Into the Grey

by Clea Simon

  ‘We’ve got to get on this, Dulcie.’ Trista’s blue eyes looked particularly intense, although not, her friend was glad to note, bloodshot. ‘We can’t waste any time.’

  ‘But, Trista?’ Dulcie blinked up at her blonde friend. Trista had been a loyal support, but first thing in the morning, with a voice to match her multiple piercings, she could be a bit abrasive. ‘May we have coffee first?’ Nancy did make the best coffee.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Trista looked over her shoulder to where the departmental secretary sat, sorting through a pile of paperwork. ‘I still haven’t ruled her out.’

  ‘Trista.’ That did it. Dulcie marched by her friend. If she couldn’t trust Nancy Pruitt, she may as well give up. ‘Good morning,’ she called over to the plump older woman.

  ‘Oh, good morning!’ Nancy was up from her seat in a moment. ‘Dulcie, how are you?’

  Her approach might not have been as practical as Trista’s but it was a good deal warmer. Right now, that’s what Dulcie wanted, and as she fixed herself a mug of the good dark brew, she found herself smiling back at the grey-haired secretary.

  ‘I’m OK. Thanks.’ She paused, unsure of how to ask. ‘Has there been any news?’

  ‘About poor Professor Fenderby?’ Her kind face pinched up. ‘No, I’m sorry. But the police have already been in. They wanted his files.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Two of them are up with Mr Thorpe now.’

  ‘But surely …’ Dulcie paused, the memory of what she had found obscuring any other thought. ‘If someone … if it wasn’t an accident,’ she managed to form the words. ‘Then it must have been a stranger. Someone ill or crazed.’

  Nancy was shaking her head, her mouth set in a grim line. ‘I know that would be preferable, dear, but it’s unlikely. As I’m sure you’re aware, access to the library is limited, and this did appear to happen in an office in the stacks. No, I’m afraid the implication is that poor Professor Fenderby was targeted, and that the perpetrator was a member of the university community.’

  Suddenly, the coffee turned to acid in her stomach, and Dulcie had to fight a bout of queasiness. ‘Thanks,’ she managed to gasp out, as she retreated to the building’s main sitting area and sank onto a tattered sofa.

  ‘News?’ Trista gestured toward the secretary with a tilt of her head.

  ‘The police.’ Dulcie put the mug down on the side table, her hands shaking too much to hold it. ‘They’re upstairs.’

  ‘Good.’ Her friend surprised her. ‘Maybe they’ll get to the bottom of this.’

  ‘But you said … I said …’ The queasiness had passed, leaving a sense of unease.

  ‘Look, you didn’t do it, right?’ Trista’s eyes were a striking blue. They held Dulcie’s own until she nodded assent. ‘So the quicker they find out what happened, the better. What I want to know is who is bad-mouthing you.’

  ‘Someone’s bad-mouthing me?’ Dulcie let herself be pulled upright.

  ‘Yeah, I talked to that cop. The young one?’ Dulcie nodded, vaguely recalling a muscular young man around their age. ‘He didn’t want to say anything, but I made out like I was worried about myself, and he said I shouldn’t be. He said that a witness saw a woman – a redhead – rushing out around eleven, apparently distraught. That’s what they’re following up on. That’s an hour before you say you got there. Right around the time he was killed.’

  ‘A redhead?’ Dulcie felt like her brain must be frozen. Trista, however, didn’t seem to mind that her friend was parroting her words. ‘At eleven?’

  ‘Uh huh. Now come on.’ Trista took her hand.

  ‘Wait, you got a cop to talk to you?’ Dulcie paused, the inanity of her own question hitting her. Trista knew how to flirt. That she could get a young man to confide was no surprise. ‘What did you find out? What’s going on?’

  ‘I’ve got an idea.’ Trista was pulling her back toward the campus. ‘Call it a hunch.’

  ‘I’m not going to the library.’ Dulcie found the strength to pull back. ‘If that’s what you think …’

  ‘The library?’ Trista turned back to look at her, one pierced brow raised. ‘Why would we go there? No, we’re going to the women’s center.’

