Grey Matters (18 page)

‘I don’t think she’s a threat, exactly.’ Dulcie stopped herself. What Trista had said had some weight to it. Here she was, doctoral candidate, afraid of an undergraduate. ‘Not exactly.’

‘She’s a fact of life, girl.’ Trista put her feet up on the table, just as Jerry and Chris returned with another pitcher – and another pizza.

‘I don’t think I can.’ Trista pushed herself away from the table.

‘Well, I haven’t eaten.’ Chris tore a slice off the pie and offered it to Dulcie. She shook her head. Chris seemed not to notice her weight, but bad bar pizza at 1 a.m. could have unintended consequences.

‘Your stomach is on a different timetable than mine.’ She smiled to soften the words.

‘I know, sweetie, and I’m sorry.’ With two more bites, he finished the slice and reached for another. ‘I know you’re feeling needy and I’ve not been there. But I promise, this is just for now.’

Dulcie nodded. So much of their lives felt temporary. Until the end of the semester, or until the thesis was done. ‘I’m glad you’re working, Chris. Really, I am. It’s just that I feel so blocked.’

‘You’re still worried about
The Ravages
?’

She nodded. ‘What if there’s a reason that nobody else solved the mystery?’

‘Sounds like fear of success to me.’

It was the beer. The headache. Lloyd’s enigmatic parting shot. The entire miserable week, but just then Dulcie couldn’t take any more. ‘It’s not “fear of success,” Chris!’ She heard the edge creeping into her voice, but for once, she didn’t try to stop it. ‘And I’m not needy, I’m lonely. It’s not post-traumatic ideation or any of your high-concept therapy terms.’

Chris had put his slice down and his mouth hung open, but Dulcie wasn’t stopping. ‘And maybe I really do have a problem. A real problem. You yourself said that whatever sticks out might be wrong. Might be, I don’t know, suspect. You’re allowed to have problems. But me? No, it’s all in my head.’

She felt the tears starting and needed, quite suddenly, to leave. She grabbed up her coat and turned for one last parting shot. ‘I know you think I’m obsessing over nothing, Chris. You’ve made that clear. But this isn’t something I made up. It’s not a ghost story. It’s my life!’

Her eyes blurred by tears, she pushed open the door and rushed out on to the street. She’d so looked forward to tonight. To seeing Chris. As she pulled her collar up and started along Mass Ave, his declaration of love seemed like it belonged to another world. She let the tears flow.

Something grabbed her arm and she whirled around, ready for a fight.

‘Whoa!’ It was Chris. He backed off, hands up in surrender. ‘Dulcie, I’ve been calling after you. I’m sorry – I had to grab Jerry for a minute there. But, hey.’

Dulcie stood her ground.

‘Look, Dulcie, I’m sorry.’ He ran his hand through his hair, pushing it back from a very white and tired-looking face. ‘I’ve just been working crazy hours.’

She started to thaw, but the reference to Jerry struck a nerve. ‘Why, Chris? Jerry started to say something earlier, and Trista stopped him. Is there something going on?’ She didn’t want to believe he was seeing someone else. But Trista’s goofball boyfriend had been about to let something drop. ‘Are you in trouble?’

‘Only with you.’ He grinned, and she noticed how thin his face was. How worn. ‘Honestly, Dulcie, I’ve finally got the seniority to take all these hours, and I’ve just felt I should go for it. I mean, next semester, I’m going to have to start on my own thesis.’

She couldn’t help it; she smiled back. ‘Well, that will teach you.’ She reached out to take his hand, and he pulled her toward him into a hug.

‘Dulcie, you silly thing. I’m sorry for what I said back there. I’ve been spending so long analyzing student projects, I think I’ve forgotten how to act like a human.’

‘No, you haven’t.’ She knew her response was muffled, pressed as she was against his wool Navy coat. So she hugged him closer before pulling back. ‘But did you get enough to eat?’

‘Me? You kidding?’ They stepped apart and she looked up. Maybe it was the cold, but Chris seemed to have tears in his eyes, too. ‘You wouldn’t happen to have any of that lasagna leftover still, would you?’

‘We just might, if you’re lucky.’ She took his hand and they started off toward her apartment. ‘And maybe some of those stuffed peppers, too.’ But as good as she felt, Dulcie couldn’t help wondering. That pain, the touch of sharp claws, had struck midway through the evening and then disappeared. Had Mr Grey been trying to warn her of something? What had he wanted to alert her about, and did it have anything to do with Chris?

