I knew I had to explain all this to Mara, but I’ve been dreading it.
I don’t often feel regret. In fact, one of the few times I’ve ever felt it is the night I fucked up with Mara and she left the party with someone else.
I didn’t use to regret anything about Shaw.
Now … I wish I had done things differently.
I look out the kitchen window to the bright, sparkling waters of the bay, not watching the boats drifting past, but instead visualizing the flat green lawns and low modern buildings of the California Institute of the Arts.
Then I say to Mara, “It was my first year of art school. My mother was dead. My father was dead. My uncle was dead. I was an orphan, alone in the world.
“It didn’t feel strange to me, because I had always been alone. People crowded around me, drawn by looks and money, and the charm I could turn off and on at will. But to me, all those people seemed the same, and not like myself. I was a wolf in a world that seemed comprised almost entirely of deer. Especially once Ruben was gone.
“You probably know CalArts is a small school, only a thousand students. Some of them were hoping for a career in film. Tim Burton was a famous alumni, as we were reminded practically every fucking day.
“I doubted he was popular when he actually attended. Art school was no different than anywhere else I had been. People didn’t suddenly become high-minded simply because we were studying art. The same rules applied there as everywhere else: money, connections, and strategy mattered just as much as the work itself.
“All the rules of subterfuge applied as well. Classmates like Valerie Whittaker were always going to get the most direct instruction from Professor Oswald because he loved bending over her canvas when she wore one of her clinging, low-cut sweaters.
“That irritated some of the male students in the class. I thought it was only natural. Valerie was using every weapon in her arsenal. She was talented, one of the best in the class, and I found it amusing how she had the professor wrapped around her little finger.
“All the professors at the school were working artists themselves. They spoke with reverence of the Damien Hirsts and Kara Walkers of the world, but couldn’t hide the edge of envy that they had failed to become one of the greats themselves, instead of scratching a living teaching the spoiled children of families rich enough to afford the tuition.
“If you were really poor, you could get into CalArts on scholarship. That was the case with Alastor Shaw.”
Even though she’s been waiting for his introduction, Mara gives a little grimace at his name, unconsciously touching the raised scar running up her left wrist.
“I disliked him immediately. Not because he was poor, but because he kept insisting that he wasn’t.
“It’s impossible to pretend to be wealthier than you are. You might as well plop yourself down in the center of Kenya and try to convince the Maasai that you’re one of them.
“Alastor was a terrible liar. His incompetence irritated me more than the lies themselves. After the Christmas break, he came back to school wearing a Rolex that was obviously fake. He kept flashing it at everyone, not realizing that Rolex is the McDonald’s of luxury watches. Even a real one wouldn’t have impressed at our school.
“He hadn’t yet learned to ingratiate himself with people. No one particularly liked him. He was not as you know him now. Back then, Alastor was chubby, moon-faced, awkward. Always trying to suck up to the popular students, especially me.”
“Was he really?” Mara says in amazement.
“Oh, yes. He got rid of his glasses after first semester, but he still had terrible skin, the haircut of an incel, and he’d wear tent-sized t-shirts with hideous, bright graphics all over them …”
I pause, chuckling to myself.
“Actually, those t-shirts might have been the inspiration for his entire aesthetic, now that I think about it.”
Mara frowns, the much deeper well of sympathy she possesses distracting her from the inevitable end of this tale.
“It almost makes me feel sorry for him,” she says.
“Don’t. Don’t feel sorry for either of us. At least not until you’ve heard everything.
“Alastor fixated on me from the beginning. He’d try to set up his easel next to mine. Make conversation with me between classes. Sit near me at lunch.
“It took a couple of cuts, me humiliating him in front of other students, before he backed off. Even then, he was always watching me. Always close by.
“You will probably understand that Alastor recognized something familiar in me. Those who don’t feel the normal range of emotions are better at noticing when a smile comes a second too late, or when it doesn’t quite consume the whole face. We learn to imitate sympathy, interest, humor … but like Alastor’s Rolex, some counterfeits are better than others.
“He tried to insinuate that we were like each other. That we might have interests in common. I shut him down hard. I didn’t want to think I was like anyone. Especially not him.
“Alastor hadn’t developed his own style yet. He imitated the professors and other students. The hierarchy of talent in our classes quickly became apparent: I was at the top, along with Valerie Whittaker and a few others. Alastor bounced between the middle and the bottom, depending who he was cribbing from on any given week.
