by Clea Simon
‘Renée Showalter.’ She finished his sentence.
‘Yes, they were talking. Arguing, I think, and they left. I thought I saw her go upstairs. Maybe they both did? I’m not sure. But I know I meant to follow, when I – when I was taken ill.’
‘Dulcie, I don’t think we should be questioning Mr Thorpe right now.’ Nancy had her stern voice on. ‘The conference doesn’t start until three, and I think it would be best if Mr Thorpe was allowed to have a nap before then. I think it’s time to call a cab and get him home. He – and maybe his friend.’ She looked up meaningfully at the ceiling, and Dulcie remembered Tigger.
‘Okay. I’ll go put the little fellow in his carrier.’ She wasn’t getting anything from Thorpe. She might have better luck with the kitten who, she noticed, they all refrained from mentioning directly. So much for Thorpe’s secret.
But as she turned, her adviser grabbed her wrist. ‘Ms Schwartz, wait.’ She turned, ready to promise him that she’d be gentle. That she knew about loading cats – even unwilling ones – into carriers. That she wouldn’t let the little fellow come to harm.
‘No, no, I trust you,’ he interrupted her protests. ‘But, please, leave him be. I’ll be back this afternoon. And Dulcie?’ He looked up at her, his eyes sharp beneath his sweaty brow. ‘I believe he likes it here. I think he should stay.’
She smiled. The kitten did add warmth to both his office and its occupant. ‘We’ll just let him be, then.’
He nodded, his mind clearly elsewhere. ‘You were asking about the party. About what I was doing,’ he said. ‘Before the – the event. Are you postulating a theory, Ms Schwartz?’
‘I don’t know if I’d go that far.’ She looked at his shiny face, his pallor. ‘But, well, it is a possibility, isn’t it?’
He shook his head, which made him go even paler – with a slight overtone of green.
‘I’m thinking someone wanted you out of the way, Mr Thorpe,’ Dulcie said. ‘I’m thinking you were poisoned.’
THIRTY-ONE
‘That’s crazy.’ Thorpe waved off the idea, then immediately seemed to regret it. Shaking his head, Dulcie could see, had brought some of the nausea back. ‘Why would anyone …’ He paused and swallowed, bringing Nancy in a rush.
‘Here you go, Mr Thorpe.’ She held a cup up to his lips. ‘Please, try to take a little water.’
He sipped, his eyes closed. ‘Thank you, Nancy.’
‘Maybe you should take a little rest.’ She was kneeling by his chair, and he opened his eyes to blink at her.
‘How can I? The conference—’
‘Doesn’t start until three,’ Dulcie interrupted. ‘Nancy is already handling all the phone calls, and I can liaise with the rest of the faculty.’ She paused, trying to think of an incentive. ‘You’d be doing me a favor,’ she said finally. ‘I’d get to meet the attendees. And that’s just busy work anyway.’
‘You could rest up and work on your talk,’ Nancy added.
He reached for the cup, but she helped him hold it. To Dulcie, it seemed clear that he was not well. If this was a hangover, it was the worst she’d ever seen.
‘Mr Thorpe, can you remember what you drank last night?’
‘Dulcie—’ Nancy started to object, but Thorpe raised his hand.
‘No, no,’ he said. ‘That’s a legitimate question.’ The hand went to his forehead. ‘Ever since you suggested that I – well, that perhaps I was given something, I’ve been trying to recall exactly what …’ He stopped, and Dulcie feared that he was going to be sick.
‘I did have some of that cider,’ he said, finally. Dulcie and Nancy exchanged a look.
‘That cider was stronger than it looked,’ Dulcie pointed out.
‘Yes, but …’ Thorpe took the cup from Nancy and tried another sip. ‘I don’t believe I drank that much of it. In fact, I handed the glass back to her.’
‘To her?’ Dulcie tried not to put too much emphasis on the pronoun.
Thorpe understood anyway. ‘Yes, but you can’t think … well, maybe.’
‘Who gave you the drink, Mr Thorpe?’ Nancy’s protective streak added an urgency to her question. ‘Who was she?’
‘Your friend.’ He made a limp gesture toward Dulcie. ‘You know …’
‘Trista?’ Dulcie’s voice squeaked. Her classmate liked to party. Dulcie had often had to dispose of excess beverages handed to her by her friend, but not in this way … Not Thorpe. ‘She wouldn’t have slipped you anything.’
