A Study in Crimson

by Chris Orcutt

  The window was open, and the maples outside swayed in the wind. The breeze coming in caught an open book on the desk and flipped the pages like a ghost was speed-reading them.

  “Better grab that book,” I said.

  She tossed it on the bed and shut the window.

  “Hey, Megan,” I said. “What did you mean before, when you said ‘if she comes back’?”

  “I meant she’s hardly ever here. Stays at her boyfriend’s place most nights. That’s him.” She pointed at picture frames on the desk: Sally and Dr. Geoff Malone at Boston sites—Bunker Hill, the Boston Tea Party ship, Fenway Park. “Meanwhile, some boyfriend—the guy’s a visiting professor. Dr. Malone. Maybe you’ve heard of him?”

  “Peripherally.”

  “Guy’s a total lech,” she said. “First time he came over here, he was totally scamming on me. Every time Sally turned her back, he’d be checking me out. He even grabbed my ass once. He’s one of those accidentally cop-a-feel guys, you know?”

  “Not really,” I said. “That’s not my style.”

  “I don’t care if he’s a Ph.D.,” she said. “Far as I’m concerned, the guy’s nothing but a slimy troglodyte.”

  “Damn,” I said. “Impressive vocab word, young lady.”

  “Perfect SAT verbal.” She shrugged it off with a smile. “Anyway, I told Sally all about the lech, but she wouldn’t listen.” Megan grabbed some keys and a wallet, stabbed her feet into flip-flops, and walked toward the door. “Listen, Dr. Stevens…I’m going down to the Grille. I assume I can trust you alone in here for five minutes.”

  “Of course,” I said. “I’ll be on the phone.”

  “Yeah, well…I’m leaving the door open, so don’t get cute with anything in here.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I gave her a little salute, sat at the desk and picked up the phone.

  Squinting at me, she backed out of the room and sauntered down the hall, her flip-flops slapping her heels with every step. I counted to ten, then quietly closed the door.

  Sally’s desk had three small drawers on the right and one wide one above the space where the chair was stowed. The top two small drawers contained only office supplies. But in the very back of the bottom drawer, along with a few rolls of quarters, I found a box of condoms and a bottle of K-Y lubricant.

  Then I checked the wide drawer. At first it was jammed, but I yanked it open and a fluorescent green flyer fluttered out. There was a stack of them in the drawer. I picked up the one that had fallen on the floor. On either side of the flyer were cartoon figures: on the left, a curvaceous coed in lingerie, covering her mouth in mock surprise; on the right, a muscular young man in nothing but a pair of briefs. Down the center was the following text:

  Interested in

  Sex?

  Then join visiting researcher

  Dr. Geoff Malone,

  in the most important

  and controversial

  sex research project

  since Masters & Johnson.

  The Malone Sexual Attraction Study

  will forever change

  human sexuality.

  Curious?

  Are you between 18 and 25?

  If so, become a subject!

  Apply at Volvap Hall,

  Mon–Fri, 10am–4pm.

  Applications strictly confidential.

  I folded up a copy and slipped it in my messenger bag. The rainstorm raked so savagely against the window, I couldn’t hear if anyone was coming from down the hall. However, it was doubtful I’d get another crack at this. I simply had to forge ahead and risk getting caught.

  Moving on to Sally’s bureau, I found questionable items in the top and bottom drawers. The top one was filled with panties with the word “JUICY” emblazoned across the seat; the bottom drawer, I discovered with a wince, contained myriad sex toys and a nest of racy lingerie. Maybe searching her room wasn’t such a good idea after all. No matter what, I wouldn’t be mentioning these items in my report to Director Reeves.

  I was about to check Sally’s closet when I heard grumbling from behind the hallway door. Darting back to Sally’s desk, I picked up the phone and pretended to be talking to my hotel.

  Megan squinted at me as she came inside. She tossed her wallet and keys on her desk and stabbed a fork into a salad.

  “So he didn’t leave a message?” I said to the dial tone. “All right…thanks.”

