A Study in Crimson

by Chris Orcutt

  “What do you have there?” I asked. “Latest edition?”

  “Uh-huh,” the redhead said. “We have to deliver—”

  “Here, let me give you a hand.” I slowly slid the top copy off the redhead’s pile, which provoked another laugh from them. “Have a great day, ladies,” I said over my shoulder, and stepped inside.

  “Bye,” the brunette said. “Hey, what’s your name ag—”

  The door slammed shut behind me, guillotining her question. The lobby was empty, save one man: a workman painting the foyer walls Harvard crimson red. He dipped the roller in the paint tray, and every time he rolled it on the wall, it emitted a piercing squeak. He grinned awkwardly at me over his shoulder.

  “Roller, she-a-squeak,” he said.

  I wasn’t sure how to respond to this, so I just nodded. The same bench I used to sit on while waiting for my girlfriend was still here. I sat and opened the newspaper to a full-page version of the “Malone Sexual Attraction Survey” flyer I’d found in Sally’s dorm room. Then I turned to the newspaper masthead. Although I didn’t see Sally’s name listed, near the bottom an entry caught my eye: “Sex & Relationships Advice Columnist: Mustang Sally.” Somehow I sensed that little Sally Standish was “Mustang Sally.” I turned the page to her column, “Ask Sally Anything”:

  Dear Sally,

  There’s a girl in my house I’m really into, and sometimes we flirt and stuff, but I can’t tell if she’s just flirting or she’s waiting for me to make a move. What should I do? Help!

  Sincerely,

  Desperate in Dunster

  Dear Desperate,

  Sounds like somebody needs to man-up and make a move!

  Seriously, it depends on how intensely she’s flirting. Watch her body language the next time you two are together. Is she brushing her hair away from her face or touching her neck to draw attention to her breasts? If so, the girl’s raring for action! Does she step into your personal space or moisten her lips a lot? Those are also sure signs she’s into you.

  Try this—find out what her favorite snack is and show up at her door with it some night. If she invites you inside and makes any of the above-mentioned gestures…feed her some food and make your move!

  Good Luck,

  Mustang Sally

  The second question and answer in her column discussed the merits of various battery-operated phallic devices. Too modest to read it, I shoved the newspaper in my bag and went upstairs. I was at the doorway to the editorial offices and about to go in when I spotted Sally sitting next to a desk inside the room. She was talking to a young man who was clearly her editor: he leaned back in his chair with his feet up on his desk, and had a pencil jammed behind his ear. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I noticed Sally was making notes in a Franklin planner.

  That was it—her personal planner. If I knew where and when Sally’s appointments were, I wouldn’t need to follow her; I could simply go wherever she was headed, arriving before her. But in order to do that, I needed a copy of her planner. How? I’d just have to keep following her and wait for an opportunity.

  She spoke to her editor for another five minutes. When she got up to leave, she stuffed the planner back in her knapsack. It was a pink plaid knapsack, which would make her easy to tail from a distance. I hustled downstairs and outside, where I crouched in a narrow alley on the side the building. When she emerged, I waited until she reached the corner of Plympton Street, and then, slipping my sunglasses back on, I followed her from the opposite sidewalk.

  From the Crimson offices, Sally wended down so many streets that I lost count. Thirty minutes into tailing her, I realized with a shudder how disturbingly Bundy-esque my behavior was. Bundy would often stalk his chosen victim for days or weeks before making a move. However, I reminded myself, while Bundy had been a rapist and serial killer, I was a detective; I was one of the good guys.

  Eventually she arrived at Volvap Hall. I recognized the building name from the flyer and the newspaper ad. Located a good mile from the main Harvard campus on a quiet, tree-lined street, it was a plain two-story brick building that looked more like a college infirmary than a research center.

  While Sally entered the building, I sat inside a bus stop shelter on the opposite corner with a view of the entrance. I checked my watch, noticed it was noon, and realized I was starved. Remembering I had some cashews in my messenger bag, I fished them out and wolfed them down in less than a minute. Rather than satisfying me, all they seemed to do was remind my stomach of how empty it was.

