Code Grey

by Clea Simon

  ‘How is he?’ She realized she was whispering, afraid to wake the man in the bed.

  ‘He was awake earlier.’ The nurse stepped back in a way that invited Dulcie to come close. ‘I’m afraid his visitor agitated him.’

  ‘Visitor?’ Dulcie wondered for a moment. ‘Oh, you mean the police.’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’ The young man looked down at his patient – and then up at Dulcie and her companion, his face thoughtful. ‘But he seems peaceful now. Would either of you like a seat?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Dulcie. Griddlehaus, behind her, didn’t seem so stable. The shock, she figured. ‘Mr Griddlehaus, why don’t you sit down?’

  ‘I didn’t think …’ His voice was barely a whisper.

  ‘He’s better than he looks,’ said the nurse. ‘That officer kept peppering him with questions. But at least he seems to be coming back to himself.’

  ‘I gather speaking with the cops tired him out?’ Dulcie posited.

  A sad shake of the head. ‘“Spoke” is maybe an exaggeration,’ the nurse said. ‘Of course, I was not in the room at the time, having been asked to leave.’ He cleared his throat. ‘The man is my patient.’

  Dulcie looked at Griddlehaus. ‘I thought he told them something. That they got something from him?’

  The nurse shrugged. ‘That one officer kept trying.’

  ‘Scat,’ the man on the bed said, quite clearly. ‘Scat.’

  ‘Oh!’ Dulcie drew back. ‘I’m sorry, Jeremy. Do you want us to go?’

  ‘Tack.’ Dry lips smacked shut. ‘Tack,’ he said again.

  ‘At least he’s talking to you,’ said the nurse, heading toward the curtain. ‘I’m going to get him some ice chips.’

  ‘Do you think this is what the police heard?’ Dulcie looked across the prone man to her friend. ‘Do you think he said …’ She paused, unwilling to incriminate the guard further. ‘Kyle?’ she said finally, her voice little more than a whisper.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Griddlehaus, his own voice soft. ‘Jeremy?’ He reached to take the other man’s hand. ‘Can you hear me? This is Thomas Griddlehaus, from the library. I was in the reading room today. Our private room.’

  ‘Stack.’ It could have been a word. It could have been an exhalation – the dry mouth opening in release.

  Dulcie looked at her colleague, but his eyes were glued on Jeremy’s lined face.

  ‘Poor dear,’ said the nurse. Dulcie started slightly. She hadn’t heard the uniformed attendant return with the ice. ‘He thinks he’s back in the library. He used to be a student here, you know.’

  ‘So he is talking about the library?’ Dulcie wasn’t sure if the nurse had heard Griddlehaus introduce himself. If he had heard what the little librarian had said.

  ‘He keeps talking about the stacks. At least, I think that’s what he’s saying,’ said the nurse. ‘The officer would keep hounding him, and with injuries like this, thoughts can get jumbled.’

  As she watched, those long fingers began to move, pushing the ice chips away. Dulcie wasn’t sure, but she thought he was gesturing, motioning for her to come close.

  ‘Jeremy, can you hear me?’ she asked. His face looked so calm, but she was sure his eyelids fluttered.

  ‘Attack in the stack.’ His voice was barely more than breath.

  ‘Could he be thinking that the accident was in the library?’ Griddlehaus looked up at the nurse for confirmation. ‘After all, I believe he was injured in one of the old steam tunnels, which led into the stacks and are also subterranean, so perhaps …’ He broke off in an uncharacteristic display of uncertainty. ‘Could it be?’

  ‘Maybe.’ The nurse shrugged. ‘Or maybe he’s just jumped back twenty, thirty years. Who knows?’

  Dulcie leaned in to listen. Jeremy wasn’t simply mumbling. He was trying to say something – to tell her something.

  His lips moved, but no sound came out. A tongue darted out to lick dry lips. The white coverlet rose and fell as the prone man took deeper and deeper breaths.

  ‘The cat.’ A sound like the wind in dry leaves. ‘The cat.’

  She couldn’t have heard that correctly, could she? She leaned in closer.

  ‘Jeremy, what are you saying? What are you trying to tell me?’

