Wolf

by Kelly Oliver

  He read it and thrust it back at her. “What the hell? What is it?” He stared into her eyes waiting for an answer.

  “Dmitry,” she whispered.

  Amber’s crescent eyes had closed and she was swaying from side to side, drumming her favorite RatDog tune or sending Morse code signals to her own nervous system through her wacky cranium. Whatever it was, she was clearly enjoying her “self-treatment.”

  Amber stopped tapping and opened her eyes.

  Jessica’s whole body jolted and she stared at the table where Jack’s phone and hers were buzzing in unison.

  Jack picked up his phone. “Urgent Message from The University,” he said tapping on his phone. “Holy Shit. They found him.”

  “What the…” Jessica dropped her phone. “Drug overdose?”

  Chapter Eight

  Dmitry was relieved when he awoke in his own bed. He surveyed the familiar room with its modest furnishings. Whoever said you couldn’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear didn’t know Sabina. She’d transformed their cramped stone house into a cozy nest. If it weren’t for his throbbing ribs and pounding headache, he’d have been comfortable tucked into their soft cotton sheets and warm down duvet. The scent of Sabina’s night cream still lingered on her pillowcase next to him. Soon, he would be trying to conjure that creamy rose petal smell to get the stench of burning plastic out of his nostrils.

  His daughter was sitting in a chair next to the bed reading. “Why aren’t you at school, kotyonok?” He tried to sit up. “You don’t want them to take that fancy scholarship away, do you?”

  “Don’t call me kitten.” Lolita glanced up from her book. “I’m not a little girl anymore.”

  “Sorry, lyubov moya. Or can I call you my love? Do you hate that too now, milyi, darling?”

  His lovely daughter was the antidote to his nightmares. When he reached over and patted her manicured hand, he noticed her blood-red fingernails, as she gazed at him, her steely grey eyes piercing straight through his heart. Every time he saw his daughter, he was struck by the discord between those sharp eyes and her soft face, his wife’s face. Sabina’s lovely features were transformed into something otherworldly on Lolita’s face. Her mother was pretty, but Lolita was stunning.

  At twenty-one, his daughter had many admirers. Whether in response to a gentleman’s kiss or a cad’s groping, Lolita could land a blow to wound them body and soul and still not kill their ardor. It was probably his fault. He’d taught his daughter to fight like a voin, a Russian warrior. Better voin than vor. His heart ached to keep her safe, but now that Bratva had found him, he realized it would be impossible.

  “Rest, Papochka. Can I bring you some tea or soup?” Lolita kissed him on the forehead. He tried to pry himself off the bed, but a stabbing pain in his head forced him back down, so he closed his eyes and tried to sleep in self-defense against the throbbing pain in his right eye. As he rode the waves of slumber, Lolita was singing a Russian lullaby his mother had sung to him as a child. “Sleep-sleep-sleep. Don’t lie close to the bedside, otherwise a grey wolf will come and bite you.”

  The lullaby transported him back to the platform, the last time he had seen his mother. He was only nineteen-years-old, and his breath froze in the night air as he’d whispered, “Mama, lyublyu tebya. I love you.” His mother had been wearing a full-length blue fox coat and matching hat, her elegant face caressed by perfectly styled auburn hair. She’d handed him a leather wallet. “Dimka, here are the documents you’ll need to leave the country. Take this train to Riga. Change there for Warsaw. That way you don’t go through Belarus. We didn’t have time to make visas for Belarus.”

  With blood pounding in his head, Dmitry could hardly hear her. He felt like his brain might burst, and with shaking hands he reached for the wallet. Wearing only a woolen dress and hat, Sabina huddled close to him for warmth. Neither of them had traveled out of Russia before, and now they were going halfway across the world. Silent tears streamed down his face as he hugged his mother for the last time.

  “This is for you.” When his mother handed him a large brown valise with gold locks, he stared blankly at her, unable to speak.

  “Dimka. Pay attention. Do you understand me?”

  “When will I see you again mother?” His voice cracked. He could no longer cry in silence, and wiping his nose on his suit sleeve, he wept openly.

