Grey Expectations (6 page)

It could have been the pizza. She'd only eaten one slice. OK, two. But she'd gotten Chris's favorite – pepperoni and sausage – and on top of the dumpling and the peanut butter, she'd felt a little uncomfortable. The cab had probably been a mistake: a walk would have shaken the food down. But she'd been touched by her boyfriend's concern and just a little spooked.

Besides, she'd been having dreams like this for a while now. Even on those rare occasions when she had gone to bed almost hungry. Dulcie would never admit anything about her dreams to Lucy; her mother was too quick to attribute everything to some latent familial psychic powers, whereas Dulcie saw them as her subconscious at work, piecing together connections she had missed in the light of day. But sometimes, she had found, these vivid nightmares had proven to have an extra smidgen of the truth about them. And as much as she tried to dismiss the idea – arguing with herself that everything in her dreams could be traced back to the day's reading at some level – she'd learned to trust them, no matter where they came from. Or how disturbing they might feel.

‘What do you think it is, Esmé? Can you tell me?' Dulcie looked down at the little cat, but she kept on with her work, pushing one paw and then another into the blanket. ‘I'm as certain as I can be that my author emigrated. I mean, those later essays, from America, seem to prove it.'

This wasn't new ground for Dulcie. Even Martin Thorpe had agreed with her on this point. By identifying certain phrases, Dulcie had been able to trace the unknown author of
The Ravages
across the ocean. She'd found certain images – illustrating strikingly modern ideas about women and their role in society – first in the London papers, then
The Ravages
, and ultimately in some of the more incendiary newspapers of the new American republic. Dulcie had found one piece that she was sure was by ‘her' author that dated from 1795. But then the trail had gone cold.

It wasn't enough. Thorpe, she knew, was waiting for her to dig up more essays – maybe even something that would give the author a name. But Dulcie was beginning to despair.

She looked over at Esmé, but the little cat appeared to be sound asleep. Reaching over to stroke her soft fur, Dulcie tried to rally. After all, she told herself, there were reasons for her author to stop writing. That last piece – with its plea ‘to bear the Mind as treasur'd as the Virtue of her sex' – was fiery stuff, coming as it did on the heels of the French revolution. And while the United States had a built-in affinity for France – the sworn enemies of England had helped the fledgling colonies win their own independence – by the middle of the nineties, this friendship was fading. America had made peace with England, and even Lafayette, the hero of the revolution, was in trouble with the new French Republic. Dulcie wasn't sure if folks in Philadelphia would know about the Terror, or that the Committee of Public Safety had thrown the marquis in jail. But she'd read enough political papers to know that her author had landed just as the political climate was turning conservative.

‘Maybe she just couldn't get published any more.' Dulcie addressed the cat, who sniffled and readjusted without waking. ‘It happens.'

Dulcie didn't want to think about how often it happened. A job at an auction house might be fine for some, for those who could deal with the fickle fashions of wealthy collectors. Dulcie had incorporated too much of her mother's anti-materialist sentiment to ever feel at home in that setting. If she could just find one or two more examples – just enough to prove her theory – she would have enough evidence to make up a chapter of her thesis. And even if Thorpe had insisted that she posit the author's movement as speculative, she'd already drafted a paper for the graduate students' journal on the writing. ‘Cast Upon the Sea: The Transmission of Feminist Ideas to the More Fertile Ground of the New World' was almost ready for publication, and Dulcie felt sure it would turn some heads. At least, she'd thought she felt confident about it.

‘Maybe that's all it is.' She turned toward the cat. ‘Maybe I'm a little more worried about my paper than I'd thought.'

The small cat didn't respond, and Dulcie realized she was second-guessing herself. Maybe it was anxiety, but she couldn't shake the feeling that the dream was about more than the voyage. What had gotten to her – what had remained after she awoke – was that awful feeling of being trapped. Of despair. Had her author considered suicide? The idea was chilling, and not just because of the vivid images of the wild waves. In her heart of hearts, Dulcie had suspected – hoped might be the better word – that the author was more than a literary forebear. Dulcie's mother's family had come from Philadelphia, from much more established and respectable stock than Lucy's hippie lifestyle would suggest. And Lucy had always told Dulcie that their female ancestors had been independent women. Was it too much to hope that maybe, just maybe, the reason Dulcie had bonded so strongly with
The Ravages
of Umbria
, the reason she had found her purpose in studying this author, was because of some long distant family tie?

