Summary
Francis entered the apartment, and immediately realized that Henry had told Richard about the murder. Francis was initially upset, but was comforted by Richard's calm attitude. Richard did ask if they intended to go to the police, but Henry and Francis both insisted that they would most likely end up in prison or on death row if the crime was ever discovered.
Henry and Francis also explained how Bunny found out about the crime. On the night of the bacchanal, Bunny and Richard had gone to the movies. Afterwards, Bunny decided to go to Henry's apartment to frighten him when he got home. However, Bunny fell asleep and therefore was still at the apartment when Henry, Charles, Camilla, and Francis arrived. Bloody and frantic, after leaving the body in the woods, they had driven directly back to Henry's apartment. They vainly tried to lie to Bunny, telling him that they had hit a deer with their car, but Bunny clearly did not believe them. By chance, a few weeks later, Bunny saw an article in the local paper mentioning a farmer who had been found dead on the night of November 10. Bunny realized that this was the same night he saw the other students returning in bloody clothes, and began to tease and taunt them with the idea that he knows they have killed someone. Since nothing was confirmed, Henry decided to take Bunny to Rome in order to pacify him and in hopes that Bunny would lose interest in his suspicions. However, Bunny grated on Henry with his insistence on spending a lot of money and failing to appreciate the beauty of Rome. Due to the stress, Henry developed a severe migraine and was incapacitated in their hotel room for several days. When Henry woke up, he realized that Bunny had read his diary, in which he had written about the crime. Bunny now had his suspicions confirmed, and began to be more annoying than ever. Exhausted and desperate to get away, Henry abruptly left Bunny in Rome and travelled back to America by himself.
Overwhelmed by all of this information, Richard went back to campus. A short time later, he met up with Charles and Camilla, who confirmed that they knew that Richard was now privy to their secret. Over the next few weeks, the students went to class and tried to pursue their normal routines, but Bunny was more belligerent than ever. He tormented all of the students about whatever they were most vulnerable about, and threatened and blackmailed them almost constantly. Eventually, Richard started to notice Henry acting strangely. One night, Henry came to Richard's room and asked for help trying to calculate a dosage based on a mathematical formula. Henry revealed that he had a plan to kill Bunny by poisoning him with mushrooms, and also eating the mushrooms himself to avoid suspicion. Richard warned Henry that the plan was too risky. Richard also asked Charles about the plan, but Charles argued that he's willing to take almost any risk in order to be free of Bunny.
Time passed, and in April, Bunny told Richard all about the crime the others had committed. Richard feigned being shocked by this information, and then immediately told Henry and the others. They were all alarmed because they suspected Bunny telling Richard about the murder meant that he was now likely to tell others. Henry decided that they needed to kill Bunny as soon as possible, and came up with a new plan: Bunny usually went for walks on Sunday, so they would plan to intercept him, push him off of the ravine, and hope that the death appears accidental.
The next day, the students went out into the woods to wait for Bunny. Even though he had been at a party earlier and had been drinking, Bunny still came by on his regular walking route, and Henry pushed him off the edge of the ravine. Afterwards, the group went back to Francis's apartment, and Henry explained that the rest of them have an alibi (they bought movie tickets and snuck out of the theatre). They also decided that they should avoid each other for a while to avoid suspicion.
Back at his dorm, Richard agreed to go to a party with Judy because he wanted to be distracted from what he had done. At the party, Richard got drunk and slept with a fellow student named Mona. He woke up in her room in a panic after a terrible nightmare and then went home. Richard woke up to Francis in his room; Francis tried to kiss him, and for a moment, it seemed that Francis and Richard would have sex. However, they were interrupted by Charles, who was drunk. The group all went to Julian's class, and feigned ignorance when Julian asked about Bunny's absence.
Gradually, people on campus (especially Julian and Marion) became confused and concerned about where Bunny was. Since it had started to snow immediately after the murder, no one had come across his body yet either. Richard and his friends were in an agonizing state of suspense because no one yet knew that Bunny was dead. One of Bunny's friends, Cloke, was involved in drug dealing, and started to worry that Bunny had also been involved in drugs. Cloke and Charles searched Bunny's rooms looking for clues to his whereabouts. Eventually, the students created enough alarm that school staff and the police were notified. The school was very anxious about its reputation and contacted Bunny's parents; search parties also began looking for Bunny in the woods around the campus. The search created a lot of media attention in the small community. The police began to interview people close to Bunny, including Henry, Charles, and Cloke. Henry and Charles both reported that, based on the interviews, they didn't think anyone suspected them. Due to his drug activity, the police were actually much more suspicious of Cloke. A local mechanic claimed to have seen Bunny in a car driven by Arabic men, which further confused the search and investigation. The FBI became involved in the investigation and interviewed Henry; Charles grew increasingly mistrustful of Henry, despite Henry's reassurances that no one suspected anything. Bunny's parents grew increasingly resentful about implications that alcohol and drugs had been involved in Bunny's death.
