True Grey

by Clea Simon

  ‘Watch it!’ Her reverie was broken by the yell and the subsequent clatter as a white-clad worker knocked a metal steam tray over. Another aproned man came running with a mop, and Dulcie sped up her own pace, crossing the wide dining hall to the small private room that opened off its far corner.

  ‘Ms Schwartz!’ Thalia, teacup in hand, stood in the doorway, eyes shining behind those large glasses. ‘I’m so glad you’re here. I was thinking about the reading, and—’

  ‘That’s great.’ Dulcie cut her off. ‘I’m glad to hear it.’ She brushed by the eager student into the room, leaving her open-mouthed in astonishment.

  ‘Cookie?’ An older woman, obviously a motherly type, was holding out a silver tray. Dulcie smiled and took one, just to be polite. ‘I’m Lynn Crawford,’ the woman said. ‘Co-master of Dardley House.’

  ‘Dulcie Schwartz,’ Dulcie introduced herself. ‘I teach the English 10 section on Saturdays.’

  ‘Lovely,’ the matron beamed. ‘I’m so glad when teaching fellows come by. We want to foster an atmosphere of congeniality and mutual learning.’

  Dulcie was saved from having to respond by an arm. Reaching between her and the tray, it grabbed several cookies and forced her to step back as the house co-master turned toward the eager eater. Undergrads, Dulcie thought, nibbling on her own cookie. If only they were as insatiable about their reading lists.

  Under the guise, not entirely fake, of looking for a napkin, Dulcie made her way around the crowded room. It had seemed odd, almost off-putting, that the co-master had been so jolly. ‘Atmosphere of congeniality?’ When a visiting scholar had been killed right across the courtyard? Now, as she made her way through the milling students – careful never to step between them and the table, which held slices of pound cake and what looked like pfefferneusse, she began to understand. For the residents of Dardley House, life went on. Melinda Harquist had been a stranger, a temporary visitor to their college residence. The masters’ job was to make that residence feel like a home, albeit a temporary one, and if that meant piling on the cheer and sugar, so be it. Dulcie was in no danger of forgetting what had happened, or why she was here this afternoon. If only she could find Andrew and talk to him, then maybe she could enjoy the gathering. She would even be willing to chat about the assignment with Thalia, she decided. If only the tall sophomore would show up.

  She had just about made a circuit of the crowded room when a burst of laughter caught her attention. A knot of tall men – rowers, by the looks of them – were crowded around an open doorway. The party must have flowed over into the masters’ residence, she realized, and made her way up to the door.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said. They were laughing and didn’t hear her, and so she reached up to one sweat-shirted arm. ‘Excuse—’

  There, she saw him. As tall as the jocks in the doorway, if a little thinner, Andrew stood over by the far wall of the next room. This would be perfect, she realized. Despite, or perhaps because of, the knot of muscle whooping it up in the doorway, the smaller room looked fairly empty. Where Andrew was standing, leaning against a bookcase, would be almost private, cut off from the main party by the laughter of the jocks.

  She put her hand on a muscle-bound arm. ‘May I?’ Then she caught herself. As the jock had turned toward her, she had gotten a better view of the room beyond. Andrew was there for a reason. He was leaning forward, apparently in deep conversation with a dark-haired woman whose back was toward Dulcie.

  Could it be? Yes, Andrew nodded and ran his hand through his long, sun-bleached hair, a gesture Dulcie had seen him do often in class. The woman looked up – Darlene. For a moment, Dulcie was puzzled. Darlene was a graduate student, not a Dardley resident. And any sections she might teach would be in the computer lab, like Chris’s.

  Then it hit her: Rafe. Darlene was probably often around the house because of her boyfriend. It would make sense that she’d know some of the undergraduates, at least well enough to chat with them at a social event. All Dulcie had to do was wait until she’d moved on, and then she could buttonhole Andrew for a tête-à-tête.

  As soon as the thought was formed, she saw Darlene turn and step away. The jocks had returned to their discussion, a little less boisterous than before. But the big one in the sweatshirt had shifted so as not to entirely block the doorway, and Dulcie began to sidle by him, then stopped.

