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Part 4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 4: “The People vs. Kelsey Ellis”
Part 4, Chapter 36 Summary
Carter gives Lauren and Nate the warrants, and they retrieve their belongings from the beach house. Lauren calls Kelsey’s lawyer, who is based in Massachusetts and cannot immediately go to New York. The two then try to call Kelsey’s father, Bill. He asks to speak to Lauren, who explains what is happening. Lauren privately reflects that Bill still sees Kelsey as a child who needs protection. She thinks about the true-crime message board that May found, which suggests a connection between the murders of David and Luke. Lauren wonders if Bill is that connection, since he has considerable resources and the desire to protect his daughter.
Lauren apologizes to Nate after hearing how terribly Bill treats him. Nate believes that Bill wants Kelsey to be completely dependent on him and feels threatened by her relationship with Nate. Nate tells Lauren that before developing dementia, his mother, Jeanie, revealed that Bill’s family has Mafia ties and that Bill has “the moral code of a lizard” (345). Nate and Lauren suddenly realize that they need May to serve as Kelsey’s lawyer.
Part 4, Chapter 37 Summary
May is diving into her internet research, but Josh discourages her from looking into David and Luke’s cases. May receives a call from Arianna, the owner of the house, who thinks that she is calling Kelsey. Arianna tells May that her neighbor reported the fact that the beach house is surrounded by police. Arianna has terminated the rental agreement and bans the three friends from returning.
May calls Lauren, who asks her to represent Kelsey in court. Hearing this, Josh furiously blames Kelsey and Lauren for May’s current entanglements with the law. Lauren wants May to prove that Bill, not Kelsey, is the link between the two men’s deaths, but May maintains her belief in Kelsey’s guilt. Lauren reminds May that she was not close to Kelsey during the aftermath of Luke’s death; she relates Kelsey’s devastation upon learning of his murder. Recalling how broken Kelsey was after learning about David’s death, May reconsiders her position and agrees to represent Kelsey.
Carter calls May, and they discuss the upcoming arraignment. Josh is furious that May didn’t ask his opinion before agreeing to represent Kelsey. When May asks Lauren and Kelsey to stay with her, Josh grows even more enraged that she didn’t ask him about this first, so he leaves a note stating that he has gone to his brother’s house.
Part 4, Chapter 38 Summary
At the courtroom, May encounters Kelsey’s father and advises him to calm down before entering. Upon seeing Kelsey, May is struck by her friend’s haggard appearance. Kelsey lights up when she realizes that May is there to defend her in court. May convinces the judge that Kelsey will not flee if she is allowed to leave detainment, and Bill offers to pay Kelsey’s bail. May tells the court that Kelsey can stay at her apartment, and she promises to ensure that Kelsey appears in court. The opposing counsel tries to discredit May, but the judge is on her side. May notices Bill’s furious expression and intuits that his anger is a reaction to the fact that he cannot control the situation.
Part 4, Chapter 39 Summary
Kelsey is eager to shower at May’s apartment after her unpleasant detainment. Nate has taken Kelsey’s luggage to his own apartment, so May lends her some clothes. While Kelsey showers, Nate, Lauren, and May discuss Kelsey’s level of denial and disillusionment about the possibility that her father is a likely connection between the murders. Meanwhile, May struggles against her instinctive attraction to Nate.
Lauren tries to convince Kelsey that her father hired a hit man, and Nate reminds Kelsey that because Bill already spends considerable time and resources keeping track of her, it would not be out of character for him to hire someone to track her movements more closely. Nate points out that Bill used to read Jeanie’s emails, and May and Nate think that this indicates a controlling personality.
Kelsey calls her father’s usual private investigator, who confirms that he did indeed follow Kelsey from Massachusetts to Rhode Island. Kelsey realizes that her father knew about David, since that is who Kelsey met in Providence.
Part 4, Chapter 40 Summary
May calls Carter on her way to drop off Nate and pick up Kelsey’s luggage. Carter has asked around about May and gained a great deal of respect for her after hearing her peers’ estimation of her abilities. Now, she clearly lays out her suspicions about Bill. Carter realizes that he needs to learn more about Luke’s case. May makes it very clear to Carter that Kelsey did not murder Luke and David.
Part 4, Chapter 41 Summary
May is struck by the cleanliness and décor of Nate’s apartment. She is overcome with nostalgia, remembering aspects of their relationship that she enjoyed. Feeling guilty, she texts Josh. Then May and Nate discuss his mother’s dementia.
