This Book Will Bury Me

The group heads to Cathy’s, the bar where the killer’s first victims spent their last night. The place is overrun with amateur sleuths, and the bartender loses his temper. He orders out everyone who has come to Delphine to “investigate.” However, the waitress assumes that Jane is a student at NIU, and Jane lies, saying that the group is her visiting family. The group gets a little tipsy, and Jane feels that they are in fact a family: The investigation might have brought them together, but their bond is genuine.

The next morning, the group heads to the second murder site. Reporters, protesters, and amateur sleuths are everywhere, even though the property is cordoned off by police tape. Jane asks why the police would allow a crowd to form at the crime scene, and the group speculates that they are hoping to catch sight of the killer: Serial killers often return to the scene of their crime, and he is likely still in the area.

The next stop is Carraway, Oregon, where Bridget was murdered. Because Lightly’s FBI contact has granted them access to the case files, they are able to visit the Carraway Police Department and review the material. Jane is sure that the killer hacked the lock.

The group then heads to Bridget’s house. Jane uses the hack to open the lock on the outside door, and the rest of the group agrees with her that this is how the killer must have gained entry. The house smells musty from years of disuse, and they find little of interest. However, the group notices a Navy base visible from the windows and wonders why there would be a Navy base in a landlocked, remote location.

The group is invited to appear on the Murder Junkies podcast. They bicker about whether or not it is a good idea and what information to release if they do agree to make an appearance, ultimately deciding to send Jane as their representative: She is about the same age as the victims, and she is approachable if anyone listening to the podcast has information and decides to come forward.

Jane sits down with Brian and Veejay, hosts of Murder Junkies. They begin by bringing up the killer’s new moniker, the “Barbie Butcher.” The two find it catchy and entertaining, but Jane is disgusted. She notes the dehumanization of murder victims and the fetishization of attractive female victims, but the pair calmly laughs her off. Then, she tells the public about Bridget Howell, explaining that her group has set up a tip line for information about her case.

The episode goes viral, and the group hopes for some new leads. On her night to cook dinner, Jane stops by the grocery store for supplies. There, a woman approaches her and begins talking. She is the mother of Stacie, one of the first victims. Jane panics and tells the woman that she knew Stacie, and the woman invites her home for dinner. Jane knows that what she is doing is unethical but cannot stop herself.

Stacie’s mother shows Jane her room. Jane feels terrible, but she is also fascinated. Stacie’s sister, Natalie, comes home with her father for dinner. Natalie is skeptical of Jane, but Jane (who gives Veronica as her name) claims to have met Stacie at school. Natalie is deeply opposed to true crime and resents the way that various gawkers and amateur sleuths have descended on Delphine since the murders, horrified that murder is entertainment to some people.

Jane reflects that Natalie would go on to write a best-selling book about the amateur sleuths who “investigated” the Delphine murders, and Jane and her friends would be at the heart of it.

Citizen invites Jane out for a beer. He suggests that she attend the rush event for Stacie and Madeleine’s sorority by pretending to be a transfer student. Jane wonders about the ethics of this endeavor, but Citizen scoffs. He tells her that he doesn’t believe in rules or boundaries when it comes to investigating. Lightly and Mistress might, but he sees investigations as “interactive.”

Citizen strikes up a conversation with a group of students at the bar. He tells them that Jane, “Veronica,” is a transfer student and that he’s her friend. He buys everyone a round of drinks. They stay for hours, drinking and talking with the students. As they wait for their Uber home, Citizen admits that he has a crush on Jane, and they kiss.

The group’s tip line receives its first call: It’s Bridget’s childhood best friend, Susan. Susan tells them that there was a “creepy” boy whom Bridget knew. She cannot remember his name, but Bridget thought he killed her dog. The dog disappeared, but Bridget didn’t think it was an accident. She told the police, but they wrote off her information as teenage “drama.”

Jane, as Veronica, heads to the Kappa Delta (KD) event that Citizen suggested she attend. It is a charity fashion show, and she poses as a potential recruit, chatting with a few different women. She learns that Harlow, like Larissa, was a scholarship student and that Harlow and Larissa hated living with Madeleine and Stacie because Madeleine and Stacie were huge partiers. Jane didn’t know this fact about Harlow, and she resolves to do more research later.

To take her mind off the Delphine case, Jane researches her father, combing through his social media. A childhood friend named Darrel tells her something shocking: Her father was sexually abused as a child by his uncle. His older brothers were also targeted. Jane cannot reconcile this information with the man she knew: He taught her how to keep herself safe from “stranger danger” as a child, but he never breathed a word about having been abused himself.