  “Everything changes, moya lyubov,” she said. “Nothing disappears.” With both hands, she’d wiped the tears from his cheeks, and then gave him her monogrammed handkerchief. The potent smell of her French perfume made him dizzy.

  A voice came over the loudspeaker: “All aboard for Riga. Track number 7. Anyone with a ticket to Riga should be on board. The train is ready to depart the station.” Prodded into action by the announcement, he clung to Sabina as she led him by the arm onto the train destined for an unknown future.

  Now decades later, he’d had been so busy looking over his shoulder, he’d ran head-on into his past. He wished he could have left his past on the train platform where he had waved goodbye to his mother twenty-one years ago. But as his mother would say, “the past is not a suitcase you can leave behind. Some baggage you are destined to carry for the rest of your life.”

  Chapter Nine

  When Jessica returned from the café, five police cars were parked outside Brentano Hall, lights flashing. A chill snaked down her spine as she remembered the gristly scene from last night. What if they’d found her thesis and turned it over to the department chair? She may have resented Wolf’s advances, but she respected his opinion when it came to philosophy. Why had he written that damning letter? And who’d killed him? She was determined to find out if it was the last thing she did.

  She sneaked around to the back entrance, and then edged along the hallway until she reached the voices coming from inside the main office. When she peeked through the door crack, she saw two police officers interviewing the secretary, Donnette Bush. Poor Donnette. Rivulets of mascara were running down her cheeks through pancake makeup, making her look ghoulish, a zombie Dolly Parton with glistening red orbs, a cockeyed bouffant, and smeared lipstick. Jessica wished she could run in to give her a hug.

  Donnette Bush was her only ally in the department, and the “Texas Glue” holding the place together. Today, as always, Donnette sported full make-up, stockings, high-heels, one of her extensive assortment of twin sets and skirts mixed and matched with brash accessories and costume jewelry. She’d obviously just had her bouffant done up at the “beauty parlor,” along with fake acrylic fingernails. This afternoon the theme was cotton candy pink.

  “Far be it for me to question God’s will, but why would He take Wolfie in this way?” Donnette asked the two officers, her voice breaking. “Just lying there in the bathtub. Blue lips. Gray skin. Oh Jesus save me! What a horrible sight.” She broke down sobbing. Jessica knew just how she felt.

  One of the officers handed Donnette a tissue. “Ms. Bush, I know it’s difficult, but it’s important that you tell us every detail of how you found Professor Schmutzig.”

  “The door was open and I didn’t see Wolfie, I mean Professor Schmutzig, in his office. So I went in and knocked on his bathroom door. I just had an odd feeling that something wasn’t right.” Donnette dabbed at the corner of her eyes.

  “What do you mean ‘wasn’t right’?” the other officer asked in a sonorous bass.

  “I can’t say for sure. I just had a feeling. Maybe God was telling me to open that door. ” She started bawling again. Opening her mouth slightly to steady her face, she wiped mascara from under her eyes with a tissue. When she spotted Jessica standing in the hallway, she gave her a pleading “Help me!” look. Jessica shrugged and stretched her lips into an exaggerated frown. Two of the only women in the department, they had to stick together. Standing in the doorway, Jessica tried to look encouraging.

  When the cute officer followed Donnette’s gaze and spotted Jessica, he walked toward the door. His cocoa-colored skin was smooth, and in
spite of herself, she wanted to touch his arm as it reached for the doorknob. His amber eyes locked onto her, “Excuse me, Miss,” the detective said in a buttery baritone, as he shut the door in her face.

  She darted up the stairs but didn’t get far before she saw a swarm of activity around Schmutzig’s office. Cops wearing gloves were going in and out collecting “evidence” in Ziploc bags. They were even taking out pizza boxes and going through the wastebasket. Crap. What did Jack do with the whiskey bottle? She hid in a vestibule off the hallway and tried to see what was happening. Every time one of the officers came towards her, she flattened herself against the wall and ducked out of sight.

