The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson Page A

father?”
    â€œOf course I do. He wrote Left over Right .”
    I was surprised. Most of my father’s fans mentioned Slightest Folly, his boarding school farce, and I had never heard anyone mention his comedy about the life of a London tailor.
    â€œWhat time?” I asked. I was propping open Barnard’s exterior door and was anxious to get inside.
    â€œTen-ish. Wait, hold on.” Eric dug into the pocket of his large coat and pulled out a small square card that he handed to me. It was white, printed with a letterpress image of a skull. “Show this at the front door.”
    I said good night and entered my dorm. Jessica, my roommate, was still up and I told her about the invite. She was deeply invested in thesocial life of Mather and I was curious what she would know about Eric Washburn and the Thursday night party.
    â€œYou got a skull card,” she said and snatched it from my fingers. Then said, even louder, “You got a skull card from fucking Eric Washburn.”
    â€œWhat do you know about him?”
    â€œHe’s like royalty. I think his great-great-great-great-grandfather basically built Mather. You honestly hadn’t heard of him?”
    â€œI’ve heard of St. Dunstan’s.”
    â€œWell, of course you’ve heard of St. Dun’s. Is the invite a plus one?”
    â€œI don’t think so. He didn’t say it was.”
    I went to the party, and I went alone. Eric was there, behind the bar when I first arrived, and he made me a vodka tonic without asking me what I wanted first. Then he took me by the arm and introduced me to several St. Dunstan’s members before returning to his bartending duties. He said it was a rotating Thursday night job and he’d drawn the short straw. I was slightly disappointed with the interior of the Manor, expecting something that more closely matched its Gothic exterior. I don’t know what exactly. Persian rugs and leather chairs? Instead, it was a slightly nicer version of the other fraternities I’d been to my freshman year. Low-ceilinged rooms, tatty furniture, and the ubiquitous smell of Marlboro Lights and cheap beer. I wandered its first-floor rooms, talking to several members, many of whom asked me about my father. After drinking my third vodka I went to the bar to say good-bye to Eric and thank him for inviting me.
    â€œCome next week,” he said, and dug out another skull invite for me from his pocket. “I won’t be bartending.”
    When I got home, Jessica pressed me for every detail. I told the truth, that there was nothing particularly interesting about St. Dunstan’s, and that everyone there seemed nice while not being wildly fascinating. I told her there were no secret passageways, or initiation rituals. I told her that there wasn’t a room lined with the skulls of freshman girls.
    â€œGross, Lily. You didn’t meet Matthew Ford, did you?”
    â€œI met a Matthew. He was short with long bangs.”
    â€œGod, he’s hot.”
    For better or for worse, St. Dunstan’s became my primary social life that winter and spring. I went to all their Thursday night parties, and an occasional dinner party as one of the members’ date. I wasn’t sure why I was invited as often as I was. Eric seemed to have a girlfriend, a fellow junior named Faith who tended to hang around him toward the end of most parties. One night, I walked into the billiard room at the Manor and saw them kissing. They were pressed up against a built-in bookshelf. Faith was on the tips of her toes, and even so, Eric had to stoop to kiss her. One of his hands was tangled in her hair and the other was pressed against the small of her back. Eric was facing me and we made brief eye contact as I backed out of the room.
    Other members of the society (St. Dunstan’s was technically not a fraternity, and they didn’t refer to themselves as brothers) would occasionally make a pass at me, but never