A Good Girl's Guide to Murder

Pip approaches Mr. Ward after class and nervously states that she has some questions for him. Pip explains what Emma told her about Andie’s feelings toward him, and Mr. Ward reluctantly tells her that he learned through Naomi that Andie was bullying another girl in her grade. He states that there was an incident in which Andie posted a video of the girl online. When he found out, Mr. Ward realized Andie could be facing legal trouble. He did not want to see her expelled and her future jeopardized, so instead of telling the principal about the incident, he told Andie’s father, Jason Bell, whom he told to have a serious talk with his daughter; otherwise, he would have her expelled. Jason Bell let it slip that Mr. Ward was the one who told him, and this, he says, explains Andie’s choice of words toward him.

Capstone Project Log—Entry 15 is a transcript of Pip’s second interview with Naomi Ward. Pip asks Naomi about the girl Andie bullied, and Naomi informs Pip that the girl’s name is Natalie (“Nat”) da Silva. Naomi thinks the girl had been a threat to Andie because Nat was also pretty. Andie began spreading rumors about the girl and finding ways of humiliating her. Naomi explains that Andie used the phone of a boy in their class whom Nat had a crush on to begin sending her flirty texts. Through the boy’s phone, Andie asked Nat to send a video of herself topless. Andie posted the video online, and essentially the entire school saw it.

Naomi explains that during fall semester, both Andie and Nat auditioned for a part in The Crucible, and Nat beat Andie for the part. Andie then told Nat that if she did not back out of the play, Andie would tell everyone that Nat’s older brother Daniel—who was five years older than them and worked at the school as a janitor—had sex with her. Nat dropped out of school shortly afterward. Naomi thinks Nat has since been arrested for assault and spent some time in prison. Pip asks for Nat’s number.

Pip convinces Ravi to join her in visiting Nat da Silva. Pip notices an electronic device around Nat’s ankle, and when she introduces herself and explains the reason for her visit, Nat becomes defensive, stating that Andie ruined her life. However, when Nat sees Ravi, her mood changes. She states that Sal was always nice to her, and she apologizes to him that he has lost his brother.

Nat admits to having wanted Andie dead after what she did and even confesses to putting a threatening note in Andie’s locker. Nat laughs, however, when she realizes Pip thinks she is a suspect, and she states she was at home with her family the night Andie disappeared. Pip asks Nat about her brother Daniel and learns that he is a police officer now and was with his cop friends that night.

After they leave, Ravi tells Pip that Daniel da Silva was involved in the Bell investigation and that he had told Ravi to quit trying to prove Sal’s innocence because he was guilty beyond doubt. Pip wonders whether Daniel could be the secret older guy. She also acknowledges that Nat had a motivation to murder Andie as well.

In Capstone Project Log—Entry 17, Pip investigates the possibility that Daniel could have tampered with the Bell investigation to protect his own involvement. She adds Nat da Silva and Daniel da Silva to her persons of interest list.

Capstone Project Log—Entry 18 details the Freedom of Information request Pip filed with the Connecticut State Police department regarding the Bell investigation. She has been given access to the police interview with Sal. In the interview, the police state that another witness said they saw Sal arguing with Andie before she disappeared, but Sal refuses to tell them what the argument was about, stating that it is private. He also states that he believes Andie could have just taken off so that she could “ignore the world for a while” (134).

Pip admits to herself that the information in the interview does not look good for Sal. She takes a moment to reflect on how she would be devastated to discover that Sal committed the murder, but then she remembers the note in which someone warned her to stop digging for the truth.

Pip spots Becca, Andie’s younger sister, in a local café. She approaches her and introduces herself, and Becca says she already knows this is about the capstone project on Andie because she was told by Stanley Forbes, whom she is dating. Becca also informs Pip that she is doing an internship at the Fairview Mail. When Pip asks Becca whether there was any tension between Andie and their father, Becca quickly ends the conversation.

In Capstone Project Log—Entry 19, Pip logs her thoughts about Becca, stating that after some Facebook sleuthing, she has found a friend of Becca’s, Jess Walker, whom she thinks she can interview for more information.

Capstone Project Log—Entry 20 includes a transcript of an interview with Jess Walker. In it, Jess refers to the Bell family as unusual, mainly due to the father, Jason. Jess says Jason used to make “little digs about how they looked” and would “pick at things he knew they were self-conscious about” (143). Andie and Becca reacted in different ways to Jason’s criticism. Andie began to care deeply about how she looked and what other people thought of her; Becca began obsessing over her flaws and skipping meals.

Jess describes how she and Becca attended a calamity party one night and Becca disappeared in the course of the evening. The next morning, Becca asked Jess to go with her to get the morning-after pill, but she was too embarrassed to tell Jess whom she had slept with.

Pip learns that Jason left the dinner party the night Andie disappeared because the alarm had gone off at his business offices. Jess also informs her that she saw Andie talking very closely with a guy at the calamity party, whom she confirms was Max Hastings.

In her notes, Pip speculates that Jason left the dinner party that night and is thus capable of having been involved in Andie’s disappearance. She also recalls Max’s statement that he and Andie were just acquaintances, and now she begins to doubt this. Pip’s investigation leads her to discover that Max has a secret Facebook profile with the name “Nancy Tangotits,” but it is private, so she cannot see what he has posted. She adds Max Hastings to her persons of interest list.

Pip pays Max Hastings a visit to find out how well he really knew Andie, and he quickly becomes quite serious, ushering Pip into his room. She asks Max if he was involved with Andie behind Sal’s back, and Max denies this, but his eyes nervously travel to a noticeboard pinned with bits of paper.

Pip dives for the noticeboard and begins sifting through the papers before Max can stop her. She finds a picture Andie took of herself in a mirror wearing only a pair of black underwear. Max claims he found the photograph hidden in the back of a classroom. He also admits that he was buying drugs from Andie at calamity parties. When prompted, Max explains that Andie was working with a dealer in town, but he never met the man. This, says Pip, is the reason Andie had so much cash on hand. Exhausted by Pip’s questioning, Max grabs the photo of Andie from Pip’s hands and tears it apart.