THIRTY-THREE

‘
S
o let me get this straight.’ Chris was stirring the oatmeal next morning while Dulcie filled him in on her suspicions. ‘You think that Cameron might have been hitting on Polly and also Raleigh? And maybe also doing something with Bullock? And where does Lloyd fit into this?’

‘I knew there was something strange about Lloyd.’ Suze came down the stairs in her sweats and went straight for the coffee. Before long, the three of them were going over the possible permutations of Cameron’s romantic involvements – as well as the nagging idea that something had come between Polly and Roger Gosham.

‘He’s just too, I don’t know. Shut down.’ Suze sounded as bothered by her lack of precision as by the concept. ‘And you don’t see it. You’re a romantic.’

Chris just smiled as he got up from the table. ‘She’s a Goth, actually, but that just means she trusts emotions over reason, Suze. Anyone mind if I take the first shower?’

Once he had headed back up the stairs, Dulcie refilled her roommate’s coffee and her own. Suze sat there, stirring her mug absentmindedly.

‘What about that package?’ Suze finally broke the silence to gesture with her spoon. ‘The missing book?’

Dulcie had told Suze about the neatly wrapped book Raleigh had left on Lloyd’s desk. Now she regretted it. ‘That could have been anything.’

‘But think about it.’ Suze put her spoon down and started counting off on her fingers for emphasis. ‘One, he tells you that the professor has him on some wild goose chase. Two, Bullock’s house is broken into and the cause of that chase goes missing. And, three, someone puts a book – a carefully wrapped book – on Lloyd’s desk.’

‘But Bullock has dropped the claim, or didn’t file it.’ Dulcie wasn’t clear on the details. ‘So the book wasn’t stolen.’

‘Maybe Lloyd hadn’t realized that there would be a fuss. He’s over there a lot, right? He could have slipped it back into the professor’s library without the old man being any wiser. Or, even better, convinced the old man that he’d simply misfiled it.’

‘Motive, Suze.’ Dulcie felt pretty confident about this. ‘Lloyd had no motive.’

‘On the contrary!’ Suze was getting into this. ‘He had every reason. For starters, with that mysterious book gone, maybe he could go back to work. I mean, back to the eighteenth century. And besides, this was a valuable book, right?’

‘Lloyd isn’t a thief.’ Dulcie had to break in.

‘Wait! Just give me a listen. I’m not saying he’s a hardened criminal. But this book has got to be the cause of a lot of problems, right? And he is working for a pittance, so maybe he felt, I don’t know, like the professor owed it to him.’

‘You don’t know Lloyd.’ Dulcie wasn’t sure how to explain. ‘He’s got scruples.’

‘I listen to what you’re telling me, Dulcie. And you’ve been telling me that he’s stressed out, stretched to the limit – and recently he’s begun acting a little odd. Like he had a secret.’

Dulcie shook her head. There was no point in arguing with Suze. If she ever went into trial law, she’d be deadly. ‘Well, tell me this, then, Suze. Suppose he did take that book – or was given it.’ What had Raleigh said about dropping it off? ‘What would he do with it, anyway?’

‘Sell it.’ Suze said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Dulcie couldn’t help but laugh. ‘I don’t think an Elizabethan rarity fits the bookstore’s definition of “used texts.”’

‘What about your rare book guy? He does more than repair books, right? He sells them. So, it makes sense he must buy them, too.’

‘Suze, Professor Bullock probably bought that book from Roger Gosham. Gosham isn’t going to buy it back from one of his students, especially without a provenance.’

‘You sure?’

‘About Gosham? Yeah, he worships Professor Bullock.’ But something Lloyd had said sparked her memory. ‘Though, to be honest, I think Lloyd told me that Bullock doesn’t remember where he got it.’

‘There you go, then. It’s the only theory that fits all the facts.’

‘Not really.’ Chris came back down the stairs, toweling his hair. ‘You’re assuming a motive. The possible profit from a stolen book wouldn’t be worth the risk to Lloyd.’ Dulcie beamed up at him.

‘Got a better one?’ Suze was energized. Chris was always a better sparring partner than Dulcie.

‘Maybe he borrowed it.’ Chris poured more coffee into his cup and sipped it, leaning against the counter. ‘He was supposed to be working on it for Bullock. Or maybe that girl Raleigh did, and asked Lloyd to bring it back for her. She’s the entitled type, right? Or, get this, maybe she stole it – there was something in the paper about a wave of shoplifting in the Square. And then Lloyd found out and arranged to bring it back. Or, I don’t know, maybe he did want it to disappear, maybe just for a while. He had reason. But then the professor freaked, and when Lloyd heard that the book was reported stolen, he brought it back and explained. I mean, Dulcie, did you ever actually see what was in that package?’

