True Grey

by Clea Simon

  She looked at her friends. ‘I still like to think it was an accident. He shoved her against the bookcase, maybe, and the statue fell.’ She remembered seeing the dean, flustered, as he hurried across the courtyard. ‘But he left her there. He left her alone to die.’

  The friends sat in silence for a moment, even Esmé seemingly considering the import of what Dulcie had just said. Then Chris got up to get another beer, and handed Dulcie a diet Coke. Taking a deep swig, she continued.

  ‘Once he realized what he’d done, he realized he had to destroy the manuscript, too,’ she said. ‘I think that’s why he went back to the suite library. Only, when he saw me there, he realized that he could use her perfidy to shield himself. Instead of revealing how she had begun to plagiarize my work, the pages could be used to make me out as the plagiarist.’

  ‘So what happened to the manuscript?’ Trista didn’t like ambiguous endings.

  Dulcie shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘And how did those pages get in your desk, anyway?’ Again, she had no answer. Besides, there was another question on her mind. One concerning a red-haired man and a woman. A woman who might have had reason to commit murder.

  FIFTY-FIVE

  The next day, the abrupt resignation of Dean Haitner was the talk of the university. Or so Dulcie thought when, grateful that her last section was over, she could retreat to her office.

  Lloyd looked up as she walked in. ‘Dulcie! Are you OK?’

  ‘Yeah, why?’

  ‘You look a little tired, that’s all. Working late?’

  Dulcie smiled. Count on Lloyd to be the sole scholar not to have heard the latest scandal. Unless, of course, he was part of it.

  ‘Lloyd,’ she turned to her balding friend, ‘I didn’t want to ask you the other day. But has anyone been in here? Has anyone searched my desk?’

  ‘Well, yes.’ He nodded. ‘The cops came. That’s why I called you.’ He swallowed. ‘Tried to, that is. They told me I wasn’t allowed to.’

  ‘No, I mean before then.’ He looked puzzled, so she tried again. ‘Has anyone at all been here besides our students or Raleigh?’

  ‘Only Dean Haitner.’ The way Lloyd said his name, Dulcie knew he hadn’t heard the news. ‘He was here early on Monday. Only, he didn’t come for you so I didn’t say anything. He came to ask me about the new security procedures.’

  ‘What?’ This was unexpected.

  ‘You know, the new card reader, the swipe machine? I guess someone had passed my complaints along to him,’ said Lloyd. ‘He came here, to our office, and he sent me out to try it, a couple of times, to make sure it worked.’

  ‘The card reader?’ Dulcie knew she was repeating what he’d said. She couldn’t help it.

  ‘Yeah, it just wasn’t working right. I thought it was pretty impressive that the dean came himself to check it out. Why, Dulcie? What’s up?’

  ‘Nothing, Lloyd.’ She smiled at her friend. Her good and honest friend. ‘I’m just glad you’re so conscious of our security.’

  FIFTY-SIX

  September wound to a close and as the first semester headed into midterms, Dulcie was still spending too many nights alone. If anything, Chris was working more overnights than before, but Dulcie couldn’t blame him. His junior, Darlene, had only been reprimanded for her work, breaking into Dulcie’s system; nobody could actually blame her for following direct orders from the dean. However, she’d been so shaken up by the experience that she was taking the rest of the semester off. From what Chris told Dulcie, she was earning so much in the corporate sector, he doubted she’d come back. Academia, they both knew, wasn’t for everyone.

  That left Chris and Jerry, therefore, to fill the overnight shifts. And while Trista dragged Dulcie out as often as she could – Dulcie still had no idea how her friend functioned on so little sleep – most nights found Dulcie in the apartment, with Esmé, poring over her notes. Subsequent days in the Mildon had unearthed a trove of compelling scenes, all written in the elegant, if nearly illegible slanted handwriting. The connection between her author and the red-haired – or was it dark? – man still puzzled her. There was something her author was hiding. Something she did not dare write about, except obliquely, and Dulcie was on its trail.

  When she wasn’t working, Dulcie was puzzling over the mysteries left behind by Melinda Sloane Harquist. The dean, it turned out, hadn’t been Melinda’s father. She had used him, he had confessed finally, leading him to believe that there was a link, and laughed when he had uncovered the truth. That was what had pushed him over the edge. Not the heartbreak, which he had assumed she would share. But the scorn. It was the kind of story that made Dulcie grateful for her own family, as wacky and disconnected as it might be.

  Esmé seemed to think this solved everything, although she didn’t bother explaining herself to Dulcie. Beyond a certain feline look of satisfaction at how everything had played out, the little cat still didn’t speak much. If anything, she seemed to imply, it was Dulcie’s fault if there were any breakdowns in communication.

  ‘I was sitting on her computer,’ Dulcie heard quite clearly late one night. She’d been half asleep, lying in bed, but she could see Esmé on the window sill, silhouetted in the moonlight. ‘What more did she want me to do?’

  Dulcie had strained to hear the reply, knowing it had to come from her senior pet. All she’d heard, though, was a rustling of the curtains as Esmé jumped down, heading for the kitchen. As September ended, the nights were getting frosty, and Dulcie got up to close the window, then followed after her pet in time to hear one final snippet.

  ‘I’m the cat of the household now. That’s my job.’

  ‘I know, little one.’ This time, the silhouette in the window was larger; the luxuriant whiskers outlined in the bright light. ‘And that’s why I chose you both.’

  Dulcie paused, waiting. At her feet, she saw the tuxedo cat pause as well, looking up first at the moonlit window and then back to Dulcie.

  ‘You chose us? I thought . . .’ Dulcie had rarely heard Esmé sound unsure before, but she resisted the urge to comfort the young cat with a cuddle. ‘Surely, from the fur . . . from the whiskers. Aren’t we . . .?’

  ‘We are family, little one. All of us are family here.’ As Dulcie watched the window, she felt the soft, warm pressure of Esmé leaning against her bare shin. ‘Haven’t the last few weeks taught you anything about the ties that bring us together, little one?’

  Dulcie froze. Was Mr Grey talking to Esmé – or to her? She thought of her author, of a red-haired man. Of what mattered most.

  ‘What matter flesh or blood, fur or whiskers?’ the voice said. ‘What are these compared to the bonds that hold us? For we are bound to each other, little ones, each in our roles. Bound by love.’

  Dulcie felt, rather than heard, the purr that filled the kitchen. Standing in the moonlight, she lifted the little cat and buried her face in the soft, dark fur.

  That’s how Chris found them, curled in bed, when Mr Grey welcomed him home later that night, asleep together as the bright moon set.