  A burly uniformed officer came down the hallway and stopped right in front of her. “I’m afraid you can’t come up here, Miss.” She noticed his latex-gloved fingers pinched a baggie containing one large faded pink button. Oh my god. She recognized the tatty button from Amber’s nightgown dress. Every muscle in her body tightened. “Is there a problem, Miss?” the cop asked. “No sir,” she answered, then turned and skipped down the stairs, her heart skipping faster.

  She ducked into the women’s bathroom. The few women in the department knew you could hear nearly everything going on in 24B from the ladies’ room next to Schmutzig’s office. Through a vent in the wall, she listened to a detective describing the scene. “Judging by rigor mortis, the subject died within the last 24 hours. The needle found in his right arm suggests a possible heroin overdose.” She couldn’t believe it. No way The Wolf was a junkie. Pepsi was his drug of choice. “There are no signs of a struggle or forced entry, further evidence that most likely the victim died by his own hand.” Suicide? Her advisor had been too arrogant to off himself. A woman’s voice said, “I’ve found a brownish substance on the wall in the northwest corner. It may be blood. I’m collecting a sample.”

  Jessica snuck back downstairs and into the department library to wait for the cops to leave so she could go back up and retrieve her thesis. Maybe she could convince Donnette to give her a key or call Jack to bring his credit card. One way or another, she had to get her thesis out of that office before someone found it along with the damning letter attached to it. An odd thought popped into her head, and she wondered if there could be any relation between that post-dated letter and the Wolf’s death. Certainly, her thesis couldn’t have anything to do with his death. What a weird idea.

  The smell of ancient dust and German philosophy filled her nostrils. Surrounded by wooden shelves crammed with hardback books, a round carved wooden table occupied the center of the library chamber. The stacks formed a labyrinth spiraling around it, a vortex of two thousand years of philosophy. She thought of the beautiful Ariadne leading Theseus out of the maze after he had slain the Minotaur…her skein of thread the clew (or clue) that saved his life. She needed a lifeline now her advisor was dead and her thesis was still sitting up there in his office labeled reject.

  Jessica slid into one of the smooth wooden chairs, pulled a Kindle out of her backpack, and pretended to read. Peering over the Kindle, she saw two uniformed men lift a stretcher carrying a body bag. She watched as they maneuvered the stretcher out the narrow front door, trying not to bang it into the molding as they went, then loaded the stretcher into an ambulance, and shut its double back doors.

  In the twilight, there was something peaceful about the scene. The graceful movements of the cops who’d obviously done this many times before, the silhouette of the ambulance against the pink-orange clouds, the way Wolf’s body had floated into the vehicle, seemingly levitating. The mist rising off the asphalt swirled around the stretcher, spirits escaping the black body bag, one more ghost to trouble her sleepless nights in the attic.

  The door to the main office opened and the two officers who had been grilling Donnette headed toward the hallway and the library. Heart galloping, Jessica ducked under the table. Peering up from a crouching position, she saw the library swing shut. When the lock clicked, her heart hurtled into her throat. Now, she was locked in.

  Ouch! She banged her head as she scooted out from under the table. She crawled over to the door, sat down, and listened. She caught a rustling across the hall and then the distinctive sound of Donnette’s high-heels clicking on the hardwoods. She pounded on the door, “Donnette, let me out!” The clicking got louder and then stopped. A torrent of Chanel No. 5 blew up from under the door, and she heard a key turn in the lock.

  “What are you doing, honey?” Donnette asked, staring down at her with puffy eyes.

  When Jessica sprung up and gave her a hug, Donnette started crying again. It was contagious. Jessica choked back tears. Even though she’d often imagined killing him herself, Jessica lamented Wolf’s death, and even worse, she hated to see her one ally so distraught.

  Donnette pulled away from their embrace, wiping tears off her cheeks with the backs of her hands. “I’m sorry. I have to get myself together. God help me.” Jessica dug in her satchel, pulled out a packet of Kleenex, and handed one to her.

  “Thanks honey.”

  “How did it happen?” Jessica asked, and then added in a whisper, “You found him?”

  “Mr. Bush and I went out to the movies last night.” Donnette always called her husband Mr. Bush. “The special 75th anniversary showing of Gone with the Wind. Have you seen it?”