Charles began to drink more heavily to cope with his anxiety; meanwhile, Mona's boyfriend beat up Richard because Richard had slept with Mona. Camilla confided in Richard about the killing of the farmer, providing additional details which suggested that the killing could not have been accidental. Camilla also explained that she thought the obstacles with Bunny's death were retribution for having left the body of the farmer unburied. When they went for a drink at a local bar off campus, Charles and Richard heard many locals making racist comments and gossiping about how "Arabs" may have been involved in Bunny's disappearance. Finally, it began to rain, washing away the snow that had concealed Bunny's body. A short time afterwards, a student out walking her dog found Bunny's body, and alerted the police. Once the body was found, suspicions seemed to fade, and most people assumed that Bunny fell to his death. The FBI announced that they would no longer be investigating the case.
Analysis
Richard narrates the events leading up to Bunny's murder with an eye to making Bunny as unsympathetic as possible; he wants to present the murder as justified and inevitable. Bunny's uncouth and cruel behavior does indeed make him unlikeable, but it is debatable whether readers would agree that his death was necessary. Francis and Henry correctly observe that Bunny isn't really morally outraged about the murder, and doesn't care about the farmer anymore than anyone else does. Bunny is instead offended because he feels left out of the group, and wants to assure his position in the group by having leverage over the others. These dynamics show how toxic the group is: no one has the basic morality to recognize that the death of the farmer is tragic and wrong, and individuals are mainly concerned with jockeying for power and dominance within the group hierarchy.
Richard further reveals his weak and morally ambiguous nature through his reaction to the plan to murder Bunny. Richard was unfazed when he learned about the murder of the farmer, and when he learns that Henry is plotting to kill Bunny, he worries about the feasibility of the plan but not its morality. The plan for Bunny's murder shows how moral decay can set in, and how one bad action often leads to further bad actions. While the murder of the farmer was primarily reckless and selfish, the murder of Bunny represents the premeditated murder of a close friend. It shows how the Greek students have quickly become more indifferent to heinous acts, and are prioritizing their own futures above everything else. They are also somewhat naïve in that they seem to think that, because they were relatively unmoved by killing the farmer, they will be likewise unaffected by Bunny's death. The students radically underestimate the trauma and psychic toll of killing their friend.
Despite Henry's initially elaborate plan to poison Bunny, he ends up with a simple plan that plays out exactly as he had hoped. However, the theme of fate appears in Bunny's death: it is a fairly slim coincidence that, even though he has been drinking at a party, he still goes on his regular walk. It is also unlikely that it would start to snow heavily fairly late in April, but both of these chance events significantly impact how the murder plays out. The snow concealing the body delays the discovery, and significantly heightens the tension for both the students and for readers. The students have carefully arranged for a death that will readily appear accidental, but the plan only works if the body is found. In the absence of a body, the speculation can be much more wild, and suspicions will actually run higher. The chaos of the investigation far exceeds what the group prepared for, and increases the pressure on the group, leading to their close bond starting to splinter.
The chaotic investigation process also reveals various dark sides to the campus and the local community. When faced with uncertainty, a general hysteria descends, which connects to some of the Dionysian themes of the novel. The Greek students deliberately tried to shake off conventional social norms to look for a more raw and disinhibited state underneath, but when they kill Bunny, they inadvertently release a frenzied and primitive state onto the campus and the surrounding community. People are obsessed with the crime, and show their racist and xenophobic tendencies through the wild rumor that individuals of Arabic descent were somehow involved. It is ironic and almost comedic that people are quite willing to believe this outlandish story (which relies entirely on false rumors) but remain mostly unsuspicious about the students who actually committed the murder. Because all of the Greek students are white, wealthy, and well-spoken, they can use their privilege to mostly deflect any suspicion.
There is an ironic reversal, in that once the body is found, the truth becomes more hidden rather than more revealed. In most murders, finding the body would often unearth more evidence and lead to a closer investigation. In Bunny's case, the lack of a body leads to a more thorough investigation that accidentally comes close to the actual killers, whereas the discovery of the body provides a convenient and seemingly non-sinister explanation. It is more convenient for the college and the town to simply believe that Bunny fell in a tragic accident. This reversal provides another example of the appearance versus reality theme of the novel: something that seems to provide closure and peace actually just means that killers will likely go free.
