Into the Grey

by Clea Simon

  He nodded to his colleague, and both turned to Dulcie.

  ‘Tangential, as in touching?’ She stopped short. ‘Has anyone asked Tom Walls if he might be involved in any of this?’ Dulcie didn’t like incriminating anyone else, especially not a student. But she couldn’t avoid the obvious. ‘I know he was supposed to shelve books, but mis-shelving a book would be a smart ploy. I mean, if he wanted to throw off suspicion.’

  Rogovoy glanced up at the other cop. Dulcie waited. It seemed obvious.

  ‘Ms Schwartz, why were you looking for Tom Walls?’

  Dulcie turned to face the sergeant. What was his name, Milford? ‘Why are you asking, Sergeant? Is that a crime?’

  ‘Nobody’s accusing you of—’ Rogovoy put out his broad hands, almost as if he would smooth her fur.

  ‘No, I want to know,’ the sergeant interrupted. Rogovoy was going to have to do something about discipline. Surely, this younger man was an underling. ‘She stumbles on the professor,’ Milford continued. ‘She finds a book covered in gore, and she’s insisting we talk to a poor kid who fainted at the sight of all that blood. Is she one of your—’

  ‘No.’ When he wanted, Rogovoy had a bark like a bulldog. Dulcie looked from him to his junior, wondering what the man had been implying. He couldn’t think that he and she … ‘Ms Schwartz,’ the senior detective made a noise like he was clearing his throat, his voice going soft again. ‘If you could answer the question.’

  ‘About Tom? That poor kid!’ Dulcie made herself focus, but that fleeting suspicion – that suggestion – had sparked her anger. She had all the sympathy in the world for Tom Walls. He was the kind of quiet, retiring young man she could have seen herself with, if she weren’t involved with Chris, of course. But to call him ‘poor kid’ when he wouldn’t even speak up. When people were making insinuations about her. About her cousin … ‘He’s a coward,’ she burst out with now. ‘And I want to know why he’s lying about my cousin, about not knowing whether she was in the library the morning Professor Fenderby was killed.’

  ‘Your cousin?’ Rogovoy’s eyebrows had disappeared into the wrinkles of his forehead. ‘I wasn’t aware that you had any family on campus.’

  ‘She’s …’ Dulcie sighed. To her it was clear. ‘We’re … it’s very distant. But we look alike, and there’s so much in our families that mirror each other.’ She stopped short of talking about their common ancestress. That might sound far-fetched to a non-academician. ‘And that’s why I feel an obligation to help her now that she’s under suspicion.’

  Rogovoy looked up, and Dulcie caught the glance he gave the younger officer. Saw, as well, the very brief nod the sergeant made to the older man’s silent query.

  ‘Why do you think she’s under suspicion?’ Rogovoy’s voice was so quiet now Dulcie had to lean in to hear him.

  ‘Because of her suit against Fenderby. The harassment charges that were dismissed. She was warned not to—’ Dulcie caught herself. She hadn’t wanted to say anything. She hadn’t meant to betray Mina’s confidence. She looked up at the big detective. ‘Detective Rogovoy, I’m sorry I said anything. You can’t – she’s not supposed to talk to anybody. But I’m not only her cousin, I’m a friend and I feel a certain responsibility for her.’

  How to explain that she had introduced her young cousin to the allure of early nineteenth-century prose, to the writings of the woman she believed connected them both? And that by doing so, she had set Mina on a path that put her in Fenderby’s way?

  ‘And Tom Walls?’ Rogovoy sounded so gentle. Maybe she didn’t have to explain.

  ‘He knows Mina, and he’s always with her when she’s down on Level Two. It was an arrangement they had. I mean, I didn’t see him down there. But I’d had a shock. He works there, and I believe Mina.’ Dulcie stumbled over herself to explain. It was better to have it all out in the open. Besides, she told herself, talking to the police wasn’t necessarily revealing a confidence. It was more like a civic duty. ‘Only now he’s saying he was here, but he can’t say she wasn’t.’ It was all too much. ‘I thought if I could talk to him, to find out why.’

  Rogovoy was holding up one of his large hands. ‘I don’t think you should say any more, Ms Schwartz.’ His voice was still soft, only now there was an element of sadness in it that was matched by the droop of his large, tired eyes. ‘Not before you speak to counsel, at any rate.’