  “Yeah, it’s 75 years old. Who hasn’t seen it?”

  “Don’t take that tone with me young lady.” Tears were welling in her swollen eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Donnette. We’re all under a lot of stress.” Jessica took her manicured hand in her grubby one. “So you went to the movie, and then what?”

  “Well, when Mr. Bush and I got home from the movie, there was a message on the answering machine from Zelda, Wolf’s mother. She was asking if I knew where Wolf was.” She picked at the polish on one of her nails and shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

  Rumor had it that years ago Donnette and Wolf had had a fling, back when he was a lonely assistant professor locked up in his office writing his masterwork and she was a newly arrived Texas beauty-queen. She baked him pies, cakes, and cookies, and he devoured them faster than the latest issues of Philosophy Today.

  “I called Zelda back first thing this morning,” Donnette said, a little shiver reverberating through her plump body. “Of course, I didn’t realize Wolfie was, was…had passed away. Wolf was a good son. He always called Zelda if he was going to be late.” She was wringing her hands.

  “Yes, poor Zelda. She must be heartbroken.” Jessica struggled to think of consoling words, the sorts of things you are supposed to say when someone died. She didn’t know what to say, not because she didn’t care, but because she didn’t have a lot of experience with death, except for her father’s when she was ten.… But that was more like the end of the world than a matter of etiquette.

  “Zelda said the strangest thing. She kept calling Wolf’s office all night and someone kept picking up the phone and hanging up on her.” Donnette raised her eyebrows. “She wanted me to go to the office right away to check on Wolfie. She thought he might be up to something.” She straightened her skirt and pulled her blouse down over the folds of her ample torso.

  “That’s odd,” Jessica said, avoiding eye contact.

  “Yes, very. If Wolf was….if he’d already passed away, like the police say, then who picked up the phone?” Donnette put her hands on her hips as if expecting Jessica to answer.

  “I don’t know.” Jessica blushed.

  “Well I do.” When Donnette narrowed her eyes they disappeared into smears of black mascara.

  “You do?” Jessica’s voice cracked. She felt Donnette’s omniscient eyes drilling into her very soul.

  “Yes, I do, Missy,” said the Goddess of Brentano Hall.

  “Who? Do the police know?” At least in prison she would have a bed and food, and if they let her have a computer, she could write her dissertation.

  “Not exactly.” Donnette tugged again at her blouse that kept riding up
on her bosom.

  “You lied to the police?” Maybe she and Donnette could share a cell in prison. She imagined Donnette wielding a butcher knife in the prison kitchen and topping her famous pecan pie with whipped spit when someone crossed her.

  “I didn’t say that.” She wagged her finger at Jessica.

  “I heard you tell the police you didn’t use the master key. How did you get into Wolf’s office?”

  Donnette straightened her skirt. “I used the key that Wolfgang gave me.”

  “Wolf gave you a key?” Jessica regretted asking as soon as the words escaped her mouth. “Could I borrow it? I left something in his office the other day”

  “Of course you can’t. The police have his office taped off. They told me no one is to enter until they finish their investigation.” Donnette glanced around, then whispered, “Wolfie told me someone broke into his office.” She jerked her cotton candy crowned head to one side.

  “Who?”

  “That cursed Russian, the janitor, Mr. Dmitry Durchenko.”

  “He was trying to get into Wolf’s office last night. Ah, that’s why his keys wouldn’t work…” Jessica’s eyes widened when she realized what she’d just said. Ooops!

  “How do you know that?” Donnette raised her hands skyward in a supplication, as if Jessica discerned it through divine intervention.

  She couldn’t tell the secretary the truth about her whiskey-induced caper with Jackass and Amber. Donnette wouldn’t be at all happy to find out her only kid was drinking, not to mention breaking and entering, illegal drugs, a post-dated letter, the ominous note, and Wolf’s dead body.

  “I was sleeping in the attic when I heard him in the middle of the night.” Jessica stared down at her Converse All-Stars to avoid facing Donnette’s lie-detecting eyes.

  “Aha! I knew it. That cursed Russian did it.” Donnette triumphantly poked at her big light pink hair with a big light pink fingernail.