by Clea Simon
Dulcie shrugged. She had not had any opinion of the new dean before this week. The one she was garnering now didn’t prompt her to jump to his defense.
Thomas Griddlehaus, perhaps emboldened by his confession, leaned in close again. ‘You were there,’ he said, his voice barely audible. ‘When they came by to search her materials, they told me.’
She nodded, unwilling to elaborate.
‘They told me you were questioned.’
Dulcie sighed. She wasn’t going to be able to avoid this. ‘I told the police everything I knew, which wasn’t much. They don’t know what happened, and I don’t know either. It could have been an accident . . .’ She heard her voice trail off and knew she hadn’t made a convincing case. That’s when it hit her. ‘Wait, you said – you said she was young. Too young. You met her? You got to meet Melinda Harquist?’
He nodded and glanced up. Dulcie didn’t think she was imagining the blush on his pale cheeks. ‘She wasn’t what I expected at all. Not after what I had heard, you know. She was, oh, younger. Prettier.’
So ‘Mellie Heartless’ had made another conquest. Dulcie waited, knowing the story would unfold.
‘She came by, you know. Yesterday, late in the morning. Only hours before . . .’
He blinked, and she resisted the urge to take his hand. Then, although they were alone, Griddlehaus leaned in as if afraid of being overheard.
‘She came here first, before she checked in,’ he said, his voice so soft she could barely hear. ‘She hadn’t even dropped her bags off, so I put them under the counter. She only had an hour, she told me. Then she was due at Dardley House. But she wanted to come here as soon as possible. She wanted to see –’ here he dropped his voice still further, and Dulcie had to lean in to hear him – ‘the fragments.’
Dulcie closed her eyes, letting the weight of the clerk’s words settle. ‘And she had time to read through them?’
Griddlehaus shrugged. ‘She didn’t take long. She seemed quite pleased with herself. But, Ms Schwartz?’ He looked up at her again, waiting.
‘Yes?’ Her own voice had gotten soft again.
‘She didn’t see any papers that you haven’t studied already. But she seemed to feel like she’d found just what she was looking for. She even said something out loud. I believe she said, “Proof!”’
TWENTY-ONE
She didn’t see any papers that you haven’t studied already. The clerk’s words were ringing in Dulcie’s ears as she made her way across the Yard. She said, ‘Proof!’
The implications made her head spin, and she paused in her walk. Around her, the campus was waking up. A gathering of freshmen plowed right by her, discussing the wild party they had attended at Kirkland House the night before, and Dulcie stepped off the path into the dappled shade of an oak to think. Proof! Proof in the papers that Dulcie had already read.
No wonder Melinda was – had been – a rising star, and Dulcie was still at work. There was something in those boxes, something she had overlooked. The question was: what? What had Melinda seen? And what had Dulcie missed?
She started to walk again, a little aimlessly. The day was once again fair, more summer than fall, and she had a lot on her mind. Maybe walking would help spark an idea. Help her uncover what she had missed. But as she passed the grey stone administration building, she realized it was hopeless. Without access to the Mildon, all she had were her dreams.
If only she had noticed something.
Or – she stopped short – maybe she had. Maybe she had noticed something and simply not realized its importance. She might not have that excerpt – and, no, she couldn’t keep blaming Chris for that – but she did have other notes. Before Thursday, before that one providential box of fragments, she’d had leads – inklings of what might be found. She’d made some notes to herself, then, she recalled, copied down with one of the Mildon-approved soft pencils. She remembered using a yellow legal pad – but not where she’d left it.
Standing in the shade of a towering oak, she searched her bag, hoping to see that pad. Hoping, if she did, that her notes wouldn’t be completely illegible. If only she had transcribed them, Dulcie thought with regret, moving her laptop to peer behind it. Then again, if she had, maybe they’d be lost too.
So where had she left those first, rough notes? Not in her carrel in the stacks of Widener. As a senior grad student, she had a lovely quiet space, but the molded desk and bookshelf, while great for study, was open to passers-by – not the kind of place to leave notes, even illegible ones. Home? No, after the fire that had prompted her move, Dulcie had been cautious about taking work home – and shy about cluttering up the apartment she and Chris shared. Then she remembered. The pad was in her bottom desk drawer in the basement office she shared with Lloyd. At least, she was pretty sure it was.
