to be the gunshots. She goes to Luke (Nat’s ex from the last book) for Xanax after her doctor had cut her off so that could develop more natural ways to cope.

Pip is also haunted by someone persistently emailing her the question: “Who will look for you when you’re the one who disappears?”. This is accompanied by chalk drawings of 5 headless figures on her driveway, a couple headless pigeons in her front yard, a bouquet of flowers on her car with the flowers plucked off, and mysterious phone calls. Most of these signs are consistent with the notorious DT Killer (“duct tape killer”) who killed 5 victims in her area a few years ago.

But the DT Killer was supposed to have been caught - or at least a man named Billy Karras (who regularly drank and blacked out) was pressured by the police into giving a false confession (due to their suggestive questions for 9 hours straight). Billy had worked at Jason Bell’s company (Green Scene/ Clean Scene LTD), so he had access to the duct tape and rope that was used for the suffocation and strangling. And he was the one who “found” one of the victim’s bodies and tried to do CPR (or maybe he was trying to cover up any DNA traces?).

For most of the book, Pip is certain that the real DT Killer is actually Dan de Silvia (Nat’s brother). He fits the age profile, had worked at Green Scene for a few years alongside Billy, and was overly interested in the DT case developments when he switched to working at the police station. Plus, Pip found an email draft from Andie’s secret email account that she knows who the DT Killer is but is too scared to say anything since he’s “practically a police officer” and often eats dinner at her house with her family. Dan was like a son to Jason Bell, who had taken him under his wing. Andie’s plan was to save up as much money as she could (hence why she got into drug dealing) so that she and Becca could eventually move away, and only then would she say anything to the police.

But when Pip gets abducted by the DT Killer, she’s surprised to see that it’s Jason Bell, not Dan. Before Andie was born, Jason was known as a different infamous serial killer, but he was never found (since the police didn’t have anything to match the found DNA to). After Andie was born, Jason and his family moved to Fairview, so the killings in his old hometown stopped. Then he started killing as the DT Killer, and on the night that Andie died, the reason why he had to leave dinner early was because one of his victims set off the alarm at Green Scene after she freed herself from the duct tape (so Jason had to rush over there to finish the job). But when Andie died, there was too much police attention on him, so he had to stop killing. But because he was very annoyed with Pip being nosy about everything, he decided to make her his next victim. We also find out that Jason drowned Barnie (Pip’s golden retriever) after Becca had set him free. At the time, he did this because he thought that Becca got a dog without permission, but even when he found out that the dog was really Pip’s, he still didn’t feel any regret. This makes us really hate Jason even more.

Pip manages to escape, and when Jason returns, she has two options:

Keep running away until she finds a house whose phone she can borrow to call for help, and try to convince the police that Jason (a respectable man who’s friends with many police officers) that he’s the real DT Killer.

2. Turn back and break the circle by killing Jason with a hammer so that he can’t ever hurt her or anyone else again.

Pip goes with the second option. But now she has a problem: This technically wasn’t self-defense since she had a choice. So she would likely be convicted of murder or manslaughter. So she decides to pin the murder on Max Hastings, who had previously been declared “non-guilty” on all rape charges and was actively trying to sue Pip for slander (which he claims to be the reason why he’s having a hard time finding employment).

Because Pip has seen many true crime podcasts, she knows just what to do:

Knowing that the medical examiner uses 3 metrics for determining the time window of death (how stiff, how blanchable, and how warm the body is in relation to the outside temperature), she manipulates these factors to buy herself time to come up with an ironclad alibi. She places Jason in his car with the AC turned all the way up so that he would be cooled off and makes sure to rotate him so gravity can contribute to blood flow. Much later, she “microwaves” him by turning the heat on to bring his body temperature up. (She figured no one would be driving by to check on him since Jason had considered taking the entire weekend to kill her slowly, and Jason said that he had learned his lesson about disabling all alarms, and no one had heard her screams earlier.)

