Kill All Your Darlings

by David Bell

  I always close the door to my classroom. Lance keeps his wide open. Everyone and anyone can hear. He loves to think all the world is his audience.

  I stop in the doorway. It takes him a moment to look over and see me. When he does, his face shows surprise, and he stops his monologue. But then the composure quickly returns, and he smiles at me in a sly way.

  “Well, well, class, it looks like we have an unexpected visitor this morning.”

  The students realize Lance is looking toward the door, so they follow his gaze toward me.

  Lance goes on. “Late of Commonwealth University. Late of the Gatewood city jail. Clearly, you miss the limelight of being in the classroom, Dr. Nye.”

  “Lance, I think we need to talk.”

  He has his hands folded on top of the desk, and he shrugs. “I have office hours after this class. Why don’t you wait for me down there, and then I can finish imparting the wisdom of the ages to these eager young minds?”

  The students, faces I know so well, turn to look at me. Ordinarily, they’re sleepy and a little dazed this early in the morning. But my appearance and my request to talk to Lance have them wide-awake and confused. And as I look at them and they look back at me, I realize I’ve been out drinking with more than one of them. And I feel embarrassed by the thought. I may not be as bad as Lance and his parties, but I’m on the continuum. I could use grief as an excuse, grief that made me turn to my students for companionship. But that’s all it is—an excuse. And I need to get my life on a different track, if I get the chance.

  The students don’t all keep their eyes on me. Many of them turn back to Lance, waiting to see what he’s going to say or do next.

  “Class, you may not all be aware of it, but Dr. Nye certainly is. He’s currently suspended from the university, pending an investigation into some of his off-campus activities. He’s really not allowed to be here in any capacity.” He looks at me now but addresses his remarks to the students. “I’d hate to have to call the campus police on an esteemed colleague of mine, one I admire so much. But if he doesn’t leave the premises, I’ll have no choice.”

  “We can talk about this right now, Lance.” I unroll the paper tube. “This story written by Madeline O’Brien.”

  When I say her name, a ripple of recognition passes through the room. Some of the students gasp, and others begin to whisper. They’ve heard by now that a former student has been found dead. Murdered. I can only imagine the kinds of rumors swirling on social media and in the dorms and the bars and everywhere else students congregate.

  Lance pushes back from the desk, and a cloud passes across his face. The smug certainty drains away, and he presses his lips together into a wire-thin line.

  “We don’t have time for this, Connor.”

  “Let me read this last part,” I say. “The part that gets really interesting is here at the end when Madeline says—”

  “That’s enough.” Lance stands up from the desk. He looks small at the front of the room, surrounded by students whose faces are now all frozen in expressions of disbelief. “I’m sorry Dr. Nye isn’t able to contain himself and has to come back and interrupt our work today. He’s never quite been the devotee of teaching that I am. You all have a reading assignment for today, don’t you?”

  Twenty heads nod in unison.

  “Well, why don’t you review that while I talk to my former colleague? We’ll see if we can’t get him to leave quietly and allow us to get back to the work at hand.”

  Lance starts my way, so I back out into the hall and wait for him.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  MADELINE

  WINTER, TWO YEARS EARLIER

  Madeline’s book took an even darker turn once Sophia was dead.

  Hoffman had been right when he first read the early chapters of her thesis—Madeline planned on the story building up to some act of violence. And when she experienced Zach’s behavior at the party, she started to have an idea of which way the story could go.

  But could it simply be about a man killing his wife?

  When she was ten, a woman in her hometown, someone her mother knew a little, had been found murdered in her home. Beaten to death. For days, the police looked for the killer, and they seemed to have no idea who it was. Long before they made an arrest, Madeline’s mother had looked at her and said: Maddy girl, it’s always the husband.

  And she’d been right.

  So what would make her story different?

  Weeks and then months had passed since Sophia’s death. Madeline stumbled through her life like a zombie, like she was so deeply sedated she didn’t even notice what was going on around her. She sleepwalked across campus, going to her classes. She worked at the grocery store but barely talked to anyone.

  She came home in the evenings, always jamming the chair under the doorknob, and stared at the blank pages she needed to fill with words.

  Nothing came.

  Her mind drifted away from the task at hand. She spent an inordinate amount of time on social media, refreshing Twitter feeds from local journalists and the police department, hoping to get some new information about Sophia’s death.

  But the news grew stale. No new leads, they said. Zach was being questioned, his life being turned upside down. But he maintained his innocence. And no arrests were made.

  Madeline thought about calling the tip line set up in the wake of Sophia’s death and telling them about the party. The way Zach had touched her. The way he had looked at her the first time they met outside the Owl’s Nest. The way he had seemed to be ordering Sophia home.

  But . . .

  What did any of that mean? A guy could be a creep and not a killer. Look at the guys her mom had brought home. Nearly every one a creep. Some of them criminals. A few even violent. Had any of them been murderers?

