68 pages • 2 hours read
Gillian FlynnDark Places
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2009A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 31-36Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 31 Summary: “Libby Day: Now”
Libby and Lyle drive to Manhattan, Kansas, to find Trey. Lyle found his address through his business, Teepano Feed. When they arrive, the store seems deserted until Trey emerges from the back. He is dark and muscular, with a long, dark ponytail and an edginess that makes Libby uneasy.
Trey recognizes Libby as Ben’s sister. He admits that he was a bookmaker and Devil worshipper: “Sure. You gotta believe in something, right?” (294). He knew Runner, who owed him money, but he says he didn’t really know Ben. Trey blames the racism in Kinnakee for why his name became entangled with the murders. He does not know what happened to Diondra but doubts she is dead; she used to use a fake name, Polly Palm, when she ran away, so she is probably out there, living under an assumed name. It’s a “porn” name: the name of her pet plus the street she grew up on. Trey does not give an opinion on whether he thinks Ben is guilty.
Suddenly, Lyle gets nervous, thanks Trey for his time, and hurries Libby toward the door. He tells her to hurry up and drive away. When they get five miles down the road, he tells her to pull over.
Chapter 32 Summary: “Ben Day: January 3, 1985 12:02 A.M.”
Ben, Diondra, and Trey burn the clothes they were wearing when they killed the bull. It is still snowing and freezing outside, and Ben knows he can’t go home because he doesn’t have his bike. Trey falls asleep on the couch, and Diondra goes into the bathroom, then the bedroom.
She calls Ben in to listen to her answering machine: Two of her friends have called about Ben molesting the girls. Ben wants to go home, but Diondra calls him “momma’s boy” and insists they have to leave town that night. She has some money from her parents, and they can go to Ben’s house and get the money he’s saved, as well as any money his mom has hidden in the house. It’s past midnight, so he knows Patty will be asleep as long as the police aren’t around. When Ben tells Diondra that he didn’t molest the girls, she says she doesn’t care if he did.
Chapter 33 Summary: “Libby Day: Now”
Lyle recognizes the name “Polly” from the tattoo on Ben’s arm. Ben told Libby it was the name of an old girlfriend, which was true: The girl was Diondra. Lyle finds an address and phone number for Polly Palm in Kearney, Missouri. Libby calls the number, and Diondra answers to the name Polly Palm. When Libby asks if she is Diondra Wertzner, Diondra hangs up.
Libby drives to Diondra’s house in a remote rural area. The house is dirty and decrepit, with an aggressive possum living under the front steps. Diondra is happy to see Libby. She invites Libby in but says she cannot tell her the details of what happened that night. She waited for Ben to get the money from his house so they could leave town, but he never came back. The next morning, she learned what happened. Diondra assures Libby that Ben is fine with being in prison and that Libby won’t find the peace she’s looking for if she keeps digging into the murders. Diondra believes Ben is innocent and thinks Ben is protecting Runner. Libby should accept that and move on.
Libby asks what happened to Diondra’s baby, and a girl steps into the room and says, “I’m here” (307).
Chapter 34 Summary: “Ben Day: January 3, 1985 1:11 A.M.”
Ben and Diondra are at Ben’s house. Everyone is asleep, and Ben eats cereal and cold peas and carrots in the kitchen as he looks for hidden stashes of money. Diondra hurries him, but he distracts her, saying he has a present for her upstairs. When he can’t find the bag of clothes he got for the baby, Diondra accuses of him being unable to take care of her and the baby. The notebook of girl names that Patty found earlier has his choices for baby names: his favorite is Krissi Diane Day.
Michelle accidentally opens the door; she was standing in the hall eavesdropping and heard everything. Diondra lunges at her and chases Michelle back to her room, where she sits on Michelle and strangles her. Ben thinks about pulling her off Michelle, but in the end, he lets Diondra kill her.
Chapter 35 Summary: “Libby Day: Now”
Diondra’s daughter looks startlingly similar to Libby but taller; she has the Day red hair dyed brown, freckles, and Libby and Patty’s features. She introduces herself as Crystal. Libby wants to hug her but shakes her hand instead.
Crystal knows the story of Ben and the Day murders; Diondra told her everything. Crystal also knows they need to keep themselves a secret. Diondra has told her that if their connection to Ben becomes known, the police could arrest Diondra as an accomplice in the murders. Ben does not know about Crystal, but he is Crystal’s hero. She has a scrapbook of the Day family, mostly photos from news articles, and she has read Libby’s book.
