Grey Dawn (3 page)

‘Wow, you really did that?' After Thorpe dismissed them, the assembled scholars filed back downstairs for more coffee and to catch up on gossip. Lloyd, always skilled at getting to the coffee-maker when a fresh pot had finished brewing, topped off her mug. ‘Locked Thorpe in the office?'

‘I guess.' Dulcie shook her head. ‘I had a sense someone was here, but I swear, Lloyd, the alarm was on when I came in.'

‘I believe you.' Lloyd refilled his own mug before passing the carafe along to a colleague. ‘I bet he turned it on himself out of habit. Maybe he fell asleep in his office, then was too out of it to realize what he'd done until he opened the door. I wouldn't be surprised, the amount of time he spends here.'

Dulcie nodded. Everybody knew that Thorpe was working overtime, hoping that the new dean would name him as permanent head of the department. His current emphasis on literary theory was only part of what was becoming an extended campaign. If Thorpe had been dozing and been caught unawares by the alarm, that would also explain why he had looked so disordered when Dulcie had seen him on the street – if, in fact, that had been him. And why he hadn't – or hadn't wanted to – remember it.

‘Still, for him to call you out like that.' Lloyd shook his head, sadly. ‘It's just not fair.'

‘Thanks.' Dulcie kept her voice low. ‘But we know why.'

‘Both reasons,' her friend agreed, just as softly. ‘Though which one is the ‘signified' and which the ‘signifier' is beyond me.'

Dulcie smiled at that. Although she was on the brink of an academic breakthrough, she was, she knew, out of favor with her adviser. Some of it was her adherence to a decidedly unhip approach: she read the writing; she found out what she could about the author. That was all. Beyond that, though, she deeply suspected that Thorpe still resented her part in an academic scandal that had rocked the university earlier that fall. Only a very few people knew the whole truth – that Dulcie had helped uncover the corruption that had led to the murder of a visiting scholar and a dean's abrupt resignation. Thorpe, as well as Dulcie's close friends, was among them. But since that dean had seemed to favor Thorpe's candidacy for the position of department head, and his departure had thrown Thorpe's future into doubt, Thorpe had persisted in viewing Dulcie as a troublemaker. ‘If he gets the gig, my future here is doomed,' she summed it up.

‘Well, it might not be that bad.' Lloyd began to protest as Trista came over.

‘Dulcie, you were here last night?' She leaned in, her voice a stage whisper.

‘Yeah, but I swear—' Dulcie began to repeat her protest, but Trista cut her off.

‘Girl, you are one lucky fifth-year.'

Dulcie shook her head. ‘What are you talking about? Thorpe obviously thinks—'

‘You don't know?' Trista's voice rose in pitch. Then, as she took in the confusion on both Dulcie's and Lloyd's faces, she dropped it again. ‘Really? You didn't hear?'

‘Trista, I'm not in the mood …' Literary theory was bad enough. Dulcie had no stomach for the usual romantic gossip.

‘Dulcie, this is serious. And, well, real.' Dulcie shut up and looked at her friend. ‘A woman was attacked last night, like, two blocks from here. Her throat was torn out. They're saying it looked like she'd been ravaged by a wild animal.'

T
rista didn't have any more information than that, but what she'd said was enough. The Memorial Church bell tolled the hour soon after, sending them all off to their eleven o'clock sections, Dulcie among them. But Trista's bombshell echoed through her head for the next hour.

‘Ms Schwartz?' She looked out over the class. A bespectacled freshman was tentatively raising his hand.

‘Sorry,' she smiled her apology. ‘Scott?'

‘Are we supposed to feel sorry for Lily Bart because she's beautiful? And, like, what does that mean, anyway?'

‘No, Scott.' Dulcie shook her head, sadly. She really must have been ignoring the turn of the discussion. ‘First of all, you're not “supposed” to feel anything. But you should try to be aware of context, to be aware of the perspective of the world Wharton was writing about …'

She rattled on, and even found herself repeating some of the debate of the previous week. It wouldn't hurt them, she figured, to get an introduction to what was increasingly the vocabulary of literature. What did beauty mean, anyway? But her heart wasn't in it. How could she concentrate on a lesson plan when she might have information about a murder? No, she corrected herself as another of her students joined in the discussion. She could think about a book – just not
this
book. The text she'd been reading last night – now that seemed eerily relevant. One passage in particular kept coming into her mind.