  Trista was walking so quickly that Dulcie didn’t have the breath to question her any further. Besides, it was a bit of a relief to be led – particularly to someplace as non-threatening as the center. The basement suite might not look like much; the stairs that led down were marked only by a small sign, white letters on a red background. But Dulcie knew that nobody was likely to accuse her there. The women’s center served several functions on campus – meeting place, resource library, and the source of the second-best coffee on campus. But basically it existed to help women who needed either sympathy or support. Right now, Dulcie felt like she could use both.

  ‘I’d like to talk to someone about Roland Fenderby.’ Trista addressed the student volunteer who seemed to be the only person present. She was an undergrad, Dulcie thought, remembering her bouncy dark curls from a seminar on Shelley. ‘About cases filed against him.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ The student had been shelving books and turned to address Trista. Seeing Dulcie, she smiled. ‘Ms Schwartz!’

  ‘Nola.’ Dulcie grinned back, partly with relief at having dredged up the name. ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m good.’ The dark-haired girl looked around. ‘I’m a psych major now.’

  There didn’t seem to be a response to that. From what Dulcie had remembered, she figured it was probably just as well that the sophomore was no longer focused on literature. And besides, Trista was getting impatient.

  ‘Do you think you can help us?’ Trista had softened her voice a bit, but Dulcie could hear the impatience in it. ‘I’d like to talk to someone about Roland Fenderby.’

  ‘I don’t know if I can,’ Nola replied, shaking her head. ‘Those files are confidential.’

  Trista looked like she was about to say something. Dulcie reached out and put her hand on her friend’s arm. ‘That’s fine,’ she said. ‘We’re sorry to bother you.’

  Now it was her turn to lead her friend out. Once they’d emerged in the spring morning, Dulcie turned to Trista.

  ‘What was that about?’

  ‘Proof.’ Trista leaned in, a sly grin on her face.

  Dulcie shook her head, confused.

  ‘I knew that masher was up to no good. A redhead leaving his office? Fenderby had a reputation as a creep, and we just got confirmation.’ Trista was clearly pleased with herself. ‘That girl said there was a file on him. It’s just as I suspected. Fenderby pushed some girl too far.’

  NINE

  It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate Trista’s efforts. Her friend’s concern, if not her methods, said a lot about the years they’d known each other. But Dulcie didn’t want to get more involved in this than she already was, a position she tried to explain as they walked.

  ‘You weren’t there, Tris,’ she said. The two were crossing the Yard, and Dulcie was trying to steer her buddy toward the river. Despite Dulcie’s early start, it was getting near time for her section. ‘You didn’t see him.’

  ‘No, but you did. And you were angry enough at him so that everyone knew you threatened him.’ Her friend made her case sound like the voice of reason. ‘And everyone knows the cops are lazy.’

  That stopped her. ‘Detective Rogovoy isn’t,’ she said. ‘In fact, I think he prefers it if I don’t get involved in these things.’ In the past, Dulcie had gotten a little too interested in some of the misdeeds around campus – she didn’t like to call them crimes. But even as she protested, she found herself wondering. As recently as spring break, she had managed to clear the name of a fellow scholar – a poor fellow who had been hounded for years by a corrupt cop.

  ‘You don’t think anyone is out to frame me.’ She stopped walking, her voice getting tight. ‘Do you?’

  Trista’s shrug wasn’t very reassuring. ‘Someone killed Fenderby,’ she said. ‘And I bet whoever it is wou
ld rather not be caught.’

  Any hope that teaching would offer a respite to the whole mess was dashed when Dulcie walked into her section. All twelve of her students were there – a rare enough occurrence on a bright spring day – but the silence that fell as she walked into the room signaled that they had more on their minds than The Castle of Otranto.

  ‘Good morning.’ Twelve sets of eyes, all wide open, regarded her. ‘Shall we start by discussing the reading?’

  ‘Is it true, Ms Schwartz?’ Sonia, a junior, asked in hushed tones.

  Dulcie paused for thought. This was what her mother would call a message from the universe. ‘You may have heard that I made an unfortunate discovery yesterday,’ she began. ‘And that Professor Fenderby is dead. But that doesn’t mean—’

  ‘You didn’t do it, did you?’ Louis, who never asked questions, opened his mouth for the first time all semester.

