Authors: Clea Simon
‘Wait a minute.’ Dulcie sat up. ‘Am I a suspect here?’
‘We’re just talking.’ The big man leaned back to give her more space and put his hands up in a gesture of surrender. Something about it looked like a practiced move. ‘About your old cat – now, you said something to the officer on the scene about seeing the cat that day?’
‘I saw a cat that looked like Mr Grey. I’m fully aware that he’s not around anymore.’
‘That’s not what you told Officer Priz—’
‘I was very upset that day. I’d just come home to find my room-mate dead. Killed. In my apartment.’ She was a doctoral candidate, at the most prestigious university in the country; she should be able to make herself clear. ‘Yes, I thought I’d seen a cat that looked like my old cat. But clearly it could not have been him.’
‘Uh-huh.’ Detective Scavetti was nodding, looking at the blank window behind her. ‘And this cat spoke to you. And you must have been tired, and so angry with Tim—’
‘I don’t think I want to talk with you anymore.’ Dulcie pushed her chair back and stood up. ‘I don’t believe you can keep me here, and I know you haven’t read me any rights.’
‘Now, I didn’t mean to upset you, Ms Schwartz.’
‘I’m not upset.’ She was furious, but better he shouldn’t see her temper. ‘I simply came in this morning to tell you what I’d found out about Tim. If you choose to ignore that perfectly good information, well, I have other things to do.’
‘Of course, of course.’ He rose too and walked quickly to the door. For a moment, Dulcie held her breath. Was he going to prove an evil monk, intent on imprisoning her? But after a moment’s pause, he pulled the heavy door open and gestured her through. ‘Thank you for coming in, Ms Schwartz.’ He walked her to the end of the hall. She could see the building’s main lobby and, outside, a bright Saturday morning, as brilliant and beckoning as the Umbrian plains. ‘We’ll be in touch.’
‘I’m sure you will.’ It was as cutting a remark as she’d dared to make. When she got home, she promised herself, she’d start burning that sage.
But first, she needed to call Suze. She not only needed a friend, she needed some legal advice.
Suze was not encouraging. ‘You did
what
? You talked to the police about a homicide – without a lawyer?’
‘Why would I need a lawyer, Suze? I didn’t do anything.’ The groan that came back over the line didn’t help Dulcie’s mood. She’d been pacing as she recited the events of the morning, but now she pulled up a chair and grabbed a pen and a notepad. Maybe Suze would have some practical suggestions. ‘I’m serious, Suze. I never thought they were, well, investigating me or anything. I mean, I’m the one who found the body. Why would I have called them if I’d just killed him?’
‘If it were a crime of passion. Annoying room-mate pushes you over the edge. If you were mentally unstable and had scared yourself. If you felt you weren’t really responsible because some ghost cat had made you do it—’
‘Suze! You’re scaring me.’ Everything her old friend was saying made sense. Dulcie started doodling nervously.
‘I’m sorry, sweetie, but you should be scared. The number one thing we always tell everyone at legal aid is “keep your mouth shut”. Never – and I mean, never – talk to the police without counsel.’
‘But I didn’t realize I was being questioned.’ Dulcie went over the session in her head. She should have been taking notes then. How had things gone so wrong so quickly? ‘He seemed really nice at first, like he was really interested in what I had to say.’
‘Yeah, it’s a common technique. He was building rapport. First they develop trust, and then they start suggesting ways that the crime might have occurred. They make it sound only logical, like you
had
to kill him.’
Oh, man, all that stuff about how Tim was a jerk. Well, he
was
a jerk. But that hadn’t made Dulcie kill him. And she wasn’t going to be talked into confessing, either. ‘They didn’t read me my rights.’
‘Doesn’t matter.’ Suze sounded depressingly confident. ‘They don’t have to do that until they bring you in and charge you.’
‘Great.’ Dulcie dug her pen into the paper, working out her frustration in a series of darkening crosshatches. ‘But why would they think it was
me
? I mean, especially if he was dealing?’
‘Because he probably knew the killer.’
Suze’s reasoning was disheartening.
‘The door was open, right?’
‘But maybe he knew his supplier, or his customer or something. And, besides, Tim always left the door unlocked. It was one of the things I hated about him! Like, he expected “the staff” to take care of it.’
‘You’re not sounding particularly sympathetic, Dulcie. That’s motive.’
‘Great.’ Dulcie knew she was muttering. ‘Tim – the room-mate who keeps on giving.’