  ‘The cat,’ he said again, his voice barely more than a whisper. ‘The cat in the stacks.’

  TWENTY-TWO

  ‘What do you think it means?’ Dulcie waited for Griddlehaus’s response with bated breath. She had told the little clerk what she had heard after the nurse had shooed them away. Visiting hours had ended several minutes before, he had explained, and clearly the patient was tired. ‘The cat in the stacks?’

  Griddlehaus shook his head as the elevator whisked them back to the ground floor. ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘And I’ve been trying to think of other possibilities. Homonyms, perhaps, because, Ms Schwartz, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but in this case it is possible that you might be projecting, you know.’

  ‘I know what I heard.’ Dulcie couldn’t get angry at the bespectacled librarian, but she did feel ever so slightly affronted. ‘He said “cat” – something about a cat in the stacks.’

  ‘I heard “stacks,”’ said Griddlehaus as the doors slid open. ‘I’ll give you that. But what that means, if it means anything, is a mystery to me. You heard what the nurse said.’ He held the door for Dulcie as the two left the warm lobby for the windswept plaza. ‘He might not even have been talking to us, strictly speaking. He might have been reliving something from decades ago. My old friend does have some issues, you know.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Dulcie wasn’t convinced. ‘But he did seem to be gesturing to me, asking me to come closer so he could tell me something.’

  ‘I saw those movements, Ms Schwartz.’ His voice was sad. ‘I’ve seen them before, when people are very ill or even dying.’

  Dulcie shook her head. There was more going on here. More going on under that grey mop of hair, too, she was convinced. ‘If Jeremy is that out of it, then what did he say that prompted the police to arrest Kyle?’

  ‘I suspect our friend was slightly more alert when the police spoke to him.’ Mr Griddlehaus was walking to the head of a line of cabs. ‘I’m reasonably certain that if he had been in the same state we witnessed, no authorities would take him seriously – or at least would not take any action based on the few words he managed to produce.’

  ‘Unless the police know more than they’re letting on.’ Already her mind was jumping ahead. Rogovoy. He might not be the cop in charge of this investigation, but he’d listen to her. She’d call him first thing in the morning. She was so busy formulating how she would phrase her question that she didn’t notice Griddlehaus holding a cab door open.

  ‘Ms Schwartz?’ He dipped his head.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ She smiled in appreciation. The cab, the door – it was all more gallant than she ever would have expected from the librarian. ‘I’m really not that far.’

  ‘Please, Ms Schwartz.’ Behind the glasses, the wide, pale face grew stern. ‘It’s dark out, and there have been too many unfortunate occurrences of late. In fact,’ he paused, as if the thought had just hit him, ‘if you and I both doubt that Kyle Truckworth is responsible for the recent crimes, then we have more reason for concern. There are unsavory types abroad, Ms Schwartz. You really shouldn’t be too trusting.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Dulcie wasn’t sure how else to respond. Thomas Griddlehaus might be making a friendly gesture – a gallant one – but she couldn’t help notice how his words had echoed her mother’s warning. Was he being mindful of her safety, or did he want to rid himself of her company for some reason? She couldn’t be sure.

  She got into the cab, and let him close the door behind her, noting how he used both hands, careful not to slam it. Another sign that he was a friend? Fastidious? Or that he wanted her to leave? It hit her, then, how much she missed Chris, and how she had grown used to him taking care of her. Not that she didn’t do the sam
e for him, of course, but that their daily rituals involved such nurturing.

  Almost like that nurse. As Griddlehaus stepped back and the cab began to pull away from the curb, another possibility hit Dulcie. She leaned forward. ‘Stop please.’

  Without a comment, the cabby braked, and she rolled down the window. Griddlehaus had only begun to walk away and turned at the sound of her voice.

  ‘Mr Griddlehaus,’ she called, a new anxiety in her voice. ‘Why do you think the nurse kicked us out when he did?’

  Her friend looked at her but did not answer, puzzled by her query, she thought. Or caught up in his own thoughts.

  ‘Do you think, Mr Griddlehaus, that it’s possible …’ Dulcie paused, unsure of how to phrase the question. ‘That he wanted us to leave before Jeremy said any more?’