Fierce as the wind were the cries that rent the night.
That was how it had started, as those wolves – or whatever they were – had chased the carriage, driving the horses nearly mad with terror. There was nothing theoretical about that scene, nor the earlier bit, in which the heroine had been fleeing her pursuer and had run outdoors, into the storm.

On her first reading of that passage, Dulcie had been taken by a reference to the heroine's hair. Specifically to
her raven locks, ripp'd lose, tangled in the gale that swept the mountainous terrain.
The word ‘raven' had been crossed out, and the scribble above it had not been improved by age or wear. Dulcie was pretty sure that the author had written ‘flame-haired,' as if she were going to make the heroine a redhead as opposed to a brunette. To Thorpe, she knew, that would be a sign of something – the most basic kind of symbolism, with red hair as a mark of temper or some kind of witchery.

Dulcie knew that authors made such choices, using standard devices like shorthand to clue the readers in. She wasn't totally naive. But in truth it had interested her, at least in part, because of her own red – well, reddish – hair. Now that autumn was here, she was losing her copper highlights, but she'd grown up with her mother's stories of all the redheads in the family, and she liked to think of herself as simply a more subtle auburn. Of course, the indecision about hair color continued later in the book, too. In the first excerpt that Dulcie had found, a young man had been found murdered. His hair, too, seemed to change from red to black in subsequent versions. Maybe it was a signifier, as Thorpe would say. Or maybe the author was simply trying out different images, looking for the most dramatic. Or maybe, Dulcie couldn't help but wonder, something else was involved: a more personal choice, based on the real models for the fictional creation.

It wasn't a theory Dulcie could bring up with her adviser. Thorpe would tell her she was being unsophisticated. He'd already warned her against ‘falling into the common hermeneutic trap of the implied author,' that is, confusing the writer with her fictional creation, and he'd dismissed Dulcie's uncanny sense that in this case the anonymous author really was writing about an aspect of her life.

This morning, the question of how close the author and her mysterious heroine were was moot. All that Dulcie could think about, to the detriment of her teaching, was what had happened next. The heroine, whatever her hair color or ‘symbolic presence,' had been standing out in the rain, on a windswept mountain road. The wolves, or whatever they were, had been getting closer. And then a carriage had driven up and a stranger – or was it a Frenchman? – had opened the door and beckoned her in. The man in grey. If he hadn't, well … Trista's bombshell seemed a bit too real.

‘Ms Schwartz?'

Dulcie blinked.

‘Are you okay?'

‘Yes, yes.' She shook her head to clear it, and saw that her students were standing. ‘Um, see you next week.'

She saw a few of them exchange looks, but that was the least of her problems. The text – well, that was odd, and she was dying to get back to it. No matter what her quibbles with her adviser or her discipline were, however, she was first and foremost a member of the university community. And that meant telling the authorities what she knew. What she had seen and heard the night before.

Luckily, her noon section had been cancelled; the head tutor for English 241 had decided to give the students an extra week to work on their papers. Strictly speaking, she should have gone to the section room anyway; students always had questions. But she had posted office hours, and, really, murder took precedence over the Romantic poets. And so, with a determined toss of her almost-red curls, Dulcie set out for the university police headquarters.

She was in luck. As she entered the modern brick building off Garden Street, she recognized a particularly bulky detective.

‘Detective Rogovoy!' She waved across the open lobby. ‘It's Dulcie. Dulcie Schwartz!'

She tried not to read anything into the look he gave his colleague. He was probably finishing up something; that was all. And he did take a few steps in her direction before beckoning her over with a big, paw-like hand.

‘Ms Schwartz.' His voice, always low, sounded particularly grumbly today. ‘Like I wouldn't remember you. To what do I owe this pleasure?'

‘I may have information.' She looked around the room. Cops in uniform were bustling about, and a few students seemed to be waiting at the front desk. ‘About the murder. May we speak in private?'