It had to be. She began to walk again – toward Memorial Hall and her office. And there had to be something in those notes. Something she’d missed before. She sped up, eager to get to the office. Some phrase. A reference or a word. And if she, Dulcie, could find it, she could make the proof that Melinda hadn’t had time to make.
‘Because she died, Dulcie.’ The voice stopped her in her tracks, and without thinking she turned around. A bright-eyed squirrel froze on the nearest tree, staring at her. ‘Because she was killed.’
‘I didn’t do it,’ she addressed the air. ‘It might have been an accident.’ The squirrel began twitching his tail and chattering to warn his fellows there was a predator around. ‘OK, Mr Grey. That was a cop-out, I know that. But would it be so bad if I profited from her discovery? I mean, I know her book will turn up, and it will probably still be published. But if she only just discovered the proof, she probably didn’t get a chance to write it in.’
‘Are you sure, Dulcie?’ The voice was gentle, but stern. ‘You’re making assumptions here, connecting factors as you see them. There may be a different perspective . . .’
The voice faded out, but Dulcie had taken the point. She didn’t think Melinda would have had a chance to change anything. Maybe she just wanted that to be so, though. She thought back and it hit her: There had been notes on that manuscript, handwritten in the margins in a distinctive, slanted style. Melinda was still clearly working on her book. Griddlehaus had said she’d been there yesterday morning. The day she’d been killed. Maybe she had already amended her manuscript to reflect her discovery in the library. Maybe she had already added a final, finishing touch.
‘No, I’m not assuming anything,’ she admitted. ‘I don’t have enough information.’ Suddenly all the drive drained out of her. If it weren’t for that squirrel, she’d have slumped against the tree. Instead, she sank to the ground and sat, cross-legged in the damp grass. ‘That’s the problem, Mr Grey. I don’t know what she knows, or what she was focusing on. That’s why I was going to talk to her.’
‘I know, little one. I know you didn’t mean her harm.’
‘Well, I was pretty angry,’ Dulcie confessed. Already she was feeling a little better. ‘And I did sneak in. I mean, the door was unlocked, but—’
‘You don’t have to explain, Dulcie. You never have to explain yourself to me.’
‘Thank you, Mr Grey.’ A thought rose in her mind, one she had put aside. ‘Mr Grey, would you tell me something? I thought, well, I thought you might warn me that something like this was going to happen. That you might, I don’t know, have let me know that someone was doing the same research I was. You know, give me a head’s up.’
‘So you could do what, little one? So you could have concerned yourself with her progress, rather than continuing your own research?’
Dulcie shrugged. ‘I don’t know – maybe.’
‘As if there is only one thesis to be written? Only a finite amount of research to be unearthed for publication?’
‘Well, not exactly.’ There was an edge to the voice, the touch of claws in the velvet fur. Something she wasn’t getting. ‘But it seems like she and I were doing such similar work.’
>
‘And then, perhaps, it might have been your thesis that disappeared.’ The voice was growing fainter now. ‘And your blood staining that carpet . . .’
So they were connected, and Mr Grey hadn’t warned her in order to protect her. Dulcie felt warmed, as well as warned, by her spectral pet’s concern. She also felt confused. What could be in that thesis that someone would kill for? No, the only answer would be to find out what it was that Melinda had discovered. Then she could decide what to do about it, what to do with it. Finding that clue was key.
TWENTY-TWO
As Dulcie made her way through the brick gate, her phone rang. She ignored it. It was too early to be Chris. While she hoped he’d stumbled home by now, Dulcie knew he’d be non-verbal till at least noon. Even Esmé seemed to know to let Chris sleep after his overnight shifts.
The phone rang again, but Dulcie just walked faster. She couldn’t afford to lose her focus now. Ten past ten and the student body was beginning to wake. As she began to make her way through the throngs at the entrance to the freshman union, she paused. With her ID, she could run in and grab a coffee – or even another hot cocoa. That was one advantage of having an office in the basement of the cavernous brick building. Then again, she might run into one of the students from her section. No, better to postpone the caffeine and get to work.
