Grey Zone (7 page)

‘Um, yeah.' She choked it out, her smile setting into concrete on her face. ‘Call me?'

‘Of course.' He bent to kiss her, a quick, almost formal buss. ‘Later, Dulce.'

She stood there and watched them cross the street. A matched pair, they bent their heads together. Another wind brought her the sound of a woman's laugh and a small, sharp pain, like tiny kitten teeth sinking into her heart.

SEVEN

O
n autopilot, Dulcie headed to Lala's. Bagels had lost their appeal, and now nothing but a three-bean burger with Lala's famous hot sauce would do. If only Chris's student hadn't been so slim. She slid into a seat at the window counter and ordered without thinking. If only Chris's student hadn't had that accent. If only Dulcie hadn't been so preoccupied with Mr Grey and Esmé. She gulped down half her water and nearly choked it back up again. If only she'd been more available.

If only— Dulcie realized she was staring at the window, but not seeing anything. People were walking by, going about their lives. Over by the curb, a couple were holding hands. She looked down to see her burger. She took a bite, barely tasting the spicy sauce. If only she hadn't been so obsessed. With her cats. With her thesis. With an unknown author who'd been dead for two hundred years anyway.

‘Tough morning?' Lala herself was standing beside her. ‘Because I know that burger isn't as dry as you make it out to be.'

Dulcie swallowed with a start and realized she'd been chewing the same mouthful of burger for several minutes by then. ‘No, really. It's great.' She swallowed again as something stuck in her throat.

‘Here.' Lala reached over to the counter to hand Dulcie her glass of water, grabbing a handful of napkins as well. ‘Wanna come into the back and tell me about it?'

Dulcie blinked and nodded. Why couldn't Lucy be like this?

‘We can take your burger.' Lala reached for the cardboard platter, and Dulcie turned to hand it to her. But as she did, her eye was caught by an olive-green cape, its hood up, moving like a specter along the curb. And right beside it, Dulcie recognized her student, Corkie. The junior was easily a head taller than the figure beside her and clearly visible, talking a mile a minute and waving her hands.

Dulcie stood up to watch as her student stopped at the corner, still gesticulating. As more pedestrians gathered, waiting for the walk signal, Dulcie could see the top of Corkie's head and, occasionally, her hands. She probably hadn't checked her email yet.

‘You OK, honey?' A blast of horn. Someone had run into the street.

‘What? Oh, yes, thank you, Lala.' She looked up at the kindly face of the chef, and then back out the window. The light had changed, but she could still make out Corkie, her sleek brown hair pulled back in its customary bun. In a moment, she'd disappear, beyond Dulcie's reach. ‘But I think I've got to get one thing right today.' She shrugged her coat over her shoulders and headed to the door.

‘Hang on!' Lala shoved a hastily wrapped package into her hands, the paper bag already turning translucent from the dripping sauce. ‘Go get him!'

Dulcie didn't bother to correct her, but with a smile and a nod, pushed her way through a waiting group and out on to the street. But she had lost her.

‘Corkie?' Dulcie called and heard her own voice thrown back by the wind. ‘Corkie? Philomena McCorkle!' A couple in front of her turned, and Dulcie ignored them. Couples! ‘Corkie?'

The light was in her favor, and Dulcie crossed, heading toward the Yard. Too late, she saw that the olive cape – a woman, it had to be a woman – was far down the sidewalk, making for the Coop or the T station beside it. Dulcie stopped in mid crosswalk and watched the green hood recede, trying to make out if Corkie was still with her.

‘Lady!' The light had changed, and a cyclist maneuvered around her, his mood clearly not improved by the mud splattered all over his legs. ‘Get out of the way!'

Dulcie jumped, landing on what appeared to be solid, gray pavement until her foot sank into it up to the ankle. Slush: the scourge of March. Shaking her foot free of the clinging, dirty ice, she made her way to the opposite side of the street.

‘Watch it!' Another pedestrian knocked into her, and with a splash, she dropped the paper-wrapped burger that Lala had hurried to wrap for her. She looked down in time to see it run over, its orange-red sauce seeping out of the paper like blood. The final straw. Her foot was wet and cold. Her boyfriend AWOL. Her favorite student seemed to consider Dulcie's best efforts to keep her on track expendable. And now her lunch was roadkill. Dulcie bit her lip and fought back a sudden rush of tears. It didn't work, and she found herself blinking up at the sky until she could regain control.

