Grey Zone (20 page)

Dulcie continued to play with the kitten, but no other voice chimed in with Esmé's excited chirps and squeals. And so when the kitten ignored two tosses in a row, she gathered herself for her first errand of the day. It wasn't going to be easy, but she was going to get something out of Corkie. No matter what Rogovoy said, she was worried about Carrie Mines. The detective hadn't read that note. Besides, if there was some connection between the sophomore and the professor, and the professor really had been murdered, who knew what could happen? No, the police didn't have the whole story. Dulcie might not either, she admitted with a shrug. But she cared enough to get involved.

‘Hey, Corkie? I really need to speak with you as soon as possible.' Once she knew how important it was, Corkie would help her get to Carrie. ‘Would you call me?' Still feeling a little achy, Dulcie took the T the one stop into the Square. As she emerged, she saw two calls waiting.

The first was from Chris. ‘I hope you're sleeping, Dulcie Schwartz. You know what the doctor said. Well, call me.' She was tempted to do so right then, but made herself wait until she'd heard the second message.

Bingo! ‘Dulcie? It's Corkie. I'm around, if you want to talk. Call me?'

She hit redial as she walked toward the Yard. ‘Corkie? I'm so glad. I have something to tell you—'

‘I have something to tell you, too.' Dulcie stood, shocked temporarily silent. ‘Well, sort of. I'm in my dorm. Can you come by?'

Dulcie grunted something that must have sounded like assent and headed toward one of the undergraduate river houses.

‘Hey, Chris.' Dunster House was a good ten-minute walk. ‘I got your call.' The idea of her sweetheart being worried about her was warming, but honesty won out. ‘I am actually in the Square. I'm going to talk to Corkie, my tutee. She's the one who knows Carrie Mines. But you must be sleeping.' She paused to think. Chris had gotten Jerry to cover for him last night, so he could sit with her till the nurses kicked him out. ‘Or maybe you're working?'

His voicemail, being automated, didn't answer, and Dulcie hung up, hating herself for the flash of jealousy that had surged through her like electricity. And wondering where her boyfriend really was.

TWENTY-SEVEN

D
ulcie did her best to put thoughts of mysterious redheads out of her mind as she wound her way down toward the river. Dunster House had been her undergraduate home as well, and she and Suze had shared a small suite that overlooked the Charles, provided you stuck your head out the window and craned it to the left. Corkie's room was on the inside of the M-shaped building, overlooking a courtyard that, in a month or two, would be filled with frisbees and sunbathers. On this brisk morning, Dulcie was met instead by her sweater-clad student, worry lines creasing an obviously tired face.

‘Corkie, are you OK?' That wasn't how Dulcie meant to begin, but she'd never seen her student looking so frazzled. Even her customary bun was undone, and her brown hair hung lank down to her sagging shoulders.

‘Yeah.' For once, she didn't sound it. ‘Come in.'

Dulcie followed Corkie through a common room and into what was clearly Corkie's bedroom. With each step, her feelings of guilt grew heavier. Somehow, she must have found out what Dulcie had done.

‘Corkie, if I got you in trouble, I'm sorry. I should never have taken advantage like that.' Silence. ‘You probably looked into the folder right after I left, huh?'

‘What?' Corkie looked up, her face blank.

‘The note. The suicide note. I took it.' There, it was out. ‘It was wrong of me on so many levels, and I'm sorry.' Mr Grey would be proud.

Corkie, however, only seemed more confused. Dulcie wasn't sure what she expected: anger. Yelling. The throwing of small desktop items. Instead, her student simply kept looking at her, blinking occasionally.

‘The note?' She was stuck on repeat.

‘In Carrie's folder. You left, and I opened it. I saw it. It was a suicide note, wasn't it, Corkie?' The words poured out of her. ‘I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't have, but I thought it was a cry for help. And I've talked to the police. They don't understand. They don't even think she's “at risk,” or however they put it. I wanted them to know. To worry about her.'

She paused and looked at Corkie. ‘I was her teacher, Corkie. And I missed the danger signals. I let her go, Corkie. I let her down.'

‘You looked into Carrie Mines' folder?' Corkie repeated.