“I was consumed by art school. It was the first time I had felt a sense of vocation. I couldn’t wait to get the fuck off of campus and start working full-time. I only stayed because I was aware how important it was to develop connections with professors and visiting lecturers. People in the art world who could help me once I had pieces to show.
“Professor Oswald liked me almost as much as Valerie. He invited us to private shows and introduced us to everyone. Similar to what I did when you and I first met.”
Mara nods, understanding perfectly as she just experienced the same mentorship.
“Oswald was no genius. He was competent, but he’d been making the same broken-mannequin-type sculptures for decades, and Robert Gober was already doing that better. It was clear he was burned out, frustrated, barely scraping by with his shitty Buick and sport coats with holes in the elbows.
“Still, I liked him, or at least, I found him useful and interesting to talk to. He knew an immense amount about his subject, and his suggestions for my work were helpful. I brought him a whole folder of sketches I had made for potential sculptures. Some were complex and would need custom equipment before they could be built. He went through each sketch, seeming particularly taken with a drawing I’d made for a massive figure that would look male from one angle and female from another.”
Mara leans forward on her elbows, chin cradled by her palms, fascinated by this story. I knew she would enjoy getting a peek at the younger version of myself, closer in age and stage to where she is now.
I’m not enjoying it as much. I don’t look back on that time with the same arrogance I used to.
I push ahead, wanting to get it all over with as quickly as possible.
“Professor Oswald was the first person who took an interest in my art. It meant something to me. So when he participated in a show shortly after Christmas, I wanted to attend. Even though he hadn’t mentioned it to me and I hadn’t technically been invited.
“It was Marcus York who put me on the guest list. He’s an old friend of my father’s, did I tell you that?”
Mara nods.
“It was the first time I’d spoken to him since my father had died. He was glad to do me a favor—after all, I was the one who inherited the money and the business, though I had no interest in running it myself.
“I went to the show. As soon as I got there I could see everyone buzzing around Oswald’s sculpture. I didn’t hear a word they said. I just stood there, staring.”
Mara’s eyes go wide as she anticipates what I’m about to say.
“It was an exact replica of the sketch I showed him. Almost every detail the same. The main difference was that it was smaller than I’d intended—probably because he didn’t have the means to make it bigger.”
Even though she knew what was coming, Mara lets out a groan of outrage. She understands how violating it feels to have an idea stolen before you’ve even had a chance to bring it to life.
“What did you do?” she cries.
“I walked up to him, almost in a daze. I didn’t know what I intended to say to him, which was unusual for me. I saw his surprise that I was there and his look of squirming discomfort. But then he pushed that away and greeted me with as much friendliness as usual. Clapping me on the shoulder, saying how glad he was that I had come.”
“Did you confront him?” Mara fidgets in her seat, unable to stand the suspense.
“Not then. It would have made a scene, and remember, barely anyone knew me yet. Oswald was the one with the connections and the tenure. This was his show.
“I stayed after class on Monday. I was too upset to be strategic. I just blurted it out like an idiot: ‘You copied my sketch!’ ”
“What did he say?” Mara murmurs through hands pressed to her mouth. She’s squirming with agitation, like she’s the one who stole the idea.
“He scoffed in my face. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he said, ‘First of all, there’s hardly any similarity at all between your preliminary sketch of a concept and my actual piece. And second, I’ve been talking about the concept of gender perception in my classes for months. If anything, your sketch was more likely inspired by the lectures I gave as I was sculpting the piece.’ ”
“Motherfucker!” Mara shrieks, jumping out of her chair and pacing around the kitchen island.
There is no better audience for a story than Mara. Her empathy is so acute that she feels it all as if it’s happening to her.
It takes several moments for her to calm down enough to take a seat again.
“Alright,” she says. “What did you say back to him?”
“I just stared at him. Truly impressed with the absolute magnitude of his bullshit. He was lying so intensely that he actually believed it. He had been telling himself fairy tales late at night while working on the sculpture. Pretending that it represented this and that, while shaving away the bits of his memory that recalled the exact dimensions and proportions of my sketch.”
“Did you pull it out of your folder? Shove it in his face?”
I shake my head.