  Before she could respond, another voice chimed in. ‘Did you see anybody? Was it gruesome?’

  She looked from one side of the table to the other. ‘Excuse me, are we scholars or are we ghouls?’ As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she realized her mistake.

  ‘It’s just like one of your Gothic novels,’ Mariela piped up. ‘A dead body, a beautiful heroine in distress. All you need is a ghost!’

  Dulcie could feel herself blushing. It was nice to be called beautiful, albeit in distress. But there was no way they could know that the part about the ghost was true.

  ‘Please, people.’ It was hopeless. Although her students finally stopped their questions, once they realized she was not going to respond, getting them to focus on the work at hand was impossible. In all fairness, Otranto was tough going. Overwritten and preposterous, it really epitomized all that could go wrong with the Gothic genre. Isabella running away from Manfred, everyone hiding in either an underground church or a cave … all of it kicked off when some weird giant helmet falls on Isabella’s intended, crushing him to death. Rather like …

  ‘Ms Schwartz?’ The voice, softer than the others, roused her from her thoughts. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’ She forced her face into what she hoped looked like a grin, swallowing down the wave of nausea that had suddenly come upon her. ‘I was just wishing that we could read one of the works I prefer. Something like The Ravages of Umbria.’

  ‘That’s your dissertation topic, right?’ Dawn, a quiet girl, smiled up at her.

  ‘That’s what it started with, anyway.’ She looked around. ‘You know it?’

  ‘My old roommate, Alyson Beaumont, was telling me about it, about how promising it was,’ Dawn explained. ‘She said her mentor was really enthusiastic about it and super helpful.’

  ‘I’m so glad.’ Dulcie could feel her color deepening. ‘Super helpful’ was even better than ‘beautiful’. Besides, it was encouraging. Alyson had often seemed uninterested, and Dulcie hadn’t realized that her tutee had gone so far as to read the book – the fragment of a book – that was at the center of her own academic career. ‘Has anybody here read The Ravages of Umbria?’

  She was about to embark on a description. Surely, once she explained about the conflict between the two main characters – the noble Hermetria and her duplicitous companion Demetria – they’d be intrigued. Yes, The Ravages used the Gothic conventions of a maiden under duress, with a mad monk and a knight who might or might not simply be out for her lost fortune. But it was so much more. Particularly those passages that describe her flight from her own ancestral home, a castle set high on a mountainous peak. And the eerie, but seemingly benevolent, grey stranger who comes to her aid. Only as she gathered her thoughts, a hand shot up at the far end of the table.

  ‘Lonnie?’ This was great. Lonnie was clearly taking the course as a distribution requirement, and Dulcie had been hard pressed to find anything that would interest the bored gov major. ‘You’ve read it?’

  ‘Well, no, Ms Schwartz.’ He leaned forward in his chair. ‘But will it be on the final?’

  Rarely had Dulcie been so relieved to hear the tolling of the Memorial Church bell. Her students, on the other hand, hesitated, and it wasn’t until she reached for her phone that they began to file out.

  ‘See you next week,’ she called, as she waited for the message to load. She had felt guilty leaving the device on during a lesson, but Trista had insisted. Besides, she was hoping that Detective Rogovoy would return her call. Surely, he would come back from his task force for a murder.

  This wasn’t him, however. But it was good news. Officer Newbright, the young cop Trista had flirted with, had sent a brief note: her bag was no longer necessary and could be picked up at the library’s front desk. With a sigh of relief, Dulcie followed her students out of the conference room.

  ‘Ms Schwartz?’ She should have known. Four of them were waiting outside, including Dawn, the quiet junior.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She was, but discipline was important, too. Besides, they probably just wanted to grill her more about Fenderby. ‘I really have to go. Please come see me at my office hours.’

  Relief, Dulcie decided, was the dominant emotion she felt as she trotted over to the library. Life would never be the same, of course. And she thought it likely that she’d never want to return to Level Two again. But at least she was getting her bag back. She could return to work.

  ‘Dulcie Schwartz,’ she announced herself to the clerk at the front desk. ‘You have my bag?’