  TWENTY-THREE

  ‘No, Chris, it wasn’t like that.’ As soon as she was home, Dulcie had dialed Chris. That might have been a tactical error, she realized, as she tried to balance the phone while also feed a rather insistent Esmé. ‘It was all over before I even knew what was happening.’

  ‘A person could starve to death,’ Esmé was saying as she twined around Dulcie’s ankles. ‘And by a person, I mean, of course, a cat.’

  ‘But still, you went back in?’ Chris’s voice rose from the phone, which Dulcie had placed on the counter. ‘And it was this new guy, Kyle, who was arrested? Dulcie, I know you think the best of everyone, but you don’t know this guy—’

  ‘Hang on!’ Dulcie yelled. ‘I’m trying to open a can.’

  ‘Why do I even bother?’ Esmé’s thoughts accompanied her insistent mew as Dulcie was clearly taking too long. Meanwhile, Chris kept talking. ‘… pages …’ She could hear his voice but not make out what she said.

  ‘Sorry.’ Dulcie figured her blanket apology would suffice for both her pet and her boyfriend as she picked up the phone once again. ‘I missed that, Chris. But if you were asking about my pages, you’ll never believe what I found out.’

  Esmé paused to look up at her, then once again sank her face into the dish.

  ‘You’ve gotten some writing done?’ The voice on the other end of the line came alive with joy.

  ‘Not exactly.’ At that moment, Dulcie thought her boyfriend sounded as single-minded as their cat. ‘But I found out where some of the new pages came from, the ones in the Mildon?’ She started to fill him in – to tell him about the conservation lab and about the printer’s mark. There seemed to be static on the line, though. At least, she didn’t think he was hearing her.

  ‘Dulcie,’ Chris cut in. ‘Dulcie, stop. Please.’

  ‘What?’ Her breath caught in her throat. ‘Are you all right? Is something wrong?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ The connection was loud and clear. ‘But, Dulcie, are you hearing yourself? All this talk about new leads – new information about your pages. Dulcie, you’re writing about the text. Not the physical book itself, right? So why does any of this matter?’

  ‘Because …’ She hesitated, unsure how to put her feelings into words. The truth was complicated. ‘Because it might matter. It might be another clue about who this woman was. It might …’ She struggled to find the right explanation.

  ‘It might keep you from finishing.’ Her boyfriend’s voice sounded unaccountably sad. ‘And maybe, Dulcie, that’s really what you are afraid of.’

  The rest of the conversation wasn’t much better. Dulcie wanted to tell Chris about Jeremy and about her lunch with Griddlehaus, but he remained fixated on how her writing was going – or not going, as he put it. Even when she started asking about his mother he didn’t let up.

  ‘You’re starting to sound like Thorpe,’ she grumbled. Her thesis adviser had been harping on about her writing for months now. ‘Like maybe you want me to finish so you can get rid of me.’

  ‘Dulcie, I’m just worried about you.’ Chris was hurt. She could hear it in his voice. But so was she. If after all this time, he couldn’t understand how exciting this was – how this revelation put her that much closer to finally identifying the author she had studied all these years – well, then, maybe he just didn’t know her that well.

  ‘Esmé, you understand why this is important.’ Dulcie turned to the black and white cat once the call had ended. The little tuxedo had finished her dinner by then and was bathing, one white paw swiping over a velvety black ear. ‘Don’t you?’

  But the round little feline was silent, now that her needs had been met. She didn’t even mew as she went on washing, making her black coat shine.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Cradled like a Jewel beyond price, the Key shone out before her. Only now, in the darkness of the Storm would she dare to take it for herself, only under cover of such inky Dark would she dare to creep so softly, key in hand into the chamber to secrete that which she now concealed upon her Person. Step by step along the corridor, she made her silent Passage, mindful with each footfall of the dangers poised to betray her were she caught, were her Traitorous Words to be exposed.