‘That was your idea, not mine.’ His tone was growing peevish, which meant he was sounding more like himself again. ‘I’m only telling you what I remember. But no, there were several of us …’
They waited while he took another sip. Nancy had handed him the mug by now, and sat down on the floor by his side. ‘By the way,’ he said, resting the mug on his knee, ‘was your other friend, Chris, able to find anything?’
‘He’s still looking,’ Dulcie replied, with a rush of gratitude to her boyfriend. ‘He didn’t yesterday,’ she felt compelled to add. ‘But he is going back to it today.’
‘Good.’ Thorpe nodded, his eyes closing again. ‘Perhaps I should take a rest. If you think you two can carry on …’
‘Of course we can, Mr Thorpe.’ Nancy pulled herself up and returned to her desk. ‘I’ll call a cab now.’
Dulcie waited while she dialed. By then, Thorpe was leaning his head back, and in the morning light his face looked slick and pale.
‘Mr Thorpe?’ She wondered if he had fallen asleep.
‘Yes?’ His answer was not much more than a breath.
‘If it wasn’t Trista, then who brought you the drink last night?’ That punch had been strong. Had it been this strong?
‘Your friend, didn’t I say?’ With a struggle, her adviser sat up.
‘You said it wasn’t Trista.’ Dulcie wondered if the hangover – or whatever it was – had affected his memory.
‘No, not Trista.’ He looked over. Nancy was on the phone. ‘Your other friend. The Canadian?’
‘Cab will be here in a minute,’ Nancy called over. ‘Dulcie, why don’t you get Mr Thorpe’s coat and …’
‘Got it.’ Dulcie sprang to her feet. She was happy to have an excuse to leave for a moment, to let what she’d just heard sink in. No matter how much she wanted Showalter to be innocent, Dulcie couldn’t see Thorpe intentionally slandering her. With everything that happened, it would be an easy step to say she had poisoned Marco Tesla, too, and Dulcie knew that couldn’t have happened. But, if not, why would Thorpe have said that? He had a kitten now – a very special kitten, if what Dulcie suspected was true. In which case …
She raced up the stairs to Thorpe’s office, where the orange kitten was curled on the window sill. Somehow, the sight of the little cat reassured her. He looked so relaxed. So normal. Of course, one didn’t usually encounter supernatural powers in the form of a sleeping kitten. But Tigger wasn’t an ordinary kitten. And so she took her time, taking Thorpe’s thick wool coat down from its hook and folding it carefully over her arm, all the while wondering how she could interrogate the little creature about his person.
Finally, she settled on the direct approach, abandoning the coat to lift the sleeping feline from the sill and ask her question as straightforwardly as she could.
‘Has Martin Thorpe done something?’ she asked, staring into the blue eyes that blinked sleepily up at her. It was a vague question, she knew that, but there had been so much going on, she didn’t know what, exactly, to ask. ‘Is he lying?’
‘Mrup?’ The little feline mewed up at her, asking, she was sure, for a clarification. ‘What about Renée Showalter?’ She tried to visualize the red-haired academic. The cat was silent. ‘Poison?’ Nothing. ‘Drugs – something in the drink?’
‘Mrew!’ She looked down. A small paw was reaching up through the top of the carrier. Did the kitten want out, or was he telling her something?
‘Tigger, do you have a message for me?’
‘Dulci
e!’ It was Nancy she heard, calling from the first floor. ‘The cab is here.’
She put the cat back down, wondering how she could stall for more time. ‘I’m coming!’ she yelled over her shoulder, before turning back to the little cat. ‘Tigger, please. Is there anything I should know about?’ There had been so many misadventures over the past twenty-four hours, she didn’t know where to start. ‘Was Thorpe involved with something else? With Stella Roebuck’s computer?’ She paused, hesitant even to mention the bigger crisis. ‘With Marco Tesla?’
‘Naow!’ It wasn’t a howl, but it was a protest. And while it could have been simply the sleepy animal waking – or being startled as Dulcie once again hefted the bulky duffel coat – Dulcie held her breath. ‘Anaow!’
‘What, Tigger? Please?’ She heard Nancy call her again, an edge of worry creeping into her voice.
‘Is Martin Thorpe guilty in some way?’ she asked again, trying to leave the question as open-ended as possible. ‘Did he do something?’
