Death With Dostoevsky

by Katherine Bolger Hyde

  As she walked, she called Colin. Precisely because she so badly wanted Richard to be guilty, her sense of justice compelled her to share with Colin anything that might point toward someone else as the murderer – even if it was little more than a gut feeling.

  ‘Colin? Emily. Have you found anything on Richard?’

  ‘Not yet. He told me he’d sent that particular shirt and jacket to the cleaners. I’m just about to go in there now.’

  ‘I’ve had a thought about another line you might pursue.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Sidney Sharpe.’

  ‘Sidney? The student who placed Daniel in Vollum that night?’

  ‘Yes. His evidence wasn’t confirmed by anyone else, was it?’

  ‘No. Seems like all the other people in the building were in their offices with their doors closed.’

  ‘My guess is that the encounter never happened. Sidney may have been there, but I’d bet Daniel didn’t set foot in the building until later, after that student saw him crossing Eliot Circle.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘It’s not much more than a gut feeling. But this afternoon I surprised Sidney in the process of trying to force himself on Svetlana. Which makes me think he’s not as great a friend to Daniel as he likes to make out.’

  ‘You don’t think he actually killed Curzon, do you? What motive would he have?’

  ‘That I don’t know. I have a glimmer, but it needs fleshing out.’

  ‘OK, I’ll get a swab and see if it matches any of the unidentified DNA we’ve found. And I’ll check out his clothing as well.’

  The mention of Sidney’s clothing gave Emily another thought. ‘That student who saw the two men crossing the circle. Did she say why she thought one of them was a professor?’

  ‘Something about what he was wearing. Just a sec.’ She heard the sound of pages flipping. ‘He had on a knee-length overcoat and no backpack. She thought that would be odd for a student.’

  Emily thought back to when she’d seen Sidney outdoors. ‘Sidney wears a knee-length wool overcoat. And he carries a messenger bag rather than a backpack. Plus he’s several inches shorter than Daniel.’

  ‘Well, I’ll be damned. I never would have thought of that. But if they’re sort of friendly, he might just have found Daniel wandering around disoriented and decided to help him home, right?’

  ‘Possible, but we went over this with regard to Richard – they were going the wrong direction. Daniel lives in the Old Dorm Block, west of Eliot Hall. Vollum is east.’

  ‘Shoot, you’re right. OK, I think my priorities have just shifted. Since I’m here I’ll check with the cleaners, but then I’m going to head straight back to talk to Sidney Sharpe.’

  The conversation had taken Emily as far as the library entrance. Knowing Colin would soon be returning to campus, she settled in at her station in the library instead of going on home. On an impulse, she pulled her copy of The Brothers Karamazov off the shelf and began to read near the end – Ivan’s conversations with Smerdyakov.

  Smerdyakov, Ivan Karamazov’s illegitimate half-brother, had at first idolized Ivan and taken his atheistic ‘everything is permitted’ philosophy much more literally and practically than Ivan had taken it himself. Trying in some way to become Ivan, he had taken it upon himself to commit the dark deeds he was convinced Ivan wanted him to perform – and for which he thus considered Ivan to be wholly responsible.

  Immersed in the book, Emily had no concept of how much time had passed when she got a call from Colin. Since the room was apparently empty but for herself, she took the call there.

  ‘Just got through interviewing Sidney Sharpe. He’s a slippery character, all right. I couldn’t pin him down on anything about his movements that night. Insisted his previous statement was correct, and that after he left the Paradox – where we have witnesses to confirm his presence up till eleven – he went back to his dorm to bed.’

  ‘What dorm does he live in?’

  ‘One of the Woodstocks.’ The Woodstock dorms were a group of four largish houses at the far eastern end of campus, beyond the library, which at some point in the college’s distant history had provided faculty housing. ‘They call it the Russian House, whatever that means.’

  ‘Each of the Woodstock dorms is dedicated to a different language. The students who live there are all studying that language, and supposedly they try to speak it in the house as much as possible. Didn’t really work out that way when I lived there back in the day.’

  ‘Oh, that explains it. Couple other students were talking gibberish in the common room. Must have been Russian. At any rate, Sharpe made no objection to my searching his room and confiscating the clothes he was wearing the night of the murder. But he wasn’t any too happy about giving me a DNA swab. Claimed an overactive gag reflex and a nasty cold. Only when I suggested doing it down at the station with a doctor present did he finally relent.’

  ‘That’s suggestive, at any rate.’

  ‘Yeah. But it isn’t hard evidence. We won’t have that until the lab gets to work and matches his DNA to something at the scene – preferably some of the unknown DNA found on the victim. I’m taking the swab in now, but it’s getting late. Be a while before we have that result.’

  Emily glanced out the window and realized the winter day was indeed drawing to a close. She didn’t fancy walking home in the dark, especially since she would have to walk past the Russian House.

  ‘Let me know when you find out anything. I’m going to head home and give all this a good think.’ She ended the call and gathered her things.

  Twilight was closing in as she left the library. The sun, as it dropped from the cloud-whitened sky, drew with it what little warmth the middle of the day had held. Emily shivered, turning the collar of her coat up around her throat and holding it closed with one gloved hand while the other grasped the handle of her briefcase.