“You will never convince someone who has already convinced themselves. And you damn sure can’t reason with them. I left his office, wondering what I had hoped to get out of that encounter at all. Did I actually think he would publicly admit that he stole it? That he’d credit me for the work? Did I forget how humans operate? There was never going to be resolution, or any kind of justice. I suppose I wanted to see acknowledgement in his eyes—shame, apology. But he robbed me of even that. He was so deep in delusion that he would fight my allegations with all the outraged fervor of a man who had actually been wronged.”
Mara lets out a sigh of frustration, understanding only too well what it feels like to be on the wrong side of a power dynamic.
“He was only a professor, but he was far more powerful than me in that particular space. I was an infant in the art world. He could crush me under his boot if I dared make an accusation. Blacken my name before I even got started.
“I was furious with myself. I had failed to see Oswald for what he was. Failed to see his real intentions for me. I was blinded by my desire to be nurtured and cared for in this endeavor that was personal and emotional to me. I felt humiliated—not only from the theft, but because I didn’t see it coming.
“I stormed out of his classroom, almost running into Shaw. He was eavesdropping with his ear practically pressed against the door. I could have cheerfully ripped his head off his shoulders, but I just shoved past him and kept walking.
“I told myself I’d let it go. I ripped up the sketch—there was no way to build it anymore without being called a plagiarist myself—and threw my efforts into new projects.
“I was having success at school. Getting the accolades I craved from professors and fellow students. Maybe I really could have gotten over it. Especially if Oswald made efforts to make it up to me.
“Instead, he did the opposite. And again, this was me not fully understanding human psychology yet. We both knew there was a debt between us. I wanted it repaid. But if Oswald acknowledged the debt, he would have to acknowledge what he did. And he couldn’t stand that.
“The sculpture he stole was the most acclaimed of any he had ever made. It sparked a renaissance for him, renewing interest in all his previous work. Buoying him up to new heights in his career.
“The more success he gained from it, the more invested he became in believing it was all his. At first this manifested as him avoiding me in class, interacting less with my work. But soon that wasn’t enough—he had to enforce his narrative that I was talentless, that he was the real artist. He started marking me lower, and even criticizing me to other professors. Telling them I was lazy, that my ideas were unoriginal. Protecting himself, in case I ever decided to pipe up. He didn’t know I had already torn up the sketch.”
Mara rests her hand on my thigh, understanding two things at once: first, the pain of being slandered to the people you most want to impress. And second, the fucking rage when that slander is based off a lie, the exact reversal of the truth.
“It ate at me, day after day. This man stole from me, and he wouldn’t even acknowledge it. He was punishing ME for it.
“I began to notice all the other things about Professor Oswald that were loathsome. As his ego swelled, he became more and more arrogant in class. More inappropriate to Valerie. More careless of which days he was supposed to lecture. More boastful about his own work.
“I began to feel there was only one way to right the scales. I could hardly sleep or eat. The itch to remove him from existence became physical. It made my heart race every time we were in class together.”
Mara lets out a soft sigh, understanding what I’m about to tell her: the real crossing of the line.
“I had killed twice before. When I killed Ruben, I thought it would be the only time. I knew what he was, and I knew that even if I handed him every dollar of my father’s estate, he’d still cut my throat in the night because I’d once annoyed him. I had to do it—it was him or me.
“The mugger in Paris happened all in instant, in a burst of rage that left the man’s brains dashed on the wall before I’d even realized the other two had run. He scared me, that was the problem. My fear overwhelmed my self-control, and I acted without planning.
“Now I was contemplating something very different: a murder I would plan ahead of time and execute without real need. The damage had already been done, or most of it anyway. Oswald was slandering me, still impeding my career. But this was as much about revenge as protecting my future interests.”
I pause, truly pondering on my state of mind at the time.
“I believed I was gaining more and more control of my emotions by the day. I thought that made me powerful, and better than other people. I had my emotions locked down so deep that I hardly felt anything anymore. My anger at Oswald was one of the first encounters that had stirred me in a long time. And I was angry. I was emotional. Much more than I would have admitted.”
Mara squeezes my thigh. She still fucking feels for me. No matter what I did. Whether it was justified or not.
“I gave him one last chance. I asked him for a letter of recommendation for a study abroad in Venice. It was a competitive program—only two students would be selected from our school.
