Sharp Objects: Chapter 2 Summary & Analysis

Camille abandons the search party and the woods altogether and heads for a local low-key country bar before stopping off at the home of the Nashes. She knows that the family had three girls—including the now-deceased Ann—and one boy, a six year old. Camille knocks back a couple of bourbons, anxious about having to confront the Nashes. She is not the kind of reporter who enjoys going through people’s private lives.

Camille arrives at the Nashes’ “homely” ranch house, where a little boy is riding a tricycle around the front yard. Camille gets out of her car and offers to give the boy a push, but the little boy is frightened and runs inside. Camille approaches the front door, just as a man appears there—she asks him if he’s Robert Nash, and he tells Camille to call him Bob. Camille explains that she’s a reporter with a Chicago newspaper and wants to ask him some questions about his daughter’s murder. Camille braces herself for Bob to yell and slam the door in her face, but instead, Bob invites her inside the cluttered house and directs her to the bedroom.

Camille and Bob sit down on opposite ends of the bed, and Bob almost immediately begins talking—Camille is grateful for his forthcoming nature. Bob explains that last summer, Ann had been obsessed with riding her bike. Bob and his wife only let her go around the block, but just before Ann started school, they agreed to let Ann ride to her friend’s house just ten blocks away—she never got there. Bob tells Camille he believes there is a “sick baby killer” on the loose—he doesn’t believe Natalie is simply missing.

Bob suggests that maybe a “homo” killed Ann. When Camille asks him why he’d say such a thing, he explains that Ann wasn’t raped—and that this fact is the only “blessing” he and his family have. Ann was found strangled, with her teeth pulled, but without any other cuts, bruises, or scrapes. Bob says he’d rather Ann be killed than raped. 

Bob complains that no one has been any help to him or his family—Vickery is clearly in over his head, and a “big-shot detective” assigned from Kansas City is just a smug kid, biding his time until he can get out of Wind Gap for good. Bob shows Camille a picture of Ann, and explains that Ann was a “willful thing” and a tomboy who once chopped all of her hair off rather than allow her mother to put it in curlers. He muses that Ann must have given whoever killed her absolute “hell.”

After leaving the Nashes’, Camille begins the drive to her mother’s “massive” house at the southernmost end of Wind Gap. Situated in the “wealthy section” of town—a section which comprises three blocks only—Adora’s house is an elaborate Victorian manse complete with a wraparound veranda and a cupola.

Camille arrives at the house and rings the doorbell. It is just after 9:15, and Adora, rather than answering the door, calls from the other side to ask who’s there. Camille announces herself, and Adora opens the door, but doesn’t move to give Camille even a “limp” hug. Camille explains that she’s in town for business, and Adora invites her in, warning that the house is “not up to par for a visitor.” Inside, though, the house is perfect and pristine—fresh-cut flowers are in vases in the entryway, and the air is sweet and full of pollen.

Adora offers Camille a drink, and then asks where she’s staying. Camille awkwardly asks for permission to stay at her mother’s, and Adora acquiesces—though she chides Camille for not calling first. As Adora walks down the hall to fix Camille a drink, Camille studies her mother, who is only in her late forties. Adora’s pale skin glows, and her long blonde hair gives her the appearance of “a girl’s very best doll.”

Camille peeks her head out onto the back porch, where her wan, prim stepfather Alan is sitting and drinking. He greets Camille stiffly and formally, and then asks what has brought Camille to Wind Gap as Adora emerges onto the porch with Camille’s drink in her hand. Camille explains that she has come to cover Ann Nash and Natalie Keene’s stories for her paper, and Adora seems startled. She begins plucking at her own eyelashes—a nervous habit which Camille remembers well from her childhood. 

Adora remarks that both Ann and Natalie’s parents must be having a difficult enough time without Camille copying down their stories and spreading to the world noxious headlines such as “’Wind Gap Murders Its Children.’” Adora tells Camille that she knew the girls, and is having a very hard time—when she asks “Who would do that,” it’s unclear whether she’s referring to the girls’ murderer or to whoever sent Camille to report on the crimes.

Adora asks Camille not to discuss her work and bring “that kind of talk” into the house while she’s home. Camille asks how her half-sister Amma is, and Adora replies that the girl is upstairs sleeping. Camille, however, can hear footsteps scampering upstairs. Adora warns Camille that she needs to be extra-kind to Amma, as both Ann and Natalie were her schoolmates.

Camille gets a fitful four hours of sleep, full of stressful dreams about Adora feeding her an apple to stop her from dying. At five, Camille gets up and starts dressing—the search party is reconvening in the woods at six, and Camille wants to get another quote from Vickery before the day begins. She plans to head to the police station and wait for him to arrive.

As Camille pulls onto Main Street, she comes upon “a scene that ma[kes] no sense.” An older woman is sitting splayed on the sidewalk, staring at the side of a building; a man is stooped over her. Camille wonders if the woman has had a fall or a heart attack, and gets out of her car to hurry over to them. As she approaches them, the older man begs Camille to call the police and an ambulance. She asks what’s wrong, but then immediately spots what the man is talking about. In the foot-wide space between two shops, a “tiny body” has been propped up, aimed at the sidewalk. It is Natalie Keene, and she is missing all of her teeth.

Camille begins dissociating—she picks up what is happening around her in brief, strange flashes. She sees that there is a Band-Aid on Natalie Keene’s knee, and notices faintly that Vickery has arrived on the scene, along with a second man whom Camille gathers to be the “big-shot detective” from Kansas City. The detective gets to work right away, coaxing the woman and older man’s story out—they are husband and wife, the owners of a nearby diner, and found Natalie’s corpse on their way to open up for the day.

The detective sends the couple to the station with Vickery to give official statements, and asks Camille to come as well. As she waits in a room to give the detective her story, she finds herself wishing she could put a fresh Band-Aid on Natalie Keene’s knee.