The look on the big detective's face was answer enough, and Dulcie let herself be guided past the desk into a small, windowless room.

‘You have news about a murder?' Rogovoy faced her, his hands on the table between them.

‘Yes, about the woman who was killed last night.' She waited; he didn't move. ‘Don't you want to take some notes?'

‘First of all, I'd like to hear what you heard.' The detective leaned forward, and Dulcie had to remind herself that despite his size and ogre-like appearance, Rogovoy was one of the good guys.

‘People were talking about it at our departmental meeting this morning.' She was proud of herself for not bringing Trista into it. ‘That a woman was killed. Her throat torn open.' She swallowed. This was harder than she'd anticipated. ‘I heard it looked like an animal attack.'

Rogovoy sighed and put one of those big hands up to his face. It must be hard for him, too.

‘Man, this place is like a fishbowl.' He emerged from behind the hand, looking even more tired. ‘Or something. Look, Ms Schwartz, I want to hear what you have to say, but let me set you straight. One, this is a police matter. Not some scandal to be gossiped about at your departmental meeting.' The way he pronounced the last two words sounded like he didn't have the greatest respect for the academic process of the university he served. ‘And, two, don't believe everything you hear. 'Cause odds are, it's wrong. Like now.'

‘A woman wasn't murdered?' Suddenly the day looked brighter. Maybe Trista had been being metaphorical. But, no, Rogovoy was holding up his hand to stop her.

‘Please, let me finish.' He paused, and Dulcie did her best to not say anything while she waited. ‘There was an attack last night. The victim is in the hospital, seriously wounded but alive. And, no, it was not some kind of “animal attack.” We think it was a domestic. So, unless you have intimate knowledge of a friend's relationship gone bad, I'm not really sure what you can share with me.'

‘Oh.' That took the wind out of Dulcie's sails. But, she realized, maybe that was for the better. For all their ongoing discussions of reading – and hearing – correctly, Trista had gotten this one wrong. And Dulcie had stayed up too late, absorbed in that scary passage. And Martin Thorpe? Lloyd must have it right: her adviser had probably fallen asleep in his office, then set off the alarm, scaring himself silly. He'd been too flustered to recognize her on the street afterward, and this morning he'd vented. Except that she hadn't heard the alarm …

‘… witnessed something …'

Dulcie looked up, unaware that Rogovoy was still speaking. ‘Excuse me? Detective?'

‘I said, if you had witnessed something – a dispute, or anything – that would be useful.'

‘Oh, well, I don't know.' Suddenly, Dulcie felt rather silly.

‘Or heard something.'

‘Well, I did hear
something.
' She really wasn't the type who could lie. Only now Detective Rogovoy was looking at her. Waiting. And so, she started to explain. ‘Only I don't know exactly what, well, as we would say in Literature and Language, what exactly it signified.'

Rogovoy cleared his throat. Dulcie had the feeling he wasn't into literary theory and tried again. ‘I know I shouldn't be walking into the Square around midnight on a week night.'

‘No, you shouldn't,' he interrupted.

‘Chris always tells me to take a cab. But I'd left these papers I had to grade …' He was being very patient, but Dulcie realized she was going into much more detail than necessary. And so she tried to sum everything up. ‘And then when I was out on the street, everything seemed very quiet and I heard something howl. I mean, it must have been a dog, but I swear it sounded like a wolf.'

Rogovoy raised his eyebrows.

‘I grew up in the forest, Detective.' Dulcie was beginning to feel defensive. Her accidental use of synecdoche didn't help. ‘I mean, in a small arts colony located in a forest. I know what wolves sound like.' He motioned for her to continue.

‘I know it doesn't make sense, but that's what it sounded like to me. And then I saw a man, and I thought it was my thesis adviser – Martin Thorpe – but he looked all strange and wild. His hair was messed up. And, well, today he basically denied seeing me on the street. It was dark and all. But not that dark. I mean, the moon was out—'

‘Martin Thorpe? He works at the university?'

Dulcie nodded. ‘He's the head of English and American Literature and Language. The acting head. The director, I mean.'