Tell Me What You Did

The narrative shifts to two weeks prior to the events of Chapter 1. Poe is thirty and lives alone in Burlington, Vermont. She shares her isolated farmhouse with her black Labrador, Bailey. Poe is the host of Tell Me What You Did, the top-ranked true-crime podcast in America. Tell Me What You Did provides a space for people to anonymously confess to crimes they have committed. Poe conducts interviews via video call for her own safety, but only the audio of the confessions is published. She is dating her producer, Kip Nguyen.

As she waits for her latest guest to join, Poe wonders who she will be speaking to today. Privately, she thinks that she started the podcast with the hopes of one day encountering “the ghost of the man who killed [her] mother” (3).

A middle-aged man with the username KOD4ever calls in to speak to Poe. Before beginning the recording, Poe briefs him on the rules of the podcast: Callers must tell the truth and be willing to accept the risks that come along with publicizing their stories, including the possibility that she may forward the recording to law enforcement. Poe refuses to speak to sexual predators, and she reserves the right not to air an episode if she does not believe the caller is telling the truth.

Kip begins recording, and Poe introduces the show. She asks KOD4ever a few questions about himself to gauge his demeanor, then reminds him that he has a maximum of fifteen minutes to tell his story. When he is finished, if Poe believes he has told the truth, she will ask some follow-up questions about his confession.

KOD4ever refuses to state his real name and gives only sparse details about his life. Poe believes that all her guests are “seeking fame in a sick sort of way” (7). She prompts him to begin his confession by saying: “[T]ell me what you did” (9).

KOD4ever begins his story by recalling a relationship he had when he was 28. He met his girlfriend through work and believed she was out of his league. He grew infatuated with her, but after three months of dating, he discovered that she was sleeping with the bartender at a bar the two frequented. He mentions that the bartender had a small puppy, which he believes helped win his girlfriend over. KOD4ever ended the relationship but was not satisfied and wanted revenge.

Poe grows wary that KOD4ever’s story may be headed toward sexual violence or animal abuse and prepares herself to end the call. KOD4ever confesses that he broke into the bartender’s apartment one night, stole the puppy, and took her home. Rather than harming her, he raised her as his own for fifteen years. He grew to love the dog, whom he named Molly. Though he does not regret the theft, he feels some guilt about separating the bartender from his pet.

Poe asks KOD4ever a few more questions before wrapping up the call. From here, Kip will finish editing the episode, which will air in three weeks. Poe knows that her listeners will love KOD4ever’s story, but all she can think about is how no one ever asked Molly what she wanted.

This chapter is a continuation of the live-streamed conversation between Hindley and Poe. Poe confesses that she witnessed the murder of her mother at 13, a traumatic event that threw her life irrevocably off-course.

Hindley asks Poe to share details about her childhood. Poe says that she is an only child who grew up in Manchester, New Hampshire. She enjoyed a loving relationship with her parents, but after her mother’s murder, her father was never the same. Unable to cope with his grief, Poe left for university in Upstate New York. Hindley smugly tells Poe that her listeners will soon know “all about what happened in New York City” (20). Poe begs to see Hindley’s hostage. Hindley refuses but assures her that the man is unharmed.

The narrative returns to two weeks before the live stream. After they finish recording KOD4Ever’s episode, Kip visits Poe at the farmhouse. They have a tense conversation in which he admits that he is struggling with her lack of openness. He suspects that she is withholding something about her life. Kip does not know about the murder of Poe’s mother, nor “what [she] did about it” (25) afterward. Though Poe loves Kip deeply, she can’t bring herself to divulge her past. Kip says that he cannot continue the relationship unless Poe can open up to him. As he leaves, Poe “silently [adds] his name to the list…of things [she’s] lost over the years” (25).

On the live stream, Hindley asks about the origins of Tell Me What You Did. Poe says that the podcast began as a passion project but went viral after it was shouted out in a Slate article. To cope with the sudden increase in popularity, Poe hired Kip to help her. They began dating shortly afterward. Hindley asks if she loves him, which she refuses to answer.

Hindley asks Poe whether she forms relationships with her guests. She denies it, stating that most of them are “fucking lunatics” (28), but admits that she thinks about them often even after their episodes have aired. She sometimes imagines them atoning for their crimes and befriending her. Hindley accuses her of starting the show because she’s “just as guilty as all of them” (28).

On October 16th, Poe records another episode. She prefers recording at night because she feels less guilty about drinking after dark. Her guest’s screen name is Ian Hindley. Before she begins recording, Kip warns her that Hindley “freaks [him] out” (30). Poe begins the call. As soon as she sees Hindley, she knows that he will have “a hell of a story” (30).

Ian Hindley is gaunt, resembling “a cadaver.” As Poe walks him through her rules, she is unsettled by his quiet voice and strange demeanor. Before beginning recording, she warns him not to make her regret it. Hindley whispers that she is “going to learn a lot about regret” (35).

