by Clea Simon
Dulcie kept her voice low as she approached the circulation desk. The courtesy was a habit, but she had to raise her voice and ask again. Ruby and the two other staffers on duty were so caught up in their conversation, they didn’t seem to hear her.
‘I don’t know why he doesn’t get him removed,’ another woman was saying. ‘I think it’s a gross dereliction of duty.’
‘He’s just doing his job,’ said Ruby. She’d seen Dulcie by then and waved her over.
‘Who’s just doing his job?’ Dulcie couldn’t resist a little gossip.
‘That cop.’ Ruby shook her head. ‘The one who arrested Kyle?’
‘Have they let him go yet?’ Dulcie looked around, hoping for an answer.
‘No.’ Ruby shook her head. ‘I think he’s being arraigned. Truckworth has been frantic.’
‘That’s what I’m talking about,’ said the other clerk. ‘This whole thing sounds like some kind of personal vendetta. That cop is like a mad dog.’
‘Poor Kyle.’ Dulcie didn’t feel comfortable dissing the cops, even if they did make mistakes. ‘But look what happened with Jeremy,’ she said. ‘They thought he was involved with the break-ins at first, but now they must know he can’t be.’
‘Yeah, and look what great shape he’s in.’ Ruby’s voice sank. After a weighted moment, Ruby turned to her friend.
‘You wanted to ask me something, Dulcie?’
Dulcie shrugged. The question of grammar seemed particularly irrelevant. ‘Yeah, I guess.’
But before she could bring up the question of subjective or objective cases the relative peace of the library was broken by a loud noise – a series of loud noises, repeating like gunfire through the room.
‘What the …?’ Ruby looked around.
‘It’s coming from outside,’ said Dulcie, and made for the door.
‘Miss! Miss!’ The guard, a substitute, came running behind her. ‘Your purse!’
‘Oh, sorry.’ Dulcie turned. ‘I just want to see what’s happening.’
‘That’s not allowed …’ The guard pointed to her bag. ‘I have to search—’
‘Of course.’ Shrugging the strap off her shoulder, Dulcie deposited the denim holdall on the barrier. ‘I’ll be right back,’ she promised as she raced after her friend.
‘What are you doing?’ Ruby was yelling down into a hole. Dulcie hurried over to her side, skirting around a barrier to do so. ‘You! Put that down!’
Pulling her friend back from the edge, Dulcie joined her in peering down. The hole was deep – a good twenty feet – and seemed to have some kind of concrete floor. Even as they watched, a figure in the hole – the hard hat and thick work gloves effectively obscured the person’s gender – picked up a T-shaped handle and flicked a switch. Once again, the thunderous rat-a-tat-tat sounded, driving both Dulcie and her friend back another few feet.
‘Hey, you!’ Ruby yelled at the next pause, leaning perilously close. ‘You!’
The person with the jackhammer didn’t look up, and as Ruby leaned farther, Dulcie saw the edge of the hole begin to fracture. Clods of dirt fell, and inside, behind the figure, a shadow – could it have been something living? – seemed to race away.
‘What’s that?’ Dulcie grabbed Ruby’s arm as the hammering stopped. The shadow had slipped across the hole, but Dulcie could still see it – dark and seemingly solid under the overhang of the far wall. ‘There!’ Dulcie pointed.
‘Where?’ Ruby leaned forward to look. It was too much. The earth, frozen for too long, had become crumbly and dry. As Dulcie strained to see, she felt it begin to give way, to fall. Her foot slipped.
‘I’ve got you!’ A strong hand clasped around her upper arm, pulling Dulcie back.
‘Wait—’ She could just make out the shape below. A triangular face. Two eyes.
‘Mr Truckworth!’
Dulcie turned. Ruby was addressing the manager, who now had one arm on each of the women and was leaning back, pulling them away from the hole.
‘You shouldn’t be here, ladies,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘It’s a construction site and, as you can see, not at all stable.’
‘You shouldn’t be working here.’ Ruby put her hands on her hips. ‘The noise carries right through the walls into the library.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Truckworth was shaking his head. ‘None of this is ideal, I know. But we’ve got to get the repairs done as expeditiously as possible. The students will be back on Monday.’