  Darlene was walking to the front of the room, to where an oversized potted plant was soaking up the last of the afternoon sun. And there, standing in the bay window, was her beau, Rafe Hutchins, the senior tutor of Dardley House.

  This was a dilemma. For all Dulcie knew, Lloyd had already called his friend. They probably wouldn’t have had a chance to talk yet, but Lloyd may have initiated a conversation. And if he had, he very well might have said he wanted to talk about what had happened, specifically as it affected Dulcie. Lloyd, bless him, was not a great one for subterfuge, and Dulcie hadn’t told him her suspicions about his friend. At the time, she’d worried that she was being unfair, and then she hadn’t had time to properly explain. Right now, though, that reticence seemed like a mistake.

  Dulcie surveyed the room. Andrew was still leaning against the bookcase, apparently deep in thought. Darlene – she could see – was almost behind the rubber tree. If she and Rafe retreated any further – into the window seat or to another, more private room – she could still grab Andrew. As they stood now, she would feel too exposed. If only she knew for sure where Rafe stood, or if Lloyd had said anything to his friend.

  Just then Andrew looked up. Darlene was calling to him. Dulcie couldn’t hear what the black girl said, as the jocks had gotten loud again. But she could see her raised arm, hailing the undergrad – and Andrew went over. Between two of the jocks, Dulcie could see his back, standing next to Darlene. Light and dark, both tall and lean, they seemed still, as if listening to someone – to Rafe.

  She had to know what was being said.

  The crowd of jocks was laughing again, and Dulcie had the strange sense of being a tiny animal on the veldt. An antelope, maybe, something vulnerable, hovering for protection on the edges of a herd of elephants. But if they were shielding her now, they were also obscuring her view of the trio in the window, their laughter covering up any conversation that might concern her.

  Excusing herself, she made to pass by one of the large young men. He turned, startled, as she squeezed under his arm, but she didn’t want to walk straight into the center of the room. Hugging the wall, she felt a little less obtrusive, and luckily the large young man didn’t do much else beyond glance down at her. If she could make her way up to the potted plant, she might be able to hear what was being said. At least then she would have some idea of how to proceed.

  ‘That manuscript . . .’ The voice, deep and masculine. It had to be Rafe. Or, no, wait, Andrew was speaking. ‘Before it went missing . . .’ Another explosion of laughter from the rowers drowned out the rest. Andrew looked up, the jocks were so loud, and Dulcie flattened herself against the bookcase, grateful for once to be short.

  ‘But what about—?’ Darlene was asking a question. Dulcie leaned in again, desperate to hear more. ‘. . . looking for it,’ was all she got.

  The clot of rowers was getting boisterous again, and it was at least a minute before Dulcie could hear any more. When Rafe’s voice, a little softer than Andrew’s, finally cut through, it chilled her to the bone.

  ‘They’re asking,’ she heard him say. ‘Asking everyone about Dulcie Schwartz.’

  Dulcie froze, stuck to the spot by the sound of her own name, but her mind was racing. She imagined herself breaking in, demanding to know who was asking about her – and why. Then she remembered that she was under investigation. The charges might be unfair, but the process was legitimate. The tutor could simply be talking about the academic probation committee, and while Dulcie might wish he had more discretion, she had no right to demand it. Then again, if Rafe had been the one to really steal the manuscript—

  Her thought
s were broken by a loud ringing, like an old landline phone. Her phone, with the volume apparently set on high. Andrew looked around, and Dulcie squatted to the floor as she reached inside her bag, fumbling to silence the offending device. The jocks burst out in laughter again, and Andrew’s gaze went to them – and stayed about three feet above Dulcie’s head. He turned back to the conversation almost immediately, but it took Dulcie several minutes before she stopped shaking enough to stand. When she could, she edged her way back down the wall, her head bowed, and managed to work her way behind the knot of jocks and out to the dining hall.

  She didn’t stop until she had crossed the courtyard and hurried – still walking, but as fast as she could manage – out of the house’s main entrance. Down the long pedestrian way and around a corner. Only then did she collapse against a fence, panting with fear. This was making her crazy. She had to give it up. She was innocent; she should let the investigation take its course. She would, at the very least, hear what Chris had to say before she did anything else.