  I hung up.

  “Hey, I told you to leave the door open,” Megan said.

  “Sorry, I needed some privacy.”

  “Mm, well, it’s been nice meeting you, Dr. Stevens, but I have to study. If you want to wait for Sally, please do it down in the library.”

  “You two don’t get along, do you?” I asked.

  Megan shrugged and ate some salad.

  “It’s sad when friends drift apart,” I said.

  She gave me an eye-roll that would have made a fifth grader proud.

  “Whatever,” she said. “If Sally shows up, I’ll tell her you’re in the library.”

  “Thanks, Megan,” I said.

  I made my way downstairs. Like a lot of rooms at Harvard, the dorm library had the feel of an English club: dark paneled walls, built-in bookcases, and chandeliers. A few students hunched over study tables, while others lolled on leather sofas. The windows were shut, and I could hear the rainstorm slashing against the windowpanes.

  I took out my copy of The Little Sister and plopped into a club chair and put my feet up on a hassock. Four pages into the novel, when I read the line, “She was a small, neat, rather prissy-looking girl with primly smooth brown hair…,” there was a tap on my shoulder. As I was emerging from the fictional dream, I thought the woman in the novel had come to life. Sally Standish was standing in front of me.

  “Mr. Stevens,” she said softly, “Megan said you came over to help me with today’s lecture. Funny, but I don’t recall asking for private tutoring. I don’t recall introducing myself or even telling you my name.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  I stood up and motioned toward an alcove in the corner of the room. She followed me inside.

  “After class,” I said, “I peeked at Professor Cantor’s seating chart and I looked you up in the college directory. Then I came over here and asked around until somebody told me your room number.”

  “But why go to all that trouble?”

  “I was thinking we could go out sometime.”

  “I have a boyfriend,” she said.

  “Yeah, Dr. Malone. I heard.”

  “I’m sorry, but we’re exclusive,” she said. “What made you think I was interested in you anyway?”

  “During the lecture,” I said. “I saw how you were looking at me.”

  “I just wanted to”—she fidgeted—“see who was speaking, that’s all.”

  I chuckled.

  “What’s funny?” she said.

  “You. You’re adorable,” I said. “Look, how about tonight? We could go over to Boston and have dinner—Atlantic Fish on Boylston Street. I was a waiter there in college.”

  “I can’t. I have an appointment.”

  “All right, then—tomorrow night.”

  “Geoff is in a chess tournament tomorrow night,” she said. “Against some woman professional or something. But even if he weren’t, I couldn’t—I mean…I wouldn’t be interested.”

  She averted her eyes when she said this. At the very least, she was intrigued. I wasn’t thrilled with what I was about to do—trifle with a young woman’s emotions—but I reminded myself that Sally’s father was worried about her, that he’d essentially sanctioned my wooing her, and that the successful completion of this job would establish me in private practice.

  I took a deep breath and thought of England.

  Moving closer to Sally, I backe
d her up until she was against a floor-to-ceiling bookcase. She was almost a foot shorter than me and had to tilt her head back to look me in the face. Her eyes were a soft brown, almost amber, and the chandelier lights shone in them. Easing closer still to her, moving with hypnotic slowness, I caressed her cheek with my hand and glided it over her jawbone. Her cheeks flushed, her breathing faltered.

  I was planning to caress her teasingly down her neck but ran into a thick turtleneck sweater. I probed a couple inches underneath, and my fingers touched something hard, like a piece of steel. Gently I pulled the fabric down, revealing a quarter-inch-thick pewter loop that fit snugly around her neck. Dangling off the loop was a small metal ring, and at the bottom, where the two ends of the necklace came together, was a heart-shaped lock.

  “This is the strangest necklace I’ve ever seen,” I said. “What is it, some kind of choker?”

  “No.” She pushed my hand away. “It’s my BDSM collar.”

  “Excuse me?” I said. “ ‘BDSM’?”

  “It stands for ‘Bondage, Dominance, Sadism, Masochism,’ ” she said. “I’m the submissive, or slave, to my boyfriend, who is my master.”