The group bickers about whether the serial killer could be a woman. Citizen and Goku interrupt: They have a secret to share.

Exploring the theory that the killer is a random predator, Citizen and Goku searched the school database for students with disciplinary complaints. They found a criminology graduate student named Odell Rhodes whom multiple female students accused of “creepy” behavior. His knowledge of criminology would explain the pristine crime scenes, and he followed Madeleine and Larissa on Instagram and once sent Madeleine a direct message that she didn’t respond to.

Jane messages one of the KD sisters, Rylee, whom she met at the fashion show, asking to grab a quick coffee. Rylee agrees, and the two meet on campus. Rylee advises her against rushing KD, explaining that she thinks their house mother, Lizzie Bath, killed the women: She hated them because of their wild partying and because they ruthlessly made fun of her. She adds that the only person in KD whom Lizzie truly likes is Harlow and that she used to bake Harlow cookies and follow her around. However, Harlow was so exhausted from Madeleine and Stacie’s partying that her grades slipped: She was about to fail her courses and lose her scholarship. Rylee is sure that Lizzie killed only three of the four students in their house because the fourth was her favorite, Harlow.

Jane and her mother talk on the phone. Jane’s mother is seeing a grief counselor and tells Jane that she is setting aside some of her father’s old letters for her. Jane asks her mother if her father ever confided in her that he’d been molested. Jane’s mother replies that he did not and that she doesn’t believe the story.

Jane wanders through campus and is startled to see Citizen and Goku in the dining hall, sitting with Odell Rhodes. When the three turn to look at Jane, a chill runs down her spine: Odell is “dead-eyed” and sinister looking. She does not want to join them, but her friends wave her over.

Odell is just as menacing in person as he looks from afar. Posing as grad students, Citizen and Goku befriended him at a mixer. The three chat idly about how irritating undergraduates are, but Odell is particularly vitriolic in his comments. He openly voices his disdain for women’s intellectual capabilities, Greek life, and the “PC bullshit” that requires him to treat his female students with respect. He and Jane begin bickering, and her heart races. Later, back at the house, Jane explodes at Citizen and Goku: She did not consent to meet Odell and is genuinely fearful to have been put on his radar. She is sure that he is a killer, and she can easily see herself as his next victim.

Jane researches Lizzie and Harlow. Lizzie is 26 and a nursing student. She has thousands of Facebook friends but none among KD. She also has thousands of Facebook photos of the KD sisters but none that include her. There are more pictures of Harlow than any other woman.

Jane is struck by how strange Lizzie’s Facebook account is, wondering how she got all the photos if the women were not actually her friends. Then, she realizes that Lizzie copied most of them from Larissa’s Instagram page and re-posted them herself.

Jane finds that Lizzie was active on Reddit. Some posts date back to when she was in high school. Lizzie had an obsession with one of her fellow students, but there is an even more interesting detail: In a series of posts about a schoolyard fight, Lizzie revealed that she was diagnosed with conduct disorder. Jane googles this and learns it is a childhood disorder characterized by antisocial tendencies and violence, sometimes viewed as a prelude to antisocial personality disorder. Jane contemplates how tall Lizzie is, speculating about her shoe size and whether it could match the print outside of Madeleine and Stacie’s house.

Jane heads to the KD house to gain access to Lizzie’s room. In it, she finds that Lizzie’s shoe size does match the killer’s, and she also finds some erotic fanfiction featuring characters named Harlow and Eliza. As she is reading, Lizzie returns. Jane hurries into the hallway and pretends that she is there to turn in her KD rush forms. Lizzie narrows her eyes, and Jane feels pure terror, sure that she is in the presence of someone capable of violence. Lizzie explains that the forms go to the Pan-Hellenic office, and Jane pretends to be confused. She flees the house as quickly as possible. Once outside, she gets a text: Mistress has had a breakthrough and wants to meet in a park on campus.

Mistress does not show up for the meeting. Worried, Jane returns to the house and tells Lightly, who brushes her fears off: He is sure that she’ll show up. Jane tells him everything she’s learned about Lizzie, and Lightly appears contemplative. He explains that after reviewing the crime-scene photos again, he found some discrepancies: The killer cleaned using different methods each time, which is highly unusual. This strengthens Jane’s sense that Lizzie killed Madeleine, Stacie, and Larissa but not the second group of women. She agrees with Lightly that they might be dealing with two killers. Suddenly, Citizen and Goku burst in with news that Odell confessed to the killings and that they recorded his confession.