“Now,” Detective Townsend said. “When I walked in, I saw a nice sitting area off the front entryway. Detective Lacks?” He turned to his partner. “Why don’t you head in there with Mr. and Mrs. Jacobs and I’ll meet you in one moment? Then the four of us can go to January’s room together.”
At Detective Townsend’s curt nod, Krissy understood that she and Billy had been dismissed, and when she turned to look at her husband, to follow him out of the room, she noticed that Robby was still standing behind them. In the whirlwind of the detectives’ arrival, she’d completely forgotten he was there. Detective Lacks led her and Billy to the sitting area off the entryway, and as she followed, Krissy turned to look back just in time to see Detective Townsend glower at their old high school friend.
“And you, Officer O’Neil, is it?” he snapped, his crisp voice carrying loudly through the hallway. “It seems I have you to thank for breaking every crime scene protocol in the book. So I’m going to need you to tell me everything in this house you touched.”
* * *
—
A few minutes later, Krissy led the two detectives and Billy up the stairs. But when she reached her daughter’s doorway, she stopped, as if invisible hands were holding her back, preventing her from stepping over the threshold. Only when she heard Detective Townsend’s firm “After you” did she force herself to cross it. Standing in her daughter’s bedroom, Krissy watched as the detectives entered and did not miss the pointed look they shared as they did.
She glanced around the room, trying to see what they did. She took in January’s daybed with its lilac comforter and the white gauzy canopy. It was the exact bed Krissy had always wanted as a girl, but was so far from the realm of possibility, she’d never asked for it. Her eyes flicked to the closet bursting with tutus in purples and pinks, tiny tights unfurled and hanging from the shelves like tentacles, the row of little dance shoes, pink ballet slippers next to the black patent leather ones for tap. She glanced at the white bulletin board on the opposite wall hanging over the bookcase, crisscrossed with pink ribbons and adorned with medals, certificates, and photos of January throughout the years, most of them taken before or after dance recitals. It wasn’t hard to see what the detectives saw: This was a girl who had everything.
“Try not to touch anything,” Detective Townsend instructed from where he lingered in the doorway. “But look hard. Does anything catch your eye as out of place or missing?”
Krissy and Billy walked slowly around the room, but it seemed impossible to Krissy to know if anything was where it hadn’t been before. Had January’s tights been rolled neatly yesterday? Had that tutu in her hamper been hanging up? Had that picture frame on the dresser been upright? She glanced at Billy, who stood frozen by January’s dresser, his hand on the corner as if he couldn’t prop up his own weight. He was only twenty-five, but with the dark circles under his eyes and the premature lines on his forehead, Krissy thought he could’ve passed for ten years older.
“I don’t know,” Billy said wearily after a while. “I don’t see anything.”
Krissy shook her head. “No. Me neither.”
The two detectives nodded, and as if that had been their cue, they began walking slowly around the perimeter of the room. Their search was unlike Robby’s had been, taking care not to touch anything, leaning deftly over the bed to examine the covers, squatting to look into the depths of the closet. When they converged at the bulletin board, Detective Townsend leaned toward it, his hands clasped behind his back, his nose inches from the cluttered surface.
“Quite a lot of medals for a six-year-old,” he said, throwing Krissy a look over his shoulder.
“She’s very dedicated. She’s been in lessons practically since she could walk.”
He nodded, returning his gaze to the board.
“Cute,” Detective Lacks said, pointing to an old photo of January. In it, she was probably three, in her nightgown, her hands over her head in a crude approximation of fifth position. Then Detective Lacks switched her gaze to another photo Krissy couldn’t see, one blocked by the detective’s back. “Wow. Townsend, take a look at this one.”
Detective Townsend turned, and Krissy watched as his gaze landed on whatever photo his partner was pointing to. The two of them locked eyes for the briefest of moments, and Krissy registered something in their look that rubbed her wrong—something like understanding.
Detective Townsend turned to face her and Billy. “Mind if we take this one? We’re going to need a few recent photos of her.”
“You can take anything you need,” Krissy said, her voice tight. She felt something had shifted in the detectives’ minds; she just didn’t know what.
“This one will do for now, but we’ll have you choose some more in a bit.” He leaned over and unpinned the photo from the board. Then he turned and held up the picture so she and Billy could see.
Krissy’s heart dropped. Now she knew exactly what these detectives were thinking. In the photo, January was posing before her latest dance recital. She was wearing a two-piece, nautical-themed costume, a white skirt lined with navy ribbon and silver rhinestones, and a matching top with a red bow tied at the center of her chest. On her head, a matching hat sat at a jaunty angle. Her chestnut hair was curled and sprayed, her eyes made Disney-enormous with fake eyelashes and blue eyeshadow. Her lips were bright red.
Krissy’s cheeks burned and she couldn’t meet Townsend’s eye.
“Is this pretty recent, would you say?” he asked, and although his voice was light, Krissy could feel the mocking tone beneath it, judgment practically radiating out of him.
“That recital was a few months ago. She’s six in it. So, yes.”
Detective Townsend glanced at the photo pointedly. “Six, huh?” He let out a little chuckle, threw a look at Detective Lacks. “And here I would’ve guessed she’s sixteen.”
The unspoken accusation cut through Krissy like a switchblade: bad parents. Or perhaps, more to the point, because everyone knew moms were to blame just a little bit more than dads: bad mom. Her mind flashed to those bright red words scrawled messily on her kitchen wall—This is what you get—and in that moment, Krissy felt just how true they really were.
FOUR
Margot, 2019
The murder of January Jacobs, the event that put Margot’s hometown on the map, happened in the middle of a hot July night in 1994. By all accounts, the story was a sensational one and it spread like wildfire, capturing the morbid fascination of Americans across regional, socioeconomic, and political divides. Overnight, the Jacobs family was famous. January became America’s darling, and her elusive killer the country’s most wanted. But the case was convoluted, and months passed without so much as an arrest. Eventually, the investigation grew cold and January’s murder turned into one of the nation’s greatest unsolved mysteries.