  ‘It’s only logical, Dulce.’ Chris was on his way. Dulcie had reached him during a tutoring session that he’d cut short when he saw her urgent texts. ‘I’m sure they’re simply following procedure.’

  ‘Procedure?’ Dulcie had retreated to her office, after Rogovoy had escorted her out. She’d been too upset to head for the café where they usually met, and hadn’t even wanted to face the walk home alone. ‘Chris, you don’t understand.’

  ‘He didn’t arrest you, right?’ Chris would be there in minutes. Dulcie knew that. She’d asked him to come here for just that reason. ‘They’re gathering information right now, and what you’ve told them lays out one clear possibility.’

  ‘Chris!’ Dulcie was pacing, the small office beginning to feel more like a prison cell than a refuge. She’d been half hoping, when she came down here, that she’d find Lloyd at work. The company of her long-suffering colleague would have given the afternoon some semblance of normalcy.

  When she’d found herself alone in their shared space, she’d turned instead to the one high-set window. At times, when the light had shown down, illuminating the swirl of dust motes that never quite cleared, she had been sure she’d seen Mr Grey, and if she had ever had need of a benign feline presence, it was now. But she’d been too agitated to sit and stare. And it seemed that even as a ghost, her one-time pet tended to make himself scarce when rapid movement or loud voices were involved.

  ‘Dulce, sweetie, I’ll be there in five minutes.’ He’d given up on attempting to explain his so-called reasoning at least. ‘Maybe try Suze again?’

  ‘Maybe that’s her now.’ Dulcie switched over to the incoming call without bothering to say goodbye. If he was going to take the side of the police in all this, then she was justified in nearly hanging up on him, she told herself. Besides, he’d be here any moment.

  ‘Suze?’ she asked the phone, breathless. Her former roommate was a full-fledged lawyer now, working at a legal clinic over in Jamaica Plain. And although their busy schedules kept them from spending as much time together as they once did, Dulcie had no doubt that her fair-minded friend would come to her aid.

  ‘Dulcie, what’s up?’ Suze sounded calm, even though she had clearly gotten Dulcie’s panicked message. ‘Is another one of your strays in a jam?’

  ‘Yes, well, no, not exactly.’ Dulcie paused. Suze had helped Dulcie out several times before. Most recently, however, she had been instrumental in getting a former colleague into subsidized housing. ‘I mean, yes, sort of. My cousin – you remember Mina Love?’ She didn’t pause long enough for Suze to answer. ‘But it’s gotten complicated. Suze, I think I’m under suspicion for a murder.’

  Once the words were out, Dulcie felt calmer. She was even able to sit down on the edge of her desk and explain what had happened. ‘And then Detective Rogovoy told me that I shouldn’t leave the city without telling him,’ Dulcie concluded. ‘I mean, he’s keeping tabs on where I go now!’

  ‘That is scary, Dulcie.’ Unlike Chris, Suze knew better than to downplay what she was going through. ‘And it sounds a little like they tag-teamed you in there. You know, with this Milford being the heavy, pressuring you so you would confide in Rogovoy.’

  ‘But I didn’t tell him anything he didn’t know.’ Dulcie heard her own lie. ‘I mean, not much. It wasn’t like I was pointing a finger at anyone.’

  ‘You didn’t have to,’ said Suze.

  Dulcie listened, with growing dismay, as her friend went through the same list that Chris had outlined: Dulcie appeared to be protecting her younger cousin. Therefore, it was possible that she had felt the need to
avenge her, as well. And now she appeared to be trying to influence what another party – Tom Walls – had told the police.

  ‘But I didn’t know about Mina – about Fenderby.’ It was the same objection she had made to Chris. ‘So I didn’t have – I wouldn’t have a motive.’

  There, the word was out. Not only that, but someone was knocking. Chris! She slid off the desk to unbolt the door.

  ‘Suze.’ She mouthed the name as her tall boyfriend slipped his lanky frame inside.

  ‘Manipulated.’ Suze had kept talking. Dulcie had missed something.

  ‘Excuse me?’ She closed the door behind him.

  ‘I don’t think it likely that the cops – even your buddy Rogovoy – would let you in on the direction of the investigation if you were a real suspect, Dulcie.’ Dulcie looked up at her boyfriend, a hint of hope sparking the beginning of a smile.

  ‘You think that I’m not …’ She didn’t dare finish.

