Chapter Three — Good Boys Don’t Bite
Chapter Three — Good Boys Don’t Bite
ELLIOT
By eight o'clock Tuesday morning, Mason Kerr had been dead for approximately thirty hours, officially dead for eleven, and mourned on social media by at least four hundred people who had barely known him.
Elliot counted seventeen photographs of Mason before he reached Bellweather University.
They appeared between Instagram stories advertising drink specials and videos of people's dogs.
Mason at a football game with his arms around three friends.
Mason standing shirtless on a boat during summer break.
Mason wearing a tuxedo beside a girl Elliot vaguely recognized from Kappa's spring formal.
Mason holding a beer beneath strings of patio lights.
Mason smiling beside people who had probably spent more time selecting the photograph they posted than thinking about the person in it.
Every image had been stripped of context and transformed into evidence that Mason Kerr had been wonderful.
Rest easy brother. Bellweather won't be the same without you.
Forever KDR. Can't believe you're gone. One of the kindest people I've ever met.
That one made Elliot stop scrolling. He sat at a red light three blocks from campus with the phone balanced against the steering wheel and read it twice.
One of the kindest people I've ever met.
Interesting. A horn sounded behind him. Elliot looked up.
The light was green. He drove. Rain had washed Monday's color from Bellweather.
The morning was gray and cold, the streets slick beneath a sky the color of dirty wool.
Leaves plastered themselves against storm drains and sidewalks.
Students moved beneath umbrellas along the edge of campus, shoulders hunched against a fine mist that seemed too insignificant to deserve an umbrella and too persistent to ignore.
Elliot parked in the student garage. His phone vibrated before he could open the door.
MOM: Did you see the news about that student?
He stared at the message. His mother had apparently discovered Mason.
ELLIOT: yeah
MOM: That's horrible.
Then:
MOM: Please don't walk around alone at night.
Elliot smiled.
ELLIOT: yes mom
Three dots.
MOM: I'm serious.
ELLIOT: i know
MOM: And tell Ronan too.
Elliot laughed quietly. As if anybody had ever successfully told Ronan Vale not to do something.
He locked his phone and stepped out of the car.
Bellweather felt different. Not dramatically.
There were no police officers checking IDs at the gates.
Classes hadn't been canceled. Students still hurried toward lectures carrying coffee, complaining about assignments, and standing in inconvenient clusters outside buildings.
But something had shifted beneath the routine.
Elliot heard Mason's name three times before leaving the garage.
Outside, a university maintenance worker was attaching a laminated notice to a blue emergency-call station.
CAMPUS SAFETY REMINDER
Elliot didn't stop to read the rest. He already knew what it would say.
Travel in groups. Remain in well-lit areas.
Report suspicious activity. Don't wear headphones while walking alone.
As though murder could be prevented through adequate awareness of one's surroundings.
He crossed Hawthorne Quad. Someone had placed flowers beneath the Bellweather clock tower.
That was new. Photographs of Mason leaned against the stone base among candles, handwritten notes, fraternity letters, and a Bellweather scarf somebody had carefully folded beneath everything else.
Moisture from the morning mist had curled the corners of several photographs.
A girl stood in front of the memorial crying.
Another rubbed her back. Elliot slowed. He recognized neither of them.
“Elliot.”
He turned. Claire approached carrying two coffees again. He looked at them.
“You're developing a problem.”
“One is yours.”
“I didn't ask for one.”
“You never do.”
She handed it to him. Elliot took it. Claire looked awful. Not Monday-morning awful. Actually awful. Her hair was loose and unbrushed, and faint shadows sat beneath her eyes. She'd thrown an oversized black coat over what looked suspiciously like pajamas.
“You sleep?” Elliot asked.
“Barely.”
“Why?”
She looked at him as though the answer should have been obvious.
“Because somebody was murdered ten minutes from my apartment.”
“Do we know he was murdered?”
Claire stopped walking. Elliot stopped beside her.
“Elliot.”
“What?”
“They found him stabbed.”
He watched her. That information hadn't appeared in the university alert.
“Where'd you hear that?”
“Everyone knows.”
“That isn't an answer.”
“Lena's boyfriend knows someone in Kappa. Tyler talked to the police.”
“Which still doesn't explain how Tyler would know.”
Claire lowered her voice.
“Apparently there was blood everywhere.”
Elliot took a sip of coffee. Too hot. Vanilla. Extra shot. Exactly right.
“Rumors get fucked up fast.”
