Kill All Your Darlings

by David Bell

  Madeline wiped her eyes, choked back more of the tears. “I’m okay.”

  “You may think that, Madeline. But we all need people to talk to. I know on campus they have counselors. And you can just go in and talk to someone, and they don’t charge you anything. It’s all confidential.”

  “I’ve heard about those services.”

  “You might want to try it. Okay?”

  “Okay. I might talk to one of my professors. He listens to me.”

  “That’s good,” Wallace said. “Just don’t keep it bottled up.”

  “You really don’t know who did this?” Madeline asked.

  Wallace took her time answering. “It’s early in the investigation. Sometimes it takes a while to sort everything out. But we’re definitely trying. I can promise you that.” Wallace pushed herself out of the chair and, as she did, reached into her pocket, bringing out a business card. “If you think of anything else, you can call me here.”

  Madeline stood up and took the card. Her hands were damp with sweat and stuck to the thick paper. “I saw the funeral is in a couple of days. I wanted to go, but it’s down in Tennessee. And I’m in school. . . .”

  “You don’t have to go to the funeral to remember your friend,” Wallace said. She sounded so wise, handing out the kind of help Madeline thought a mother should have been dispensing.

  “I was going to send a card to her parents.”

  “I think they’d appreciate that. Just let me know if you want to talk about anything else. I mean, if those other avenues don’t work on campus.” Wallace paused at the door. “This lock,” she said. “You might want to call your landlord and have it fixed. It’s not in the greatest shape.”

  “Are you saying that because there’s a killer on the loose?”

  “I’m saying that because you’re a woman.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CONNOR

  PRESENT

  Madeline keeps her coat on.

  For a quick moment, I’m reminded of past winter days, the rare times it really snowed here in Gatewood, and Emily and I zipped Jake into a jacket, took him to Harmon Hill near campus, and went sledding. Even in winter, the days with him felt like they’d last forever. Red-cheeked, snotty-nosed days. Emily making hot chocolate on the stove when we got home. The three of us watching a movie together while darkness fell outside.

  Now I’m in my kitchen, the same kitchen Jake went in and out of for most of his childhood, and I’m facing another young person. And I’m shaking inside, my blood cold, my organs quivering.

  In the classroom, in my office, I’m always in control. I stand before the students with authority and command, which rarely gets questioned.

  But Madeline has flipped the script on me. She holds the upper hand.

  She unnerves me. Scares me.

  What is she here for tonight?

  “Why don’t you take your coat off?” I ask.

  “I’m fine,” she says. “Do you have any more of that bourbon you gave me yesterday?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t?”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be here,” I say, keeping my voice more level than I feel. “The police are questioning me. They might be watching me for all I know. And you’re . . . you’re kind of wanted, aren’t you?”

  “ ‘Wanted,’ ” she says. “Now that’s an interesting word. It can mean a lot of things. Does a parent want their child more than they want to be with someone else? Does a lover want their partner? Do the police want someone?”

  “You seem pretty agitated.”

  “I’m probably being followed.”

  “By whom?” I ask.

  “ ‘By whom’?’ Ugh, you professors. Someone who is pissed about the book. You should watch out too.”

  “You need to tell me what’s going on, Madeline. What about the book? Why do you know things about Sophia’s murder that only the killer could know? What’s your connection to her death?”

  “Whoa, now. Easy there, Chief.” She holds her gloved hands out in front of her, like she wants to push me away. She stares at me through the owlish glasses, the cold light of calculation burning there. “So the cops put all of this in your mind, right? How did they come up with that? Or did you tell them you saw me?”

  “I don’t have to tell you any of this,” I say.

  “Tell me, Connor. What do the cops know?”

  “Did you think I’d just give you your money and you’d leave town, and then I’d be left holding the bag for what you wrote in the book?”

  Madeline takes a couple of steps toward the table, pulls a chair out, and sits.

  I feel just a little relieved when she’s off her feet.

  “Yeah,” she says, “I did kind of assume that. Do you have the money?”

  “No. It’s not that easy to get your hands on a bunch of money. More important, what do you know about this murder?”

  “Okay. When I wrote the book, I didn’t think anyone would make the connection with Sophia’s murder. But then after I turned it in to you, I realized that might not be the case. And I panicked. Do you remember? I wanted the book back?”

  “I do. Was someone pressuring you?”

  She ignores my question. “And then when you were going to publish it . . . well, I still hoped it would be okay. You said most books don’t sell a lot.”

  “Not unless a writer has really good fortune.”

  “And then one of those people who read the book you published—and I wrote—would have to know the details of the crime, right?” She shifts in her seat, and when she speaks again, she sounds knowing, like she’s asking a question she may already have the answer to. “Maybe someone you know read the book? Who is it? Or did you admit the whole damn thing? The plagiarism and everything? Did you cave that easily?”

  I’m shaking my head, trying to slow down her train of thought.