  Dulcie woke with a start, the dream vivid in her mind. The heroine – the one who had been busy writing – had come alive in her sleep. No longer a literary figure, a writer – perhaps the novelist – who spilled her thoughts out on the pages. Dulcie knew the convention; having a character reveal her deepest emotions in a letter or a diary was one way of showing these to the reader, simple enough. Dulcie had started to write about the convention yesterday – was it only yesterday? – in the morning before she had left her carrel in search of lunch and found the library in turmoil. That turmoil had to be what she was remembering in her dream. Only in her sleep, she had the woman walking toward a silent passage, perhaps in a library – silent and stealthy …

  Unless …

  Dulcie jumped out of bed, earning an annoyed squawk from the cat by her side. ‘Sorry, Esmé,’ Dulcie called as she fumbled in the dark for her laptop. Yes, there it was: the first passage she had found from this new novel. The scene she had recognized in the mess of disorganized fragments that Thomas Griddlehaus had shown her one day in the Mildon Collection. A scene in which the heroine has come upon the body of a man, his head caved in, in a library …

  Could she have dreamed the intervening scene?

  Dulcie skimmed through her notes, looking for similarities. It was possible, certainly. But as the dream faded into memory, she found herself slowing, her cursor flicking less and less frequently over the unrelated bits of prose.

  ‘I’m sorry, Esmé.’ The little cat had come to lean against her bare legs, as if to lure her back to bed. ‘This is silly.’

  Now that she was fully awake, she could see how she had simply conflated the events of the day with the pages she was writing about. Add in her desire, conflicted as it may be, to finish her thesis and, less conflicted but also less likely, to read the rest of the story, and her unconscious had done the rest. There was nothing in her dream, and so she followed the restive cat into the kitchen to fix them both some breakfast.

  ‘Detective Rogovoy?’ While the coffee brewed, Dulcie decided to act on one of the few mysteries she could solve. ‘I was wondering if you would answer a question several of us had.’

  She heard a deep sigh on the other end of the line. Fatigue, she figured, and plunged ahead. ‘Several of us were wondering what evidence Jeremy Mumbleigh gave. You see, considering the state of his health, we’re concerned that perhaps something was misinterpreted …’

  ‘Ms Schwartz.’ The detective had picked up his private line on the first ring and from the sound of his voice, he had been there a while already. As she poured her coffee, Dulcie found herself picturing the deep, dark rings around his tired eyes. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Kyle Truckworth,’ she said. The line was silent. Dulcie knew she should have called the head of the task force. Only Lieutenant Wardley hadn’t seemed as open to discussion – or as intelligent – as Detective Rogovoy. The fact that he hadn’t immediately directed her call elsewhere was proof that her
instincts were correct.

  Or that he’d drifted off to sleep. ‘The library guard who was arrested yesterday?’ Dulcie waited until she heard a grunt of confirmation. ‘We heard he was arrested because of something that Jeremy Mumbleigh said, but when we went to visit Jeremy—’

  ‘Wait, you heard what?’ The big man was clearly waking up. ‘Who told you that?’

  Dulcie thought back. She couldn’t exactly remember if someone had said the words. Ruby had said something about someone talking, and an officer had been seen hurrying from the direction of the health services.

  ‘Someone said …’ She stopped. ‘Stuart Truckworth. He was going on about someone, calling someone “a thorn” in his side.’ The memory was hazy. ‘He had to have been talking about Jeremy. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Really?’ Rogovoy wasn’t. ‘Ms Schwartz, you’re a smart young lady, and I don’t want to tell you what to do.’

  Dulcie knew she shouldn’t have tipped her hand. Except that the hints she’d gotten from Jeremy had been so intriguing. ‘I know I shouldn’t have gone to talk to Jeremy, Detective.’ She rushed to cut him off. ‘But you should have heard him. He was talking about – about something in the stacks.’

  She was not going to mention the cat. The detective wouldn’t believe that.

  ‘Isn’t it possible that he – and the book – were in the library when he was attacked?’ Spoken aloud, the idea seemed a bit far-fetched. ‘And that he was moved afterward? Dumped in that excavation?’

  ‘And how would a homeless person with no current university credentials have gotten into the library?’ There was a heaviness in Rogovoy’s voice that she had never heard before. ‘Even assuming he did – we know that some people tend to bend the rules for him – how would he have been taken out again? And why?