‘Well, yeah.' Confession made, Dulcie didn't have much more to add. ‘I'm sorry.' It was weak, but it was something.

‘That's such a breach—' Corkie paused, and Dulcie waited for the tirade to follow.

It didn't come. Instead, the big girl turned from her and walked over to a desk. ‘There are things,' she said, sitting in the desk chair, ‘that you don't understand.'

‘I know. I do.' Dulcie followed her, hoping to get her attention. ‘What I did was wrong.'

Corkie didn't turn. Instead, she stared straight ahead, as if the cork-board above her desk was more worthy of attention than Dulcie. ‘There's such a thing as privacy.' Corkie seemed transfixed, her eyes on a collection of headlines pinned in front of her. ‘For my work at Below the Stairs, I've had to learn about confidentiality. About how important it is to keep people's secrets, no matter what.'

Dulcie fidgeted, hoping her charge would turn. She didn't.

‘You're a teacher, Ms Schwartz. I thought you would understand that. But you don't, you don't understand, really, what is going on here.' Her eyes stayed fixed straight ahead. ‘I have been hoping that you would realize why confidentiality is vital to the work I do, even when I wish, I truly wish, I could say something.'

Maybe it was the change of tense, maybe it was something about Corkie's voice, but Dulcie's ears pricked up. ‘You're talking about
your
need for confidentiality?' Something was up.

‘Yes, I am.' Corkie emphasized each word. It sounded unnatural. ‘I am obligated not to repeat or reveal anything about the students who come to see me.'

She knows, Dulcie thought. She wanted me to find that note. Not – she quickly corrected herself – that what I did was right, by any means. ‘I understand.' She was excited, but she tried to sound contrite.

‘Do you?' Corkie swung around to face her teacher, and Dulcie was struck again by how tired her student looked. Her bright blue eyes shadowed, and wide mouth set grim. ‘Do you really?'

With that, Corkie turned once again to stare at the board in front of her. Only then did Dulcie think to read what Corkie had pinned up there.
Sexual Harassment and its Effect on Undergraduate Life
, read one headline.
When a Teacher Touches
read another.
What is Consent?
a third.

‘Dear Goddess.' Dulcie swallowed the words. This was why Corkie had agreed to see her. To show her what she couldn't say. Carrie was being victimized by one of her teachers. No wonder the poor girl was suicidal. ‘You can't say anything, Corkie. I understand that. But I'm a teacher, too. And it's my responsibility to see that this is stopped.'

Dulcie knew she couldn't ask for any more details. Corkie had already pushed her own responsibilities as far as she dared, and so Dulcie took her leave. Poor Carrie. It should have been obvious: her erratic record. Her disappearance. At least, Dulcie realized as she made her way back to the Square, whatever had happened had not been directly her fault. She certainly hadn't made any inappropriate moves on the girl, when she'd had her in English 10. And then it hit her. Corkie's next section leader. The one who had already been taken into questioning. It was her friend and colleague: Dimitri.

As she walked, her suspicions grew. Dimitri had ended up with Carrie as his student. Dimitri had been absent the morning that Carrie had been declared missing. And Dimitri seemed to have strong opinions about her. Maybe it
had
been Dimitri arguing with Carrie the night before she disappeared. The police wouldn't have taken him in for questioning without some reason, right?

‘This is horrible.' She stopped to gather her thoughts and found herself staring at a squirrel that had been digging at the base of a scrawny maple. What did she know about her colleague anyway? Dimitri seemed like a nice guy, a serious scholar despite his offbeat area of interest. Not the sort to get involved with an undergraduate.

But so was Lloyd, the thought crept in as the squirrel stopped and stared back. Lloyd, her office mate, was one of the gentlest, most studious men she knew. But he was dating an undergraduate, in defiance of university rules.

Dating, not harassing. The squirrel didn't say that, exactly, but looking at its bright eyes, Dulcie found herself compelled to argue. ‘And what exactly is the difference between an unethical courtship and sexual harassment?' In Lloyd's case, she thought she knew. Although neither would admit it, Dulcie was pretty sure that the sexy, confident Raleigh had been the aggressor, wearing down the older graduate student's resolve. Besides, Lloyd and Raleigh had become involved before Raleigh had switched her major into Lloyd's – and Dulcie's – field.