The kitten only yawned and stretched out one paw, showing the pink pads under the orange fur.
‘Another.’ It wasn’t exactly the sound the kitten had made, but Dulcie heard the word as clear as a bell. Another – another suspect? Someone else? Or, no, she’d been asking about Marco, Stella’s lover.
‘Dulcie?’ Nancy was sounding a little frantic, so with a sigh Dulcie headed down the stairs, the little cat now chirping quietly to himself as she descended.
‘I was beginning to worry,’ said Nancy. With her usual efficiency she took the coat from her and bustled him into it, and sent Dulcie on ahead to the cab.
‘Tigger, if you can hear me, please send me a signal,’ she whispered to the wind as she opened the taxi door.
‘You talking to me, ma’am?’ The cabbie craned his neck around.
‘No, sorry.’ She retreated, in time to let Thorpe slide in.
‘Take care of yourself,’ Nancy called from the doorway. ‘If you don’t feel up to making the address …’
‘I’ll be there,’ said Thorpe. The cold air seemed to have revived him already. ‘I wouldn’t miss this for the world.’
Dulcie was standing there watching the cab drive away when Nancy called to her. ‘Dulcie, come in! It’s freezing out.’
Slowly, she climbed the steps back into the little house.
‘What’s wrong, Dulcie?’ The secretary seemed finally to have noticed her distracted state. ‘Don’t tell me you’re feeling ill, too?’
‘No, I’m fine,’ she responded. ‘It’s just …’ She shook her head and sat down in the secretary’s chair. Somehow she just couldn’t bring herself to tell Nancy Pruitt that according to what she had learned, Martin Thorpe might have been involved with Marco Tesla’s death. And, from what her adviser had said, that he might have been poisoned by her mentor, Renée Showalter.
THIRTY-TWO
For better or worse, Nancy hadn’t forgotten.
‘Oh, Dulcie.’ Nancy collapsed in the chair Thorpe had vacated. ‘You don’t think that someone really poisoned Mr Thorpe, do you?’
‘I don’t know.’ Dulcie pushed back from the secretary’s desk and considered rising. There was so much she didn’t want to say. There had to be another explanation. ‘All I can tell you is that he seemed really loaded. And, well, he is really sick today. Unless …’ she paused, her mood suddenly lighter, ‘you think it was an act?’
‘An act? Please, Dulcie, you have already made that poor man’s life miserable.’ Nancy didn’t need to remind her of how she had suspected Thorpe of foul play before. ‘You can’t really think he’d feign intoxication, can you?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said again. This time with less conviction. After all, Dulcie couldn’t explain, not without telling Nancy what Thorpe had said. But she could see the possibility – it would be a neat way for the acting department head to tarnish the reputation of one of the contenders. It would have been a pretty elaborate ruse, however, since it relied on someone else to suggest the very idea of poisoning. But the alternative – that Showalter had really slipped something into Thorpe’s drink – seemed even worse. She’d built so many of her hopes around the visiting scholar, and looped Mina in, too.
Slumped in her chair, Dulcie considered the options. ‘I’m trying to think of another explanation, another …’ She’d run out of ideas.
Or had she? A tickle of a memory interrupted her musing. Tigger, the kitten: had he been trying to tell her something? Something about ‘another’. Chris had said something similar – something he’d heard in a dream, or no, from Mr Grey.
‘Another … an author …’ Chris had said he wasn’t sure what Mr Grey had said to him. He wasn’t even sure it had been Mr Grey. Dulcie, however, didn’t doubt that her late, great pet had reached out. Especially since the kitten’s vocalization had been so similar. ‘Another. Okay, then,’ she said to herself. ‘Another author? Another author of what?’
‘Excuse me, dear?’ Nancy’s voice broke into her reverie. ‘Did you say something about another offer?’
‘What? I’m sorry.’ Dulcie backtracked. ‘I’m just thinking of what I have to do today.’ Another offer? Maybe that was it.
But what did it mean?
The possibilities were endless. Maybe Mr Grey – or Tigger – was trying to reach Mr Thorpe to let him know that he would have another job offered to him. Maybe, she thought, the message was for Chris – or for her. In which case maybe it pertained to the message from Paul Barnes. Today, she decided, she would have to pin him down, whether or not she could talk to Renée Showalter first. This had gone on long enough.