  She remembered the last time she spoke to Sophia, right there in her apartment. She’d told Sophia everything about Hoffman—about him putting his hand on her knee and appearing to suggest that something more go on between them while he directed her thesis. Madeline watched Sophia’s face flush red. Even the tips of her ears turned the crimson color of a winter sunset.

  “That is such fucking bullshit,” she said. “Hoffman? Really?”

  “I’m not naive, Sophia. I’ve seen my mom deal with this stuff all her life. I know men always gave her that kind of shit. Comments about her looks. Even outright assault. Pinching. Grabbing. She ate that shit for years because she needed to work. I guess I thought it would be different in college.”

  Sophia laughed, and it was one of the few times she sounded bitter or cynical. “It’s not different anywhere, Madeline. No way.”

  Once Sophia said it, Madeline felt like a fool. Why did she think Commonwealth would be different from the rest of the world? Why did she think anyplace would be different? Wherever there were men, there were creeps. . . .

  “I want to be done with him,” Madeline said. “But he’s involved with my thesis now. He has a lot of power over me.”

  Sophia shook her head. “No, you don’t have to avoid him. You have to report him. That’s the only way it stops. You shouldn’t have to change your life because Hoffman is such a creep. He needs to learn how to be appropriate with students. Every institution has a way to report these things. You just tell someone in an important position, and they have to deal with it. I know this from working at our nonprofit. It’s the law. If they don’t do anything once you’ve reported it, they can face charges.”

  “But if I tell . . . I’d have to give my name. And then Hoffman would know. And everyone at the school would know. All the other professors. I’m not sure that’s the best way to handle this.”

  Madeline already regretted dragging Sophia into the middle of the mess. She didn’t want to go to anyone and report anything. She wanted to handle everything quietly and smoothly, without making a big mess—for
herself or anyone else. After Zach had come on to her that way at the party, Madeline told Rebecca to keep it quiet. Not because Madeline felt she’d done anything wrong but because she wanted to handle it as quietly as possible. She hated attention, hated having anyone know what she was thinking or feeling.

  She trusted Sophia—but she wanted Sophia’s help in just quietly avoiding Hoffman and making the whole thing go away. Not to fan the flames until the whole campus knew.

  “I’m sorry this is so awkward,” Madeline said. “I don’t want you to have to think about the stuff with Zach. He was drunk—”

  “You don’t have to apologize for that either. Zach was wrong. And he knew he was wrong. He was drunk, yes, but that’s not an excuse either.” She looked away for a moment, her right hand clenching and unclenching. “He and I are reaching a decision about our lives as well. But it’s very different when a person with that kind of power harasses someone.”

  “I don’t want to make a big stink,” Madeline said. “I just thought you might know a way I could quietly extricate myself. That’s the way I’ve always handled things. I don’t really like to confront that much. I’d just, you know, like to quietly slip away from the whole thing.”

  “You can’t. You just can’t. You have a duty to all the other women who are going to come after you. All the other students.”

  “Okay, okay.” Madeline knew Sophia was right, knew she was saying what any other good friend would say. But things were easier for Sophia. Better. She had a job and protection there. Hoffman could ruin her life. Fail her thesis. Make sure she didn’t graduate. “Just give me time to think about this. I don’t . . . I have to prepare myself for what might happen.”

  They left it at that. Sophia went home, but she made Madeline promise to text her if she needed to talk about anything.

  Anything.

  And Madeline felt better having told Sophia. Having told someone.

  Maybe that was enough—just getting it out. Just saying the words to someone who listened and understood. Was that why people went to therapy? Just to be heard?

  But that was the last time she saw Sophia. A week later, she heard—on Facebook—that Sophia had been found dead. Murdered in the parking lot of her office. She’d worked late, preparing for a fund-raiser. She was supposed to have a meeting, and when she didn’t come home and didn’t answer texts, Zach went to look for her. And found her strangled to death in her car.

  And at the beginning of the new semester, in the late January cold—as she still lived her life in the fog of disbelief and grief—Hoffman reached out to her. He said he had some new ideas about her thesis. Could they get together and talk about them?

  CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

  CONNOR

  PRESENT

  I pull the door to the classroom closed behind us when we step into the hallway.

  It’s empty and quiet out here. Muted voices come from behind other classroom doors, and a few students congregate at the far end of the hall, standing in a little circle, looking at something on one of their phones.

  “Connor, you are way out of line coming in here like this. I’m not sure what you’re thinking. I know this has been hard on you, being suspended and under suspicion this way, but you can’t let your judgment get away from you like this. It’s best if you just turn around and go right now. If you walk back out of here, everybody will forget it. I’ll tell the students it was a misunderstanding. And Preston doesn’t even have to know.”

  “Preston saw me coming in. He’ll probably be here in a minute. I hope he is.”

  “I don’t think you can count on Preston’s help with this one. He’s going to want to keep his hands clean.”

  “Madeline,” I say. “You were sexually harassing Madeline. Before she disappeared. You insisted on helping her with her thesis because you thought I was overburdened and off my game. That’s when it started. Right?”

  “This is sad, Connor. I guess this is grief over your family being transferred to grief over Madeline. That is, if you’re not the one who killed her.”

  I hold the story in the air between us. “You harassed her. You took advantage of your position on the thesis committee to keep her coming around. You dangled favors in front of her. Like a computer. It’s really classic predatory behavior. And she put it all down here in this story before she died.”

  “That’s a short story you’re holding in your hand?”

  “It is.”

  “Fiction? You’re using a work of fiction to justify all of this?” Some of his perpetual condescension returns in the form of a half smirk. “You can’t even believe that. You can’t base that kind of accusation on a stupid story.” He shakes his head, full of disappointment and disgust. “Just go, Connor. Take your sorry ass out of here and get back to what’s left of your life.”

  “She wrote it down, and she signed her name at the end. It’s like her last will and testament. She explains how your behavior led up to her disappearance. That she felt threatened by you because she revealed what you knew about Sophia’s murder in her thesis. Yes, it’s fiction, but that’s how young fiction writers express themselves. With stories. That’s the way Madeline communicates with the world. Or do you have an explanation that contradicts what she said in here?”

  “I can deny it. And I will. How did you end up with that?”

  I ignore his question. “Would you like to go down the hall to Preston’s office? We can explain all of this to him. And he can sort it out. For all we know, there’s more to the story. He wants me to go to the police. I’m sure he’d want the same for you. And maybe it’s a misunderstanding. Right?”

  Lance takes a step toward me. He lowers his voice and speaks in a conspiratorial whisper, one meant to convey that he and I aren’t that different. That we’re a couple of guys who understand each other and wouldn’t do anything foolish to harm the other. Not if we could help it.

  “Connor, you’re being narrow here. And warped by the reactionary politics of this whole backwater state. You were with Madeline that last night before she disappeared. We all know that. We’re all adults here. Not children. What happened to Madeline is terrible, but we don’t know what she was mixed up in. Her family life was awful. She wasn’t like us. She wasn’t as . . . refined. She carried a lot of baggage along with her. It doesn’t have to be our baggage.” He comes closer and pats me on the upper arm and then flicks the papers in my hand with a dismissive index finger. “Let’s just let this all go. Okay? It’s not worth ending anyone’s career over.”

  I step back, out of his reach. “She talks about writing her thesis in here. The way you helped her. Isn’t that true, Lance? You helped her with her thesis. A lot.”

  But Lance is shaking his head. And now he’s backing away. “I had to because you were AWOL.”

  “It’s not just about the harassment, Lance. It’s about the book. The book you were helping her with. The details in the book you gave her . . .”

  His face is ashen. But it looks like I’ve reached him in some way.

  He starts to nod, as though he agrees with me.

  “Lance, we all have things we have to admit to. None of us is coming out of this unscathed.”

  I take a step in the direction of Preston’s office. Then another.

  I hold my hand out, indicating he should follow.

  “Seriously, Lance. This story makes you look bad. Really bad. But if there’s something you can explain . . .”

  He says, “I have to tell the students I’ll be . . . I’m stepping out. . . .”

  “Do that,” I say. “I’m going to get Preston.”

  I get twenty feet down the hall before I turn and look back. Lance has opened the door of the classroom, but he doesn’t go in. When he sees me look back, he starts the other way.

  Running.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY

  MADELINE

  W
INTER, TWO YEARS EARLIER

  She agreed to meet at Troy’s again.

  Madeline tried to think of ways to get out of it, tried to think of excuses—including using Sophia’s death and her own continuing depression—that Hoffman would believe and have to respect. But it had been four months since Sophia died, and she wondered if the statute of limitations had expired on using a friend’s death as a reason to avoid people.

  And whether Hoffman knew it or not, he pressed the buttons that always worked with Madeline—he wanted to talk about school. And he wanted to talk about writing. And Madeline couldn’t say no.

  In his e-mails setting up the meeting, Hoffman even dangled something that made Madeline more curious than anything else.

  Been thinking about your handwritten thesis over holiday break, as I read it more. While the quill-and-ink approach worked for Austen, Dumas, Tolstoy, I may have a solution to bring you into the 21st century.

  Dear God, Madeline thought. How I’d love to be writing in the twenty-first century.

  She remembered growing up and going to school with shoes that were a little off from what the other kids wore. Clothes that were never quite as new. Internet access that was always spotty. Her mom always telling her to suck it up and quit whining about it.

  She hated to be that kid. Hated to be dragging along at the tail end of the parade.

  She’d spent three years of her college career living on hot dogs and frozen burritos and store-brand peanut butter spread on stale crackers.

  Yes, she thought. I’d love a solution.

  And maybe she’d overreacted to Hoffman’s behavior at Troy’s the last time, his hand resting on her knee.

  Would a creep touch her in such a public place where half the professors in the university sat to grade papers and informally hold office hours?

  She told herself not to be so naive. Her mom once told her, Maddy girl, it’s a man’s world. You have to do what you have to do.