  As she turned eastward from the library entrance, she caught sight of Sidney walking some way ahead of her, in the direction of his dorm. She thought it odd that he would have left his dorm and be returning to it again in the short time since Colin had left him. Besides, she sensed something furtive in his attitude – he seemed hunched over and kept turning his head to right and left. As he veered off at an angle to pass around the combined physics and biology building, she thought she could see a lumpy shape under his overcoat. What could he be carrying that was too big to fit in his messenger bag?

  Sidney paused at the entrance to the educational technology building and looked around more carefully. Emily ducked behind a pillar, wishing she knew more about following people than one could pick up from watching detective shows. After the door closed behind him, she quietly approached and entered the building herself. Sidney was just turning to the left at the end of the hallway. She hurried after him as quietly as the thick soles of her fur-lined boots would allow.

  At the end of the second hallway was some sort of opening in the wall. Emily backed behind the turning and peeked around the corner to see Sidney take the bundle out from under his coat and shove it into that opening. Then, with a last furtive glance around him, he scurried toward a secondary exit door at the far end of the hallway.

  When he was safely outside, Emily ran to the opening, which was covered by a steel flap engraved with the word ‘Laundry’. Underneath that word was a printed sign that read ‘Bunny suits only!’ Emily put on hold her curiosity as to what place rabbit costumes or Playboy bunny uniforms could have in a college science building and slowly pushed open the flap, praying it would prove to lead only to a bin and not to a chute. She did not feel up to pursuing a chute to its outlet, wherever that might be.

  Her prayers were answered. It was a bin, and all it contained was one large white plastic shopping bag with an Eddie Bauer logo on the side, bulging as if it contained something soft. With a stretch that twanged her lower back, she reached in and pulled the bag out.

  Sidney’s instinct for secrecy must h
ave been contagious. Although the building was empty, Emily shoved the bag under her own coat and looked about for a private place to examine it. Her eye fell on a women’s restroom down the hall.

  Inside the handicapped stall, still wearing her outdoor gloves, she opened the bag and pulled out a large wad of white Tyvek. She shook it out and saw that it was a sort of coverall. Then she remembered having heard somewhere that these suits, worn in clean rooms or at crime scenes, had the nickname of ‘bunny suits’. She supposed they must be used in the computer science department’s hardware lab. But there were no lab classes during Paideia, and presumably the suits were meant to stay in the labs. What would Sidney have been doing with one?

  She turned the suit around so the front was facing her and looked at it closely. The chest and arms of the coverall looked slightly smeared with a pinkish tinge. And hiding in the shoulder seam she could see a tiny spot of something that looked like blood.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Emily shoved the suit back into the bag and whipped out her phone to call Colin. He didn’t answer, so she left a cryptic message: ‘Call me as soon as you can. And don’t bother testing Sidney’s clothes.’

  She wished with all her soul she had her old office back, or some kind of private place on campus where she could keep her discovery safe and be alone with her thoughts. Home it would have to be. She made room in her wheeled briefcase for Sidney’s bag, pushing it clear to the bottom where it would be covered by her other things.

  She left the restroom and headed first toward the door by which Sidney had left the building. Then she realized that path would lead her directly past the Russian House, where he had presumably been going. She changed course and went back to the main entrance instead. From there she could take a path that led along the far side of the parking lot, skirting the block of dorms altogether.

  Darkness was closing in, and with it the clouds that had been lowering all afternoon. The first fat flakes of snow drifted before her as she pushed the door open.

  She hurried along the walk, head down to keep the snow out of her eyes. The path was well lit but deserted. Emily would have given much to be surrounded by a bustle of people until she was well clear of Sidney’s dorm.

  The snow was escalating rapidly, forming a soft carpet that muffled her footsteps as she walked. That meant it would also muffle the steps of anyone who might be approaching. She raised her head and looked around, but the snow was already so dense she could not see beyond the halo of the streetlight under which she was passing. She wondered if her project of walking home was really so wise after all. Maybe she should have begged shelter in Marguerite’s office instead.

  She passed out of the light’s halo into darkness. Now she had to focus on the path, which she could barely discern as a smooth gray space between two swaths of more textured gray on either side. As she approached the next streetlight she raised her head again, and looming out of the darkness beyond its halo she saw a shadowy form.

  Emily slowed, her heart in her throat. Should she turn and run? Pass on as if all were normal? Or take her stand under the light and confront this shadow, which she was sure must be Sidney?

  She took a deep breath and reminded herself that Sidney did not know she had found the bunny suit. He had no reason to think she even suspected him of the murder, let alone that she had what was probably proof of his guilt. She could simply act normally and nothing untoward would happen.

  God willing.

  The shadow moved into the light. Between the layers of coat, scarf, and hat she could barely discern a pair of round, wire-rimmed, cold-fogged lenses. Sidney.

  As if on cue, they both put on bright smiles. Emily hoped hers didn’t look as fake as Sidney’s did.

  ‘Professor Cavanaugh,’ he hailed her. His voice held an edge of something – hostility? fear? – beneath its surface cheer. ‘What brings you out on a night like this?’