This time, the card reader worked, and Dulcie clattered happily down the stairs. Despite the crowd above, the hall of offices appeared deserted. However, a pale rectangle of light showed that her own office door was ajar.
She hesitated. The new security gate was supposed to be a safeguard, but really, how safe was it? Anybody could be lurking. Waiting for her to come down that dark hall and into the tiny office. Dulcie stood and listened, her own breath loud in her ears. Was that low rumble coming from upstairs? The sound of a hundred hungry freshmen? Was it, perhaps, a purr?
A peal of laughter interrupted her speculation, a particular hoot that Dulcie knew well. Raleigh, Lloyd’s girlfriend. For an elegant young woman – and the first-year grad student really was stunning, with a natural grace – Raleigh Hall had the most discordant laugh. Dulcie progressed toward the office with a light step. That laugh really was one of her favorite things about her former student.
‘Hey, kids,’ Dulcie called out as she pushed the door fully open. If she was hoping her announcement would give the couple time to recover from any potentially embarrassing scenarios, however, she needn’t have. Lloyd was sitting at his desk, and Raleigh was standing by the bookshelf, her warm brown hair highlighted in the sun from their one high-set window. But although she was still grinning, tears of laughter showing in the corner of her eyes, Lloyd was not.
‘Dulcie!’ Dulcie couldn’t tell if her office mate sounded surprised or relieved to see her. She looked to Raleigh, but the younger woman just shrugged and shook her head. ‘You’re . . . you’re OK.’
‘Of course I’m OK.’ Dulcie put her bag down on her own desk. ‘Wait,’ she turned to Raleigh. ‘You heard?’
‘Lloyd told me – and that the police took you away.’ Raleigh pulled up the office’s one guest chair and sat facing Dulcie. ‘We were afraid that you were somehow implicated. He told me about her book,’ she said, lowering her voice. ‘And how it might overlap with your thesis. But really . . . I mean, I haven’t started writing my thesis yet, but, well, the suggestion that you’d hurt someone because of it seems a little extreme.’
‘It’s more than just the thesis,’ Dulcie admitted and brought them up to speed. ‘The fact that her manuscript is missing is actually in my favor, I guess. I mean, when the cops questioned me, they went through my bag. I don’t know what they thought I would have done with it.’
‘Thrown it out a window?’ Lloyd suggested.
‘That’s actually a good idea. I wonder if the police checked.’ Dulcie toyed with the idea of calling Detective Rogovoy, then remembered her missed phone call. ‘Excuse me.’ Digging into her bag, she found her phone and clicked to see the origin of the last call: University Hall, home to most of the academic offices. Almost by reflex, she turned it off, shoving the small device back in her bag.
‘Bad news?’ Raleigh looked concerned.
‘Your mom?’ Lloyd knew something of Dulcie’s family life.
‘The dean,’ Dulcie confessed. ‘I just don’t want to talk to him right now.’ Her friends looked at each other then back at her. She hadn’t told them that Dean Haitner had wanted the police to press charges. ‘I found out something about Melinda’s research,’ she said instead. It was true. ‘Something she said to a clerk at the Mildon, and, well, I just wanted to get on it, you know?’
‘So you came here to work?’ Raleigh asked. Dulcie nodded and waited. Raleigh wasn’t one to repeat the obvious. ‘Well, maybe you didn’t.’
Lloyd and Dulcie both turned to her.
‘Maybe you left the Mildon but stayed in the stacks. In the library, your phone would have been turned off. You might be there all day.’
It was Lloyd’s turn to smile. ‘And we didn’t see you. You were never here, and we’ll swear to it. To anyone but Chris, that is.’
‘Thanks, you two.’ She smiled and reached for the drawer. ‘I’ll just grab my notes and be out of here.’ She opened the drawer and looked down into a mess. That wasn’t so odd. Dulcie knew that her habit of pulling the bottom drawer out to use as a foot rest meant that a lot of stray bits of paper – anything that fell off her desk, really – ended up in there. Even at her best, in the apartment with Chris, for example, she tended toward clutter. ‘Creative chaos,’ Lucy called it, largely, her daughter suspected, because she was the worst offender of all. And Dulcie knew that with two people, sometimes three, in a small space, things got knocked around.