Of course, she wasn’t the only one looking at her options. Stella Roebuck seemed to have been entertaining offers, if they could be called that, from different suitors. Which brought her back to Marco Tesla.
Sitting with Nancy now, it seemed far-fetched. At any rate, she couldn’t explain the kitten factor to Nancy Pruitt. ‘No,’ she said now, answering Nancy’s question. ‘I can’t see Thorpe trying to frame anyone. He’s not the type.’
‘Besides, Marco Tesla wasn’t the top candidate for his job,’ said Nancy, to Dulcie’s surprise.
‘Nancy, you have inside information, don’t you?’
The secretary blushed. ‘I’m sorry. I guess it’s that I’ve spent so much time around you all, I’ve caught the political bug. And this job is so important to Mr Thorpe that I can’t help listening in occasionally.’
‘And?’ Dulcie waited with bated breath. As much as she wanted Renée Showalter to be hired, she knew it would break her adviser’s heart. Then again, if Paul Barnes got it …
But Nancy was shaking her head. ‘No, I really can’t,’ she said. ‘I don’t really know anything. I’ve simply heard some things.’
‘Please, Nancy.’ Dulcie leaned in. ‘You’ve already told me that Tesla wasn’t the top candidate. Can you tell me anything more?’
‘Well, I really shouldn’t be talking about this.’ Nancy suddenly seemed very interested in the papers on her desk.
‘Nancy, please.’ Dulcie didn’t want to annoy her, but still … ‘This could be important. It could be a motive.’
When Nancy looked up, her eyes were large with sorrow. ‘That’s what I’m afraid of, Dulcie.’
‘Oh no,’ Dulcie said. ‘I knew it. Thorpe still has the edge!’
‘No, that’s not it at all.’ Nancy cut her off. ‘And I really shouldn’t be talking about this. I only know about it because Mr Thorpe had me type up some notes from a meeting.’
‘A meeting?’ Dulcie was beginning to feel like a parrot.
Nancy nodded. ‘It’s cruel, really. But as the acting director of the department, he sits in on the planning committee meetings. Unless, I gather, they are discussing his candidacy specifically.’ The papers on her desk could not be neater, and she sat back down. ‘It just isn’t fair.’
Dulcie agreed, in principle. Right now, however, she just wanted to hear what Nancy knew. ‘Yes?’
‘We
ll, it seems that, on the strength of her presentation, the general feeling was that Stella Roebuck might be chosen for the job. There was so much talk about her groundbreaking research and the new directions of her theories, and all. As if novelty were by itself a good thing.’ The way Nancy sniffed a bit at that last pronouncement reminded Dulcie of Thorpe. The sentiment, she was sure, had been adopted from the balding scholar, probably in sympathy. ‘If it weren’t for this paper, however, I gather that Mr Thorpe would have about even odds – or, at least, the same odds as your friend from Canada, Professor Showalter.’
That was interesting. But Dulcie felt she was missing something. ‘So nobody would have had a professional motive to harm Marco Tesla.’
‘Exactly,’ Nancy jumped in. ‘And now, that poor Ms Roebuck. I heard that she’s having problems with her paper – and now she’s lost her boyfriend? That’s just a lot to bear.’
‘It is,’ Dulcie thought. It was also a damned good way to unsettle the top contender for a job everybody wanted. She didn’t know what had happened to Marco Tesla, but if both Martin Thorpe and Renée Showalter were running a close second to Stella Roebuck, she had to consider that maybe more than one crime had taken place at the conference. And that her preferred candidate, Renée Showalter, had as much motive as anyone else.
Before the silence could grow any more uncomfortable, the phone rang again, and Nancy was back to business, communicating with the surviving presenters. All, Dulcie could hear, were in agreement that the conference should proceed.
‘I’m sure Mr Thorpe could say something in the opening address,’ Nancy suggested in one of the lulls. ‘But after that …’
She’d shrugged. Dulcie wasn’t really surprised, although the departmental secretary did seem a little deflated by the participants’ unflagging enthusiasm.
‘The show must go on, Nancy,’ Dulcie had offered. ‘It’s best for Mr Thorpe, too.’
That had won a grudging nod from the departmental secretary, who had gone back to the phone, making sure that every campus representative knew that the three o’clock address was still on. Dulcie, meanwhile, headed to the Science Center. She didn’t know if she’d be able to find out anything else before the conference started. But at the very least, she’d do what she could to make sure nobody else got hurt.