Over dinner, Crystal asks if Libby has any family photos. Libby does; she has boxes of old things, mostly Michelle’s diaries. Libby mentions an argument Michelle had with her best friend about a boy they both liked, and Crystal supplies the name “Todd Delhunt,” something she would only know if she had read Michelle’s diary. Libby realizes that she has all of Michelle’s diaries up to 1984, but Michelle must have gotten a new diary for Christmas that would contain entries leading up to the murders.
Diondra lies and says she did not know Michelle. Crystal gets up from the table to use the bathroom. Just as Libby is about to ask Diondra more, Crystal hits Libby on the head with a clothes iron.
Chapter 36 Summary: “Patty Day: January 3, 1985 2:03 A.M.”
Patty wakes up and realizes she is late. She hears sounds from the girls’ bedroom and assumes Michelle and Debby are moving around in their sleep. The light in Ben’s room has been on since she searched it earlier.
She opens the front door, and the man Patty met at the park, Calvin Diehl, stabs her in the chest. He whispers that it will all be over in 30 seconds and is about to stab her again when he sees Debby in the doorway. Debby says that people are hurting Michelle and that Patty needs to come to help. Patty pushes the knife deeper into her chest to keep Calvin from taking it out and using it to stab Debby, but Calvin grabs the axe near the door and goes after her. As Calvin brings the axe down on Debby, he says “Why’d you make me do this?” (319), the phrase Libby had attributed to Ben. Patty scoops Debby up, and Calvin comes back with the shotgun Patty left on the mantle in case Runner came back. Before he shoots, she wishes she could take it all back.
Chapters 31-36 Analysis
These chapters provide answers to questions for both Libby and the reader. Chapter 31 completes Libby’s investigation of Trey, in which she concludes that he did not take part in the murders. Trey gives her information that leads to her next discovery: Diondra’s role in the murders and her present location. Libby does not yet know all the details of what happened between Diondra and Ben that night, but she understands that Diondra, like Ben, is hiding something. The lies begin to make sense as Libby realizes that Diondra and Ben are trying to protect the same thing: Crystal.
Flynn uses the literary device of dramatic irony to reveal information to the reader that the protagonist does not yet know. The partial knowledge Libby gains in Chapters 31 and 33 contrasts with the graphic, moment-by-moment detailing of the events in Chapters 34 and 36. Chapter 30 ends at the beginning of Libby’s memories of the murder—getting out of bed, leaving her room, and getting into bed with her mother. Chapters 32, 34, and 36 fill in the details that she does not (and could not) know, such as who killed Michelle, Debby, and Patty, and what Ben was really doing at that time. Knowing the story of the murders allows the reader to put Libby’s memories, questions, and feelings into perspective; she narrowly escaped a horrific death and should not feel any guilt about what happened that night.
Chapter 36, the last from Patty’s perspective, evokes pathos as Flynn details Patty’s final thoughts and actions before her death. From the details provided in Chapter 34, the reader knows that the sound Patty hears in the girls’ bedroom is Diondra strangling Michelle, rather than the girls moving around in their sleep. The phrase “Why’d you make me do this?” comes from Calvin (319), not Ben, as Libby previously believed. Patty witnesses and tries to prevent Debby’s murder, and it is thematically poignant that her last thought is one of regret.
As Chapter 36 is the climax of the events of the past, Chapter 35 creates a new narrative thread with Crystal’s attack of Libby. Flynn solves one mystery while beginning another. That Diondra and Crystal perpetrate violence in the present parallels Diondra’s murder of Michelle in the past, especially because even though Crystal was not responsible for the murder, Diondra was pregnant with her at the time. Flynn includes this detail for the sake of narrative symmetry rather than to imply that Crystal has a genetic predisposition to violence.
Flynn also flips the narrative on its head by making Diondra and (technically) Patty responsible for the deaths in 1985. Throughout the novel, Flynn has mostly placed suspicion on men, especially via the themes of emasculation and poverty. Ben, despite being the prime suspect, is only an accomplice and only through inaction. Diondra is the one who physically kills Michelle. Likewise, although Calvin is responsible for Patty and Debby’s murders, his attack only happened at Patty’s request and was never meant to include Debby. The other suspects—Runner and Trey—were not involved at all.
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