  ‘Dulcie!’ Ruby, waving, was making her way over, as quickly as a woman of her size could. ‘There you are.’

  ‘Ruby.’ Dulcie turned toward her, relief washing through her. She’d feared having to deal with the police again. That young cop might have been nice enough, but the police didn’t belong here – not even Detective Rogovoy. And the idea that someone might be trying to cast suspicion on her … ‘I guess my bag has been released.’

  ‘Of course it has.’ She turned from Dulcie to the clerk. ‘It’s at the guard station. Would you?’

  While they waited, Ruby took Dulcie’s hands. ‘How are you? I didn’t get to ask. That must have been horrible.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Her friend’s concern warmed her. ‘It was pretty horrible. Especially because, you know, he and I – we had our differences.’

  She nodding, rolling her eyes back in exaggerated assent. ‘You and every other female on campus.’

  ‘He didn’t …’ She looked at Ruby, afraid to finish her question.

  ‘I’m not his type,’ she said, her voice dripping with an acid tone that Dulcie had never heard her use before. She looked at her friend. Ruby was big, queen-size at least. And a dark-skinned African American.

  ‘Malleable,’ said Ruby, answering the unspoken question. ‘I’m not the type to be easily cowed, especially by a bully like Fenderby. Though he had other ways of showing how he felt about us “little people”.’

  Dulcie noted the air quotes about the last two words and tamped down what she feared might be a size-ist response. ‘I don’t doubt it,’ she said, looking up at her friend. ‘He was hardly respectful to me.’

  ‘Disrespectful is the least of it.’

  ‘So it’s true?’ Dulcie caught herself. ‘I mean, I guess there were some complaints?’

  Ruby grimaced. ‘Not enough, if you ask me. The university has got to become more proactive about harassment. I mean, I understand innocent until proven guilty and the need for an investigation, but that man got away with—’ She stopped herself, both of them suddenly aware of what she was going to say.

  ‘Surely, even with all the bureaucracy, that wouldn’t be …’ Dulcie stumbled, unsure how to put her thoughts into words. ‘I mean, if he was that bad, surely somebody would have filed a complaint. And not …’

  Her friend shrugged. ‘I’d like to think so, but you hear things. I do know that none of us here liked him much.’ She paused. Dulcie didn’t dare ask. ‘Word was that the latest complaint against Fenderby was dismissed for lack of evidence. I heard it w
as classic “he said, she said”, although why any pretty undergrad would even bother making up stuff about such a gross lech as that is beyond my pay grade. What’s worse, I heard she was bound by some sort of confidentiality agreement. Because the case was dismissed, she can’t even talk about it, lest she ruin his reputation or something.’

  ‘How awful.’ Dulcie understood the principle. The application, however, seemed flawed at best. ‘That poor girl. Still, they can’t think that she – whoever she is …’

  ‘I don’t know,’ her friend said, before turning toward Dulcie. ‘So, he didn’t bother you in that way, did he?’

  ‘No.’ She thought of the overweight, sweating man and shuddered. ‘He was just— Did I tell you he was added to my committee?’

  Her friend grimaced. ‘I wonder whose idea that was?’

  ‘Thorpe, I think.’ Dulcie kept her voice down.

  ‘Wonder what Fenderby had over Thorpe?’ Ruby’s voice had also gone soft.

  Dulcie shook her head. She’d made her peace with her adviser, and the university gossip mill was always at work. ‘For me, it’s the opposite question,’ she said. ‘I can’t imagine why Fenderby would have wanted to work with me, when he thought so little of my scholarship.’

  Before she could go any further with that idea, though, the other clerk showed up with her bag.

  ‘Thanks.’ Dulcie beamed with sincere gratitude and, pulling off the paper tag with her name on it, lifted the flap that covered its main compartment. Her laptop, her yellow legal pad, the print-out of Fenderby’s awful letter. Even her pencil case – everything seemed to be in its proper place. By the time she checked the outer pocket and found her roll of laundry quarters intact, she realized she was breathing more easily than she had all day.

  ‘I wonder what they were looking for, anyway?’ She flipped the top closed, buckling it for good measure. Only then did she realize that the clerk had been standing there all along, and that both he and Ruby had been watching her go through her belongings.