  Thinking of her boyfriend, she reached for her phone. Maybe she should offer to shop. She certainly wasn’t going to do anything else productive today. But when she checked her missed calls, she saw that two had come in. One from the police, again: Detective Rogovoy. Well, it was Sunday, surely tomorrow would be soon enough. The more recent one had been from Chris.

  With a sigh of relief, she punched in the code. Of all the people who could have called, this was the best.

  ‘Hey, Dulce, it’s me.’ His voice warmed her, and she realized how much she was looking forward to seeing him soon. ‘I’ve got some bad news, I’m afraid. I can’t do dinner tonight and, well, I’ve got to work straight through.’ His voice paused, giving his words a moment to sink in. ‘Darlene was supposed to do a double shift, but she’s gotten called away. Some emergency, I gather. I’m sorry, Dulcie. I know you’ve had a rough couple of days. But this isn’t negotiable. She’s on some kind of special assignment, she said. Something that’s all rush-rush and top secret for Dean Haitner.’

  TWENTY-NINE

  ‘The essential ichor besmirched his raven locks. All life, all essence, lay there, turned now to cooling mass.’ Dulcie looked from the excerpt to her own note: ‘Cooling mass? Ick!’

  Back at the apartment that evening, alone, Dulcie had decided to try to work – at least a little. But even as she read through her notes, she found herself concentrating on what wasn’t there, wishing she had copied down more and kept her editorializing in check. ‘What was I thinking, Esmé? It’s bad enough I don’t have access to the manuscript. Why couldn’t I have at least copied out the page from the printed book?’ The cat, whose back was pressed up against Dulcie on the sofa, didn’t respond.

  ‘As black as sable, his lifeless head lay upon the carpet.’ Why she’d written that down, she had no idea. Might as well have written ‘as black as Esmé’s back’. She stroked her feline friend until a soft purr started up. One yawn – a white bootie stretching out for a pink-toed yawn – and the gentle rumble subsided. Esmé was asleep.

  Dulcie watched her for a moment, the epitome of peace. If only her own slumber could be so undisturbed. Or maybe it wasn’t: as she watched, Esmé’s pink nose twitched and one front paw flicked, as if in a dream.

  What did cats dream about? Dulcie watched her pet stretch slightly and settle more on her stomach. She looked almost like an all-black cat from this angle. Even the pink of her nose was hidden.

  Color. Did cats dream in color? In her own night-time re-imagining, the victim had had red hair, the ‘red-gold’ of the handwritten manuscript rather than the ‘raven’ black of the printed version.

  But there was something else, too. Dulcie turned from her too-brief notes on the book’s page to the few she’d jotted down about her dream. ‘Her own raven curls descended, shielding her face from the inquisitive light.’ That was how the dream had started, as if narrated from the author’s own writing. Now Dulcie read aloud to the cat, who blinked at her sleepily. ‘Black as raven’s wings,’ she’d written. ‘Black as Melinda’s,’ she added, and then fell silent as her eyes moved on to the next passage. She must have been half awake by this part of the dream. All she had were vague memories of a chase. She’d jotted down a few impressions: the heroine was assumed to be the killer, though clearly she had been set up—

  ‘Wait.’ Dulcie sat up, causing Esmé to jump to the floor in disgust. Dulcie barely noticed: this was getting too close for comfort. This was her nightmare. It might also be a dramatization of a crucial scene from the missing novel. But it was also what had happened – what was happening – to her. And for all that she’d always felt a connection to this author, ‘her’ author as she’d always thought of her, finding herself stuck in one of her more lurid plots was not fun.

  If only she hadn’t gone up to the visiting scholar’s suite. If only she’d taken better notes.

  Dulcie slumped back on the sofa and, in lieu of the cat, reached for the bag of Chips Ahoy. She’d picked it up in Central Square hours before, while waiting for her takeout order of dun dun noodles at Mary Chung’s. Sunday wasn’t her usual night for Chinese, but the woman who had taken her order hadn’t seemed to mind, only smiling ever so slightly when Dulcie tacked on a suan la chow show and some stir-fried pea-pod stems for balance.