“Oswald fixed me with this look of pretend sympathy, and said with what I’m sure he thought was complete sincerity, ‘I wish I could Cole, but I really don’t think anything you’ve made this semester justifies that sort of recommendation. Maybe next year, if you really come into your own.’
“I had just made a sculpture that had the whole classroom buzzing with envy, every student in that room wishing they’d thought of it first, and several of the girls snapping photos on their phones. Oswald gave it a B+. I could have killed him for that alone.
“From that moment forward, I started making plans. That was when I created my method, that served me flawlessly since. I found an abandoned mine shaft, not on any map, far away from hiking trails. You’ll know where that was, because it’s where you and I first met.”
Mara’s mouth falls open as she finally realizes what I was doing that night. I wasn’t in the woods to find her—I was there to lose someone else.
“I spent four weeks researching forensic evidence, and four more planning the event. It all went off exactly as I planned. I entered his house via an unlocked window I’d scouted before. I wore a full containment suit. Knelt on his chest before he even woke up, already strangling him, pinning him down with my weight. He looked up into my eyes and I saw the comprehension on his face. He knew why I was killing him. I wanted him to know. I finally got the acknowledgement of what he’d done. It passed silently between us as he died.
“I dumped his body down the shaft in two industrial bins I’d bought in cash from a hardware store with no cameras. I doused his remains in oxygen bleach and left nothing in the house—not a single hair off my head, no blood from him. Only a little urine in the bed from where his bladder let go.
“The key to getting away with it is this: no body, no murder. I left his car in the driveway, but I took his wallet. He had no wife, no children. Our professors were hardly the picture of reliability. I knew it might be weeks before he was properly reported missing. By then, I doubted a police dog could get a sniff of anything in his house.
“I had no fear of being caught. In fact, in the aftermath, I felt deeply peaceful. No itch tormenting me anymore. I had righted the scales.”
Mara gives a slow shake of her head, understanding that wasn’t the end of it. Not even close.
“Shaw knew,” she murmurs.
“That’s exactly right. Alastor watched it all happen, from the moment Professor Oswald turned on me. The other students knew I’d fallen out of favor, but only Alastor knew why.
“Once the news of the professor’s disappearance spread across the school, Alastor intercepted me on the way to the library. By this point I’d given him enough verbal slaps that he knew better than to speak to me, but he did it anyway, sidling up and saying in his overly-familiar way, ‘I suppose you’re glad to see Oswald gone.’
“I played it off. I said, ‘The professors miss more classes than the students do. He’ll be back when he remembers he needs his paycheck.’ Shaw licked his lips, giving me this grin like we both knew better. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said.”
“Was he threatening to tell someone?” Mara asks.
“No, no, no. The game with Shaw has never been about exposing each other. He wants to be in on the secret together. He never intended to be rivals: he wants to collaborate.”
Mara’s face blanches. She was another of Shaw’s attempts at “collaboration.” He began the process of killing her, hoping I would complete it.
I take a breath. This is the part I didn’t want to tell her. The part I’ve tried not to think about since. The only other thing that’s ever made me feel guilty.
“At that point, as far as I know, Shaw had never killed anyone. I’m sure he had thought about it. Fantasized. Watched movies, read books, looked at porn that scratched a certain type of itch for him. But it was all theoretical. All imagination.
“I had taken fantasy into the real world. And to Shaw, I was a hero. An icon. Everything he wanted to be, but wasn’t. Any boy at our school with talent or swagger wanted to be friends with me. All the girls wanted to date me. None more than Valerie.
“I liked her, but I wasn’t interested in dating anyone. All I cared about was the trajectory of my career. Now that Oswald was out of the way, every door stood wide open.
“Shaw was obsessed with Valerie. She had a specific look that you’ve probably seen replicated in every girl he’s killed: slim, beautiful, with long dark hair, and at least one tattoo.”
“Everyone except Erin,” Mara murmurs.
“That’s right. Everyone except Erin.”
“Even me.”
“Yes,” I admit. “Though for me, that had nothing to do with Valerie. I noticed you because of what you did with that dress. But I’m sure Shaw loved that our tastes were finally aligning.”
“He wanted Valerie because he thought you wanted her.”
“Yes. He could never understand the difference between respect and desire.”
Mara sighs. “I don’t know if they are that different. It wasn’t your looks that drew me at first—I admired you. So much that it overpowered everything else.”