  When would I ever learn? If you’re following somebody on foot, you have to pack sustenance. I’d passed a delicatessen at the end of this street, about a quarter mile away. If I hurried, I could run there, get a couple sandwiches and drinks, and be back in twenty minutes or so.

  But what if Sally left before that? I wouldn’t know where she went. What I really needed was somebody to watch the building for me, but the street, although crammed with parked cars, was devoid of people. I didn’t even see a squirrel. I looked up and down the street, hoping somebody would show up to wait for the bus, and that person could watch for me, but nothing happened. Eternally optimistic, I fished in my bag again for something else to eat, and my hand touched my digital camera.

  Ah, old trusty—that’s how I’d do it.

  Walking to a big Norway maple across the street from the building entrance, I placed the camera on an exposed root in the ample shade, trained the lens on the walkway of Volvap, and set the video function to record. Then I spread a page from the Crimson over the camera, such that the lens peered out the end of the tented newspaper, and put small stones on the newspaper corners to hold it in place.

  Stepping back to observe my handiwork, I noticed how much the newspaper stood out. If anybody with a soupçon of civic pride happened by while I was gone, they’d go to throw away the paper and discover the camera. But detectives with empty stomachs can’t be picky. The camera had a half-hour recording time. Grateful I’d worn my running shoes today, I glanced at my watch and set out at a fast jog for the delicatessen.

  I made it there and back in twenty-two minutes. The camera was still recording when I retrieved it from under the newspaper. Resuming my seat inside the bus stop shelter, I ate my first sandwich (an exquisite Italian sub on freshly baked bread, as good as any I’d had in Manhattan) while watching my “movie” of the building entrance at 16x speed.

  I had placed the camera far enough back so that both the front entrance and the street along the side of the building were in the frame. This was good, in case she slipped out the back of the building. She didn’t. In fact, during the entire 22 minutes I was gone, no one came out of the building; only two girls who looked like graduate students went inside. I shut off the camera and ate my sandwich, glancing catty-cornered at the building entrance from time to time.

  A taxi whisked by. A few minutes later, a mailman slogged past, his bulging mailbag bouncing against his hip. A yellowjacket, probably attracted by the smell of my sandwich, buzzed into the shelter and landed on a tomato slice peeking out from under the sub roll. I didn’t have the heart to kill him, so I shooed him away and laid the tomato slice on the cement outside. He returned to it. We seemed to have reached an accord: I ate my sandwich while he nibbled on the tomato.

  I thought about meeting Svetlana Krüsh yesterday. That woman was one of the most distractingly beautiful creatures I’d ever seen. She was also visibly brilliant. Looking into her eyes, I could see some impressive machinery churning away in there. It surprised me how much I was looking forward to seeing her in tonight’s chess tournament. We seemed to have shared a moment, and I had managed to make her smile once or twice. I wondered if she’d thought about me at all. Doubtful. She’d probably written me off as a foolish merry andrew.

  Oh, well. They can’t all think you’re amazing, Dakota.

  A group of young men and women exited Volvap Hall
and headed back toward the Harvard campus. A woman pushing an exercise stroller jogged past. Then the yellowjacket made another run at my sandwich. This time I backhanded him outside, where he flew off in a panic. Take that, tough guy.

  An hour passed like this. I finished my first sandwich, a bag of Humpty Dumpty potato chips, and a bottle of seltzer, and was debating whether to start my second sub when a bus screeched to a halt in front of the shelter. The door opened. The driver stared down at me.

  “Well?” he said. “You gettin’ on or what?”

  “Changed my mind,” I said.

  He scowled, shut the door and roared away, leaving me—intentionally, I’m sure—in a miasma of diesel fumes. I had to stagger out of the shelter to get some air. Fortunately I happened to glance down the street and saw Sally hotfooting it back toward campus. Tossing my trash in a wastebasket, I resumed tailing her from the opposite side of the street.

  From Volvap Hall, she walked to Widener Library, dumped her knapsack on a corner table in the main reading room, and walked away. When she left the room, I knew this was the best chance I was going to get. Students occupied the tables in the center of the reading room, but they were all hunched over books and weren’t paying attention to their surroundings.

  I went to Sally’s knapsack. Glancing around the room, I unzipped the main pouch, removed her planner and hustled to a photocopier out in the hallway.