She shook her head.

‘Maybe it wasn’t even a book!’ He drained his mug, triumphant, as Dulcie smiled up at him. ‘It was a book, Chris. I know that wrapping – but I do like your logic.’

‘That’s my specialty.’ He stood and put his mug in the sink. ‘But now, I’ve got to get to work.’

Dulcie opened her mouth to protest, but stopped herself. Instead, she walked him to the top of the stairs and sent him off with a kiss.

‘What?’ Suze was watching her as she came back into the kitchen.

‘What what?’ Dulcie turned toward the coffee pot, even though she really didn’t need any more caffeine.

‘There was something you weren’t saying, when you were being all sweet to Chris. Is something wrong?’ Suze took the pot and refilled her own mug. ‘I mean, beyond him running off to work on a Saturday?’

‘I don’t know, Suze.’ She turned toward her roommate, unsure how to explain. ‘I just felt like I shouldn’t push it. I think I was getting a warning from Mr Grey last night. And it started just before Chris came into the club.’

Maybe it was because she’d been out-argued by Chris, but Suze had a head of steam. ‘Dulcie, do you hear what you’re saying? I know you are having issues. But putting your anger off on Mr Grey?’ As she got up, she looked over at Dulcie, and immediately her tone softened. ‘I’m sorry. I really cannot imagine what this week has been like for you. And, yeah, I’ve noticed that Chris has been M.I.A., too. But I believe he’s got a reason, whatever it is. And, well, Dulcie? Isn’t it possible that you read the signs wrong? Maybe you just had a headache, a plain old vanilla headache?’

‘Maybe.’ With one more long look, Suze headed upstairs. As she heard the shower start, Dulcie poked her leftover oatmeal with her spoon. It had started to harden as it cooled, and looked no more appetizing than the cloudy day that stretched in front of her. ‘Or maybe something really is going on. And nobody wants to tell me what it is.’

THIRTY-FOUR

N
ew England in autumn has its own particular kind of gloom. Everyone thinks of the foliage, those riotous weeks of September and early October, when each tree seems to be competing with its neighbor to be the most extravagant. In those heady early fall days, the chill in the air is welcome, the newly clear blue of the sky a stage-set backdrop to the impossible reds and oranges of the maples, oaks, and silver-barked beech trees. For Dulcie, that wild flurry of color coincided with the excitement of a new term, and the brightness of her adopted city perfectly complemented the feeling she had about coming to the university. This is autumn, the world seemed to shout. Can’t you taste it?

But no matter how beautiful the season started, it always turned out the same by November. Just when the workload began to get heavy, the days grew grey, dull, and lifeless. It was enough to make one believe in the pathetic fallacy, Dulcie thought, as she descended the front steps. No Chris, no Mr Grey. Her new kitten wouldn’t talk to her and her thesis was mired in, well, mire. Life was truly imitating art.

‘Hey, Dulcie!’ A friendly voice broke into Dulcie’s gloom and she turned to see her neighbor Helene gesturing from her street-level front door. ‘Have a minute?’

Dulcie found herself smiling. Her broad, and sometimes loud, neighbor had a heart even bigger than the rest of her. A city hospital nurse, she’d looked after Dulcie through the crises of the last summer, and Dulcie had come to appreciate the sweet woman behind the gruff manner. Since Helene had adopted two kittens, litter mates, Dulcie had found herself dropping by more often – the spunky felines doing more to bridge the town–gown gap than a dozen university symposiums.

‘What’s up, Helene?’ Dulcie trotted down the three steps that led into the ground-floor apartment.

‘I wanted to show you something.’ Helene beckoned Dulcie back into the kitchen. ‘Julius has a new trick.’

Dulcie had been planning on going to the library, and she seriously doubted that either Julius or his brother Murray had invented any original moves. But it was pleasant to be in someone else’s life for a while, particularly when that life was spic and span, smelling vaguely of orange oil. ‘So, where’s the wonder cat?’

Helene turned toward Dulcie, a grin splitting her wide brown face. ‘Check it out!’

She stepped back and Dulcie looked past her to the windowsill. There sat Julius, an orange tabby, proudly holding a pot holder in his mouth. At his feet, tucked into the sill, were a catnip mouse, a kitchen sponge, and a shredded piece of fur that had probably once been a toy mouse.

‘He’s a hunter-gatherer!’ Helene sounded as proud as if her six-month-old kitten had mastered the piano.