Knowing that Max’s parents were out of town and that Max was alone in the house, Pip hid in the blindspots of his house’s security cameras and covered them with duct tape. Then she snuck into the back of the house while Nat rang the doorbell to distract Max. Then Pip put crushed-up rohypnol (which she bought from Luke under the pretense that she needed something stronger to sleep) into his water bottle (similar to what he had done to many girls’ drinks). Figuring out the dosage was a bit of a gamble (because if she gave him too little, he wouldn’t pass out, and if she gave him too much, she would become a two-time killer in the same night). But a few minutes later, he passed out on the couch. Pip came out from hiding and stole his phone, handing it off to Nat to then drop off at Green Scene. Then Pip also stole one of his hoodies, a pair of shoes, a hat, his car keys, and a few strands of his hairs (with the follicles on them for DNA tracing).

She went to Cara’s house and borrowed her landline to call Max’s lawyer that she’s “accepting” the terms of paying $7,000 in damages and also posting an apology on social media. Pip knew that the lawyer would call Max right away, and the local cell towers would place his phone at the scene of the crime.

Pip went out to McDonald’s (where she knew there would be security cameras) with Cara and Naomi and paid for nuggets and fries with her credit card (for a further trace). She stayed there for a few hours, and then right before leaving, she bought a couple McFlurries (to establish the time she left).

Pip then went home to “sleep”, but once her family was all asleep, she snuck back out to Green Scene (taking back roads with no traffic cams). She placed Jason’s body in a tarp and placed it where it was hidden but not super well (so it didn’t seem suspicious for being out in the open, but wouldn’t get missed during the first search). She planted Max’s hairs under his fingernails to look like he fought Jason. She wore Max’s shoes (with a unique tread pattern) in this process to leave marks in the mud. She also dipped his hoodie in some of Jason’s blood.

Pip and Ravi thoroughly cleaned everything that might have had her fingerprints or DNA on it. Then they set the car and business on fire with gasoline and a lighter to clean even better and to attract attention so that the medical examiner can have an “accurate” time estimation that overlaps with Pip’s alibi.

Pip drove away in Max’s car while wearing his hat and hoodie, trying to hit as many traffic cams as possible. She returned the car to Max’s house, where she returned his phone (and removed it from the Ziploc bag that protected it from her fingerprints) and placed his muddied shoes, bloodied hoodie, and hat to his room.

Pip drove home in her car, where she snuck back inside. She used scissors to cut up the bleached leggings, shirt, and bra that she was wearing when she killed Jason. Then, she flushed small amounts in the toilet, praying that she wouldn’t clog it. (Her brother heard the toilet flushing throughout the night, which Pip explained was because of her vomiting from the McDonald’s. She also explained the bleach smell in her room as being to “cover up the puke smell”. )

Pip stayed home the next day (Sunday) under the pretense of being sick while her family went to Adventure Land. Once her family left, she deposited her shoes and burner phone into the neighbor’s trash cans. Then she finally rested.

Pip’s plan seemed to work (and people believed that Jason and Max already had bad blood over Max raping Becca), but she didn’t count on one thing: After Jason had abducted her, he stashed her headphones in his bedroom as “his trophy”. This was a direct link to her and seemingly proves that they must have had recent contact (or else she would have noticed her headphones had been missing sooner). Right when she was about to confess to everything, Ravi stepped up to explain that he sometimes borrows her headphones (sometimes without her knowing) and had recently visited Jason to ask if he wanted to create a scholarship in honor of Andie and Sal, to which he allegedly replied that he was too busy.

When Pip leaves for college, she tells Ravi that he cannot contact her until Max’s trial is over (because this way, if Max is found not guilty and the police come for her, she can tell the police that she forced Ravi to tell the police the coverup story for the headphones “under duress” and had not contacted her or the police since since since he was still afraid of her).

The police later discover the other “trophies” from the other victims, which Jason hid in plain sight - the hairbrush he gave to Andie, the earrings he gave to Becca, etc. So they release innocent Billy Karras from prison.

Three minutes after Max’s trial is over, Ravi texts Pip (so we can assume that Max was convicted as guilty).