Page 62 of Murder on the Upper East Side

Did they think she’d run the thing? Jesus.

Detective Crews picked up his phone, opened Instagram. ‘There are screenshots online. Quite a few, actually. But we’d like to review more content.’ He handed his phone to Beatrice.

She promptly placed it on the desk. ‘I’m not sure what you want me to do. The account has been dead for years – whoever ran it took it down ages ago. That screenshot you had up earlier was the final post, class of 2017 graduation. After that,The Upper Edgewent dark.’

‘But there’s an archive?’ Detective Crews said.

She shook her head. ‘If it exists, it’s not public.TheUpper Edgeremoved all the old posts; I don’t have access to them any more than you do.’

Why were they asking her, of all people, aboutThe Upper Edge? She’d been vigilant about never commenting, and she’d only ever appeared in two posts during the account’s prolific four-year history. Sophomore year, she and Theo had organised a charity fashion show, and they’d been photographed giving the introduction. Another time, a post had run of her at a Prescott party, standing beside Elle and Bash. Both posts had been rather innocuous bits of gossip, neither focused on her. And neither had involved Madison DuPont.

Detective Wellesley spoke up. ‘Even without the full post archive, it’s clear from what we’ve seen that your friends were frequently the focus of the gossip shared byThe Upper Edge. Yet, you don’t appear in any of the photos. Your Instagram handle, @Bea_UT, never appears in the comments. That’s not the case for anyone else in Madison DuPont’s circle.’

Beatrice frowned. So, flying under the radar was precisely the thing that had snared their attention. Perfect.

She gave them a noncommittal shrug. ‘You’ve only seen a handful of screenshots, right?The Upper Edgeposted daily, sometimes twice a day, for four years. That’s over a thousand posts with thousands more comments. Maybe the internet just didn’t see Beatrice Whitmore content fit to memorialise.’

‘So, you’re saying you did appear on The UpperEdge?’ Detective Crews asked. ‘If we had the full archive, we’d see posts about you? We’d find your comments?’

Beatrice swallowed. What, exactly, did they know? Someone else must have called their attention to her (lack of) history withThe Upper Edge… Someone who suspected she had something to do with Madison’s murder?

She sighed. There was no point in lying about it. They could ask any number of guests here tonight, and they’d all speak to her noteworthy absence from the Prescott gossip mill.

‘Only a few,’ she conceded. ‘Look, you may have noticed that nearly everyone you’re interviewing here tonight is white. When you’re a student of colour at Prescott Academy, you have two options for survival. You can claw your way to the top like Elle Harrington. Ascend your throne and never look down, no matter what the haters may fling at you. Or you can choose to occupy the fringes. Stay out of the drama. Stand just outside the shot.’

‘And that was you?’ Detective Wellesley asked. ‘Standing just outside the shot?’

‘Something like that,’ Beatrice said. What explanation did she owe this cop with pale skin and buttery yellow hair? None of this had anything to do with Madison’s murder – the only thing they had any right to ask her about. She began to push back her chair. ‘If we’re done here—’

‘We’re not,’ Detective Crews cut in. ‘Please sit.’

Reluctantly, Beatrice settled back in her chair, arms folded across her chest.

‘Whoever ranThe Upper Edgewas clearly very interested in Madison DuPont’s life. Obsessed, even. Yes, we have access to a limited number of posts, but Madison and her friend group are the focus of a disproportionate number. No one in her circle escapedThe Upper Edge’s attention – except you, it seems.’

‘So?’ Beatrice asked. ‘As I’ve already said, I stayed out of their drama. I never gaveThe Upper Edgeanything to gossip about.’

‘Or did you run it?’ Detective Wellesley asked point-blank.

Beatrice laughed. ‘Of course not.’

‘Then who did?’

‘No idea. No one ever found out.’

‘You must have a theory,’ Detective Crews said.

This was absurd. Did they really think the person who ran a decade-old gossip account was the same person who’d killed Madison DuPont? The person behindThe Upper Edge hadbeen obsessed with Madison. They’d been envious of her beauty and power, probably to the point they hated her a little. But that described all of Prescott.

‘I really don’t,’ she said finally. ‘It could have been literally anyone.’

The person behindThe Upper Edge. Madison’s killer too.

‘What about Hannah Miller?’ Detective Wellesley asked.

Beatrice frowned. ‘The account started posting in 2013, our freshman year. Hannah didn’t transfer to Prescott until 2016, so it’s not very likely.’

‘Unless she knew someone at the school, perhaps. Someone feeding her tips?’