‘Where does this go?’ Dulcie was still peering down into the hole. From this distance, she had lost sight of the shadow, but she could see that the side of the hole wasn’t solid, as she had assumed. Instead, there seemed to be a tunnel or passage leading away from the opening.
‘Storage. Steam tunnels.’ Truckworth gestured. ‘The entire substructure is falling apart.’
‘I thought I saw something down there.’ Dulcie craned to look. ‘An animal.’
‘Rats.’ Truckworth’s mouth was set in a grim line. ‘We’re going to have to put down traps everywhere.’
‘Ew!’ With a high-pitched squeal that seemed rather out of place for her size, Ruby recoiled, pulling her hands up as if she expected to get bitten.
‘No, I don’t think it was a rat …’ Dulcie couldn’t explain her feeling, but she had enough experience to trust it.
‘Please, ladies.’ Truckworth’s hand was on her arm again. ‘I am sorry for the disruption. As I said, we’re trying to get the work done in as timely a manner as possible, despite everything else going on.’
Dulcie looked up. This was the opportunity she had been waiting for. ‘Mr Truckworth, I’m sorry about your son.’ This was true. It was also a way in.
‘Thanks.’ He rubbed a hand over his face, leaving a smear of dirt on his cheek. ‘Kyle is … well, I’m doing what I can.’
‘I’m sure you are, Mr Truckworth.’ Dulcie pushed forward. ‘And that’s why I’m also sure you understand how important it is to be fair to people.’
He shook his head, his eyes tired.
‘Why are you persecuting Jeremy Mumbleigh, Mr Truckworth?’ Dulcie looked into those eyes. ‘What did he ever do to you?’
‘Dulcie!’ Ruby’s voice cut in. ‘What are you … I’m sorry, Mr Truckworth. It’s just been so crazy today, we’re all out of sorts.’
She started to pull Dulcie away, but Dulcie resisted. ‘No, hang on, Ruby. This is something I want to know about. Mr Truckworth has been down on Jeremy for years, and I want to know why. He had Jeremy arrested—’
‘Jeremy Mumbleigh was arrested because he was found with unauthorized materials. That decision was out of my control.’
Before she could respond, another voice broke in on them.
‘What’s the trouble here?’ They all turned to see a burly cop, a knit cap pulled down almost to his eyes. ‘This area is off limits.’
‘It is, Officer. It is indeed. Hard hats only.’ Truckworth must have been grateful for the shift in concentration, Dulcie thought, considering the alacrity with which he jumped to answer the newcomer. ‘In fact, I was about to escort these young women out of the area.’
He motioned as if to wave the two friends away, stepping between them and the excavation. Before she moved, though, Dulcie snuck another look down. The construction worker peered back up, no doubt intrigued by the conversation, but she could see no other signs of life. ‘They wandered in,’ Truckworth was saying.
The fat cop nodded, as if the facilities manager was in fact in charge of both Dulcie and her friend. It was too much.
‘We’re members of the university community.’ Dulcie spoke up. It was hard enough being shorter than everyone, she wasn’t going to accept being talked about as if she weren’t here. ‘We had a right to inquire as to what was going on.’
‘We came to complain about the noise,’ Ruby chimed in, in a tone that was a little conciliatory for Dulcie’s taste.
‘And about the persecution of Jeremy Mumbleigh,’ Dulcie added, prompting a look
of surprise from the officer.
‘Well, Truckworth, it sounds like you’ve got a mutiny on your hands.’ His comment – addressed to the administrator – was further proof to Dulcie that neither were taking her – or her complaint – seriously.
‘Yes, Lieutenant Wardley.’ Truckworth looked down at the ground, his voice tired. ‘I’m sorry, Lieutenant. I’ll take care of it.’
‘See that you do.’ The cop nodded as Truckworth glanced up and then turned and walked away.
TWENTY-SEVEN
‘What do you think that was about?’ Ruby asked as they made their way back up the stairs.
‘What are you talking about?’ Dulcie couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d seen in the hole. It had been awfully large for a rat. And if it were any other animal, it might be trapped in the maze of tunnels and construction – too spooked by the noise to find its way back out.
‘That was Wardley, the cop who arrested Kyle. I thought Truckworth would tear him a new one, but he seemed all diffident.’ Ruby stopped to turn back toward the hole.
