Dark Places

Ben and Diondra are in the girls’ room while Calvin murders Debby and Patty. When everything is quiet, Diondra tells Ben that Michelle is dead. She steals the diary so no one will know about Michelle blackmailing Ben.

They find a gruesome scene in the hallway, and Diondra is excited; she thinks they really did summon the power of Satan. Diondra tells Ben that he will get the money from his mother’s life insurance policy, and they can move to California. People will see him as a victim now, not a child molester. They have to stay in town for now, and during that time, they can’t mention that they know each other. Diondra does not want to give birth to her baby in prison, and she makes Ben feel guilty about the possibility.

Diondra realizes Libby is not there and tells Ben to find her: She does not want any loose ends. Ben goes out to look for Libby, knowing that she likes to hide by the pond. When he shines the flashlight near the pond and sees her red hair, he shouts for her to stay where she is, then runs back into the house.

Diondra smears blood on the walls and hacks into Patty with the axe. She is crazy with bloodlust. Ben does not know who the man was, but Calvin wiped his fingerprints off of everything he touched before he left. Ben wipes up the footprints as well as he can and leads Diondra out of the house. On the way out, he thinks “Annihilation” (329).

Libby makes it to a gas station and calls Lyle to pick her up. When he sees her condition and hears her story, he takes her to the police station. Before they go, he tells her that the Angel of Debt—the man who helps people in debt die by suicide and stages their murders—has been caught. It is Calvin Diehl, and he has a signed letter from each of his victims, including Patty, stating that they went to him voluntarily. He confesses to Debby’s murder because it was never supposed to happen.

Diondra and Crystal set fire to their house and disappear, leaving no evidence behind. Two days later, a detective arrives at Libby’s house bearing two photocopied letters from Patty. One is to Calvin, explaining their deal, and the other is to Ben, Michelle, Debby, and Libby. In the letter, Patty says she did not lead a useful life but hopes that she can be useful in death. She assumes Diane will raise the kids with the money from her life insurance. She is proud of them, especially of Ben, and does not want him to think anything is his fault.

The letter guts Libby because things went so horribly wrong, and Patty realized it before she died. The letters make Libby appreciate how hard her mom tried to take care of them, and she tries to take comfort in that.

As he drives away from the Day farm, Calvin is angry with how wrong his job with Patty went. Before going to her house, he stopped at a bar and saw Runner. At the bar, he discovered that Runner is a lowlife and instead of making Patty’s death look like a suicide, he had decided to make it look like Runner killed her.

Calvin does not consider himself a murderer: In his mind, he helps people die with dignity to financially benefit their families. His clients get to specify how they want to die, and Calvin respects their wishes. Patty’s only request was that he not drown her. He stabbed her because it is a quick, relatively painless death and could easily be pinned on Runner. Debby’s murder was an unfortunate consequence because he cannot let anyone see his face. As he drives, he thinks he sees a red-haired girl running through the snowy field but realizes it is a vision of the girl he murdered from his guilty conscience: “[H]e was so angry at the child—he chopped up a little girl—so angry at the redhead woman, for screwing this all up, for not dying right. He killed a little girl with an axe. He shot off the head of a mother of four instead of giving her the death she deserved” (335-36). Calvin considers himself a people’s hero and cannot accept that he killed an innocent girl.

Diondra and Crystal are missing for 13 days after their disappearance. Lyle has been coming over to watch TV with Libby. He jokes that if “Libby Sticky Fingers” had swiped something with Diondra’s DNA on it (337), they could link her to the murders. Libby goes to the other room and produces two items—lipstick and a thermometer—that she stole from Diondra, both of which contain Diondra’s DNA.

The DNA on the items matches the blood on Michelle’s bedsheets; the police find Diondra in Amarillo, Texas, and arrest her. With Calvin’s confession and Diondra’s arrest, Ben has a chance of getting out of prison.

Libby visits him and tells him he could be out soon. Ben admits that he’s always felt guilty about letting the murders happen and not doing anything to stop them. Now, he feels like he’s served enough time for that. He asks what Crystal is like: “Is she, […] wrong. Bad?” (339). Libby thinks Crystal was trying to protect her mother and was mortified that she had slipped up when she mentioned the boy in Michelle’s diary. Ben is surprised that Libby is giving Crystal a pass, but Libby understands what it’s like to try to do something right and completely mess it up. Ben agrees; he thinks that describes his family pretty well.

Ben thinks about getting out of prison and running a farm. He feels 15-year-old Ben is a different person, and he alternately thinks of him as cowardly and brave. He was cowardly to let the murders happen. When he was arrested, though, he knew that staying silent and taking abuse was his strength, so he decided to do that for Diondra and their baby. He would stay silent in prison, and Diondra and the baby would be free.

Now, he believes that Diondra deserves to be in prison. He imagines that he might have killed her or run away with the baby if they had run away together back then. He wishes he could take care of Crystal and have a happy, functional life with her, but he knows that is unrealistic. Ben has always longed for a life he can’t quite have: “Sometimes he felt like he’d been gone his whole life—in exile, away from the place he was supposed to be, and that, soldier-like, he was pining to be returned. Homesick for a place he’d never been” (342). He decides that, if he gets out, he will try to take care of Libby. That is a realistic wish.

Libby thinks about everyone who was hurt by the murders and wonders if it is possible for those who are left to heal. She never heard from Diane, and now she is driving to her trailer park for a visit.

She finds Diane in the yard, and Diane hugs her. She is glad Libby is trying “just a little harder” to be a good person (346). The visit lasts two hours, and Diane tells Libby to come back on Saturday to help her install a countertop.

Libby drives to her family’s farm, a place she has avoided for decades. Another family, the Muehlers, lives there, and she sees Mrs. Muehler, a dog, and a little girl playing by the pond. Mr. Muehler is walking in the fields. Libby’s mind does not go to Darkplace when she looks at the farm; she only sees a peaceful spring day. When Mr. Muehler waves, Libby waves back and drives away.