“You don't think it's true?”
“I think Mason's dead and the police haven't publicly said how.”
Claire studied him.
“What?”
“You're weirdly calm.”
Elliot looked around the quad. People stood around Mason's memorial. Someone was photographing it. A professor hurried past carrying an umbrella.
“What do you want me to do?”
“I don't know.”
“Cry?”
“No.”
“Scream?”
“Stop.”
“I'm serious.”
“So am I.”
Elliot softened his voice.
“Claire, I barely knew him.”
“You were at the same party.”
“So were two hundred other people.”
“I know.”
“Then what?”
She looked toward the memorial. For several seconds she didn't answer.
“When somebody our age dies, aren't you supposed to feel something?”
Elliot watched the girl crying beside the flowers.
“Maybe.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
The lie was small enough to be harmless. Claire nodded. They started walking again. Near Whitmore Hall, two Bellweather police cruisers sat beside the curb. Claire noticed them too.
“That's comforting.”
“Maybe they're here because everyone keeps spreading crimescene details.”
“Or because there's a murderer.”
“Also possible.”
“You're terrible at comforting people.”
“I bought you coffee.”
“You did not.”
“You're holding coffee in my presence. That's basically the same thing.”
Claire rolled her eyes. That was better.
They reached the psychology building. A printed photograph of Mason had been taped beside the entrance.
Elliot recognized the picture immediately.
Same one from the university alert. Mason smiling.
Head slightly tilted. Blue shirt. A perfectly harmless twenty-twoyear-old frozen forever in whatever fraction of a second the camera had captured.
Someone had placed a white rose beneath it.
Elliot walked past. Professor Adler canceled the morning lecture.
Not officially. He stood at the front of the classroom at eight thirty and spent the first ten minutes explaining that Bellweather counseling services were available, that nobody should feel obligated to remain if they were struggling, and that anyone who had information regarding Mason's movements Saturday night should contact the police.
Then nobody seemed capable of discussing abnormal psychology.
Mason had known too many people. Two students in the seminar had been at the party.
Three knew him through Kappa. One had taken a class with him sophomore year.
The conversation turned into memories. Mason was funny.
Mason was generous. Mason always bought people drinks.
Mason once drove somebody to the airport at four in the morning.
Mason had helped organize a fundraiser. Mason had been planning to move to New York after graduation.
Elliot listened. People became fascinating after death.
Every rough edge was sanded away. Every cruel joke became irrelevant.
Every person they'd humiliated suddenly forgot.
The dead were granted a version of themselves they'd never managed to become while alive.
Professor Adler eventually dismissed them. Students gathered their belongings slowly. Claire touched Elliot's arm.
“Bathroom.”
“I'll alert the media.”
“Wait for me.”
Elliot nodded. He remained seated while the room emptied. His phone buzzed.
RONAN: You alive?
Elliot smiled.
ELLIOT: unfortunately
RONAN: Mom texted me three times about campus safety.
ELLIOT: same
RONAN: Apparently we're not allowed outside anymore.
ELLIOT: come lock me in the house
There was a pause. Then:
RONAN: Don't start.
Elliot's smile widened.
ELLIOT: start what?
The typing bubble appeared. Before Ronan answered, someone spoke behind him.
“Elliot Mercer?”
Elliot looked up. A woman stood in the aisle. She wasn't university faculty. Late thirties, maybe. Dark brown hair pulled into a low ponytail. Navy coat damp across the shoulders from the rain. No umbrella. Her face wasn't familiar. The badge she held up was.
“Detective Mara Vance. Bellweather Police.”
Elliot looked at the badge. Then her.
“Okay.”
“Do you have a minute?”
Around them, the last few students leaving the room slowed. Not enough to look obvious. Enough to listen. Elliot noticed.
“Sure.”
Vance gestured toward the hallway.
“Somewhere quieter?”
“Of course.”
He put his notebook into his bag. His heartbeat remained steady.
That pleased him. They walked downstairs.
Vance didn't take him to an office. Instead she stopped beneath the covered stone arcade connecting Whitmore Hall to the psychology annex.
Rain fell beyond the arches in silver threads.
Students crossed the courtyard beneath umbrellas, distant enough that nobody could overhear them.
Vance leaned against one of the stone columns. Elliot remained standing.
“You knew Mason Kerr?”
“A little.”
“How little?”
“We went to the same university. Same parties sometimes. Mutual friends.”
“Friends?”
“No.”
“You were at the Halston Street party Saturday.”