‘His son’s in trouble. Maybe he’s hoping to get on the officer’s good side?’ Truckworth’s reasoning didn’t seem as pressing as the other issue the incident had raised. ‘Ruby, did you see something down there?’
‘Probably a rat.’ Ruby shook off the residual horror and climbed the remaining stairs to return to work, hugging her arms around her. ‘Whatever – it ran back down into the tunnel, and I’ve got to get back in too. It’s freezing out here.’
It was, the wind hinting at more snow to come, but still Dulcie lingered on the stairs. She hadn’t recognized Wardley in that knit cap, but knowing that he was the task force leader made everything else make a little more sense. The facilities manager struck her as a bully, and a bully would be easily cowed by someone with more power. What had struck her only after they had started walking away was the manner in which he had answered her question. Stuart Truckworth had immediately known whom Dulcie was talking about. He might have had a point about the poor man’s offense, but Dulcie couldn’t help thinking that there was something else going on between the two, something more recent than a youthful acquaintance. What had Truckworth said? That Jeremy had been a ‘thorn in his side’ for thirty years? There was bad blood there, and it was current.
Griddlehaus would know, Dulcie decided. She would have to ask him when he next surfaced, and with that she walked back into the library.
‘Miss.’ The guard was glowering. Her bag was nowhere in sight.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I really am. But I wanted to see what all the ruckus was about. Do you …?’ She looked around. ‘Where’s my bag?’
‘I thought about turning it over to the police.’ He looked down his nose at her. It wasn’t difficult, seeing as how he was both tall and had an impressive snout. ‘For all I knew, it could have contained a bomb or some kind of contraband.’
Dulcie had a flash of concern, imagining her laptop – all her work – in the hands of Lieutenant Wardley. She thought back to their interaction. Had she been rude? Chris was always telling her she needed to be a bit more circumspect around authority. But, no, the guard raised one finger and ducked under the counter. Then, with three giant strides he made his way over to the administrative office. Dulcie waited, wondering if she should follow him. But just as she had decided that, yes, she should, he emerged with her old familiar messenger bag. As he placed its worn canvas on the counter her gratitude – and remorse – were unfeigned.
‘Thank you so much.’ She reached for the denim strap. ‘I’m really sorry to have just dumped it here. I just—’
‘And I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, especially if I worried you. We don’t have a protocol for storing student possessions and it took me a moment to locate it.’ He was smiling. ‘I don’t think we’ve ever met, but I see you here all the time, and I didn’t figure you for a terrorist.’
‘Thank you.’ She looked up. When he smiled, his nose didn’t look quite so huge. ‘I’m Dulcie, by the way. Dulcinea Schwartz.’
‘Roger Thumbkin,’ said the large guard, apparently unaware of any irony, as he held out his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you.’
Dulcie smiled and nodded, not trusting herself to respond. If a giant could be named Thumbkin, she wasn’t going to comment. The new guard wasn’t through with her, however.
‘One reason I brought it into the office,’ he said, leaning over and dropping his voice, ‘is I believe I heard a certain distinctive tone.’ He pronounced the last word carefully. She met his eyes. They both knew what this meant: Dulcie had left her phone turned on in the library.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered back. ‘I’ll take care of it.’
Retreating to the portico, she saw a few fat flakes begin to fall. The damp gusts had indeed meant more wintry weather, and Dulcie shivered as she fished the device from the bag’s depths. Sure enough, it was turned on. But in place of a message, she saw a text. Chris. The wind was whipping up – a snow squall – and Dulcie turned her back to it as she opened her phone.
Hope you’re hard at work, it read. Can’t wait to read! Know Mr Grey would be proud of you.
Dulcie swallowed. If only he knew. But it was too cold out here to explain – her teeth had begun to chatter. And since she couldn’t lie, she merely typed in a smiley face and hit send. By the time they spoke tonight, she promised herself – and him – silently, she’d have some real progress to report.
Fifteen minutes later, she was back in the reading room, laptop open before her. The sudden storm had had one good effect – it seemed to have put the kibosh on any more excavation work outside. At any rate, the noise had ceased, and Dulcie should have been able to concentrate. The light was good, the seat more comfortable than in her carrel three levels down. In fact, if she were being completely honest, the reading room was probably more conducive to serious work. Although the cavernous space wasn’t as private as her usual subterranean lair, the occasional footstep actually served to keep her focused. There were people here, other scholars, who just might notice if she were staring into space for too long. Or, worse, if she fell asleep.
