At first she thinks her daughter’s folded face is only discarded clothes on the floor.

But the blood pouring from it is unmistakable. And the closer she gets, the more she sees of Melanie. The more she sees of the anarchy that is all that remains of her daughter.

The first thing Carla McGowan thinks as she takes a seat in the main office at Samhattan High School is that the principal, Janice Taylor, is smaller than she thought she’d be. Taylor looks much bigger on TV and even in print, she comes off as twice as big.

McGowan seems to be measuring everyone by size these past two days.

Principal Taylor is also the first woman principal in the high school’s history, and it has McGowan thinking of those girls again, insisting the killer could be a woman, and would she, Carla, please quit counting out half the population just because she was raised to do exactly that?

All this leads to thoughts of Chuck Larson’s story, told to McGowan in her unmarked squad car:

A local legend McGowan hasn’t heard before. A story about a woman named Daphne.

“I don’t like conducting business anywhere but at the school,” Taylor says. She’s so small that even her ordinary glasses look big. So do the glasses Coach Wanda wears, Wanda, who sits beside McGowan in a matching yellow chair, facing the seemingly huge administrative desk.

“I wouldn’t call this business,” McGowan says. She feels a bit overwhelmed. Not only because this meeting is already different from her idea of what it would be, but because Larson’s poorly articulated tale included a former player from the Samhattan High School girls’ basketball team, a young woman who might’ve sat in this very seat, faced this very desk, as city officials began worrying about her obsession with Daphne.

“Well, whatever it is,” Taylor says, “it’s not for the bar, not for the public. And certainly not for the home. I work very hard to keep my house clean of all dirt. Thus”—she fans her hands outward—“the office at night.”

“Dirt…” McGowan says. As if Tammy Jones’s death is a stain on the school. She suddenly wants very badly to show the woman the pics on her phone. The stains on the floor in Tammy Jones’s bedroom.

Why does it feel like Taylor has prepared her defense for this meeting? And more: why did it feel like Chuck Larson was relieved to tell his story?

“I just need a little help,” McGowan says.

“Well,” Taylor says. “You’re not gonna characterize me any old way you please. I know how these situations can go. Schools can be blamed. And foremost those who run them. I doubt I can help you locate anybody at large, so I’m not entirely sure why we’re here. But you said you wanted to talk. So let’s talk.”

McGowan has little trouble seeing how a person like Janice Taylor has succeeded in her field. On the wall behind her is a framed slogan: