This is How We End Things: A Novel

Prologue

XX XX

FROM PSYCHOLOGICAL REPORT

INTERVIEW MATERIAL

AUDIO RECORDING

October 20, 2013

Evaluator: Simon Martin, PhD

…

This is confidential, right?

It’s our seventh meeting, and you ask that every time. And yes.

Meaning nothing leaves this room?

Again, basically. There’re some exceptions. Legal issues. If you report child or elder abuse, even in the past, I have to make a call. Or if you say you’re planning to hurt yourself or someone else, I have to report that.

Planning to?

Right.

But things that happened in the past, that’ve been investigated already…

…They aren’t required to be reported, no. And won’t be. On that, you have my word. Protecting a patient’s privacy is a critical part of what I do.

… [The subject pauses, approximately fifteen seconds pass]

It sounds like there’s a story you want to tell, but you’re reluctant to start.

I mean, I’ve never told anyone.

That’s what trust is for.

[A ten–second pause]

I think there’s something very wrong with me.

Well, maybe there is, and maybe not. Why don’t you tell me a little about what makes you think so, and we can figure it out together?

…You swear on your life it won’t get out?

Aside from the exceptions, yes, I swear.

[The subject audibly exhales] In eleventh grade, I murdered the man who killed my parents.

I…okay, I’m listening.

I knew I would from the moment I read his name on the police report and started being careful, even then, to avoid any internet research or contact with him that might raise suspicions about me. See, you’re fidgeting. I can tell you’re…

I was just surprised is all.

You’re sure you want to hear this?

Please, go on.

Will you put that pen down?

[A clicking sound]

I killed a man named Douglas Mitchner. He hit my parents’ car, head-on, at nearly eighty miles per hour. The police report I got said he was a type 1 diabetic who lost control of his vehicle after going into insulin shock, falling forward into the steering wheel as his foot pressed the accelerator. I knew he didn’t mean to hurt anyone, but for some reason, that made me want him dead even more. Family money on my father’s side sent me to boarding school instead of state’s custody, but he took my adoptive parents away—the only family I ever knew.

You’d mentioned you were adopted.

At birth.

Continue, please.

After their service, going in my parents’ room seemed disrespectful? Somehow? But I circled their bed. The corners of the white comforter tucked neatly beneath the pillows. It was the kind of bedroom that had lace doilies. On my father’s bedside table, the lamp was still switched on. I turned it off and could feel the heat from the bulb that had been lit for two days. On my mom’s nightstand was a picture of me in a silver modern frame that matched nothing else in the house. I think it had been a gift. The image kind of captured the hopes she had for me, and the way they’d cared for me, the best way they knew how. They took me in at my most vulnerable. They’d loved me.

And you loved them.

"No, I don’t think I did, I don’t think I could. I respected them. I was loyal to them. If my mother knew about my dark side, she never let on. She was cheerful, always. But my dad knew very early; he could see my…emptiness but was warm and loving anyway, fully aware he could never be loved in return. I admired him for that.

I retrieved my things, took a shower, then began plotting the most satisfying way to murder Douglas Mitchner, wondering how long I would have to wait to avoid drawing attention to myself.

I see.

I decided four months was safe, but in hindsight, I really should have waited longer.

Longer?

Definitely. Boarding school was actually easier than my suburban Catholic high school, so I had some time on my hands. In October, I bribed a homeless man to buy a revolver from a pawnshop with cash I tucked away after the funeral. He passed it to me in the alleyway with the nonchalance of someone who would’ve given a teenager an atomic bomb. I tested its weight in my palm, noticing the number thirty-eight etched into the silver metal, then slipped the gun beneath the seat of my car before buying ammunition at a rural gun range, also using cash. In the second week of November, I caught a taxi to a neighborhood where I assumed drugs were sold. I mimicked a movie scene and asked to buy ‘rock’ cocaine from some guys in an alleyway. The dealer made a comment about my long hair, but when I flashed the emptiness, the vacancy in my eyes, and smiled, he relented. ‘Some kind of vampire,’ he said, about me. I stored the crack cocaine in a Tylenol bottle on a shelf above my roommate’s bed, in case it was somehow discovered. Not a nice thing to do, but like I said, something’s wrong with me. You keep looking at that pen. Please don’t take notes.

[A ten–second pause]

I’m listening, go ahead.

I bought a button-down shirt, a pair of pants, and a pair of nondescript running shoes at a thrift store and kept them separate from all of my other things. I forced myself to cry during a counseling appointment and made a point to appear unrushed at the end, lingering to make some extra small talk. I stole two sets of latex gloves from the student health center on the way out the door, then put on the thrift store clothes. Then I left my phone under my pillow and slipped out the back door. It was just after seven p.m. The drive took two hours, and when I got to my hometown, I parked in the shadows of an oak tree behind a church, then took a taxi to a shopping center near Douglas’s home, paid the driver in cash, and walked the rest of the way. It was a quiet night except for the crickets. I cut through a side yard where a wind chime clinked around. He had a bowl of something resting on his big bulbous stomach, pale turquoise light from a television flashing over his dumb features. Far away, a dog barked. I remember that. I knocked on the sliding glass door at the rear of the house. An outdoor light switched on.

You must have been scared? You were a kid.

"No, listen. When he stepped outside, I shoved the butt of the revolver under his chin. And he blubbered, something or other about a gold and sapphire ring. ‘You’ll need the keys,’ I said, ‘Open the garage and start the car.’

"He did as he was told, and we were on our way. It smelled sour in the car. His gray shorts he wore were stained dark from where he’d wet himself. I directed him, ‘Take your next right.’ He was whining, ‘Where are…?’

I motioned with the gun’s barrel, like I’d done all this a hundred times before. On a side street, I pulled several of the crack cocaine rocks from my pocket and held them to Douglas’s lips. ‘I need you to swallow this. But don’t chew.’ He was scared out of his mind, but did he it, wincing at the bitterness while his Adam’s apple bobbed. He was crying and mumbling to himself, and his shirt was getting dark in places from his sweat. I needed it to cycle through his bloodstream.

The rock cocaine?

"Yeah. I scattered the rest of it across the floorboards. As I was doing it, he got brave or scared, I guess. He swung his elbow at me, trying to fling himself out of the car. Caught me right here [points to their left eye]. Yeah. It was bad; he stunned me, and I almost lost my grip on the gun and barely managed to get outside before him. He screamed once, like a sound that wasn’t really a word; I think crack dust had coated his mouth. In the distance, I heard a porch door creak open and slap shut. Someone called out, ‘Hello?’

"I shoved the gun under his chin and forced him back into the driver’s seat.

"I kept opening and closing my eye because my vision was turning blurry. He’d done some real damage to it.

"He started hyperventilating. His wheezing made me sick.

"I walked around the front of his car and fired six shots into him through the windshield.

[A pause]

"You’re okay? You wanted to hear this, remember?

"I ran off into the night, like any normal jogger. I heard the first siren as I slipped the gun into a food waste bin behind a pizza parlor. I ran all the way back to my car, then two and a half hours later, I was sitting in my dorm library, reading Rolling Stone magazine. I’d showered, and my hair was wet. Two kids I’d met earlier that semester burst through the door. I could smell alcohol on their breath from across the room. One asked, ‘Geez, you’re still up? What happened to your eye?’ They bragged about someone firing a potato shooter from a rooftop and told me everyone had ended up in a neighborhood swimming pool. Regular kid stuff. ‘You could have come,’ they said. And had I given any more thought to coming home with one of them over winter break? Someone’s folks had a place.

I said, ‘You boarding school kids are too wild for me.’

They had no idea?

Not until five days later, when I was in handcuffs. The cop who arrested me wasted no time telling me I’d need a psychological evaluation.

And you mentioned none of this at that time? About you thinking something was wrong…inside? [A thumping sound, likely the interviewer touching his chest]

[A pause]

No. I started thinking about how I should lie.

That was five years ago?

Yeah, I wasn’t tried as an adult, so my sentence wasn’t very long.

So now you’re doing ongoing counseling and assessment as part of your parole. And you’re finally putting words to this feeling…

It’s a lack of feeling, more of an absence than a presence. When you’re like me, you have to hide what you are.

[A long pause]

Do you want to see the emptiness? I’ll show you, if you want. It hides in my eyes.

…

[laughs] Both of them, even the fucked up one. Maybe especially that one. Do you want to see?

[A pause] Okay.

[Mumbling, indeterminable sounds, possibly a chair creaking]

I’m…

[Laughs] See? I knew you’d be scared. Everyone is.

CHAPTER 1

SCARLETT

Robert and Scarlett watch through the thick glass of arched windows while vehicles lumber down University Avenue. It’s late Thursday afternoon, and the lobby of Hull Hall, home of Dorrance University’s Psychology Department, is freezing, even for March. Most years, the coldest days have passed by spring break, but this year winter was late to arrive and stayed like a party guest who couldn’t read the room. The building’s architecture is impressive by any standards, even if the vaulted Gothic ceilings have always seemed vaguely haunted to Scarlett. She bounces on her heels in a thin thrift store sweater, teeth chattering as she checks the time on her phone. Any chance she’s waiting at the back entrance?

Robert raises an eyebrow. Surely she wouldn’t stand at a locked door for this long? And I can handle her orientation thing if you’re pressed for time.

I’m a single parent in a PhD program, pressed for time is my normal state, Scarlett says, her smile determined and warm. This’ll go faster with two of us. Especially since you have all your ducks in a row, like always.

Robert chortles. I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I’m not sure I have ducks, and they’re not in a row. This semester, it’s like I have squirrels and they’re at a rave.

In that case, you’ve fooled everyone, including me. Scarlett shrugs. As usual, Robert has her smiling—even when the situation might otherwise be tense. She’s heard the term work spouse before, but had no reference point for it. But Robert probably is that to her, she thinks, even if it looks mostly like a close friendship. Which is perfect. Three years after an emotionally wrought divorce, a close male friend is what’s comfortable.

Two years have passed since Robert led Scarlett’s own orientation, and since that time, the two have worked together on every project that’s come their way, including the most recent one—about which only the grad students and department chair, Joe Lyons, know the details.

Scarlett checks the time again. The department may not have the same budget as Engineering, but considering their team has become nationally prominent, the heater should at least work. It’ll be an adjustment getting used to another team member, but I guess it’s past time, after winter graduation. I know Joe needs six on the team. You, me, Britt, Chris, Elizabeth, and now…Veronica, if she ever shows up. I hope she’s open to writing grants.

Robert cocks his head slightly.

What?

Joe hasn’t told you? Veronica doesn’t have a research background. Joe offered her a place in the PhD program, but she just finished her JD.

"She’s a lawyer?"

Not admitted to the bar anywhere yet, as far as I know, but yes, respecializing in psychology research methods.

Scarlett traces the toe of her shoe along a tile as she takes the information in. Why would the fearless Joe Lyons want someone with a legal background on our team?

Between you and me?

Of course. Scarlett elbows him.

My sense was that she pushed him, hard, lobbied to join, and eventually sold him on it.

Scarlett considers this. The team receives innumerable applications, most of which are never read. Yeah?

You know Joe, he has to think something is his idea. Robert shrugs. But I think this person Veronica convinced him we would benefit from oversight.

Scarlett swallows. He’s worried? Risk was Joe’s reputation.

A sly smile emerges on Robert’s lips. See? That’s just it. We’re all too close to the research now. Even you, supposedly the team’s moral compass.

Layer by layer, the details of the experiment had been revealed to her: a study on dishonesty that necessitated deceiving the subjects. It was the daring kind of experiment that modern institutional review boards never green–lighted anymore because of its potential for causing psychological harm. But it was also precisely the kind of study that made Joe Lyons prominent in the field.

No one took risks in research like he did.

Not for forty years.

Joe Lyons leads an exclusive group of graduate students with one mission: expand the field of psychology with cutting–edge research. The team functioned best with six members and had been down one for three months. Now Veronica, handpicked by Joe, was about to arrive for her orientation. Had Scarlett put blind faith in the legendary Lyons? He’s a rock star in their insular world, his publications playing out like events, like an anticipated world premieres.