  ‘I think it’s more likely that they believe that you’ve been manipulated,’ Suze said, emphasizing her last word. ‘Both Tom and Mina are documented as entering the library, although neither were around by the time you discovered the body, and it makes sense. They’re probably thinking that your testimony can be used against your cousin.’

  FIFTEEN

  The lightning flared, illuminating for one brief moment the storm-toss’d trees, as spare and grasping as I had once felt myself to be. I turned from them, as I would turn from my former foolish self, in time to hear another crack and howl. The storm persisted, but in its momentary illumination, I eyed once more the crest upon the gate. My final glimpse, before I fled into the horrid night, burned stark upon my eyes. Three lions, rampant—

  ‘No! I cry aloud, as if that very storm still raged. In truth, I fear another, and in my haste to scrape the page clean, I am the brutal strike. The page is torn, a night’s work ruined, and yet I cannot rest. It goes, as have so many, into the fire, its edges redden as they curl, then blacken unto ash. I stand watch, aware of my profligacy. This paper may be both our salvation and undoing. For what I can create with my wit and pen procures us bread, and yet I must not reveal too much, for I myself am the tinder, awaiting one incautious spark. It is my name that may catch and flare. May cause the conflagration that brings down this house, and she who sleeps the rest of innocence within.

  Dulcie woke with a start, her head throbbing. She had had trouble falling asleep, too worried by Suze’s concerns to listen to Chris’s common sense rebuttal.

  ‘At least they don’t think you did it,’ her boyfriend had said, as Dulcie had paced back and forth. Esmé had made herself scarce even before her boyfriend had come home. Unless it was her drama, the little tuxedo cat wasn’t interested in a scene. ‘They’ll get to the bottom of it, Dulcie.’ Chris had done his best to calm her. ‘Rogovoy’s a good cop.’

  ‘Maybe that’s the problem.’ Dulcie repeated her answer to herself now. ‘Maybe Rogovoy is too good a cop.’

  It was hopeless, she thought, lying there. She couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t even apply herself to the puzzle of her nightmare. Why had the old familiar setting – a storm at sea – been replaced by one on land? Why did she see herself now as the author? Well, that one might make sense, she acknowledged. Considering how the recent catastrophe touched so closely on her work.

  And on her cousin, too. Was it Mina who ‘sleeps the rest of innocence’? she wondered. She hoped so, wishing her cousin more peaceful slumber than she herself could find. But that was the least of the questions ricocheting around Dulcie’s mind.

  Dulcie loved her cousin. She’d trust her with her own life. Only, where had Mina gone Monday morning? Where, for that matter, had Tom been? It was true that Dulcie hadn’t explored every nook and cranny of Level Two – on her way in, she was too set on finding Fenderby. And then she had found him, she thought, with a shiver. But even before, she had been struck by the stillness of the floor. The darkness, except for that stray flash of light from a high-set window.

  She shivered again, thinking through the implications. If something had happened between her cousin and the professor, Dulcie would understand. Mina had been sorely provoked. Maybe there had been another scene between her cousin and Fenderby – some kind of confrontation that had led to an accident, a horrible, tragic accident. Then it would be quite possible that Mina had panicked. Had run back to her room and, well, invented a story to cover it up. Of course, her cousin would come forward, once she had caught her breath, so to speak. She would explain the circumstance, and how whatever had happened hadn’t been premeditated. But now Dulcie had made that impossible. Now if Mina confessed to – well – anything, it would appear that she was merely trying to make a deal. To lessen her own guilt. When, in fact, the whole mess had been caused by that creep Roland Fenderby’s gross predatory actions in the first place.

  ‘Damn the man.’ Dulcie kicked off the covers. Chris, snoring beside her, wasn’t likely to wake. ‘He deserved it.’

  She climbed out of bed and made her way into the kitchen. The night outside was the opposite of that in her dream, clear and bright with an almost full moon. Still, she felt the loneliness of the dream’s central figure – a woman, writing alone at night. Desperate to finish … what?

  Dulcie leaned her forehead on the cool glass and felt a warm pressure against her shin: Esmé. Sometimes it was good to have even a normal cat around. Calming. Dulcie knew she had been letting her fancies carry her away. Her concerns about her thesis were obviously being translated into dream imagery again, the writer with her old-fashioned pen and inkwell standing in for Dulcie and her computer.

  Scooping the soft feline up in her arms, Dulcie mulled over what she really knew. She had had variants on this dream before. She either saw the woman writing at her desk, usually by night, as if this was the only time she could escape the cares of the day. Or, she thought as she stroked her pet into a purr, she found herself in one of the wild adventures the dream figure was creating. Fleeing that fortress-like castle in the middle of a storm, or crossing the sea on a too-small sailing ship, the waves making the journey both dramatic and terrifying. It was all standard Gothic fare. Dulcie didn’t need Chris to point this out, although he had learned enough about her research to do so. As her own work neared its peak, it made sense that she’d dream a mash-up of her subject and her own aspirations.

  Except that Dulcie had come to believe that these dreams were about more than thesis anxiety. Although she never learned the name of the woman in her dream, never even saw anything that might identify her, Dulcie believed she was a real historical person. In fact, even if Chris eyed her with that worried look when she mentioned it, Dulcie believed that the dream writer was the subject of her dissertation, the anonymous author of The Ravages. Previous dreams had helped her deal with some problems – both in real life and her work. And while Chris would have a logical explanation for why that happened, something about her daytime thoughts percolating through her subconscious to some kind of clarity, Dulcie knew better. After all, reason didn’t explain Mr Grey either.

  Whether because of Dulcie’s increasing agitation or the mention of her own predecessor, the little cat began to squirm, and Dulcie released Esmé to jump to the floor.

  ‘Little one.’ Even as Esmé scurried off, a voice as gentle as the brush of whiskers greeted her. ‘You are worried, my child.’

  ‘I am, Mr Grey.’ Dulcie stayed where she was, staring at the darkened window. She knew from experience that if she turned, the warm voice was likely to go quiet. ‘I’m worried about my cousin, about Mina.’

  ‘About family, about connections.’ The voice faded into something very much like a purr. Dulcie had once told the big grey cat that he was her real family, back in the days when her pet had lived with her and Suze in his corporeal form and before he spoke in anything more than the occasional mew. She had been fighting with her mother, she remembered, and felt more alone than usual. ‘The ties that bind us can also burden us, my kitten.’r />
  Dulcie felt herself tear up at the endearment. Unless, of course, her late great cat was talking about Esmé.

  A warm rumble – half chuckle, half purr – disabused her of that notion. ‘As if love were exclusive.’ The low voice seemed to follow directly on her thought. ‘As if the warmth in our hearts flowed in clear paths along with our reason.’

  He could have been talking about their relationship, Dulcie thought. But what he said also pertained to her connection with Mina.

  ‘It’s true, I’m not sure what’s going on with her.’ Dulcie assumed the voice in the dark could sense her thoughts. He had always seemed to, even back when he, too, was a flesh-and-blood pet. She recalled hauling the big cat into her lap and burying her face in his long, soft fur. In true feline fashion, he would put up with the awkward contact for a minute or two, before he too struggled to get down, as Esmé had. ‘But I trust her – and I feel close to her. The same way that I feel close to you – and to Chris, of course.’

  ‘You wish to protect her, little one.’ The rumble was louder. Dulcie could almost feel it. ‘And you are concerned that you have done the opposite, that relationships may influence us both toward the positive and to ill effect.’

  ‘That’s it exactly.’ Dulcie stood up, all the while careful to keep her eyes on the window. The moon was visible above the apartment building opposite, full and white.

  ‘What we do to protect our own …’ The purr began to recede and weaken. ‘The conflict of the effort …’

  ‘Dulcie, you’re up.’ She turned to see Chris walking into the kitchen. He reached for the light switch. ‘Why didn’t you wake me?’

  ‘I wanted to let you sleep.’ Dulcie knew her smile was more wan than welcoming. She couldn’t help it. Mr Grey had been fading anyway, but she had hoped for more time with him. ‘After all, I made you stay up pretty late.’

  ‘You’d do the same for me.’ He pulled the refrigerator door open and stood there, browsing the shelves. It was the kind of thoughtless, wasteful habit that Dulcie had never been allowed to develop, growing up in straitened circumstances. Right now, it was the dearest thing she had ever seen. ‘Hey, do we have any of those sesame noodles left?’ he asked, his face illuminated by the refrigerator light. ‘I had this wild dream. I was running down a hillside – a mountain, actually – in a storm at night. It’s left me famished.’