  Attached with velcro to the inside flap was a keychain wallet that contained several keys, including one labeled “Dorm” and another labeled “Geoff’s—2468.” The keys could be useful, but they’d have to wait. For now, I photocopied the planner pages—today’s through next week—stuffed the copies in my messenger bag, and walked the planner double-time back to her knapsack. The whole process had taken two, maybe three, minutes, but it was still in the nick of time. The second I returned the planner to the knapsack and zipped it closed, Sally emerged in the far corner of the reading room. Triumphant, I swaggered out the opposite end, paused outside to slip on my sunglasses, and jogged down the library steps.

  Jim Rockford couldn’t have done better.

  * * *

  Back at the Charles, I savored my second sandwich while perusing the copied pages from Sally’s planner. Each entry was detailed, the handwriting tiny and meticulous. I focused my attention on tomorrow’s entries. Her class times were noted, but I ignored them; I’d learned the hard way that Sally wasn’t attending her classes regularly. Besides, I was more interested in her extracurricular activities. They could be ideal opportunities to make contact with her:

  6:30 A.M.: Swim, Blodgett

  10:30 A.M.: Hand out flyers, Harvard Square

  11:45 A.M.: Lunch, Berg D-Hall, meet w/ sorority ldrshp.

  12:45 P.M.: Crimson, meet with Kyle

  1:30 P.M.: Volvap, interviews

  3:00 P.M.: Tennis, Beren

  Exhausted from being on my feet all day, when I finished my second sandwich I undressed and lay down for a nap. I was awakened by the telephone. The front desk clerk said someone named Stanley Ford had just dropped off an envelope. Ah, my ticket for the chess tournament. I asked for it to be delivered to my room.

  It was six o’clock when the ticket arrived, which meant there was only an hour until the tournament. I showered and shaved. Emerging from the bathroom in a cloud of steam, I turned on the TV and flipped through the channels.

  The Lifetime channel was showing one of their light romantic comedies, and I’d happened upon it precisely when the guy and the girl first meet. The two of them were in an office records room, in adjoining aisles with a shelving unit between them. When they reached for the same banker’s box of files on the top shelf, the box broke open, showering them with papers.

  What was this part of romantic comedies called? Yes…the meet-cute. Well, Sally Standish had no idea, but tomorrow I was going to orchestrate half a dozen “meet-cutes” with her, starting with swimming at Blodgett—which would also give me an opportunity to introduce her to another one of my best features: my shirtless torso. I chuckled to myself and shut off the TV.

  It was time to get ready. I mulled what I should wear. All I had were casual clothes or my Hickey Freeman suit. I chose the suit, with a white dress shirt worn with the collar open, and a black pair of square-toed Kenneth Cole oxfords. I strapped on my gun in its shoulder holster, slipped into the suit jacket, and eyed myself in the mirror. Liking what I saw, I fired a finger-gun at myself and hurried out.

  I couldn’t wait to see Svetlana Krüsh again.

  7

  Zwischenzug

  When I got there, I was glad I’d chosen the suit, but wished I’d worn a tie. The law school auditorium, where the tournament was being held, was packed with students and faculty in Harvard ties, prep school ties, bow ties, even a couple of nutty-crunchy types in bolo ties.

  Everyone was staring at the lit stage, where a large “U” of tables held 20 chessboards, sets of pieces, and clocks. There were chairs on the outer side of the tables, but none on the inside; apparently Miss Krüsh didn’t get to sit down.

  The hall buzzed with anticipation until the MC (one of the deans) walked onstage. She started by introducing the opponents. Malone was number eighteen. When all of the players were seated, she explained that the tournament was a charity exhibition to benefit Boston Children’s Hospital. She then introduced Miss Krüsh:

  “Born in the Ukraine under the scrutiny of the Soviet Union, Miss Krüsh was trained to become a chess champion for the State. In 1984, during a tournament in Washington, D.C., her family defected to the United States, and she has been the darling of the U.S. chess world ever since. An International Grandmaster at nineteen, Miss Krüsh is ranked number one in the U.S. and two in the world. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you…Svetlana Krüsh…”

  I was looking around for Stanley, wondering what was keeping him, when the lights dimmed. It became almost completely dark in the auditorium. Then, out of the darkness, over a PA system, rose up John Williams’s “Imperial March” from The Empire Strikes Back.

