Grey Zone (26 page)

But she had her own ‘restless spirits' to worry about, and so a little before seven she packed up her notes and her books, and headed for the door. If she couldn't decipher the puzzling disappearance of the anonymous author, maybe she could solve her own little mystery.

The thought cheered her as she made her way down the steps, careful to hold the wooden handrails that had been added for winter safety. March in New England never seemed like spring to Dulcie, and now that the sun had set, the cold may as well have come fresh from February first.

Safely on solid ground, she checked her phone for messages and was pleased to see three.

‘Mercury in retrograde again.' The first was from Lucy and started, as usual, in mid-thought. ‘I should have checked, really I should have. Darling? Merlin had to point it out to me. I've been reading it wrong. Well, actually he said
we've
been reading it wrong, but I think that's just an inter-species communication glitch.'

Dulcie smiled. Her poor mother. Lucy had probably been racked with guilt about that upside-down card. ‘At any rate, as soon as I heard that, I knew it was imperative to call you and let you know. We've been reading it wrong, dear.'

‘Hey, sweetie!' Chris was the next call. ‘Good to hear you're feeling better. And, yeah, the People's Republik. Jerry wants me to come, too. I've got a dinner meeting with a student, but I'll try to get over there by ten. Call me!'

A dinner meeting? He'd
try
to make it? Dulcie's mood flew off with her hat, as the wind gusted through the Yard, and she gave chase.

‘Here you go.' A hand reached to steady her as she slipped on an icy patch. She looked up at the wool-draped figure as he handed her hat. ‘It flew right at me.'

The face was familiar, but wrapped around in a tan scarf, she couldn't place it.

‘Dulcie?' A mittened hand pushed the scarf back to reveal Merv's scarlet hair.

‘Oh, hi.' She took her hat and started to shrink away.

‘No, please. I'm sorry.' He looked down, as if searching for more ice. ‘I'm sorry about how I acted before. Talking about Carrie got to me.'

‘No, really. I was totally in the wrong. I mean, I'd gone into that office.' She paused. ‘But I didn't break the police seal. Really, I wouldn't have.'

‘No, I believe you. And I have my suspicions about who else might have been in there.' Dulcie waited, but he changed tack instead. ‘Hey, are you doing anything tonight?'

She shrugged. ‘A bunch of us are going to the People's Republik.' It was the truth. And if Chris couldn't make the time for her, there was no reason she couldn't enjoy some congenial company. ‘Would you like to join us?'

‘That sounds like fun.' He was smiling quite broadly now. ‘I'll see you there!'

Dulcie smiled back, noting that this man didn't qualify his acceptance with a ‘try.'

‘Ciao,' she called after him. And, tucking her hair back under her hat, tried to ignore the bite of the wind, a bite as sharp as teeth.

THIRTY-SIX

D
ulcie went back to her voicemail with trepidation. If Chris had called back, she could still run after Merv, she promised herself. Run after him and say what? Tell him that she wanted him to meet her boyfriend? Shaking her head at her own silliness, she punched in the code.

‘Just me.' It was Trista. ‘I know you said you'd come tonight, but I really hope you do. I could use a friend.' That was it.

The delay had been just long enough for her to have missed one more call. From Corkie. ‘Dulcie, I'm sorry. I can explain. It's all gotten so crazy, really. Please, don't do anything. Not yet.'

When Dulcie pressed the code for a redial, the call went straight to voicemail. Corkie was in the wind.

‘It doesn't mean anything,' Dulcie said to Esmé as soon as she got home. ‘It
is
Saturday night, and Corkie is a young, single woman.' She'd been about to add ‘healthy.' But Corkie didn't look healthy any more. Hadn't in a while. Of course, that
could
be because of her busy schedule.

‘I'm not sure they should allow undergraduates to work with other undergrads, Esmé.' She hung her coat up and looked down at the little cat. ‘I mean, they've got enough on their plate, as it is.'

In response, Esmé reared up on her hind legs, batted at Dulcie's foot, and darted away.

‘You two look cozy.'

Dulcie woke with a start to find Suze looking over her. She'd fallen asleep on the sofa, with the kitten on her lap. ‘We were playing.' She blinked and yawned. Esmé did the same. ‘I think you were right. Esmé needed some quality time. After all, she can't learn how to behave properly if I don't teach her.'