  She’d called Chris first, in the vain hope that she’d misunderstood his message. When he worked the overnight, he still got to hang around for dinner. Her boyfriend sounded like she felt as he’d explained that, no, this was a particularly full night. Darlene had signed on for an open house, which meant answering questions from undergrads who, especially this early in the semester, had no idea how to maneuver around the university system. That ran till ten, and then the overnight shift kicked in.

  ‘At least it’s money, Dulce,’ he’d said sadly. ‘Maybe I can take you out next week?’

  ‘Maybe,’ she’d responded, sinking into her own slough of despond. ‘Hey, what say I come by?’ She often dropped in when he was working the overnight. It could be a lonely shift, and they both could use the company.

  ‘I don’t know, Dulce.’ His voice sank even more. ‘You know how September is. I’ve barely had time to breathe. I don’t think I’ll get to any of my own work till at least two. Speaking of, I should go.’

  ‘OK then.’ In the background, she heard her boyfriend greeting someone and inviting him or her to pull up a chair. ‘Talk to you later.’

  ‘See you.’ And that was that. His sign-off, she knew, was simply a sign of the craziness around him, but she felt it like a cold wind. Dinner and comfort had turned to the faintest of farewells. She hadn’t, she realized too late, even told him what was going on. That was when she’d called in her takeout order, and ducked into the convenience store next door for the chocolate chip cookies. She hadn’t even waited to get home before she’d pulled the bag open.

  Now, three hours later, noodles and cookies were all gone. Dulcie was trying to make sense of her notes – and nursing a touch of indigestion. And her author seemed intent on switching things around, not to mention invading her dreams.

  ‘Red hair, black hair,’ Dulcie pulled the earlier note back to her and reread it. ‘Why did I write this down? What does it even mean?’

  For lack of another cookie, she started playing with one of her own curls, stopping herself just as she was about to start chewing on its end. The summer sun had left it coppery, Dulcie noted, pulling one ringlet in front of her eyes. Still, it was a far cry from the red-gold that Lucy thought it should be. The color of a real heroine. Or, she noted, of this victim. Maybe she ought to be grateful. Maybe—

  ‘Esmé, please!’ Just in time, Dulcie grabbed the lamp. Fully rested, Esmé had begun to careen around the living room like a rubber ball. ‘What is it with you?’

  ‘Mrrow?’ As if in response, the little tuxedo cat turned and mewed, looking up into Dulcie’s face as if she expected an answer.

  ‘Look, I know you can talk.’ Dulcie resett
led the lamp and reached to haul the cat up into her lap.

  ‘Nnnow!’ Those white feet kicked out, scratching Dulcie’s outstretched hand, and Dulcie dropped her.

  ‘Ow.’ Dulcie shook her hand as Esmé bounded away. A thin red line had appeared along the ball of her thumb. ‘Esmé, can’t you play nicely? I’ve had a hell of a day.’

  ‘Wow.’ The sound, coming as it did from the kitchen, sounded almost apologetic, and Dulcie smiled.

  ‘That’s OK, kitty. I was just trying to make sense of my notes, and, well, there may just be no sense to be had here. I mean, why would I dream that the victim was a redhead when I had only read the final version, where his hair is black? Is this all just because of Melinda – and Lucy? And if it is . . .’

  It took a bit of sorting. Lucy would say that she had sensed the author’s original intent, that Dulcie had known the story had first been written with a red-haired victim in mind – and that her discovery of the manuscript page proved that. Then again, if Dulcie hadn’t found that page, Lucy would undoubtedly have some other perfectly implausible explanation. Like maybe Dulcie had made the victim a redhead – like Lucy, like all the women in her family – because in her dream state she sensed that she, Dulcie, was somehow involved. Knowing Lucy, she would probably also be quite confident that it was more than an accident that Dulcie had been the one to come across the body. Either way, to her mother Dulcie’s dreams always tended to prove that some form of psychic ability did run in the family.

  ‘Like red – well, reddish – hair,’ Dulcie said out loud. ‘No, that’s crazy.’ Hearing your cats’ voices was one thing. That was because of the strong connection she had had with Mr Grey, Dulcie had decided long ago. And Esmé? Well, in some way, Mr Grey had chosen the little tuxedo kitten to be his successor. It made sense that she could talk. When she wanted to, that is.