Streaks on Sequins
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Previously: Amanda and Paco explain everything.
10:20 AM - Wednesday, November 5, 2014
US Park Police Office, Ft Winfield Scott, The Presidio
Jeannie’s stomach roiled. Coffee and a green drink together. She felt sick and a strong urge to pee at the same time. Paco and Amanda had presented everything carefully and professionally; it was all clear but Jeannie’s own brain wasn’t adding it up fully. She didn’t want to believe it could all be happenstance. She wanted someone to blame and knew that was dangerous.
Everyone sat in silence for a long moment.
“Okay.” Mark began quietly, his arms propping up his chin. “Is this everything? What happened with the spring water anyways?” His eyes darted to Doug.
“Ah, the water.” Doug began leaning back slightly. “Okay, unfortunately there was basically nothing in there — given everything here about the butterflies I’m disappointed there weren’t any in the water.”
“Well,” Amanda countered, “it makes sense.” She moved over to the crime scene photo that showed Alexa’s partially submerged body in the spring head. “She was barely submerged to her mid-chest which is a part of the dress where the butterflies were sewn on, so they likely wouldn’t have come away in the water. BUT,” she emphasized, “I’d venture if we could actually get up into that bramble a little deeper we’d probably find some stuck in the vines there.” Her finger circled a general area around the spring head on the map.
“That makes sense, but what doesn’t make sense is that in all of those buckets of water —”
“How many were there?” Paco asked. “Five dollars says there were 12 buckets.”
“There were actually about 10 and a half by the time we cleared the body.” Jeannie almost flinched.
“And?” Mark asked.
“And, what doesn’t make sense is that in all that water all I found that shouldn’t be there were 6 or 7 sequins.” Doug held up a small vial and shook it to show the sequins inside.
“What makes you think they’re part of the case?”
“Well, the spring is very pure. If there’s foreign objects in the spring head, they’ve either been introduced to the water, or they’ve been there for a VERY long time. But, I’m betting these are new because there were no sequins at the bottom of the spring head — these had to flow right out. We got lucky getting a bucket there to catch them. That was good thinking.” He nodded to Paco.
“Thank you.”
“What does that tell you though?” Mark countered.
“It tells me that they were likely at the top of the spring where the water was moving. If they’d been in the spring for a while, they’d have sunk to the bottom.”
“How deep is that spring head anyway?” Mark asked him.
“About a foot and a half maybe? It’s kind of just a little brick box to hold the water. But I can’t imagine the last time the water flow was shifted or stopped. Probably when they renovated the trail a few years back. Regardless. Once we moved the victim, I checked the spring head “box”, if you will, and it was completely clear. It wasn’t until we brought the buckets back to the lab and went through them that the sequins appeared.”
“Please tell me there’s something unique about these sequins.” Jeannie asked.
“No, not really, sorry.” Doug sighed, and passed the vial around the table. “But, what’s weird is that they’re black, but clearly have a metallic residue on them.” The vial made its way to Jeannie, who looked at the sequin closely. “I can’t tell fully what kind of metallic was on there, but from what I can tell, sequins can often be painted with different layers of paint to create a final color. I guess it gives depth to the shimmer or something.”
“They look like there’s some silver streaks?” Jeannie offered, squinting into the vial.
“Yeah, silver, but some of them have a shade of blue over the silver. From my research, the more layers on the sequin, the higher quality the product generally is, but I’m guessing that these sequins weren’t meant to be soaking in water for hours at a time either.”
“So you think some of the paint has washed away?” Mark asked. Jeannie handed him the vial.
“Well, there’s streaks and they’re uneven on each piece, so until we have an original to compare I think that’s the best assumption.” Mark raised his eyebrows and sighed.
“Streaks on sequins.” Mark said, glancing at Doug. “Look, I’m not saying it’s nothing, but since we don’t have an original to compare, as you said, it could really be nothing.”
“I think we’re all missing the bigger thing here,” Amanda interjected, getting everyone’s focus instantly. “If the sequins were on Alexa, how did they get there? And, who got close enough to her to transfer sequins to her dress? I mean, I’m going downstairs now to comb though those feathers again, but thus far I haven’t seen anything. But if the sequins were on her, they were only on about 10 inches of dress, at most, right between the neckline and waist, which is the only part that was submerged. So how does that happen?” Everyone was quiet.
“I mean…we can look through the pictures.” Steph offered. “She could have posed in a picture up next to someone who had a sequin dress on, right? Sequins tend to grab onto things, you know, so we’ll go through the party photos and see if anything jumps out.”
“That’s good thinking.” Mark conceded, nodding at Steph. “But if it’s a party photo, we may find it’s from a friend, not an enemy.” Steph glanced at Jeannie who tried to look encouraging. “Let’s look at the list.” Mark got up and approached the board where Jeannie had made additions that morning. “Apart from a specious revenge angle due to Alexa taking a picture of Jim Hartman intimidating her friend, Ryan, we really don’t have a motive here. Besides, Jim Hartman wasn’t even at this party, and if he spiked that bottle of Tito’s it’s going to be very difficult to prove.”
“It won’t be as hard to prove that his son did it.” Jeannie countered.
“But at the behest of his father? The kid would have to flip, and that’s if we even get to talk to him, which I doubt at this point. But, Alexa’s enemies — who are they? As of now we haven’t heard a thing against this girl. Everyone liked her, the girls wanted to be friends with her, all the boys wanted to date her. So, who didn’t like her? And yes, WHY would she leave the party with Jen Tyson, the girl who basically broke up her relationship with Seb?”
“Okay, but I think Alexa wasn’t mad about that. She left town, had a summer romance, and according to everyone, was ready to take on senior year and never spoke to Seb.”
“Didn’t Seb say she’d reached out to him though?” Raj piped up. “I think I remember hearing that from the interviews. Who said it?”
“It was Seb.” Jeannie agreed. “He did say that, and I completely forgot to follow him up about it. Shit.”
“I can get into her email and take a look.” Raj offered.
“Yes, do that. Okay, Owen and Steph — for the time being, you both will be on party photos — there’s a massive amount. Raj, if you can get into Alexa’s email and see if anything jumps out at you at all, especially messages to Seb. Also, keep an eye on Pr3pSF, see if anything happens there.” Raj nodded and almost dove into his laptop. “And, who do we think the Admin is?” Mark’s voice grew as everyone began to scramble slightly to their tasks. “And, follow-up to that is, who is posting using Alexa’s login on Pr3pSF and HOW, how did they get that last video of the Lake Tahoe incident.”