  ‘Just trying to get home,’ Emily replied. ‘Although I must say that looks a lot more difficult now than it did when I left the library. I can’t believe how quickly this snow came on.’

  ‘Let me escort you. I can’t claim to have snow-melting superpowers, but at least I can catch you if you slip.’

  Emily thought fast, not allowing her smile to waver. The last thing she wanted was to be alone with this young man, either on the street or, God forbid, in her own home. But it was probably a good idea to keep him close until she could get in touch with Colin.

  ‘You know, on second thought, I’d rather wait out the storm on campus. I think I’ll go back to Paradox Lost and have some hot chocolate. If you’d like to join me? I’m buying.’

  ‘How can I resist such a charming proposal?’ He offered her his elbow. As she was hesitating – trying to overcome her aversion to touching him, even through layers of cloth, so as not to arouse his suspicions – another shadow loomed up behind him.

  Colin’s voice spoke out of the whirling snow. Emily’s relief was palpable.

  ‘Emily? I got—’

  Before he could say more, she interposed loudly, ‘Detective Richards! Mr Sharpe and I were just on our way to Paradox Lost for some hot chocolate. Care to join us?’

  Colin’s mouth snapped shut as Sidney turned back to face him. That had been close. If Colin had said anything to betray that Emily was on to Sidney – well, she didn’t want to think about what might have happened.

  ‘That would just about hit the spot. I’m frozen to my core.’ Colin stepped between Sidney and Emily and offered Emily his arm. Thank God he’d inherited his uncle’s chivalry. ‘Where is this Paradox Lost? You’re not talking about the regular Paradox, I hope? That’s clear across campus.’

  ‘No, this is an outpost right here in the science building. Just around the corner.’ They headed back the way Emily had come.

  Colin kept up a breezy chatter as they walked, but Emily could feel the tautness of his arm through the layers of gloves and coats. He was on the alert lest Sidney make any move to escape, or worse.

  But apparently Sidney was still at the stage of caution where he felt, as did Emily, that acting normally was the best defense. They reached the café without incident.

  Emily stepped toward the counter, but Colin moved ahead of her. ‘Allow me. Three hot chocolates, please,’ he said to the barista. Then he ushered the other two toward a table. All his actions sent the message that although he’d been late to the party, he was in charge of this encounter.

  That was fine with Emily – in fact, she was grateful – except that Colin still didn’t have all the facts. She racked her brain for a way to communicate with him without Sidney hearing, or at least suspecting something.

  She positioned her briefcase on the floor between her chair and Colin’s and unzipped it, pretending to look for something. With a lightning glance at Colin that she hoped was full of urgency, she held the compartment open for a moment and pushed her books out of the way so the plastic bag was visible. There was no way to communicate what it contained or how she’d come by it, but at least Colin seemed to get the message that the bag was in some way significant, and that this significance should not be betrayed to Sidney.

  They talked about the weather – which at this point was worth talking about – until their drinks were ready. After a few sips, Sidney excused himself, looking quite uncomfortable, and headed toward the restroom. Emily supposed his bowels had absorbed the fear he was trying so hard to conceal.

  When he was out of earshot, Colin whispered to her, ‘There’s no other way out of here, is there?’

  ‘Not that I know of. Not even a window in the restroom.’

  ‘Good. Now what’s in that bag?’

  Keeping an eye on the restroom door, she related to him in an undertone her experiment in covert surveillance and what she had discovered. ‘The coverall’s been wiped off, but it still has pinkish smears on the front and one tiny spot in the seam that looks like blood.’

  Colin gave a low whistle. ‘Sounds like we’ve got him.’ />
  Emily hushed him with a look. ‘He’s coming.’

  Colin whipped out his phone and sent a text. Backup, he mouthed to her. He just managed to slide his phone back into his pocket before Sidney reached the table.

  Emily divined the need to keep Sidney in place and unsuspecting until the backup arrived – which, given the weather, could take a while. Time for a spate of gripping small talk. Not, unfortunately, her strong point.

  ‘Paideia’s drawing to a close, I’m afraid,’ she said to Sidney. ‘Have you managed to accomplish whatever it was you set out to do in this time?’

  His smile seemed sinister, but perhaps it was just her imagination. ‘I believe so,’ he said. ‘At least, the really important things.’ He volunteered no information about what those were. Surely he couldn’t have come to campus this month with the express goal of killing Taylor Curzon and framing Daniel for it. ‘What about you, Professor? How is your research coming along?’

  ‘Pretty well, all things considered.’ This was an exaggeration, but perhaps after tonight she’d be less distracted. She ventured on another tactical fib. ‘I’ve decided to narrow my focus somewhat. I’m concentrating on Dostoevsky’s treatment of repentance and restitution. The redemption of the fallen man.’

  Sidney bared stained and crooked teeth in a derisive grin. ‘Redemption? An outmoded idea, surely. People don’t change – at least, not for the better.’

  ‘Oh, but I believe they can and do, with the help of God. Dostoevsky certainly believed that. Look at Raskolnikov. Or Dmitri Karamazov.’

  ‘Spending their lives in exile? You call that improvement?’