  “I didn’t need to. We got incredibly lucky,” I say. I regret throwing the towel over the bourbon. My mouth craves a taste, but I resist. “And when I say ‘lucky,’ I’m being sarcastic. We have a cop here in Gatewood who loves to read thrillers. And guess which one she bought right away. So now I’m the guy they’re looking at.”

  “Fuck,” Madeline says, thumping the table with her gloved hand. “I really didn’t think that would happen. But I didn’t even imagine the book was going to be published. I mean, that part of it is on you. You’re the idiot who submitted it. Remember, I wanted to take it back as soon as I turned it in.”

  “Okay, I understand you didn’t expect it to be published. When you were gone, you figured that was the end of it.” I shake my head. “Madeline, if I’d known you were alive, I never would have done it. Forget the cops and all of this. I didn’t want to steal from you. I hope you know that now.”

  She studies me and then she nods. “I can believe that. But once you published it and got paid, that’s when I decided to make the best of it. These are all unintended consequences. But so what? You wrote a book. I mean, I wrote a book, and they think you wrote it. Big deal. You wrote about a murder. People do that all the time.”

  She reaches down, and I flinch. My hand goes to my pants pocket where I can feel the presence of the knife against my thigh.

  “Jumpy much?” she asks, pulling out a tissue and wiping her nose. “I’m the one who should be nervous. I’m the one being followed.”

  “Followed by—”

  “Do you think I’m here to knock you off?”

  “How would I know? Madeline, you wrote about details of that murder. Only the cops and the killer can know those things.”

  She blows her nose, and it makes a surprisingly loud sound in the small kitchen. She stuffs the balled-up tissue back into her pocket.

  “Did you even know Sophia?” she asks.

  “Not at
all,” I say. “But I used to walk Grendel by her house.” I consider how much I can tell her, how much she needs to know. But I’m in so deep, I might as well share. “I saw her and her husband through the windows of their house. I watched them sometimes.”

  Madeline makes a face like she swallowed a fishhook. “Ugh. Creepy.”

  “Not creepy,” I say. “It wasn’t like that. . . . I know it doesn’t look right. Just forget it.”

  But Madeline is looking up at me, her eyes wide behind the owlish glasses. The light reflects off the lenses. “Go on,” she says. “I think I know where you’re going with this. Maybe it’s healthier than hanging out at a grave in the middle of the night. I don’t know.”

  “Did I tell you I do that?”

  “You did.”

  I check her face for any sign of judgment or mockery, but neither is there. She looks attentive, genuine. Curious. Just like she always did in class when I held her attention. I could so easily hold an entire roomful’s attention on my very best days. And how very good that always felt to me.

  I tell her what I saw in Sophia and her husband. How appealing it was to see a young couple so different from the way I was at that point in my life.

  “They were my opposites,” I say. “Like in a comic book or a science fiction movie where the hero has an evil double who is the exact opposite of him in every way, except they look the same. That’s what I thought when I watched Sophia and her husband. They were everything I had been and never would be again.”

  Madeline nods. She takes off her wool winter hat, and the red hair flops across her shoulders and face. She brushes loose strands away, clearing her vision. “I used to do the same thing. Not with Sophia, but with families when I was a kid. I think I told you my dad died when I was three.”

  “You mentioned it the other night.”

  “I also told you that night at Dubliners. That last night. You were so trashed, you probably don’t remember. After Dad was gone, my mom went through a series of guys. Some were okay. Most were shits. It wasn’t good. Not at all. I ran away a couple of times. That was my way of coping. Not really a plan . . . Then I discovered reading and writing.” She slides her gloves off and reaches up for her eyebrow. “I’ve got to stop doing this.” She puts her hands down, under the table, shifting her weight so she can sit on them and prevent the nervous tic. “I’d go to my friends’ houses and just marvel at what it was like. Two parents in the house. Everything working. Nobody screaming. Nobody drunk or on drugs. No one pushing anyone around. Who would have thought the most everyday things would be the most miraculous? Food on the table, someone to help with homework. A man in the house who wasn’t a total shit.”

  She brings her hands out, starts to lift one to her forehead again, then closes it into a fist.

  “No,” she says. “Stop.”

  I go to the bottle of Rowan’s and whip the towel off. I pour her a shot and bring it to the table, setting it down in front of her. I pull out a chair for myself and sit across from her.

  “I thought that was gone.”

  “I lied.”

  She eyes the shot. “Are you going to make me drink alone?”

  “I’m cutting back,” I say.

  She shrugs, slams the shot. She smacks her lips. “I needed that.” She reaches over and pats my hand. “Thanks. You know, Connor, I always thought you were really decent. All the students did. Really.”

  I look at her hand on mine. Her hand is small, the skin red and raw. The nails bitten.

  “Madeline, do you know who killed Sophia?”

  For two seconds, she keeps her hand on mine. Then she pulls it back as if she’s been bitten by a venomous snake.

  “Don’t ask me that.”

  “Was it her husband? Zachary? Is he the one following you? Let me tell you something I saw one of those nights I walked by their house.”

