A Good Girl's Guide to Murder

Pip and her friends enter the calamity party, and Pip quickly goes to work, losing her friends in the crowd and scanning the scene for clues. She notices a boy in her class reach for a pack of cigarettes and head out the back door, realizing this is a good place to start.

Outside, she approaches a boy named Stephen and casually asks him for marijuana. He lights up a joint, and she pretends to smoke it. Pip wonders whether she has gone too far for her assignment, but then she remembers her mission to find the truth for Sal and for Ravi. Pip asks Stephen who he buys from, and Stephen says it is a man named Howie, whom he meets at the end of the station parking lot. She asks for Howie’s number, but Stephen says Howie would not like him handing it out.

Stephen asks for Pip’s number, becoming more focused on her, and she takes his phone with the idea that she can look up Howie’s number. She pretends to accidentally flick the joint across the lawn, and when Stephen goes to retrieve it, Pip quickly searches for Howie’s number and takes a picture of the contact information with her phone. Stephen leans into Pip, grabbing the back of her head and attempting to kiss her. She shoves him so hard that he falls over. Stephen chases her as she runs back to the house, and she quickly locks the back door.

In Capstone Project Log—Entry 22, Pip details how she waited at the far end of the station parking lot for four hours but never saw anyone. Pip realizes how much she has been lying to people to complete her project: “The lying gets easier,” she says, “the more I have to do it” (169). She adds Howie Bowers to her persons of interest list.

Pip waits in her car in the station parking lot and finally sees a man whose hood hides his face. She crouches down, hidden from sight, and dials Howie’s number to determine whether this is him. The man answers her call, confirming that this is Howie, and then she hangs up without saying a word. Pip realizes that even though she knows this is Howie, she cannot be sure he was the one supplying Andie with drugs.

Pip watches as a tall man in a long beige coat approaches Howie, and she realizes it is Stanley Forbes. Stanley pulls out a thick envelope and shoves it into Howie’s chest, clearly agitated. Stanley tells Howie, “This is the last time” (173), and Pip can only hear “But…tell” coming from Howie. Stanley and Howie stand staring at one another tensely before Stanley finally walks away.

Pip then sees a boy in the grade below her approach Howie. He gives Howie some cash, and Howie hands him a rolled-up paper bag. Pip snaps a few pictures of this exchange. Howie leaves the parking lot, and Pip follows him. She watches as he makes his way to Monroe Street, where Andie’s car was found abandoned after she disappeared. She sees Howie enter a small bungalow, and then she calls Ravi and tells him to get to Monroe Street immediately.

Ravi joins Pip on Monroe Street, and she fills him in on what is going on. They both notice that Howie’s license plate number is 009 KKJ, the same as in the note that was in Sal’s phone. Pip explains to Ravi that Sal must have figured out that Andie was selling drugs, and this is why they were arguing in the days before she disappeared. This also explains why Sal would not tell the police what he and Andie had been arguing about. Sal did not want to get her into legal trouble.

The two approach Howie’s door, and when he answers, Pip shows Howie the photos she took of him dealing drugs and promises not to go to the police if he answers some questions. Howie reluctantly agrees, and they enter his house. Howie claims that Andie approached him about selling drugs, saying she wanted to make money. He gave her a burner phone for business a few months before she disappeared and told her to use codes when dealing. Howie claims she hid the phone in a loose floorboard in her wardrobe. He also says that Andie was dealing Rohypnol, or roofies, at calamity parties.

Howie demands Pip delete the photos she had taken of him. She does so, and she and Ravi leave. Pip wonders aloud whether Max Hastings was the one buying roofies.

In Capstone Project Log—Entry 23, Pip admits that she should be focusing on her college application as the deadline for early decision is less than one month away. However, the personal essay worries her because she is not sure what to say. The school counselor has told her to just be herself, but she questions who she actually is.

Pip logs her thoughts on both Howie Bowers and Max Hastings, stating that each could have been involved in Andie’s disappearance because Howie does not have an alibi, and Max was left alone part of that evening. She sets her sights on finding Andie’s second burner phone.

Pip sits at dinner with her family when she receives a text from an unknown number stating, “You stupid bitch. Leave this alone while you still can” (191). Attempting to hide her panic, Pip leaves the dinner table in a hurry.

In Capstone Project Log—Entry 24, Pip laments that she cannot sleep. She thinks about the note she received in her sleeping bag and the new one and realizes they are not jokes. She logs her thoughts, stating, “someone knows I’m getting close, and they’re starting to panic” (192)—someone, she realizes, who has her number. Pip wonders if the person sending her threatening notes is the one who murdered Andie and if they want her believe they can get to her, too.

Pip meets Ravi at the Bell house with the intention of breaking in and finding Andie’s second burner phone. He pauses, asking her what it would look like if the brother of the person everyone believes to be a murderer were caught breaking into the Bell house, adding: “Not to mention the amount of trouble I’d be in anyway as a brown guy breaking into a white family’s house” (194). Pip is angry at herself for not considering this and tells Ravi she will go in alone. However, he tells her that if this is how Sal’s name will be cleared, he has to be there.

The two find a spare key to the house in some wind chimes hanging on the porch. Pip pulls out gloves for herself and for Ravi, and they put the key in the front door lock.