  I shook my head fiercely, like a cartoon character that had just smashed into a brick wall.

  “What?” I said. “A ‘slave’? Some guy is your master? Sally, you’re an Ivy League student, and a young woman from—” Thankfully, I stopped myself before adding “a wealthy family,” which would have blown my cover. “Why would you—”

  “Being submissive is how I get in touch with my femininity,” she said.

  “Who told you that? Your master?”

  “Never mind, you wouldn’t understand.” She smoothed out her sweater. “Like I said before, I have a boyfriend.”

  “Well, when you change your mind,” I said with a smile, “I’m staying at the Charles.”

  “You don’t lack for confidence, do you, Dr. Stevens?”

  Harvard student or not, Sally was still a 19½-year-old girl. Pick-up lines that might repulse women my own age would indubitably arouse young Sally’s interest.

  “It’s confidence born of experience, my dear,” I said. “Long, hard experience.”

  Her mouth went slack, and she coughed out a nervous giggle. Leaning close to her, I breathed in the clean scent of her neck. I’d forgotten how nice college girls smelled. Unsullied by time, and with the natural scent of their fertility obviating the need for perfume, they were like new cars, and their aroma was addictive.

  I put my mouth close to her ear as though to whisper something scandalous, and breathed hotly there. She shivered and wilted her body against mine, taking hold of my arms. That lower lip of hers—that glistening, pouting, full lower lip—was begging to be kissed, but I kissed her on the cheek instead, next to her ear. While she was still plastered against the bookcase with glassy eyes, I hitched up my messenger bag and slipped away. Scurrying after me, she caught up to me in the main hall.

  “Wait, it’s Dakota, right?” she said. “Stay, let’s talk!”

  “Uh-uh.” I wagged a forefinger. “You have a boyfriend, remember?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Take care, Sally.”

  I went out the front door and stepped into the rainstorm.

  Acting the scoundrel with women is not without its pitfalls. In order for my leaving not to be anticlimactic, I had to depart when the autumn storm was at its worst. And because finding a cab in Cambridge in the rain is as impossible as getting one in Upper Harlem at three o’clock in the morning, I had to walk back to my hotel. Arriving sopping wet and chilled, I made myself a cup of coffee, filled the tub, stripped, and settled into a hot bath.

  This afternoon’s discoveries at Sally’s dorm had daunted me. Especially that “BDSM” collar of hers. I’d taken this case believing it was just a matter of my enticing Sally away from another older man. But that collar, her referring to herself as the “submissive” or “slave” in the relationship, and Malone as her “master”—these behaviors were similar to those of people under the influence of cults.

  This “non-case” might prove a lot tougher than I originally thought.

  For starters, I now had fairly definitive proof that Mr. Standish’s little girl was sexually active. I’d also found a drawerful of flyers advertising Dr. Malone’s sexual attraction study, which suggested that Sally was posting them for him, perhaps even acting as a “talent” scout. I knew that Sally’s dorm mate, Megan, loathed Dr. Malone; she called him a “slimy troglodyte,” said he’d groped her. I’d learned that Malone was one of Miss Krüsh’s opponents in tomorrow night’s tournament. Finally, a world-renowned psychologist, Dr. Cantor, had remarked that Malone reminded him of serial killer Ted Bundy and that I should be looking closely into Malone’s background.

  All of this made me wonder, “What the hell are you going to say in your report, Dakota? Should you mention the lingerie and sex toys? The BDSM collar?” And then I remembered something: I didn’t have a laptop to type my report on. I supposed I could use the computer in the hotel business center downstairs, or trek over to Widener Library to do it.

  I sighed. Reports were one of the reasons I’d left the Bureau.

  Screw it—I’d write it tomorrow.

  I soaked in the tub until the water turned tepid, then lounged for a long time on the king-sized bed while watching the Weather Channel. By tonight, they said, the storm would blow out to sea. I fell asleep listening to the smooth jazz they played in the background.

