Hemlock House

By Katie Cotugno

Last summer there was a murder on Martha's Vineyard. Now a killer's on campus in Cambridge.

The follow-up to the New York Times bestselling Liar’s Beach.

More than a year after childhood friends Michael Linden and Holiday Poirot solved a headline-making murder on Martha’s Vineyard, Lindenis ready to start over as a freshman at Harvard—and, he hopes, to reunite with his old girlfriend, Greer. But just as things start to heat up between them, a friend is found dead in Greer’s dorm, Hemlock House.

The police believe the death is the result of an overdose, but Linden suspects there’s more to the story. The victim was wearing Greer’s clothes and sleeping in Greer’s bed when she died . . . and Greer has a long list of enemies. It makes Linden wonder: Was this a case of mistaken identity? Was someone trying to kill Greer? Is she in danger? Is he?

Nearly everyone on campus has something to hide—and some mysteries are better left buried. . . .

1

Thursday, 10/17/24

A fact that seems relevant to mention before we begin, though of course it didn’t occur to me to look it up until much later: statistically, it’s actually very unlikely for a person to fall victim to a violent crime in the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The rate of robbery is remarkably low, at just 52.6 annually per 100,000 residents, compared to 135.5 throughout the United States and 118 just across the Charles River in Boston. Rates of assault are admittedly higher, though occurrences still clock in well below the national average, with a rate of 224.3 per 100,000 residents.

And murder? Well, murder is rarest of all, with a rate of just 0.8 per 100,000 residents, compared to a national average of 6.1. “Even if you were trying to get murdered in Cambridge,” Holiday mused later, eyes narrowed behind the metal rims of her giant glasses, “you’d really have to, like, apply yourself.”

At least, that’s what we’d always thought.

Anyway, like I said, I didn’t know any of that the fall of my first year at Harvard, and I probably wouldn’t have cared about it even if I did. Anyone trying to tell me would have had to shout over the sound of my teammates egging me on as I stood on a metal folding chair and shotgunned a hard seltzer in the dining room of the lax house, the sweet, fizzy dregs of it trickling down the side of my neck and into the collar of my hoodie.

“He’s got style, he’s got grace!” Cam declared as I finished, clapping me hard between my shoulder blades. Every first-year lacrosse player was paired with an upperclassman mentor, and he was mine; in the weeks since I’d arrived on campus he’d not only set my daily workout plan and invited me over to watch the Pats on Sundays but had also imparted such valuable information as which dining halls had the best cereal selection and never to use the shower stall next to Ryan Jakes, a junior defenseman who was notorious for pissing into the communal drain. “He’s Miss United States.”

“Thank you, thank you.” I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, fully aware that this was absolutely not, under any circumstances, an achievement for which to feel proud of myself, but feeling a tiny bit proud of myself anyway. It’s always kind of a high-wire act, trying to figure out where and how to fit in on a new team. If cheerful drunk wasn’t quite what I wanted to be known as over the next four years, it was a better position to start from than whiny little bitch who can’t hang. “As always, I appreciate your love and support.”

“Let’s see him go again,” suggested Dex Rutland, a sophomore midfielder. The grin on his pale, freckled face just missed being friendly. “What do you say, Linden?”

Cam looked at me, the question clear in the wrinkle of his smooth brown forehead. I was just about to oblige--one thing about me, for better or for worse, is that I will basically never back down from a dare--when I felt a slice of cold air from the direction of the foyer and caught sight of a familiar cardinal-red peacoat slipping in through the front door.

“Hey!” I called a beat too quickly, hopping down off the chair so fast my bad ankle nearly gave out and left me sprawled on the dingy Persian rug. I ignored the goading jeers of my teammates as I threaded my eager way through the crowd. “You came.”

“I came,” Greer agreed with a forbearing smile, tucking her hands into her pockets and popping up onto the toes of her boots, pressing her cold cheek against mine. She wore a pair of round tortoiseshell glasses and an oversized L.L.Bean pullover, a vintage Tiffany bean around her neck. “I like old things,” she’d told me once, the two of us sprawled on my bed back at the Western Massachusetts boarding school we’d attended together. Now, two years later, I couldn’t help but hope that included boyfriends. “Hi.”

“Hi yourself,” I said, my heart vibrating dorkily in my chest. “I didn’t think you were going to show.”