While Nate gets his laundry from downstairs, May examines his décor and looks at his photos, reminiscing on the past. She studies the pictures that feature Kelsey’s father, wondering if he could really be guilty of murder. As she turns her attention to pictures of Kelsey and Nate, she realizes that Nate is tickling Kelsey on the side of her rib cage, which Kelsey had previously told May was deeply arousing. May calls Bill and asks him why he divorced Jeanie, asking if the decision had something to do with Nate. As Bill talks, she recalls what Marnie told her on the night she drowned.
When she hears Nate’s keys turn in the lock, she hangs up with Bill. Nate is carrying laundry, and May glimpses a dark navy polyester sleeve that looks like a uniform.
Part 4 Analysis
When May finds it easy to believe that Kelsey is potentially a murderer, her belief once again reflects The Fragility of Trust, for Kelsey’s deceptions have eroded May’s faith in her friend, forcing her to speculate on just how far she would be willing to go in order to hide damaging truths about her past. However, her harsh judgment fails to account for the reasons behind Kelsey’s various lies. For Kelsey, deception is both a survival tactic and a weapon: something that she needs to use in order to feel in control. After the murder of her husband, she found herself scrutinized by friends, family, and the media, and she was forced to reckon with a sudden lack of freedom in the wake of the public’s widespread condemnation. At this point in the narrative, her friends have not recognized the extent of her isolation or her need for secrecy. As Kelsey explains to Nate, “I’m a pariah now, Nate. I order food under fake names. I have to keep working for my father for the rest of my life, who pays me just enough to have a good life but not have actual freedom, because no other employer will touch me” (417). Thus, Burke introduces new wrinkles to the situation that point at other possible culprits and partially absolve Kelsey of her own deceptive habits.
As the structure of the novel offers up Bill as the potential murderer, Burke crafts scenes that provide support for this theory from multiple angles, building a complex version of a red herring by focusing on Bill’s need to control Kelsey and painting this attitude as a helpful indicator of his guilt. This possibility gains even more support when Lauren realizes that Bill actively “infantilizes” Kelsey, and “rant[s] about how unfairly she had been treated—by fate, by the media, by internet ‘looky-loos’—and how he was going to use his money and influence to protect her” (342). As both Lauren and May reflect on the theories posted on the true-crime message board, they understand that Luke and David’s murders were committed due to someone’s need to regain control. Because they already know that Bill has spent years manipulating reality to suit his own needs, they begin to believe that deception is not merely a personal failing but a learned behavior enabled by privilege. The revelation that Bill’s private investigator had been tracking Kelsey adds another layer to the theme of deception, suggesting that Kelsey’s own father may have orchestrated the deaths of two men in order to maintain his control over her life.
Thus, in all the fuss over Bill’s potential involvement, Burke conveniently hides small but crucial details that foreshadow the identity of the real killer. Although the full significance of Nate’s involvement will not be revealed until much later, his determination to paint Bill in an unflattering light is nonetheless suggestive of an ulterior motive. Nate strategically shares details with Lauren that point toward Bill’s guilt, revealing that Bill used to read Jeanie’s emails, and he deliberately blackens Bill’s character by relating his mother’s negative impressions of her ex-husband. The picture of Bill that emerges is one of a jealous and controlling personality, and as the friends shift their focus to Bill’s potential guilt, they temporarily overlook the fact that Nate has a very personal stake in the outcome of the current issues.
When May agrees to represent Kelsey, she is forced to confront The Impact of Personal History on Identity and present-day decisions. As a friend, she is tormented by the possibility of Kelsey’s guilt, but as a lawyer, she is determined to seek the truth. The discovery of Kelsey’s “Callie Martin” identity makes May suspicious of her friend, but she also becomes even more determined to find out what else Kelsey is hiding. In this light, her decision to represent Kelsey frees her from the guilt of suspecting her friend of murder, but the situation also offers clarity as she works to prove Kelsey’s innocence and ferret out the true killer. As she comes to these conclusions, her struggle to reconcile her past is evidence of her conflicting personal loyalties, and she also tries to resist her lingering attraction to Nate, who makes her doubt her the solidity of her relationship with Josh. Thus, the burden of her history with both Nate and Kelsey leaves her vulnerable to miscalculation, but it also provides her with the key details she needs to eventually discover the truth.
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