Suze looked around, and Dulcie became aware of the wadded-up balls of paper that littered the living room. ‘So, this is what you're teaching her?' There was a smile in her voice, but Dulcie couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed.

‘I'm trying to help her find her way. After all, isn't that what a teacher is supposed to do?'

Suze didn't answer, and Dulcie lifted the little cat to follow her into the kitchen. ‘Do you and Ariano have plans tonight?'

‘He's working.' Suze's voice came back from deep within the fridge. ‘Do you know when this yogurt is from?'

‘The Pleistocene?' The ancient leftovers sparked an idea. ‘Hey, a bunch of us are meeting at the Republik later, but their menu is pretty horrible. What say we go to Mary Chung first? It's been ages.'

Suze closed the refrigerator with a definitive thud. ‘Girls' night out? Definitely. Shall we ask Esmé?'

But the little kitten remained out like a light, dreaming no doubt of flying paper and her own successful hunt.

‘So, you think maybe Chelowski has been abusing a student?'

Over dumplings, the idea sounded absurd. But Dulcie nodded gravely. ‘Or Dimitri. Or –' she paused to spear another bit of stuffed dough – ‘maybe Herschoft. But if that was the case, then why isn't this all over already? Why wouldn't Carrie have come out of hiding?'

Suze dipped her own dumpling as she considered the question. ‘The after-effects of that kind of abuse can be strange. I mean, she might feel guilty. If she feels her actions motivated his suicide, she might feel responsible somehow.'

‘But Rogovoy said it wasn't suicide.'

Suze paused, dumpling in mid-air, and Dulcie realized that this latest bombshell wasn't yet common knowledge. It also reminded her of how long it had been since she and Suze had talked. As quickly as she could, she brought her room-mate up to speed. And Suze, in turn, explained that homicide did indeed equate to murder: ‘the deliberate and intentional killing of another person.'

When they were done, Suze was on her last dumpling. ‘So, could Carrie have killed him?'

Dulcie shook her head. ‘No, she had an appointment that day, but it was canceled.'

‘I wonder if she went anyway.' Suze chewed thoughtfully. ‘What if that note was her way of breaking it off? Maybe he didn't accept it. Maybe she pushed him?'

These were all the questions Dulcie had been asking herself. The trouble was, none of it made sense once Corkie was figured in. She hadn't told Suze about following Corkie to the building. She hadn't told anyone. The dumplings turned to lead in Dulcie's stomach.

But Suze was still talking: ‘You need to find out why the police think it was homicide. No, what am I saying? You don't need to do anything. You've reached out to a missing student as well as you can. You're talking to your current student. You're finally writing. Don't mess it up, Dulcie. Really.'

‘I don't know, Suze. I can't help but feel that I already have.'

THIRTY-SEVEN

S
uze begged off the People's Republik, but Dulcie, despite feeling somewhat overstuffed, made herself head out again. She'd all but promised Trista. She had questions that needed answers. And if only Chris would show up . . . She paused, remembering her earlier actions. Well, maybe it would be good for Chris to see that she had other options. If he showed up, that was.

With a sigh to match the gusting wind, she shoved the pub's heavy front door open and stepped inside. The People's Republik wasn't much to look at. One long room, with a bar down the middle and some tables on either side. Over to the right, space had been cleared for darts, and that was where Dulcie looked first. Trista, among her other skills, was the dart champion among the humanities grad students, and the English department was justly proud of her.

But no cheers or shouts of dismay could be heard over the jukebox, and even as Dulcie's eyes adjusted to the light, she could see no sign of Trista's bleached blonde shag. Instead, she headed toward the left side of the bar, where she found a small group huddled at one end of a large table.

‘Hey, guys.' Dulcie shed her coat and looked around. Jamie, who specialized in the English renaissance and rather looked the part in his velvet jacket, sat by Molly, a modernist, whom Dulcie didn't know well. Lloyd was coming back from the men's room as she flung her coat over a chair. As he greeted her, his smile grew, and Dulcie turned around to see Raleigh making her way over behind her. Among this crowd, everyone appeared to have accepted her relationship with Lloyd, partly because the pretty senior could hold her own with any of the grad students. Still, Dulcie felt more uneasy than usual as she smiled at her friends. It was so easy to overstep, and so difficult to know where one really had to draw the line.