But would it always be that clear? Could Dimitri have overstepped, perhaps as much the victim of some cultural misunderstanding?

No, the little squirrel seemed to say. No matter how you slice it, a person in authority who hits on an undergrad is responsible. Carrie is the victim, not the man who hit on her. And with that, it leaped twice its height and disappeared up the maple.

TWENTY-EIGHT

D
ulcie was so caught up in her own thoughts that when she first heard a phone ringing, she didn't recognize what it was.

‘So annoying,' she muttered. She was sitting at the counter at the Coffee Connection, trying to think. Somehow, the idea of her office – where she might encounter Lloyd – did not appeal just now. ‘Cell phones.'

It was only when the older woman sitting across from her raised her eyebrows and the girl to her right started to giggle that Dulcie realized that she was the source of the intrusive ring. With a shamefaced shrug, she dug her phone out of her bag and immediately regretted it. Chelowski was on the line.

But just as she moved to toss the little phone back in her bag, a stray thought stopped her. She had decided to set things right today. And as annoying as Norm Chelowski might be, he was doing his best for her as an adviser. An ethical, serious thesis adviser.

With a sigh, she flipped the phone on. Across from her, the older woman smiled and nodded, and for a moment Dulcie thought of Lucy. Not taking phone calls would be considered very bad karma.

‘Mr Chelowski?' Dulcie waited, dreading what was to come. But the voice on the other end of the line was pleasantness itself.

‘Ms Schwartz, so glad I reached you!' Dulcie found herself breathing again. ‘I was thinking that perhaps, with one thing and another, I had been too hard on you the other day. It's very easy for us to lose our way, and I should know that more than anyone else. I thought perhaps it would help if I told you my own story.'

This was such an about face, Dulcie almost laughed. Maybe it wasn't that strange: here she was, worrying about the obligations of a teacher, and her adviser had been doing the same. As Chelowski rattled on about a mistaken attribution – ‘truly careless, but it cost me six months' work' – Dulcie found her mood restored. To the point that when two loud undergrads crowded in, she moved over without being asked, giving up the prime window seat.

‘So, sometimes mistakes, or should I say “digressions,” really help us find our proper path.'

That was her opening. ‘I'm so glad you told me that, Mr Chelowski.' She could only hope she wouldn't be quizzed on the details. ‘Because I've had a realization of my own. You were right about my author. I can't know what happened to her. Maybe nobody ever will.' It hurt to say that, but it felt good, too. It was over. Done. And besides, she had something to fall back on. ‘And my original thesis idea, focusing on the revelations to be found in the speeches, was a good one,' she said.

Chelowski must have picked up on the note of defensiveness that had crept into her voice. ‘Yes, it is,' he said, his own voice sounding a bit smug. ‘A perfectly adequate topic for a doctoral thesis. A perfectly
good
idea, I mean.'

Dulcie winced and was grateful that her adviser couldn't see her. ‘I'm glad you're going to stick with it. Too many students overreach, you know, trying to say too much. Stick with what you know, Ms Schwartz. That's how to advance in academia.'

Dulcie caught her breath. Did he hear himself? Beside her, the undergrads were talking about a midterm. Probably math. Something about a proof, about how the proof didn't necessarily work.

‘With what I can prove, anyway,' Dulcie improvised. She wasn't going to give up, but she would start writing and she needed Chelowski to file a favorable report.

It worked. ‘Provenance, exactly.' His voice had an unctuous happy quality. ‘It's all about ownership, really.'

‘I understand,' she said. ‘It's all about understanding what I read.'

She needed to get him off the phone before he dug himself in further. She needed to be able to respect him, at least a little. But as she did, her own words haunted her. Understand? What did she understand? Chelowski had been urging her to stick with her literary theory about
The Ravages
, a theory for which she had ample proof: Hermetria was a stand-in for the author, the duplicitous Demetria the voice of convention. She drained her mug and stood to leave. But some other thought was niggling away at the back of her brain. What was it? Had she understood everything else she had been reading lately?

Had she understood Carrie's note?

This has to stop
, it said, in block letters – the kind people use when they want to stress their seriousness. When they want to make a point. But who had wanted to make that point, and to whom was that note addressed?