As Good As Dead (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, #3)

by Holly Jackson

a stick figure with no head.

duct tape

Thatcher Poad.

Misspelling: a clue?

Five little stick people without their heads.

they definitely hadn’t been here when Pip left for her run.

moving closer to the house.

there was no head.

Two dead pigeons in exactly the same place. And those strange, shifting chalk figures with arms and legs and no heads.

Socks

My cat's name!

Ps. remember to always kill two birds with one stone.

The two is significant considering two dead birds were found on Pip's driveway

two birds

Two dead pigeons

Do these coorespond with the email's postscript?

drawing closer and closer.

every flower head had been picked off,

Yet another thing that is headless

“disappear” meant “dead.”

There was a crinkled piece of duct tape stuck to the middle of her heel.

Coincidence?

DEAD GIRL WALKING

She was the dead girl walking.

“It might be Max.”

I mean...It makes sense and that is what I am leaning towards, but then again it is unlikely for it to be him simply because this is a book and they would never outright say it, plus he already got a lot of page time in the previous books so I doubt it is going to be him. So I guess I am ruling him out by thinking of this like an author, unless... Reverse psychology ??

Save Jane Doe, save yourself.

Repetition

she couldn’t be the one drawing the figures and killing those pigeons during the foggy sleepless nights, could she?

clay-pigeon shooting at Chalk Farm in Hartford for only ninety-five dollars each.

Lol if this exists my grandparents could go there

almost everywhere nearby except Fairview.”

I've learned a lot from the naturals---sometimes a murder is continuing something already started, or recreating a murder that already happened. What if this stalker is finishing the job in Fairview?

“Had our own murders going on back then,”

Could this be why the serial killer never committed a murder in Fairview, discounting the fact that he was caught? Or is this why the stalker never finished and was waiting for it to calm down? Maybe Pip solving the Andie Bell case caught their attention which is why she is being targeted, since it also started before she found Jamie. It might just be a game to the stalker, for them to get to watch her solve something firsthand and to have her attention. It must be way more fun to give clues to someone like Pip who will notice every little thing and catch all the intricate pieces of their puzzles. It'd be enjoyable to set up something so complex.

the Duct Tape Killer.”

...and the whole formatting scheme of this book is duct tape; the cover, AND at the beginning of every chapter. Also, Pip got duct tape stuck to her shoe earlier. What if that wasn't an accident but a clue? Maybe that is why it was so notable to mention.

his distinctive MO:

Isn't part of his MO also women in their twenties living somewhere nearby in Connecticut? Also how do they know he was a guy before they caught him?

the man in the sketch.”

Never mind, I guess somehow they know what he looks like. Security footage?

personal items that were missing from the victims,

So if something goes missing from Pippa...

planned and methodical,

Much like the stalker's threats...

This man would seem to be perfectly normal, unremarkable—charming, even.

Perhaps that is why he killed young women---seduction?

This leads me to believe that our killer lives in a different nearby location, one that hasn’t yet come up in the investigation, his untouched buffer zone.

...So Fairview

it’s possible the killer has had intimate relationships with these victims.”

I was right wasn't I

She talked about seeing some lines, chalk lines, I think, that looked like three stick figures, near the house. I never saw them and it was probably just our neighbor’s kids. Also, a couple of dead birds—pigeons—had been brought into the house through the cat flap.

EXACTLY LIKE WHAT IS HAPPENING TO PIPPA; her stalker is recreating the serial murders

“Three chalk stick figures. Julia was the fourth victim, Pip. Three before her. And now there have been five women killed, and there are five little stick figures outside your house right fucking now.”

“A false confession?”

Ok, I'm actually going to be mad if he is innocent and the real killer is the same stalking Pip. That's a total waste of plot that could have been. Although I guess it makes sense nobody in Fairview was killed if there was already a murder there (Andie.) But why would they have waited five years for the next one, and why Pip? Because she's the main character? I like my recreator theory way better.

their heads gone because they were all wrapped up in tape,

The end in sight.

Daniel da Silva.

He has ALWAYS been sus from the beginning

Before he became a police officer, he’d worked at Jason Bell’s company for a couple of years. Maybe even worked directly with Billy Karras.

So in this time he could have possibly been murdering people with resources from this company

There was no answer down the other end. No voice, no sound, other than the faintest trace of static.

The victim of the Duct Tape killer got prank calls too

That was in the week before she went missing.

Pip has one week to solve it. One week left. And still 70% of the book?

█​█​█​█​█​█​█, who used to work with me in Bethany’s team too, he’s actually

Daniel da Silva, everything leads back to him and the stalker was bound to be someone, a character, we've already met

She must have just left the house,

Could she be leaving as Pip is arriving to go to Pip's house while Pip is not there to leave more chalk stick figures/dead pigeons?

an empty plastic bag swinging from her arm.

This is so random, so it must hold some significance, right?

the gold chain of her necklace, fiddling the pendant back and forth

ONE OF THE DUCT TAPE KILLER VICTIMS HAD A GOLD NECKLACE WITH A PENDANT STOLEN FROM THEM AS A TROPHY: same one or coincidence?

Dawn,

What if it is her and she is using the materials from Jason's company to murder women? What if it is because he was controlling, she is self concious and murders beautiful women? Maybe when Andie died she realized what she was doing to other families and stopped, divorcing Jason to rid herself of a way to kill again. There also has to be a significance of her and Jason getting back together just as Pip is threatened supposedly by the Duct Tape Killer

on April eighteenth, 2014—the night Andie went missing—you and Dawn were at a dinner party. But you had to leave at some point because the security alarm was going off at Green Scene;

“That was the very same night the DT Killer murdered his fifth and final victim, Tara Yates.”

“So, I was wondering whether that was it: DT breaking into your offices to take the supplies and accidentally setting off the burglar alarm.

Who had set off the alarm at Green Scene Ltd. that night? Was it Billy, or was it someone else?