‘It’s not all bleak.’ Dulcie heard rustling on the other end of the line. Maybe Suze was making notes, too. ‘I mean, if they had anything solid, they’d have arrested you by now.’
The crosshatches became darker. The paper rippled beneath Dulcie’s pen. ‘I can’t believe this!’ She knew she was whining, but Suze would understand. ‘I mean, why me? OK, I know why me. But, well, you make it sound like I’m definitely a suspect.’ The lack of an answer drove the point home. ‘What if they never catch who really did it? How am I going to know when I’m cleared? Will they let me know?’
‘Not likely.’ Suze could get sort of lawyer-y at times. ‘But, you know, every day that they don’t arrest you is another day you’re free.’ Dulcie groaned. The sound must have broken through Suze’s legal fog. ‘I’m going to look for some names for you. Get you someone to go with you if they bring you in again.’
‘You think they’re going to question me again?’ She drew a big question mark and underlined it, then started filling it in with more crosshatching.
‘I hope not, kiddo. But if I were them, I think I might.’
Sometimes Suze sounded more like a mother than Dulcie’s real mother.
‘That’s great, just great.’ All she wanted was to be writing. Or reading.
‘So, are you getting any work done?’
Suze wasn’t psychic. Dulcie knew her old friend was only trying to cheer her up, but it was the worst question at the worst time.
‘Oh, Suze.’ She could hear the despair in her own voice. ‘That’s not working either! I’m not getting anywhere. I just keep going back to the same old fragments of
The Ravages of
Umbria
. And there’s nothing there. If there were, it would’ve been written already.’ Suze had heard plenty about the unfinished manuscript. She could probably compose her own chapbook on it, but she wisely remained silent. ‘I’m not going to find anything. I’m not going to be able to renew my grant. I’m going to have to drop out.’ She sighed. ‘Maybe I’m not a scholar, Suze. Maybe I just want comfort reads, and stories that I can write my own endings to.’ She twirled the pen and then started doodling again. ‘There’s nothing new to say about
The Ravages
. Nobody’s cared about this story for more than two hundred years.’
‘Dulce, you’ve had a hell of a week. Cut yourself some slack.’
Dulcie snorted. This from the woman who’d just told her to be on her guard and call a lawyer?
‘I mean, in terms of your thesis. I guess I shouldn’t have asked. But, hey, maybe you are getting work done – on the back-burner, so to speak. Maybe your subconscious sees something in that old story that your conscious mind just hasn’t acknowledged yet.’
‘You mean, maybe I’m getting a message from beyond?’
‘I wouldn’t go that far, Dulcie. One ghost is enough.’
Dulcie looked down at the paper. Her nerves had resulted in some dark scribblings and one stylized dagger. Just what the cops would want to see. She ripped the page off the pad and crumpled it up. On the page below was a picture of a cat, drawn in her own hand, and it was smiling.
‘Mr Grey, if you are here still, please help me.’ She’d lit the sage finally, placing the fragrant fist-sized bundle of twigs in a cereal bowl, for lack of a better receptacle. ‘Mr Grey, are you here?’ Following her mother’s instructions, she walked around, fanning the smoke into various corners. ‘Mr Grey?’ With luck, the smoke alarm wouldn’t go off.
There was no answer. Of course, when did a cat ever come when called? Still, maybe she hadn’t seen the spirit of her pet at all. Maybe she was losing it. With that thought, and for fear of the alarm, she doused the smoldering bundle in the sink and soon found herself lying on the sofa, eyes closed. What a day, and it wasn’t even noon. In an ideal world, she’d go back to sleep and wake up on Sunday, but the interrogation and the bad coffee wouldn’t let her relax that much. Maybe she should head back to Widener: the question of the ‘jealous spirit’ was nagging at her. Was that spirit the same as the retainer’s ghost? Were multiple spectres haunting the old castle? Or were they all simply manifestations of Hermetria’s own overheated brain? The girl was under a lot of stress. By the end of the first fragment, the castle was crumbling, the mad monk was hovering, and things looked pretty grim. At least she had two suitors. This thought reminded Dulcie that she hadn’t called Bruce. Maybe the day was salvageable yet.
She didn’t really need more coffee; her stomach told her that. But she could use something that tasted the way coffee was supposed to – and the company of normal, living human beings – before she made that call. Plus, she could check out Nemo, see if the little fish had returned to normal. But as she was entering the coffee-house, her cell rang. Bruce. Maybe she
was
psychic.
