CHAPTER 50

The problem with that email we got from the TFK guy was, we didn't know if the S thing was accurate. It took us calling the police and nagging them until they went into evidence and pulled the autopsy photos. But then they stopped treating us like we were kids and immediately initiated a forensic trace and alert on our email account. After that, we took anything we got from TFK very seriously. And go figure that that was when he shut up. We didn't hear from him for almost a month.

—Rachel, Murder Unplugged

I'd planned Sophie's birthday party every year, and each one had seemed bigger and like more of a pain in the ass than the last. Everything nowadays had to be impressive enough for social media, which meant the women in this neighborhood were one-upping each other to a ridiculous degree. I had played along halfheartedly while rolling my eyes and hating every painstaking detail. But this party would be different, with a planning process I was excited to embrace.

My inspiration was simple. The Folcrum Party had started out as most twelve-year-old birthday parties did: a sleepover with cake and ice cream, songs and presents. A limited guest list, with only two attendees. The scant attendance was a detail that had prompted countless internet debates, theories, and opinions. It was widely documented that Jenny Folcrum was an unpopular child. There had been plenty of interviews with her teachers and acquaintances who were frank in the fact that while Jenny was an extremely intelligent child, she was also a loner who could be difficult to befriend.

A loser. That's what Jenny was. Bright and intelligent but also poor and weird. Kitty Green's mother said that Kitty hadn't even wanted to come to the birthday party, that she'd wanted to cancel the morning of, but her mother refused and said it would be rude.

Being rude would have saved Kitty's life. Bet her mother stayed up late at night over that one.

What had added fuel to the internet fire a few weeks after the death was all the preteen girls who had produced invitations to the event. As it turned out, Jenny Folcrum had invited seventeen classmates to the party. Seventeen invites and only two had shown up. Even now, twenty-three years after the snub, I was irate and embarrassed on Jenny's behalf.

Had it not been for the seventeen invitations, the public might not have found the two-person attendance odd. As a grown woman, it was hard for me to generate the names of two people whom I'd be willing to share a hotel room with, much less engage in a sleepover, with all the social gymnastics that involved. But I could also concede that the person I became after George and Janice was different from the girl I was before I joined their life. Difficult to befriend? Yes, that could have accurately described me.

I felt a tenderness for Jenny Folcrum and her sad little life. No mother. No money. No substantial role models other than her father—an alcoholic electrician who would eventually slice her open like a deer.

That wasn't my impression of him; it was the internet's. I understood that Leewood Folcrum was a complex individual who had been put in a unique position and acted without thinking through the consequences.

For example, staying at the scene was idiotic. The thin walls of their trailer had done little to contain the little girls' screams, and the police had arrived before Jenny had finished dying, catching Leewood holding her on his lap, her blood spray all over his shirt and face.

He could have run, but he didn't. He held on to his child, and when the police asked what had happened, he kept his mouth shut. He let them lock him up and then went through months of an investigation and trial ... all while staying mum, except to say that he was innocent and someone else had broken in and committed the crime.

No one in the history of ever believed his story. At his trial, the jury deliberated for less than an hour before returning the guilty verdict. I'd watched the sentencing video repeatedly, focusing on his face as the judge lectured him on his actions and the impact on the other families.

His face had never changed from its flat canvas. Nothing when the parents started to sob from the front row of the audience. Nothing when the sentence—eight consecutive life sentences, without the possibility of parole—was read.

It was incredibly attractive, his quiet strength. I loved that he wouldn't tell them anything. I loved that he didn't take the stand. He only did one interview—and the rumors were that he had sent the payment for that to Lucy's and Kitty's families.

A noble gesture, though I'm sure they didn't appreciate it. I know how Grant feels about Leewood. His name was tantamount to the devil's in our home, which was one of the reasons I kept my affection and respect for Leewood to myself.

There were certain elements of the Folcrum Party that I wouldn't be able to recreate in Sophie's birthday event. The shitty trailer. The way the floor was soft in some places and the wallpaper bubbled in others. The tiny, cramped bedroom where the girls had been found. Sophie's room would be used for accuracy, but it wouldn't have the same feel. It wouldn't have the same impact.

Poverty produces empathy. There wouldn't be the same emotional tug from the public, seeing our crime scene photos. All of middle America can relate to a cheap preteen's bedroom. The posters of pop stars on the wall. The overflowing hamper. The worn-out sneakers. The saggy twin bed with a Walmart comforter set.

Sophie's room, with its floor-to-ceiling windows and polished hardwoods, wouldn't play nearly as well. The king-size Sleep Number bed, custom built-in bookshelves with hundreds of hardcover books, and desk. Her kitchenette by the bath, with her own mini fridge, microwave, ice machine, and water-filtration system. The spacious walk-in with countless racks of designer clothes.

But then again, for all those who could connect with an average—or slightly below average—childhood, there was the large swath of America who was fascinated by wealth. They would obsess over the fact that Sophie had an opening in her wall that would suck dirty clothes through it and deliver it to our laundry room. They would catalog the items in her room and their value, and know that her bedroom set cost over $10,000 and the sneakers she was wearing were Golden Goose and that those were real diamond studs in her ears.

This would be the rich-girl version of the Folcrum Party, and I was torn over whether to play up those attributes or mute them. I had to maintain a strong enough tie to the original crime or else it would lose its pizzazz.

I also had to be very careful of the details, with an eye on avoiding implicating myself. If I sent out seventeen invitations or dressed Sophie in a polka-dotted cotton jumper with a red bow in her hair, the suspicion would immediately swing my way. I had to make sure to separate myself enough from the planning to keep my hands clean while also making sure that everything was done perfectly.

I found Paige in the library, lazily flipping through a magazine while Sophie did her homework at the table. I hovered in the doorway and waved, catching the nanny's attention. After gesturing for her to follow me, I walked halfway down the hall and waited for her to catch up.

Her steps were quick, and today she was wearing a long-sleeved Gwen Stefani shirt with jeans and sneakers. She had a green headband holding back her straight, dark hair and wore red glasses. A cute look, though I would have preferred a more professional one. I pushed the thought away before it came out. "Paige, I need your help with something."

"Sure, anything." Her quick response was happy, and I smiled at the eagerness on her face.

"It's Sophie's upcoming twelfth-birthday party. I'd like you to handle the planning of it."

"Oh, cool. I'd love to. Do you have any ideas, or should I just—"

"I have some ideas, but I'd really like this to be your project." A project I would manipulate in every possible way. "Can you come in an hour early tomorrow and we can go over the details?"

"Absolutely." She tilted her head. "Is this a secret, or does Sophie know about it?"

"She knows about it. Grant wants to keep it small—he said just two friends. She's already invited two of the girls in the neighborhood for a sleepover. So it won't be a big affair; I just don't have time to handle the cake, decorations, stuff like that."

She nodded again. "I think ..." She glanced over her shoulder and toward the library. "I think it's going okay between us. I mean, no more things, like with the car."

The car had ended up being a thousand-dollar repair. We had replaced the fuel filter, all the fuel lines, and then had the tank drained and replaced.

"I told you, you just need to give her some space. And if anything does happen, come to me first. Don't try to deal with Sophie."

"Yeah. Okay."

She looked unsure, and I mentally patted myself on the back for how things were going so far. It was the orchestration of a train wreck—one that, even if derailed, would put the attention of the police everywhere except on me.