‘Dulcie! Good to see you!' Jerry came over from the bar, two pitchers of beer in his hands. Dulcie turned, but when she saw how his face lit up, Dulcie knew it wasn't simply for her.

‘Trista here yet?' she asked before he could.

‘She's not with you?' Jerry set the pitchers down, but not before Dulcie could see his face fall.

‘She told me she'd be here,' Dulcie noted with irony. She'd been wondering if she could ask him about Chris. ‘But don't worry. I'll translate until she gets here.'

She was making light. Despite their math backgrounds, Jerry and Chris had both been absorbed into the English department crowd. Dulcie had long seen that as confirmation of their solidity, the rightness of their stature as couples. But if Jerry and Trista could break up, it only made sense that she and Chris could, too.

‘Thanks.' Jerry smiled, a closed-mouth smile, and poured her a mug. Molly and Lloyd were going on about grading. Dulcie listened in: Martin Thorpe tended to get overwhelmed by bureaucracy, and from what these two were saying that meant this semester he had screwed up some university deadlines.

‘What's this?' Dulcie leaned in for the details.

‘Didn't you hear?' Molly looked up, clearly exasperated. ‘I don't know what's wrong with him. It's all online, for Christ's sake.'

Dulcie couldn't help but chuckle. To the students, the Web was an easy alternative. To an old-timer like Thorpe, it was another world.

‘It's also in the university calendar.' Lloyd didn't sound like he wanted to defend their acting chairman. ‘And now it falls on us.'

‘What?' Dulcie was definitely missing something.

‘All the midterm reports – grades, student evaluations, you name it – are due next week. Not March 31. Or – when did he first tell us? – April 15.'

‘The ides of April!' Dimitri had come up behind Dulcie and pulled up a chair. ‘Who is being killed?'

‘Thorpe should be.' Molly was shaking her head.

‘Oh, it's not that bad.' Dulcie wanted to get Dimitri alone, but this affected all of them. ‘I mean, we're all supposed to be just about done with grading, right?' In the back of her mind, she tried to count the ungraded blue books. There couldn't be more than sixteen left, could there?

‘Midterms, sure.' Molly sniffed. ‘I turned mine in last week. But this is also evaluations. All the reports on students on probation, and all that.'

‘Huh.' Dulcie tried not to hate Molly for her efficiency and found herself wondering: ‘Status reports? Like, on students who've just come back?' She would pass Corkie, no question. Once she got some answers.

‘Exactly,' Lloyd chimed in. ‘Originally, we thought that the preliminary reports had to go to the department next week. You know, the ones we could all argue about. But now they're saying we have no time for that. We're going to be filing direct with the administration. And that means the dean. The bursar's office. Financial Aid.'

‘Great.' Corkie had been busy, but Dulcie had been preoccupied, too. It was her fault as much as her student's if she hadn't focused on her school work. ‘I guess I've got some catching up to do.'

‘You very well might.' Lloyd was looking at her in a way she couldn't decipher. ‘Because these will include our advisers' reports, too.'

‘Oh.' Dulcie leaned back, deflated. She could catch up on her own work, that she knew. But if Chelowski wasn't impressed by her progress, it would have serious consequences. And if he found out she was asking about him . . . No, she couldn't go there. ‘Hell,' she added softly. ‘Maybe I should get back to work.'

But as she reached for her coat, a hand stopped her. ‘Not so fast, stranger.' It was Trista. ‘The night is young.'

Trista seemed to be alone, for which she was grateful. ‘Tris, something's come up.'

‘Please.' Her friend leaned in close, and Dulcie could hear the desperation in her voice. She nodded. ‘Darts, anyone?'

Jerry looked like he was about to respond, but Trista had already grabbed Dulcie's arm.

‘You can play the winner,' Dulcie said, faking a smile. They all knew who that would be.

‘Trista, what's going on?' By the time they had gathered their darts, Dulcie was sick of the subterfuge. ‘You and Jerry. You wanting me here.' She paused, deciding it was time to say the words. ‘Are you two breaking up?'