Still, she reached in and pulled out her paper-clip holder with a slightly confused air.
‘Has anyone been in here?’ She replaced the black plastic cube in its usual spot on the desk corner. ‘Did the police search my desk or something?’
‘No, why?’ Lloyd looked worried now, his brow bunched into premature wrinkles. ‘Is something missing?’
‘I’m not sure.’ Dulcie dug down a bit, pulling out a loyalty card for Lala’s that she’d been sure had been in her purse. And another, for the coffee shop by her old apartment. Why would that be on the top of the drawer? Just as she was beginning to panic, though, she saw it. A yellow pad, the space between the green lines filled with slightly smudged hieroglyphics.
‘Never mind, I’ve got it.’ She sat up, holding her prize. ‘I guess my own mess is getting to me. And I should get to work.’
TWENTY-THREE
‘I may be messy,’ Dulcie said to herself as she unpacked her bag. ‘But I am not sloppy.’
It was with a great sense of relief that Dulcie unloaded her bag on to the molded desk top of her library carrel. Three floors down in the Widener stacks, with its strangely plastic surface and uncomfortable chair, this little study nook was known territory. Her space, she thought as she smoothed out the pads. Her bag, her notes, her carrel – every iteration of the possessive gave her a little sense of herself back. ‘It’s not that I’m a control freak,’ Dulcie explained to her pencil, as she lined it up next to the new rollerball pen she’d splurged on only a week before. ‘It’s just that I work better when I feel grounded.’
As she settled into that strangely formed chair, Dulcie waited for the slap. She knew she was stretching the truth a bit. However, when no swipe came – no hint of claws – she thought maybe her exaggeration had been forgiven. Besides, a cat should understand: after the last few days, maybe she was allowed to feel a little territorial.
‘Is that it, Mr Grey?’ She looked up over the edge of her carrel, but nothing appeared. ‘Or maybe it’s that I’m finally getting back to my thesis?’ The low whirring of the venting system seemed to grow a little louder, almost purr-like, and so she got to work.
The first thing, Dulcie decided, opening her laptop, was to transcribe these notes.
She’d made them a week or so earlier, after finding that printed page. She’d recognized the style right away. Known it for the missing work, but at the time she’d only filed the notes, knowing that the prize – something with attribution or written in the author’s own hand – was still ahead.
Now, looking at her own cramped handwriting and the soft lead of the pencil, she knew she’d be lucky to get through half of these. ‘Murder must oil,’ she read. ‘Be oiled?’ She squinted at the line, which had been made even more incomprehensible by the smudging of the lead. ‘Most foul,’ she decided finally. It wasn’t what she remembered, but it was the only sensible possibility.
‘Ded head?’ She’d underlined this. ‘Like, the Grateful Dead?’ The paper didn’t respond, and Dulcie realized she was muttering. Thoughts of the hippy demigods had Dulcie thinking of her mother. Lucy had done her best, Dulcie knew. Essentially a single mother, once Dulcie’s father had taken off on his ‘spirit quest’, Lucy had tried to reconcile her own spiritual needs with the practicalities of raising a growing child. She’d made a home for them, of sorts, in the commune, and although she never seemed to understand her daughter’s intellectual curiosity, she hadn’t tried to stem it either. Instead, she’d passed along the small library she had somehow retained from her own, more staid upbringing – most notably a beaten-up Riverside Shakespeare. And she’d gotten Dulcie a library card for whenever one of their small group went into town.
The only thing she had been adamant about was Dulcie’s preference for using her right hand. ‘You can’t be my daughter and be so left-brained,’ Lucy had scolded more than once. ‘You have the maven’s blood in you. It’s just not possible.’
Try as she might, however, from the first days of non-petroleum-byproduct based crumbly crayons onward, Dulcie simply couldn’t form the shapes she wanted unless she used her right hand. And now, she thought as she perused another incomprehensible line, she clearly didn’t do much better with her preferred hand, either.