A publication beside his name opened a lot of doors.

A recommendation letter from him paved a professional road.

Codesigning an experiment with Joe Lyons guaranteed tenure at most Research 1 schools and positioned your name to be referenced in psychology classes for generations.

Psychology, Scarlett knows, is a young science. A student can still go to a conference and listen to a lecture by someone in their textbook.

But Robert’s comment echoes in her mind. The moral compass, was that really her role? And if so, where were the moral compasses of the other team members? She hadn’t thought of the team’s deception as more than harmless mischief, but had she lost her directionality? Was there more danger in the experiment than she dared to face? Scarlett idealized the team early on: the close–knit planning sessions, endless drip coffees, and stacks of papers were exactly as she’d pictured them when she’d applied. University life in general suited her, strolling manicured paths between storied lecture halls and world–class laboratories, while guitar notes from students drifted in the wind, felt invigorating enough to justify the worrisome debt she’d taken on, the bills she struggled to pay, and the unvarying meals of noodles she and her daughter consumed.

But now she had seen the collegiate curtain pulled back. She watched Joe’s maniacal habits cost him a marriage and navigated suspicions around campus because of the department’s secrecy. And now Joe was bringing on someone with a legal background? For oversight?

She knew Joe Lyons valued loyalty above all, demanding no information leaks, no gossip.

Nor talk of the affair that everyone—as of two weeks earlier—knew for a fact he’s been having.

Robert suggests, Let’s check that back door?

Their footfalls echo as they descend the half flight of stairs to the building’s rear entrance, where the ancient overhead lights make hexagonal shadows on the walls. Through the windows, she sees red brick covered with literal ivy.

When the new first–year candidate, Veronica, appears in the glass rectangle in the door, Scarlett and Robert exchange a glance.

I didn’t say a word, she says.

You wouldn’t because you’re too nice, but you’re teaching her multiple regression, not me.

Aww, she’s just turned around.

Behind her, bits of ice dot the walkway. All the landscaping is either prickly evergreen or deceased. Robert flashes his impish smile before pushing the door open. Veronica? he asks.

A blast of frigid air fills the stairwell. Veronica nods. She has severely cut jet-black hair, a bright-orange puffy jacket, and enormous earmuffs. Your door was locked, she says, her voice crackling with contentiousness as she shifts her weight back and forth between the sensible flats she’s wearing.

Our fault for not being clearer, Scarlett says as she guides Veronica in. This weather must be quite a welcome from New Orleans! Let’s get you upstairs, I promise it’s not always this cold here.

Oh–kay, Veronica agrees irritably.

Over Veronica’s shoulder, Scarlett catches Robert’s eye. Her gut tells her this meeting is not about to go well, but his smile is contagious. I’m sure you’re eager to hear about the experiment, he says.

In the hallway, students rush with prebreak haste. A bright blanket of rooftop snow shines through three more arched windows on the student lounge’s far end as they enter. A round wooden table covered in condensation rings sits in the center, while the near wall is lined with mailboxes all stuffed with multicolored sheets of paper. Each is affixed with a name tag: Robert, Scarlett, Britt, Chris, Elizabeth, Veronica. The room smells like coffee and also like copier ink.

Veronica bends to admire the mailbox tag bearing her name, then smiles proudly. The three of them settle around the table and politely catch up about her move. It turns out that geography is a ubiquitous topic in grad school, everyone either having recently moved from somewhere or preparing to move to somewhere else—people following partners or relocating for internships or for a million other reasons. Having only ever lived in North Carolina, Scarlett notices the subject always comes up immediately. Robert tells me you just finished law school. What was it like?

Veronica’s gaze shifts back and forth in a way that makes Scarlett aware Veronica’s making the same mental adjustments she had a moment earlier—before this morning, they had only met through email and a conference call.

And how well can you get to know someone like that?

It was interesting, Veronica answers, measuredly. The law has always fascinated me.

Oh, Scarlett says, unsure how to respond because…who actually talks like that? Was there a particular area of the law that you focused on?