Besides, all that talk of rats had disturbed her. Dulcie knew that she lived in a city – it was hard to ignore such things, especially with the frequent police updates. And rats were as much a part of the urban landscape as, well, rodents anywhere. Still, she couldn’t help but be creeped out by the idea of such vermin in what was essentially her home. She told herself this was largely out of concern for the collection. The idea that some day she might pull a volume from the shelf and find that it had been gnawed on was simply horrible. But she couldn’t help thinking of the movements she had seen – the shadowy shape darting around the edges of the stacks and, more recently, that hole. Had those been rodents, signs of a larger infestation? Even up here, in the well-lit confines of the reading room, Dulcie felt her toes curl at the idea.
Only, she realized now, staring at the screen which had – unlike its owner – drifted off to sleep, she hadn’t felt that same queasiness outside. Unlike Ruby, who had recoiled at the idea of a rat, Dulcie had found herself leaning forward. Trying to get a glimpse of whatever it was that had scurried behind the worker with the jackhammer. It couldn’t have been …
No. Mr Grey wouldn’t have darted away like that. If anything, he would have stopped and looked up at her. Dulcie shook her head to clear it. Chris’s message had made her think of Mr Grey. It was natural. That didn’t mean her spectral companion was haunting the grounds around the library.
But that didn’t mean some other cat wasn’t. After all, cats and humans belonged together. Certainly since the time of that printer’s mark – the sign of the ‘printer’s friend’ – humans had been grateful for their presence.
Dulcie could have laughed: it was all so obvious. Feral cats were as much a part of the urban landscape as were rats. In fact, it only made sense that if the rodents of the Yard were being displaced then the felines of the area might be
having a heyday. Maybe there had been a rat down there, disturbed by the jackhammering just like every other creature in the vicinity had been. And maybe she had caught a glimpse of a local cat in hot pursuit.
Poor thing. The thought came unbidden to Dulcie’s mind. Esmé, she realized immediately, would have a field day with that: sympathy for a rat! Not that her plump and pampered pet had ever been a mouser, nor was likely to be. Esmé’s prey tended toward the inanimate: catnip mice and rolled-up balls of foil. The few times last summer when Dulcie had seen her stalk a moth, the result had clearly been so humiliating for the erstwhile hunter that Dulcie had refrained from ever mentioning it.
Poor Esmé. She missed Chris as much as Dulcie did. More, maybe, because she didn’t have the distraction of a dissertation to keep her busy. Though certainly, if asked, the little tuxedo cat would have declared that her days were quite full. Dulcie would have to discuss this with Chris tonight, when they talked. And now, she thought as she pulled her chair in, she really did have to get to work. If for no other reason than to be able to tell Chris – and Esmé – what she had gotten done.
With a poke, she woke her dozing laptop and began to type. A closer examination of these pages, she read, sheds light on the author and her origins.
Dulcie paused. This was where she had intended to talk about language, about repeated phrases that she had painstakingly traced back to both The Ravages of Umbria as well as to early feminist tracts of the time, writings that were more widely disseminated in England than in the young United States. In a previous chapter, Dulcie had already made the connection between this later, fragmented work and the earlier novel, tying in several pseudonymous essays that had appeared in Philadelphia about this time. Now she was going to take it even further, to look at how word usage and certain terms suggested the education and social class of the author.
The examination of these pages …
It was because of that cat – that or the mention of Mr Grey – but as she typed the final word, she thought of the mark she had seen in the conservator’s lab. The profile of a cat, depicted so economically with just a few lines of silver – a touch of glitter reminiscent of another she had seen in the Mildon, right before it closed. The printer’s friend, Griddlehaus had explained, because of his skill at keeping rats and mice at bay. The Mildon fragment had probably been something different. Those documents had already been thoroughly examined, Dulcie knew now. Still, she had found that other mark – the one in the binding of Jeremy’s book – and she couldn’t help but think it couldn’t have appeared without a reason. Not with those long whiskers, so reminiscent of someone else she knew.