“Besides,” Anita added, lowering her voice. “Can those other moms kill a man?”
Jocelyn looked down at her scar. “Not sure I’d get credit for that with my four-year-old. She still thinks I cut my hand on a window.”
“Well, one day she’ll know the truth, and she will appreciate it,” Anita said. “In the meantime, I’ll help you decorate the cupcakes.”
The laptop emitted a low ding. Anita focused on the screen. Jocelyn could hear the click of the mouse as Anita navigated whatever had stolen her attention. “Finally,” Anita murmured under her breath.
Abandoning the batter, Jocelyn moved around to where Anita sat. “What’ve you got?”
Anita pointed to the screen where she’d pulled up a photo of a young, Asian girl. Jocelyn estimated her age at sixteen or seventeen. It was an outdoor shot from the waist up. She stood in a field, bleachers fanned out behind her. She had long beautiful black hair and a radiant smile. The black and purple tank top she wore had the initials FW on it.
“Franklin West,” Jocelyn said.
“Meet Becky Wu,” Anita said. “She was a senior at Franklin West in 2005.”
“Let me guess. She ran track and field.”
Anita nodded. She clicked a few more times, bringing up an article on philly.com from June 2005. Tragic Death of Teen Track Star Prompts Change in School Policy.
Chapter 21
November 13, 2014
According to the article that Anita had found, Becky Wu’s best friend was a girl named Jordan McMaisch. It took a simple Google search for Anita to find out that McMaisch still lived and worked in Philadelphia. She was the co-owner of an online magazine called Philly on the Real, and their offices were located in Center City in a high-rise near 17th and JFK Boulevard. Anita shot off an email to the woman, explaining that they were private investigators looking into accidental deaths at area high schools and asking if she’d be willing to talk to them about Becky Wu. Either Philly on the Real wasn’t very busy, or McMaisch was an obsessive email-checker because within the hour, Anita and Jocelyn had an invitation to meet with her in her office that same day. They had just enough time to bake the cupcakes. When they were finished, Jocelyn set them on the counter to cool, and she and Anita loaded the girls into Jocelyn’s car.
Evening was setting in, but luckily, they had missed most of the rush hour traffic. Jocelyn was grateful that both girls were still enthralled by whatever game they played on their iPads. They didn’t complain once about the forty-minute drive into Center City. Philly on the Real occupied a small suite of rooms on the tenth floor, its floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the bustling streets below. The main room looked more like the community area of a college dorm than the office of an online magazine. Low couches and bean bag chairs were scattered throughout. Each one was a different color—all of them loud and bright. Pinks, purples, oranges, and fluorescent greens. Small white cubes dotted the room, some with actual magazines left haphazardly atop them. Jocelyn spotted a Cosmo and a copy of Atlantic Monthly. Eclectic tastes. Vending machines lined one wall, and open doors to what appeared to be individual offices stretched the length of the other. These were more traditional, with desks and filing cabinets. From one of them, a woman emerged.
Jocelyn expected her to look like a starving college student, to greet them wearing bunny slippers and sweats that said Juicy across her ass, with her hair tossed up into a lazy woman’s bun, but she was dressed professionally. Business casual. Jordan McMaisch looked older than the one photo that Anita had been able to find of her online. She wore knee-high brown leather boots over charcoal tights. Her clingy black dress was broken up by a wide brown belt and a multi-colored scarf that wrapped around her neck and hung down over her breasts. Her black hair cascaded down her back in shiny waves, and her silver, dangly earrings caught the fluorescent lights above, glinting whenever she turned her head. She was attractive, with striking blue eyes and a smattering of freckles across her nose.
McMaisch greeted each of them with firm handshakes and led them to her office. Pia and Olivia had already claimed a couple of bean bag chairs and were back on their iPads. Jocelyn positioned herself inside McMaisch’s office so that she could still see the girls from where she sat. The office was furnished with what looked like IKEA furniture. There were few personal items. McMaisch’s desk was clear except for her laptop, phone, and a tablet. Everything was online these days.
“So,” McMaisch said, taking a seat behind her desk. “You said in your email you’re private investigators. You’re here about Becky. Who hired you?”
Jocelyn caught her gaze. “Well, we’ve been hired by the family of another former Franklin West student who also passed away. We were looking into student deaths at Franklin West—there certainly weren’t many before the shooting in 2006.”
McMaisch shuddered. “That happened the year after I graduated. I can’t even imagine. So is this, like, for a civil suit against Franklin West?”
“No, nothing that juicy, I’m afraid. We’re really not at liberty to discuss the details of my client’s case. We really don’t think that Becky’s death has any correlation to it. I am here mostly to satisfy my own personal curiosity about the circumstances of Becky’s death.”
McMaisch raised a brow. She didn’t look convinced, but she seemed to understand that pushing Jocelyn wouldn’t get her very far. She fidgeted with her phone, turning it over and over. “Okay,” she said. “What do you want to know?”
“You were there the day Becky died,” Jocelyn said.
McMaisch bowed her head. “Yes, I was. It was—it was horrible. We ran track and field. We practiced all the time. We were constantly outside. Becky knew she was allergic to bees—her mom was insane about it—but we never really thought about it, you know? We were teenagers.”
“She’d never gotten stung before?” Anita asked.
“No. Not since she was really young, I think. Her mother was always on her about that EpiPen, but Becky thought she was just being overprotective. She didn’t remember getting stung—I think she was too young to remember it. If you think about it, it’s pretty amazing that she never got stung when she got older, seeing how we were outdoors all the time. Anyway, Becky never worried about it. She had an EpiPen, but she always left it in her locker. You know how it is when you’re a teenager. You think you’re invincible.” She smiled weakly. “Maybe that’s the trick though. Not to worry about things so much?”
Jocelyn returned the smile. “Shit happens whether you worry or not.”
McMaisch laughed. She pushed her phone away from her, toward the edge of the desk but then pulled it back. “I guess it does, doesn’t it? Well, I never gave the bee allergy a thought until that day. Becky swelled up so fast. So fast. I never saw anything like that. Her airway closed right up. The coach scooped her up, ran her inside to the nurse’s office. The school required the nurse to keep an EpiPen in the office. They used the EpiPen, but it was too late. I guess if coach had been required to carry one, she might still be alive. I mean, like I said, Becky never would have carried hers every single time she went on the field. She never did. That was Becky.”