JD-PhDs tend to become quite specialized in one area. Mine is managing liability.

Something about Veronica’s voice makes Scarlett feel like the building is on fire.

Sounds useful, Robert chimes in, fiddling with his laptop.

For sure, Scarlett agrees. I’m definitely interested to hear your thoughts as we get you oriented.

Veronica wrinkles her nose. I’ll be discussing most of those observations only with Dr. Lyons.

Oh, Scarlett says.

What on earth?

Robert, she notices, has resumed grinning. They both know Joe Lyons can’t run the department without them, so whatever observations Veronica anticipates keeping between her and Joe won’t stay hidden for long.

Robert taps the tabletop. I suppose we should get to why we’re here. Obviously, your TA assignment won’t start till next semester, but there’s no reason you can’t start helping with the experiment now, and doing your…assessing or whatever? I queued up a video of the procedure so you can get a sense of how the script is delivered. Sound okay?

Veronica folds her hands in her lap and nods.

Robert navigates to a clip he’d readied, then lowers the lights so the screen is more visible. Pictured is a medium–sized room with one–way glass along one wall and a circle of chairs in the center. One at a time, people enter and sit, occasionally issuing a small nod or wave.

This is the team, Robert says. You recognize Scarlett, obviously. The real subject will be the last one in the room and isn’t aware the others know each other. A week before they participate, they each complete what they think is a screening for mental health concerns, as if they’re verifying they’re not too anxious or depressed to complete the study.

Except it’s not actually a screening measure, Scarlett clarifies. Not most of it, at least. It’s already part of the experiment to establish a baseline for how honest they are.

It’s a little devious, Robert admits, but on their release form, they give us access to their application materials to the university.

Hmm, Veronica says, then raises her hand as if in class. I don’t like it. If the screening tool is just to see how honest they are, how do you actually make sure the subjects are mentally healthy?

A quick glance passes between Scarlett and Robert. "The first few questions are for self–reported distress. But we haven’t run into any problems so far," Robert says, and Scarlett, for the first time, glimpses Joe Lyons’s logic in inviting Veronica to join the team. She hadn’t considered that the experiment might be causing anything more than immediate discomfort, although she had begun to notice how casually words like deception and agitated were now casually tossed around—words that might have caused everyone’s ears to perk up in undergraduate school but now hardly elicited a shrug. Still, who did this person think she was?

Every element of the experience has been considered, Scarlett says, as gently as she can.

Veronica brushes her fingertips through her curtain–like bangs.

Thirty minutes before the experiment begins, half the subjects get a phone call from someone who says they’re an administrative assistant to the department head, Robert says.

Usually it’s Elizabeth, but sometimes I do it, Scarlett says.

They’re told they’re missing a prerequisite. Everyone’s nightmare, right? That they’ve somehow overlooked a course they need to graduate? They’re told they’re being put on automatic academic probation because of the error, and that they’ll be disenrolled if they don’t get an A in their current psychology class, which is why they’ve signed up for the experiment: they’re getting extra credit. Because of the timing of the call, they don’t have time to consult the catalog or talk with an advisor.

Robert continues: The subjects are asked to silence and store their cell phones during the experiment, during which the ‘assistant’ calls back to say there’s been an error and the academic record is actually fine. He motions toward the laptop screen. Here, I’m about to follow the subject in, close the door, and read the directions. The participants are told they’re taking part in a test of groupthink.

On the screen, the lights dim in the experiment room, and Robert’s voice can be heard describing the series of images that the participants will see. He tells them, Afterward, you’ll be asked a few questions about what you can recall from the images and asked to solve some problems based on the information you received.

Veronica wrinkles her nose as if she smells something acrid.

Robert fast–forwards the clip, saying, Now they’re shown a series of images of everyday objects. Afterward, they’ll be asked if they can recall which ones they’ve been shown, but that part’s baloney; everyone always gets twenty out of twenty.

On the screen, the room’s lights come back up. The students all pass their clipboards to the person on their right. "This is where they’re told that only the three highest scorers will actually get the extra credit.