Or be distracted. Sometimes, in the gray winter sky, she'd see one of the red-tailed hawks that had repatriated Cambridge. They made a majestic sight, like something that would have circled Hermetria's remote castle keep. Lonely, proud, and strong.

Today, though, the sky was empty of everything but mottled clouds. A depressing sky, good for nothing but hiding from. Or, Goddess forbid – at times of stress, Dulcie always heard Lucy's voice – snow.

Pulling her collar tighter, Dulcie plodded through the yard. The toes on her left foot were half numb, but she had dry socks in her office. If she put her boot up on the radiator, maybe she could dry out the worst of it before heading home.

Head down, to avoid any further mishaps, she made her way across the icy yard. Would this winter never end? But as she emerged near the Science Center, a flash – like a fleeting shadow – caused her to look up. Could it be one of the hawks? She never found out. For not fifty yards ahead, she spied Corkie, making her way up a side street to the new psych annex.

‘Corkie!' The younger girl had a lead, as well as the advantage of longer legs, and Dulcie lost her in the crowd milling in front of the new building. The fountains had been turned off for the season, of course, but as Dulcie trotted across the stone courtyard, leaving dark, wet footsteps in her wake, she couldn't help but feel a bit resentful. The humanities never got new buildings. The English department in particular had had to lobby non-stop simply to have the roof of its departmental offices repaired. Martin Thorpe had been saving up mildewed theses for months to show the comptroller.

‘Corkie?' A church tower tolled the hour, and the students scattered. Anyone heading back to the Square would have to hustle. Inside the glass-fronted lobby, Dulcie saw a coat and a door. An elevator. She was no longer sure it was her student, but followed anyway. At least she'd be warm.

‘May I help you?' The guard looked Dulcie up and down with a skeptical eye.

‘My student, Philomena McCorkle? Did you see her go by?' At the end of the lobby, one of the elevator doors closed.

‘Your ID, please?' With a ping, the elevator began to ascend. ‘Miss?'

At least he was being polite, but Dulcie could not resist a heavy sigh as she dropped her bag on his desk and began rummaging through it. Why, at times like these, was something as simple as a wallet so hard to find? ‘Here.' She smiled in relief.

The guard took his time. ‘Go on up,' he said finally, sounding resigned as he waved her by. But before she could get to the bank of elevators, before she could even begin to guess which floor her student had chosen, or why, a dull thud made them both turn. A truck going over a pothole, Dulcie told herself. Someone rough-housing into the glass. Or—

The afternoon was shattered by a piercing shriek.

‘What the?' The guard turned toward the doors, one hand on the phone, the other on what looked like a baton at his waist.

‘Corkie?' It didn't make sense, but Dulcie was suddenly seized by a horrible premonition. Her student was in danger. Her student was hurt. Her student – her charge, a young woman she should have taken better care of . . .

‘It's Fritz!' A young woman ran in, eyes wild. ‘Fritz Herschoft! He's jumped out of a top-floor window!'

EIGHT

W
hat happened next was a blur of noise and confusion. Unlike the multi-storey buildings in the modernistic science complex, the Poche Building didn't have special locks and alarms. It wasn't a skyscraper. It wasn't even that big. But, at seven stories, it must have been tall enough.

Trapped inside the glass foyer by the horror outside, Dulcie found herself slinking back. Until she came to the elevators. No, she didn't want to go there. Not up. Not now. Although she didn't have a clear sense of the man who had jumped, she felt the shock of his fall. What would make someone do that? Who was Fritz Herschoft? Who had he been?

Even as her mind reeled, she found herself thinking of a young professor, barely more than a TA. He'd had glasses and thick, dark hair that for some reason she thought of as greasy. He'd built a name for himself – something about the attention he gave his students – but when Dulcie tried to conjure an image, she remembered an ugly man, short, plump, and beetle-like. No, that wasn't fair. It wasn't his fault if his hair was greasy or his hands clammy.