“I almost didn’t,” she confessed, “but Bri is already here somewhere, so I figured--” She broke off, eyes narrowing as she looked across the warm, crowded living room, where Dex had graciously taken over in my stead and was already halfway through a twenty-four-ounce can of White Claw. “I thought you said this was going to be, like, a chill, low-key kind of thing.”

“Is this not low-key?” I asked sheepishly, my voice getting lost as the rest of the guys erupted into cheers over my shoulder. Most of the upperclassmen on the lacrosse team had moved off campus a few years back, when Harvard randomized their housing selection process and made it harder for teams to self-sort into particular dorms. Since then, the lease on this place had been passed from one lax captain to the next, the walls and floors and carpets bearing the not-inconsiderable scars of hundreds of parties way wilder than this one. “Come on,” I shouted over the noise, jerking my thumb in the direction of the kitchen. “I’ll get you a drink.”

Greer let me take her hand as we weaved through the crush of bodies in the narrow center hallway, past the once-grand front staircase that led up to the bedrooms and the tiny little telephone nook tucked underneath. “That’s cute,” she said when she noticed it, and she sounded sincere, which I took to mean she hadn’t looked closely enough to see the giant, erupting cock and balls carved into the woodwork of the antique bench.

The kitchen was mercifully empty, the heavy door swinging shut behind us and muffling the clatter of the party. Greer hopped up onto the scarred Formica counter as I pulled a beer from one of the picnic coolers lined up beside the door to the cluttered mudroom, handing it over before grabbing one for myself and perching against the edge of the wobbly wooden table. “So,” I said, reaching out and clinking my can against hers, “what’s up?”

Greer shook her head, smirking a little at the question. “Not too much,” she said, the heels of her boots banging lightly against the worn lower cabinets. The kitchen at the lax house was huge, with two stainless steel fridges parked side by side and a massive industrial range that always looked a little grimy; the sink was a big old double-basin situation with separate taps for hot water and cold. “How about you?”

“Oh, you know.” I shrugged, the silence stretching out between us for a few seconds too long not to be awkward. I took a big gulp of my beer. I’d forgotten this, how back before Greer and I started dating my junior year at Bartley I was perpetually tongue-tied around her. How I could never think of the right thing to say. “Not too much . . . either.”

Jesus Christ. What was wrong with me? I was generally pretty good with girls--women? I guessed they were technically women, now that we were in college--though you’d never have known it by the way my mind was suddenly blanker than an old-fashioned Scantron sheet at the beginning of exam week. “Okay, can we--” I started, just as Greer said, “Look, Linden--”

Both of us broke off, smiling a little wanly. “Go for it,” she told me, at the same time that I shook my head: “Sorry, what were you--?”

Another long moment of silence. I was just about to excuse myself to go drown politely in the Quabbin Reservoir when all at once Greer’s roommate, Bri, spilled through the door of the kitchen, a human tornado made of charm bracelets and expensive perfume.

“You are here!” she accused, throwing her arms around Greer like they’d last seen each other on the battlefields of Antietam and not, presumably, a couple of hours before in their suite back at Hemlock, one of the nine upperclassmen houses nestled between the Square and the river. Bri’s hair was the same dark chestnut as Greer’s, though she was taller, with the slightly muscley shoulders of a girl who had played field hockey in high school but now mostly did the elliptical machine at the gym. She was wearing a pair of open-toed shoes with heels so high I wondered briefly how she’d managed to walk all the way here without smashing her skull open like a melon on the crooked, brick-lined sidewalks. Also, she was visibly shit-faced. “Somebody said they’d seen you come in and I was like, No, there’s no way she’s here and did not find me immediately, though I see now”--here Bri flicked me in the side with one polished fingernail before making a beeline for the cluster of sticky, half-empty alcohol bottles on the counter opposite Greer--“that you were busy rekindling your tortured high school romance.”

“Bri,” Greer chided, her cheeks reddening even as she rolled her eyes. “For fuck’s sake.”

I took another sip of my beer, feeling my own face warm at the merciless baldness of Bri’s assessment. I’d known Greer was at Harvard when I got recruited, obviously--she was a sophomore now, studying to become a spinal surgeon just like both of her parents--but we hadn’t run into each other until three weeks into the semester, when I’d rounded a corner at the Coop and there she was, considering the ball caps, backpack slung over one shoulder and her hair in a shiny French braid. “It’s you,” she said, like she didn’t quite believe it.