  When the horns began to blare, a spotlight illuminated the corner of the stage. Miss Krüsh strutted onstage in a glittering black sequin evening dress, trailing a black cape like Darth Vader’s. Ridiculously long, it flowed from her shoulders across the length of the stage. The audience laughed and applauded. As the music faded, she unclipped the cape and handed it to an assistant who ran offstage with it.

  Slowly the lights came up, revealing a roving cameraman onstage. Her opponents filed out and took their seats. Upstage hung a giant HDTV with a 2D representation of a chessboard and its pieces. A digital clock appeared on the TV, counted down from 10 seconds, and the match began.

  Miss Krüsh demonstrated the same ruthless efficiency she had shown at the tables in front of Au Bon Pain, pausing stone still over each board, her predatory eyes devouring the pieces and ignoring the player. With sharp, decisive flicks of her hand, she moved a rook, a pawn, a bishop, snatching up each opponent’s captured soldiers with a twist of her wrist.

  When she reached Dr. Malone, I got my first good look at him on the giant TV. He wore a charcoal suit and a white band-collared shirt. His face had that “bad boy” beard stubble made popular in the ’80s by the TV show Miami Vice. His hair was unnaturally blonde and close-cropped, a step above a military cut. When Miss Krüsh leaned forward slightly to appraise the board, the camera caught Dr. Malone leering into her décolletage.

  Over the next hour, one by one her challengers resigned or were checkmated. Each shook Miss Krüsh’s hand and strode offstage to sympathetic applause. Eventually there were only two left: Dr. Malone and an Asian woman, Sally’s age, from the Harvard Chess Club. It was while playing this young woman that Miss Krüsh showed her only sign of hesitation during the entire match. While reaching for her bishop, she stopped and withdrew her hand. Then, with a wry smile on her lips, she whispered something to the girl. T
hey agreed to a draw, and the girl bounced offstage to cheers.

  And then only Dr. Malone remained. Somehow he had managed to last into the endgame. Despite having less than five minutes left on her clock, Miss Krüsh studied the board for a full minute. On Malone’s side of the board were three pawns, his king and two knights; on Miss Krüsh’s side were three pawns, her king, a knight and two bishops. The camera zoomed in on Miss Krüsh’s face; she squinted down at the pieces. Malone sat with hands folded, staring up at her with a simpering grin on his face.

  “He’s got her, and he knows it,” said a man behind me. “His pawns are closer. He’ll promote sooner.”

  “No, he won’t,” his buddy said.

  These two sounded like they knew what they were talking about. I cocked an ear in their direction and kept my eyes on the TV.

  “She’s going to do a minor piece mate on him,” the second one said. “Those pawns are a millstone around his neck. They’re going to deprive his king of critical flight squares. Watch.”

  On her next move, Miss Krüsh put Malone’s king in check with her bishop. Her eyes narrowed. Never before had I seen a person with such predatory eyes.

  What followed was Miss Krüsh inexorably strangling Malone: checking his king with one of her bishops, advancing her king up the board, and checking him again with her knight or a pawn. Malone attempted to retaliate with his knights, but Miss Krüsh’s planning was brilliant. The one time Malone was able to put her king in check, Miss Krüsh moved her king out of the way, exposing her bishop behind it, and checking Malone’s king in reply.

  “Exposed check! Brilliant!” said one of the men behind me. “This woman is a chess machine. I saw her at the European Championships five years ago. Seventy-eight moves to beat the reigning champion. They don’t call her the Queen of the Endgame for nothing.”

  Miss Krüsh gradually worked Malone into the corner, promoted a pawn to Queen with a red fingernail, and checkmated Malone. He rose, grudgingly shook her hand, and sauntered offstage. While the audience gave her a standing ovation, an assistant brought her a bottle of water. Miss Krüsh bowed to the audience, sat in a director’s chair under a spotlight, and crossed her legs. The black sequin dress had a long slit up the side, revealing the runway legs I’d admired earlier today. I admired them some more, until the MC came onstage and handed Miss Krüsh a microphone. Two assistants climbed up the auditorium aisles with additional mikes.