Poe and Kip begin recording the show. As she goes through her intro, she drifts into a familiar waking nightmare about someone breaking into her farmhouse with a knife. In this nightmare, the intruder always murders Bailey, then Poe.

Hindley begins to speak. He tells Poe that when he was little, his mother taught him how to pull the wings off living flies and arrange them into art pieces. He finishes his story with eight minutes to spare. When Poe asks him if this constitutes the entirety of his confession, he grows furious and shouts that she has ruined everything by interrupting him. Though Kip signals her to end the call, Poe decides to give Hindley one more chance. She apologizes and asks him to continue his confession.

Hindley asks if Poe recognizes him, which she denies. Hindley smiles and states: “I killed your mother” (41).

Shocked, Poe hangs up on Hindley. She regrets it immediately, wishing she could have him back on to berate him. She wonders briefly if Hindley is truly the ghost she’s been waiting for, but she knows this cannot be true. Her mother’s murderer was a man named Leopold Hutchins. Hindley cannot be Hutchins because Poe murdered Hutchins seven years ago.

On the second live stream, Hindley tells Poe that it is time to talk about New York. He muses that “life is nothing but a series of choices followed by a series of regrets” (44).

Hindley tells Poe that he is going to cut off the little finger of his hostage, as proof that he has no qualms about harming the man if Poe does not follow orders. Poe cries and begs him to stop, but Hindley severs the man’s finger off-camera, holding up the digit for Poe to see. He assures Poe that the man will be fine if she continues talking.

Poe states that seven years prior, she went to New York to look for her mother’s murderer and found him. Hindley asks if she is completely sure she found the right man, and Poe admits that she is not.

On October 16th, Kip calls Poe. Because he doesn’t know that her mother was murdered, he thinks Hindley is just a troll. Hindley has been messaging Kip since Poe hung up on him, and Kip offers to get him back on the line to see if he has a real confession. He once again asks Poe what she is hiding from him, and she again avoids the question.

Poe arms her home security system, then walks to her office and kisses the framed photo of her mother. Over the phone, she tells Kip that “everything’s fucked” (48).

Poe thinks of her mother, Margaret McMillian. 17 years ago, Margaret was stabbed to death in the bedroom of her Manchester home. The perpetrator then burned the house to the ground. Though her murder was headline news, she and Poe do not share a last name, which has prevented the public from connecting her murder to Poe. Poe’s father is the only one who knows her mother was murdered, and no one knows that she witnessed the crime, nor that she killed Hutchins. Now, she worries that “the whole world will soon know” (50) her secret.

After hanging up the phone, Poe paces around the house, drinking vodka to calm herself. She reflects on her relationship with vulnerability. Poe lives an isolated life, keeping walls up to protect herself from dangers like this. The only time she feels truly vulnerable is when she is hosting Tell Me What You Did. Talking to guilty people alleviates some of her own feelings of anxiety and fear.

This chapter is a continuation of the live-streamed conversation between Hindley and Poe. After seeing the severed finger, Poe vomits. She tells Hindley that the man did not deserve to be hurt, and Hindley retorts that “deserve is such a subjective word” (54).

Poe continues to tell her story. She moved to New York hoping to find and kill Leopold Hutchins, but upon arriving, she discovered that Leopold Hutchins did not exist.

On October 17th, Poe wakes up and immediately begins researching Ian Hindley. She discovers that his screen name is a portmanteau of the names Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, infamous British serial killers who committed a series of brutal child killings in Manchester, England.

Poe calls Kip and asks for Hindley’s number. She brushes off Kip’s concerns, insisting that Hindley is just a troll with no connection to her past. After receiving Hindley’s number, Poe texts him asking for his real name.

This chapter is a continuation of the live-streamed conversation between Hindley and Poe. Hindley asks why Poe didn’t tell her father about witnessing her mother’s murder. Poe says that she was too terrified of the threats Hutchins made after the fact to speak to anyone. As she got older, she was reluctant to re-traumatize her father by sharing the information. She only confessed to him recently, after Hindley’s arrival in her life forced her hand.

Hindley tells her to stop speaking about Hutchins in the third person, reminding her that he is Hutchins. Poe reiterates her disbelief.

In the narrative past, Hindley texts Poe, stating that his name is Leopold Hutchins. She asks him to prove it by repeating what Hutchins said to her on the day of the crime. Hindley responds: “I told your mother she didn’t say the safe word” (64). Poe confirms that these are the exact words Hutchins said to her.

Poe asks what Hindley wants, and he replies that he wants to be on her show for a special episode. He insists that the episode be live streamed rather than pre-recorded. When Poe refuses, he threatens to find her and states, “I know what you did in New York” (67). Poe puts her phone down and wonders whom she killed in New York.

Poe visits her regular coffee shop, Muddy Waters, with Bailey. As she sits with her drink, she decides that she can no longer keep her past a secret from Kip. Via text, she asks him to come and meet her.