“You didn’t want me for my looks?” I say, pretending to be hurt.
Mara laughs, despite herself.
“Not back then,” she says, “But don’t worry, I’ve become much more shallow. Now I notice them every minute of the day.”
“Thank you,” I say, tossing my hair and smoothing it back with both hands.
Mara sorts and punches me playfully on the arm. But then she remembers what we were discussing, and her smile falls away.
“I’m guessing there’s a reason I’ve never heard of Valerie Whittaker,” she says.
“Yes.” I’m likewise not smiling anymore. “There’s a reason. They found her body draped across the lap of the sculpture of Lincoln on our campus lawn. Her naked flesh covered in bruises and bite marks. The first appearance of the Beast of the Bay, though I’ve never seen the police make the connection.”
Even though she knew it was coming, Mara’s face falls into lines of deep misery. She feels for each of these girls as if she knew them.
In this case, I did know Valerie. Mara is right to mourn her loss.
“Shaw left her there for me, like a cat bringing a dead bird to your doorstep. I didn’t have to see his smug smile the next morning in class to know who had done it.”
I swallow down the disgust rising in my throat.
“He thought I’d be impressed. Proud of him, even. I shut him down hard. Turned away if he even tried to speak to me. That was the real start of our enmity. He had shaken off my snubs before. But failing to acknowledge his first kill … that he couldn’t forgive.”
“Did you consider telling the police?” Mara asks.
“No. Shaw would expose me in turn. There was no evidence of what I’d done to Professor Oswald—Shaw hadn’t found my dumping ground yet. But he could draw attention where I didn’t want it.
“I felt sorry for Valerie, to a degree. But you have to understand Mara, I had no real attachment to her, or to anyone. Not until I met you.”
For Mara, who bonds with everyone she meets, this must seem incomprehensible. Still, she nods, understanding me even on our point of greatest difference.
“Valerie’s death drew much more attention than the professor’s disappearance. The arrival of TV cameras was exhilarating to Shaw. That was when he truly began to transform: he arrived at school with his hair freshly cut and combed, wearing an outfit that was almost stylish. He spoke confidently to the cameras, telling them how close he was to Valerie, how wonderful she was, what a loss her talent would be to the art world, and how he hoped whoever had done it would be caught quickly.
“Her death energized him. He made his first painting that scored the top mark in the class—a large abstract in brilliant color.”
Mara grimaces, finally understanding what each of those garish, vibrant canvases means to Shaw. His technicolor rainbows are the energy he feels when he brutalizes a girl, ripping her soul from her body in wild, erotic abandon.
“That’s what the inside of his head looks like,” I tell Mara. “And that’s why you have to be very fucking careful around him. I’ve killed from anger, or because I felt justified. Shaw delights in it. There is nothing more erotic to him than causing pain. Hearing a woman’s screams as he rips her apart. If he ever gets the chance, he will slaughter you without hesitation. He wants to kill you. More than anything else. More than he wants to kill me. He wants me alive to see what he’s done to you.”
Mara sways in her chair, her skin dull as chalk.
I take her cold hands in mine, looking her in the eye.
“But that’s not fucking happening,” I assure her. “We will make our plan, and he’ll never get closer to you than the length of a room. You won’t fight him. You won’t even touch him. I’ll do what needs to be done. I just need your help to create the illusion. He’s bigger than me—I need one moment of surprise. Just one single moment.”
Mara swallows hard.
“I can do it,” she says. “I want to do it. For Erin, for Valerie, for everyone he’s killed and everyone else he’ll hurt.”
She lays her right palm over the scar on her left wrist, and the left palm over the scar on the right, clamping her hands tight like a covenant, like an oath.
“And I want to do I it for me. He tried to kill me, too. I’m only alive because of myself. Because I ran down that fucking mountain.”
“Yes, you did,” I say, feeling another bolt of guilt. I could have carried her down. But I wasn’t awake yet. Mara hadn’t alivened me.
I explain to her, “Shaw has to die to protect you. But also, because I’m responsible. I didn’t think so at the time. I thought whatever he did was his business, and had nothing to do with me. I see it differently now. I may not be Doctor Frankenstein, but I helped flip the switch on that particular monster.”
“We’re the only ones who can stop him,” Mara says.
“We’re the only ones who will.”