  6

  The Persistence of a Bloodhound

  By seven thirty the next morning, I had been staked out in front of Sally’s dorm for an hour. Thanks to my early-rising New England genes, I’d woken at five, worked out, showered, dressed, eaten breakfast, walked along the river to Banister House, and parked myself on a bench in a remote corner of the courtyard. Now I was sipping coffee and reading The Little Sister in the autumn morning sunshine, and scrutinizing the students that emerged from her building to see if she was among them. She wasn’t.

  You’d think with eleven years’ experience with the FBI, and another year doing private work, this part of the job would have become easier, but it hadn’t. If I ever wrote a book about detecting someday, I had a good opening line for it:

  More than flashy Sherlock Holmes skills of observation and deductive reasoning, the good detective must possess two ordinary qualities in abundance: the patience of a Zen monk to endure long periods of tedium or inactivity, and the persistence of a bloodhound to tirelessly follow clues wherever they might lead.

  Waiting for Sally was testing my limits with the first of these qualities—patience. Given that her first class started at eight o’clock, by quarter-to I realized she wasn’t coming out. She had probably stayed in Boston with Malone last night and would be going directly to class from his apartment. Tossing the book in my messenger bag, I threw out my now-cold coffee and hotfooted it over to campus.

  The class, “Great Psychological Literature,” was held in a classroom in Widener Library. I peeked in the window on the door. A woman professor spoke animatedly to nine yawning students leafing through paperbacks of The Brothers Karamazov. Sally wasn’t one of the students. For half an hour, I waited in a study carrel at the end of the corridor—but she never showed.

  After a quick restroom break, I went to Sally’s next class: “Abnormal Psychology.” Again I waited, but she didn’t show up to this one either.

  Stumped, I examined her class schedule and activities list. She hadn’t gone to either of her morning classes, and she had only one other class today, in the afternoon. She was in two activities: intramural tennis, which met again tomorrow afternoon, and the school newspaper, the Harvard Crimson. There were no scheduled times associated with the Crimson, but having written a few forensic science articles for my college newspaper, The Tech, I remembered that students often worked on the paper between class
es, or catch-as-catch-can. The Renaissance literature major I’d dated here at Harvard had been managing editor for the Crimson, and the two of us spent many late nights alone there together. Thus I was very familiar—intimately familiar, you might say—with the building’s layout. I decided to drop by the Crimson and see if Sally was there.

  Stepping outside into the bright sunshine, I paused on the steps to slip on my American Optical square-framed aviator sunglasses. As weather goes, today’s—clear blue skies, low chance of precipitation, and the perfect balance between the warmth of late summer and the coolness of autumn—was ideal for tailing someone on foot. Taking a deep, satisfying breath, I hustled over to 14 Plympton Street.

  The venerable brick building looked exactly as it had the last time I was here, twelve years ago: the two flagpoles and small balcony, “The Harvard Crimson” engraved in the frieze over the entrance, and the crimson red door. However, when I swiped my ID to get in, it didn’t work. Frowning, I waited until two girls came out carrying stacks of newspapers. I grabbed the door before it closed.

  “Hold it,” said one of the girls, a tall brunette. “Are you a student here?”

  Leaning against the door, I slowly removed my sunglasses and smiled. “Dr. Dakota Stevens.” I flashed my ID like it was my old FBI badge. “That’s right, ladies—I’m a Harvard Fellow. Drink…it…in.”

  They sniggered. The other girl, a freckle-faced redhead, hitched up her newspapers and used them to push her bangs out of her eyes.

  “Hey,” she said, “is it true you guys have, like, carte blanche all over campus?”

  “Are you kidding?” I said. “I could burn Kirkland House to the ground and nobody would say ‘boo.’ ”

  They laughed.

  “Please not Kirkland,” the brunette said. “That’s our house.”

  “All right. I was going to, but since you two gorgeous creatures live there…”

  They giggled. I nodded at the open door.

  “Editorial still upstairs?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” said the brunette.