  “I don’t want to hear this shit,” she says. “You don’t know what you’re into. And it’s coming after me too. I don’t feel safe.”

  “Then you should go to the police.”

  “Drop it, Connor.”

  “You know what? You’re right. If you go to the police, they might charge you for the time and effort they spent searching. They do that sometimes. If you fake your disappearance, you can face charges.”

  “Quit snowing me. What were you going to say about Zach and Sophia?”

  “Listen, they got in a fight, Sophia and Zachary. They were screaming at each other. They seemed to be arguing over a woman, like he’d had an affair.”

  She watches me, wary. Her eyes shine with a feral intensity, ready to dash if the threat grows too great.

  “And then he got aggressive with her,” I say. “He knocked her hand away. It looked like things were going to get physical between them, so I intervened.”

  “He’s a fucking bastard, then, isn’t he? A fucking pig. There’s a lot of that going around, I might add.”

  “Madeline, if you know who killed her, if you know it’s Zachary, you need to tell the police. We can call them right now, and they can come over and hear what you have to say.”

  “So they can charge me with faking my disappearance like you said? Fine me? Haven’t you been listening? I don’t have any money.”

  She pulls all the way back and knocks the chair over when she stands.

  “Madeline, you need to listen—”

  “No, you need to. You don’t really know what’s going on. I guarantee you don’t.”

  “If you don’t tell them what you know, then I’m going down for it. I got suspended at work because of this.”

  Her eyes narrow. “Who suspended you?”

  “The university. Dr. White had to report the investigation to Human Resources. It’s university policy. I can’t go to campus or talk to students.”

  Madeline throws her hands up in the air. “Oh, did they? Dr. White did? Wonderful. He’s a fucking prince, isn’t he?”

  “I’m pissed at him too, but it’s out of his hands.”

  “He came here last night. That’s who pulled in. I watched, you know. I watched you all standing in here, drinking champagne and yukking it up. They think you wrote the book, all those English professors with their fancy degrees and easy lives. You all have it made, clapping one another on the back and celebrating your success. While I stand in the cold.”

  “Do you think our lives are that easy?”

  She’s moved across the kitchen and stands in a corner near the refrigerator, hands on hips. “Just give me the money. Give me the money and we’re square.”

  “What do you need it for?” I ask. “Can’t you work . . . do something?”

  “Not that it matters, since the money is mine, but do you know what it’s like to try to get a job when you’re considered a missing person? Always looking over your shoulder? Always starting from scratch? Always worried someone will recognize me? I don’t have a degree. I left without that because I had to. Do you think you can get a decent job when you don’t have a degree or real references or any work experience? Have you ever tried to do that?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “No, you haven’t. I’ve watched my mom do that. Work shit jobs, never get ahead. Always just a little underwater, always running to stand still. One step forward and two back. Or else you depend on some asshole guy to bring home a paycheck. And if the guy does bring home the money, then he thinks he owns you. He can take whatever he wants whenever he wants it. Maybe he can knock you around a little bit.”

  “I’m sorry—”

  “And these days there are a lot of guys who can’t even be bothered to have a job. They might be more likely to have the cops trailing them home than it is they’ll have a paycheck. It’s women who are carrying all the water. But maybe that’s always been the case.” She shakes her head, her hair flopping from one side to the other. “
It’s a shit life. I can tell you that. Like eating dirt every day and trying to be grateful for it. Well, I’m not doing that.”

  “If you’d stayed in school—”

  “Bullshit, Connor. Bullshit. Don’t act like it’s all so easy. I’ve thought and I’ve thought about the right thing to do. I’ve thought about staying, and I’ve thought about going. But it’s not like you just wave a magic wand and have a great life.”

  “You know, I haven’t had a great life either. I’d give up the book, the job, all of it, to have my family back. But I can’t get that.”

  “Don’t play the sob-story card,” she says. “Everybody has one. Some worse than others.”

  “Madeline, if you’re in danger . . . if someone wants to hurt you . . .”

  “I’ve gone back and forth. I really have. There are people in this town, people who may have done bad things. I’d like to see them go down. I really would.”

  “If you want to do the right thing, Madeline, I can help you.”

  “That’s rich, coming from you. What are you going to do about the money?”

  Her words land with a finality. They ring through the small kitchen like metal against stone.

  I try to think of anything else I can say, but there’s nothing.

  “I told you it’s going to take time. I just started looking into it. I may not be able to get anything.”

  She looks disappointed. Not because the money isn’t there. It’s something else. It looks like she’s disappointed in me, like she held out hope I’d deliver and now I can’t.

  Like she expected more of me. As her teacher. Her mentor.

  As a person.

  “And that’s it?” she asks.

  “That’s it. I’m sorry. But if I can help you another—”

  “Save it.” She comes back to the table, dodges the fallen chair, and picks up her gloves and hat. “I have no choice now. I’m going to the university tomorrow. I’m telling them who really wrote the book.”

  “Madeline, the world, all of it, is much more complicated—”