Dulcie drew back her own hands, automatically, as if afraid to touch a memory, and dropped her bag. Bending to pick it up, she was jostled, as the elevator bays began disgorging the building's inhabitants. Somewhere, an alarm had gone off. She couldn't think about the dead professor now. She had come here for a reason. But even as dizziness threatened to overcome her, Dulcie kept enough of her mind focused to watch. Students, researchers. A coterie of lab techs, all still wearing their safety glasses, came down, alerted by the sirens and the panicked screams outside. None of them were Corkie.

Had she been imagining her? Seeing her student in a haze of heartbreak and hot sauce?

‘Excuse me.' She pushed her way up to the guard again. In the tumult, he had gained authority. Students pressed against his desk, some crying. But their prior interaction also seemed to have bonded them, and he looked over at her with what could have been a shell-shocked smile. ‘Is there another way out of here? A rear exit, perhaps?'

Corkie couldn't have been involved with this. No way. But Dulcie still wanted to talk with her, even if her reasons seemed very remote and far away.

The guard nodded. ‘Fire exit around the back. Take the stairwell door to the right there, and follow it down one flight, to street level.' Dulcie grabbed her bag. ‘Wait! Miss? The police might want to talk to you.'

Dulcie nodded and hoped she looked reassuring. ‘I'll check in with them. I promise.' The guard was behind his desk, and that was surrounded by the crowd. With another nod, Dulcie turned and headed for the door.

Dulcie hadn't realized how tense she had been as she wound down the stairs, along a basement passage, and back up. Not until she shoved open that door and stepped into the alley did she find herself breathing freely. Even the cold seemed welcome. But although the rear of the Poche Building offered a relatively peaceful alternative to the front, it didn't help Dulcie with her search. The sirens were muted back here, contained by the bulk of the building. But even as Dulcie saw people scurrying on the nearby sidewalk, none of them looked like Corkie. She headed for the street and realized that a dumpster had obscured her view of the crowd.

‘Corkie?' There was no way anyone in the milling throng could have heard her. The buzz from the crowd was loud. At least one woman was sobbing. ‘Corkie?'

People were moving in panic, some running away. Others, confused or curious, rushing in. Among the latter, Dulcie noticed a small figure, slight, in olive green, jostling furiously through the crowd.

‘Wait!' Dulcie called again. It wasn't her student, Dulcie was sure of that. But her voice seemed to mean something to her, and the woman froze, then turned and disappeared.

‘Hey!' Who was that woman, and why did she keep turning up? ‘Wait!'

But as Dulcie pushed forward, she found herself running into the yellow reflective arm of an emergency worker.

‘Please, miss, step back.' Another yellow jacket – a cop or something like – was herding three other onlookers back. ‘We need to clear the area.'

‘But I'm looking for someone.' Being short had some advantages: Dulcie ducked under the outstretched arm.

‘Miss, please!'

And stopped short. The police hadn't succeeded in entirely clearing the plaza. One young man was leaning against the building's steel pillars, head down with either sorrow or sickness. And a knot of down parkas surrounded another emergency worker, his broad gestures doing little to disperse them. None of them seemed to be wearing that particular shade of green. But just beyond, strangely lonely on the patterned stone pavement, she could see a hand. Palm up, fingers curled, it made the only still point in the whole tableau.

Dulcie gasped. She hadn't thought – not really – what all the hubbub had meant. She hadn't realized. And then she did. The stone of the plaza wasn't patterned. Those two thin stripes, dark against the gray, were too shiny. They were blood.

Back behind the building, Dulcie sat on the curb, gulping in air. Head down, she reminded herself:
breathe
. Her imagination was running wild. Blood? It had looked dark, thick. Shouldn't there have been more? But as she sat there, the horror of what had happened began to sink in. Blood. A body. A member of the university community sprawled on the pavement. Blood.

It was several minutes before her vision cleared. At least she hadn't finished her lunch.

It was cold, sitting on the curb, but Dulcie didn't quite trust her legs. Instead, she dialed Chris's number.

‘Chris?' His voicemail seemed so distant. ‘There's been an accident.' No, that was wrong. ‘An incident. Call me?' She hung up before she could start to cry. Mr Grey, that's who she needed. But although she could picture the gray cat, she knew she couldn't summon him. Increasingly, in fact, he had only made his presence felt back at her apartment, when she was on the edge of sleep.