We Have Butterflies
Previously: The investigators talk to Andrew Barrington.
10:25 AM - Monday, November 3, 2014
US Park Police Office, Ft Winfield Scott, The Presidio
“That kid is feeling it.” Jeannie said to no one.
“I’m wondering what I’m feeling at hearing the word ‘bonehead’ so many times in one conversation.” Mark quipped.
“Is it — “ Paco hesitated, “is it me, or is it strange that she asked him to have sex with her? Sorry, I know how that sounds, but like, it just seems odd to me.” Mark sighed and leaned back.
“Why odd?” Mark asked him, eyes narrowing.
“I’m not sure, maybe I just didn’t know girls like that in high school. And, I’m not saying it’s bad behavior at all, but I guess the assertiveness is new to me. I never knew someone that confident at that age.” Paco knew how this was sounding: judgmental. He didn’t want it to sound that way, but given what they assumed Alexa had been through with Seb and the rest just a few weeks before seeing Andrew, it seemed like a bold move for her to make.
“I can see what you mean,” Jeannie said quietly, eyes distant. “I think… I think maybe she was trying to find some agency again. You know, take her power back?” She pursed her lips. “I mean, if what Andrew said was true and there was public betting going on over her V-card getting swiped, then yeah, I’d want to upend the situation too. Why do these other kids get to be so involved in her sex life? It’s unfair. I totally get it as I’m talking it through now.” Jeannie looked at Paco, eyes wide. “She felt safe with Andrew, even if they were just friends. Sometimes that’s easier; you know someone, you like them, and there’s no romantic pressure. She did what she had to do to start her senior year without anyone’s speculation.” Jeannie’s hands gestured along with her argument.
“Yeah I can see that,” Mark said, taking his turn to stare into space. “But, she’d have to somehow announce it to everyone to make sure they knew all bets were off. How would she do that without inviting in more speculation and judgment?”
“I don’t know?” Jeannie asked generally. “Maybe it just didn’t matter to her anymore. Like, fuck them, she knew what was up and they can speculate all they want. Or, she announces it somehow on that chatroom thing…or, tells a story about it to the right person who she knows will tell everyone else.” The hand gestures were now finger points in the air. “Clearly gossip was rampant, I mean, they’re teens. It’s their currency, especially with Instagram and Facebook and whatever else.” Jeannie’s face brightened. “Maybe she wised up all around.”
“What do you mean?” Paco asked, trying to catch up with her thoughts.
“I mean, take the power back there too. All the had to do was drop a tale of a summer romance on Nantucket to a mysterious eastern boy who goes to Exeter. Who would question it?”
“Um, everyone?” Mark said. “That sounds an awful lot like the ‘my girlfriend lives in Canada - you wouldn’t know her…’” Jeannie assented with a head tilt.
“Yeah, I see that, but today anyone can find anyone online. She could even give out his name and show them his photo, his profile. I doubt Seb would have the balls to track him down and email the guy. And how would that make him look?”
“It’s also a new school year,” Paco offered, “maybe no one gave it a thought after the summer.”
“I guess we’ll need to find out.” Mark said leaning back again.
“Are you guys free for some news?” Amanda popped her head through the conference room door. “Well, not really news, but some tid-bits. I won’t have everything pulled together the way I want it for another day or two, but I do have something for you.”
“We will take whatever you have to give.” Mark said, gesturing to some of the empty seats at the table.
“First, I’m testing all the bottles of Tito’s to see what’s in them, which is going to take a minute, but I think it will be helpful. Second, we are going to try and sample test the soil of the trails and see where the jacket got dropped. Based on that, we can try and build some kind of a direction or route taken that landed her in the spring.” Amanda plugged in her laptop to the projector to reveal the image of half of an orange-and-black monarch butterfly. “And third, we have butterflies.” She looked at the three across the table with something like pride.
“C’mon Amanda, tell us.” Paco said smiling a little.
“Okay, so I came across this little guy up near the rock on the Ecology Trail — you know where they were all partying?” Mark’s eyes narrowed at her. “I thought it was a legit butterfly, but monarchs are pretty rare this time of year, so something about it made me pick it up and look at it, and I noticed the dollop of glue on the back side.” Amanda switched the image to show the reverse side of the butterfly. “It’s not a real butterfly.”
“The dress.” Jeannie said softly. Paco felt tingles go over his arms.