‘Oh, hey, Dulcie. Glad I got you.’ The big guy sounded flustered. She told him she’d been meaning to call him back, but she couldn’t tell if he believed her. ‘I’ve been wanting to talk to you since that party. I still can’t get over you showing up.’ Not the opener she’d expected, and she excused herself for a moment to order a tall iced. ‘That crowd can be pretty insular.’ He laughed, but his humor quickly faded. ‘What am I saying? They can be a bunch of awful snobs. I know it, and I think it’s worse for girls. I mean, women.’
He was trying; Dulcie had to give him that. And if one of his goals was to set himself apart from his cliquish crew, he was succeeding. ‘I was sort of surprised to be invited,’ she admitted as the barista brought over the frosted pint glass. ‘I guess Alana felt comfortable with me because I was Tim’s room-mate.’ Not that the bland blonde had spent any time with her.
‘Tim, yeah. Tim.’ The pause was so long that Dulcie checked her phone. Still connected. Down the bar, a stool opened up and she slid into it. She was facing the high shelf, but when she looked up the little bowl with the Siamese fighting fish wasn’t there.
‘Nemo’s gone home.’ She spoke without thinking, but it served to get Bruce’s attention back.
‘Sorry?’
‘The fish. They’ve been keeping a fish behind the counter at my local coffee place.’ Even though he’d been the one to drop the conversational ball, she felt embarrassed and talked more to cover it up. ‘One of those Siamese fighting fish? They named him Nemo.’ To herself, she murmured, ‘I hope he’s OK.’
He hadn’t heard that. ‘I get it. That’s sweet,’ he said, his voice sounding warm again. ‘I’m sorry, Dulcie. I had wanted to talk to you about Tim, about our stupid friends. My so-called friends, that is.’
Dulcie leaned over her pint glass, cradling the phone, and waited. Bruce had more promise than a surrogate pet fish. The silence dragged on. ‘Were you and Tim close?’ she asked him, finally.
‘Tim? No! I mean, at one point we were, but not by the end. What I wanted to ask you, though—’ As if on cue, the signal beeped. ‘Sorry, Dulcie, I’ve got to take this. Do you mind?’
‘Not at all.’ He couldn’t see that she was rolling her eyes. ‘Bye.’ She sipped her drink. Why should she suppose that life would ever change in her particular fishbowl?
‘Excuse me?’ She waved. The barista looked up, flustered. The frozen mocha machine seemed to be on the fritz. ‘What happened to the fish?’
‘Oh, Nemo?’ Dulcie nodded as the barista got the blender-like contraption working. With a roar, it filled two large cups to go in quick succession. ‘Yeah, Ringo had to take him home. He was freaking out.’
Dulcie thought of the last time she’d been in here. The little fish had been on full alert then, his red dorsal fin erect. ‘What was it? The noise? The air-conditioning?’
‘Who knows?’ The barista shrugged and reached to clear an empty. ‘It all started when this one chick was in here – dark-haired girl, cute. But Nemo didn’t like her. He was ramming against the bowl so hard, we all thought he was sushi.’
Eleven
After her last few social interactions, an evening out was not high on Dulcie’s list of priorities. Still, she found herself scrambling for excuses when Trista reached her at home later. She and Trista had been undergrads together, bonding over ‘Introduction to Anglo-Saxon’, which was difficult at any hour but particularly at eight a.m. Trista, too, was in the throes of a thesis, though at least she had started writing. Yes, she’d heard about Tim. All the more reason, said the voice on the phone, for them all to blow off some steam. Take a little time. Have a few beers. These were her friends, not Tim’s, but still it sounded a little too much like Alana’s party for Dulcie to warm to the idea.
‘I can’t,’ said Dulcie finally. ‘I’ve got some reading I’ve been putting off for days, and I’m just wiped.’ It was partly a lie, but even as Dulcie said it, she had a thought. ‘I’m re-examining a novel fragment. There might be something in the setting I can work with, pathetic fallacy and all that.’
Trista groaned. With her bleached blonde shag, she might look post-modern, but academically, the tiny scholar was all Victorian – and by then readers had stopped searching for emotional cues in the landscape. ‘OK, weatherbird, I’ll leave you to your dramatic fogs and whatnot. But if you change your mind, we’ll be at the People’s Republik.’ The Cambridgeport pub was one of the few that still sold discounted pitchers, making it a prime grad student hang. ‘Speaking of emotional peaks and valleys, you know we all miss you.’
Dulcie sighed. What with all that had happened, she barely felt a part of the grad school gang anymore. How could she concentrate with what had happened to Tim? But if she didn’t, she’d lose her grant and be out by the New Year.