“I’m not stalking you,” I blurted immediately, flustered even though there was a part of me that had been waiting for this exact encounter since the moment I stepped onto campus. We’d only talked once since we’d broken up at the spring of my junior year at Bartley: two summers ago she’d called me to report that her parents’ insurance company was going to want to talk to me about what had happened the night of the car accident that had both shattered my ankle and effectively ended our relationship, and she’d appreciate it if I stuck to our story. “I mean, I guess that’s also what I would say if I was stalking you? But. I’m not.”

“Okay . . . ,” she said slowly, the corners of her lips quirking just a little. “I didn’t think you were.”

“I go here now,” I told her, my voice weirdly loud in the quiet bookstore. My hands felt too big, a pair of old phone books attached to the ends of my arms. “I’m playing lacrosse.”

Greer nodded. “Yeah,” she said, “I heard something about that. I’m glad it worked out.” She smiled for real this time, like the sun coming up over the Charles in the morning. “Hi, Linden.”

I exhaled, my shoulders dropping back down to where they belonged. It was useless to pretend I didn’t still think about her. It was useless to pretend I didn’t still care. “Hi, Greer.”

In the weeks since then we’d hung out a few times, meeting for coffee at the hipster place in the Smith Center and going to a free concert on the Esplanade. Every single time, I shoved a piece of gum in my mouth just in case, but so far we seemed to be stuck decisively in neutral. Which was fine, obviously--it wasn’t like I thought Greer owed me a hookup for nostalgia’s sake or whatever. I just . . . still liked her, that was all. I was pretty sure that neither one of us could quite decide if she still liked me back.

Now Bri ignored our visible discomfort, plucking a half-empty bottle from the makeshift bar and waggling it in Greer’s direction. “Want me to make you one of these?” she asked.

Greer tilted her head, her expression equal parts curious and fond. “Just to clarify: by one of these, you mean a generous glug of Fireball in a red plastic cup?”

“Exactly.” Bri’s smile was dazzling. “Craft cocktail, baby.” She poured for a three count, splashing some cinnamon-flavored whiskey onto the counter and wiping it up with her bare hand before heading for the living room. Then, on second thought, she doubled back and took the bottle, too. “You guys be good.”

“We always are,” Greer promised. She waited until Bri was gone, then shook her head at me. “Sorry. That girl is my best friend at college, but she is a hot mess.”

“Is it an act?” I asked, taking a chance and boosting myself up onto the counter next to her, the sides of our pinkies just brushing. “Like, a fun party girl thing?”

“I mean, yes and no?” Greer shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong, she’s a literal genius, all her professors love her, but she also is very much getting obliterated five nights out of the week.”

“That’s a lot of nights.”

“It is, in fact, five-sevenths of the nights,” Greer agreed. “She’s also now putting her Adderall up her nose instead of just like, taking it the normal way like everybody else, which feels sort of alarming to me? But she’s on the dean’s list and I’m barely clinging to my sanity, so what the fuck do I know. I should probably just try it her way.”

I smiled, bumping her arm lightly with mine. “You know some things,” I said.

That made her laugh. “Thank you,” she said, dropping her head briefly onto my shoulder. “I do. I know like, one or two things.”

“Three things at least,” I continued.

“Well, don’t overdo it,” Greer said, holding a hand up. “You’re going to make me blush.”

“It is wild here, though,” I admitted quietly. “At this school, I mean.” The truth was, I still couldn’t quite believe I’d gotten in: the accident had left my ankle smashed to powder, with any chance at a lacrosse scholarship--not to mention my entire future--hanging precariously in the balance. It wasn’t lost on me how lucky I was to be at this party right now and not bagging groceries at Market Basket half a mile away. “I know that like, the first rule of being at Harvard is to act like being at Harvard is no big deal and that you always knew you were smart and accomplished enough to deserve it and the work doesn’t make you want to lie down in a ditch? But I’ll tell you, Greer: sometimes the work makes me want to lie down in a ditch.”

“Same, obviously.” She took a sip of her beer. “Do you wish you were somewhere else?”

I shook my head. “I do not.”

“Me either.” Greer smiled. “I know it’s so dorky, but you know what my family is like. Every single one of them went here. They literally put me in a Harvard onesie to bring me home from the hospital after I was born.” She ran her thumb over the mouth of the bottle. “Can I tell you something so fucking corny?”