“The dress.” Amanda replied. “I started to see a LOT of butterflies — bits of orange, really — all over the scene. I had all of them numbered and picked up, and now that the dress has dried out I can see where some of them have fallen off. So, what I’m going to TRY and do is re-assemble the dress based on the pieces of the butterflies we found — see where they were located over the scene and hopefully it will tell us something about what went on. There’s a lot more of them further down the trail, away from the party rock. I’ll try to map where they fell back to their position on the dress; maybe we’ll see how they got knocked loose.”
All of them were stunned.
“Oh my God,” Jeannie whispered. “She left breadcrumbs.”
“Yes she did.” Amanda replied. “It’s going to take a while, but I’m determined. I think it will tell us a lot.”
“Didn’t Carolina say —” Jeannie began.
“She said they used glue guns to attach them because she was running out of time.” Paco said, his eyes wide.
“Wow. Amanda this is a great catch.” Mark said. “Thank you.” Amanda unplugged her laptop and moved to the door.
“I’ll let you know when I have more pulled together, but it would be great if we could find some of the original butterflies that she was using, just to compare.”
“Sure, I’ll look for them when I go to their house later.” Jeannie said. Amanda smiled and gave them a wave, disappearing out the door.
Mark’s phone rang suddenly, making all of them jump. The idea of the orange butterflies still holding their thoughts. “It’s the Coroner.” Mark told them as he answered, putting the call on speaker.
“Agent Greenberg, I have some initial findings for you.” The voice was curt, and slightly echo-y. The Coroner was on speaker as well, and probably still in his lab. “I won’t have my full report probably until tomorrow, but I do have a cause of death.” Paco felt the tingles again.
“Of course, anything you have would help us proceed.” Mark told him.
“So, cause of death is drowning, she definitely had water in her lungs. But, it was likely due to being incapacitated by a mixture of vodka, GHB, and a touch of opiates. This girl received quite a cocktail.” Paco exhaled sharply, sharing a look with Jeannie whose face had lost all color.
“Wow. Okay. Thank you, anything else?”
“Yes, to answer your question about the blue-ness of her skin from before, she did indeed have a punctured lung. I’m seeing massive blunt force trauma to the chest, right to the left side of her sternum. Two broken ribs and one of them punctured her lung. It was slight, but it would make it hard to breathe. And, if she was already inebriated and disoriented….” The Coroner faded. The three were stunned again. Paco saw Jeannie breathing heavily as she stared into space again, listening, face contorted.
“Stomach contents included caesar salad and mushroom pizza, nothing crazy there. Otherwise,” the Coroner sighed deeply, “two things that bothered me: we pulled 62 blackberry thorns out of her legs and lower arms. It’s - it’s incredible. It must have been painful, but given her state of intoxication she may not have noticed. Also, one interesting thing came up on her initial tox screen apart from the party drugs: trimethoprim sulfamethoxazole.”
“I — I’m not familiar.” Mark’s face crinkled in puzzlement.
“I am.” Jeannie said. “It’s an antibiotic usually taken for a UTI, isn’t that correct?”
“It is.” The Coroner said.
“A UTI?”Mark asked. “What does that mean?”
“Um…” Jeannie began, tilting her head, “Usually in a young woman it means she’s having a lot of sex. And I know you can’t tell that in an autopsy, even if they do it on TV.”
“You’re correct on both counts.” The Coroner said. “I’ll confirm it when I test for bacteria, but I did find it interesting. I’ll get my final report to you as soon as I can.”
“Thank you - and one last thing, can you tell us what hit her that created the blunt force trauma?”
“Hard to say,” the Coroner sighed. “Something that had a pointed edge or angle of some kind. Something hit her with the edge which was what broke the ribs. But it had to be heavy.”
“Okay, we’ll keep that in mind in our search.” The Coroner rang off and Mark looked at both Paco and Jeannie, trying to catch his breath.
“Well, that’s — interesting.”
“I’ll get Amanda looking for something that could have caused the blunt force trauma,” Paco mentioned, but none of them moved.
“I’ll look for her prescription when I go to the house,” Jeannie said, eyes glazed. “Makes me wonder…”
“Wonder what?” Paco prodded. The speed of Jeannie’s brain was already intimidating, but he’d have to learn to keep up with it.
“Wonder who she was having all the sex with.”
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