‘What do you say, Esmé?' But the kitten was fast sleep. And so, with a little shuffling and pillow fluffing, Dulcie followed suit.

NINE

W
hen she next awoke, the moon had been replaced by bright sunshine, the kind that makes nightmares seem silly. A quick glance at the clock, however, reawakened that sense of dread. Sometime during the night, she must have hit it, turning the alarm off. Or – no, Esmé was nowhere to be seen. Whatever had happened, Dulcie had no time for breakfast. The departmental meeting would begin in fifteen minutes, and especially as she still had no new evidence for her thesis, she really didn't need Thorpe on her case.

‘Whoa!' Chris had been unlocking the front door as she rushed out, and she spun on her heels to give her boyfriend a quick kiss.

‘Gotta run. Meeting.'

‘Call me!' His voice followed her down the stairs.
One of these days
, Dulcie thought with a twinge of regret,
we'll have a normal life
. For now, trotting up the street, Dulcie tried to organize her thoughts. First, the meeting, which promised to be dull but necessary. At least Nancy, the departmental secretary, made good coffee, and Dulcie had had the forethought to grab her oversized travel mug before she'd bolted.

Dulcie hurried toward Mass Ave, realizing that she hadn't even bothered to button her sweater. The Pacific North-West had been damp and cool, but the winters never seemed as bitter as they did here in New England. Here, from late October on, Dulcie piled layer on layer. Now, between her steady trot and the bright sun, she was actually warm. She smiled up at the sky, at the little fluffy clouds making their way across a clean, fresh blue – and walked into a wall of wool.

‘Watch it, why don't you?' The harsh Boston accent, akin to a seagull's caw, took Dulcie aback. It couldn't totally destroy her mood, however, and she looked up with a smile.

‘I'm sorry.' She tried to make eye contact with dark eyes, buried deep under bristling brows. ‘I was distracted by this beautiful weather.'

‘Nutcase.' The large wool-clad person – a man, Dulcie thought – said, loud enough for her to hear, before turning and stalking off.

‘Friendly,' Dulcie replied, a little softer, and followed. It was true – she hadn't noticed that the light had changed, and had the man not stopped her with his bulk, she might have stepped into traffic. He might have saved her life. ‘Sorry,' she said again, sending the apology into the space where he had been. If she had inherited anything from Lucy, it was a sense of karmic balance. Maybe she deserved that verbal slap for being so inattentive.

‘I wonder if that's what Esmé needs,' she asked of a passing sparrow. Mr Grey had come to her fully grown and had been a gentle cat from the first. ‘Or maybe it's just Chris.' Whatever she didn't know about training a kitten, she knew that his genial rough-housing was wrong and would only lead to tears.

That, however, was a problem to be tackled later. As the high-rises and storefronts of Central Square gave way to the red-brick of the university, Dulcie returned to planning her morning. First, the meeting – the thought of that coffee made her mouth water, and she found herself swallowing. If she were lucky, Roland would be there. She might have to make up some kind of story about why she'd called, but she could handle it. If he wasn't – and, really, there were a million reasons why he might not be – she'd ask Thorpe about him. Or, no, even better – she'd ask Nancy. Just a casual question thrown out there to let her know if the jovial Texan had gone missing or, worse, turned up dead. Odds were, that would take care of the whole problem.

Either way, she thought, she might be able to get more out of Trista. Her friend had been so upset the night before, as close to hysteria as Dulcie had ever seen her. A visit from the cops could do that, what with their usually gruff manners and refusal to explain anything that was going on. But even Suze had thought that Trista had blown it out of proportion. And even if she was still nervous – or suffering from exhaustion or whatever – Trista would be more approachable this morning, after a night's sleep, and especially after a departmental meeting. In keeping with her hip look, Trista liked to present a cool facade. No matter what it cost her, she'd be rational in front of the rest of the department – and Dulcie might be able to get a little more sense out of her, starting with why she'd decided that their imported colleague had been killed.

She looked at her watch. Ten twenty, she just might make it. And if all went according to plan, she would put this curious incident behind her. She might even be able to duck Thorpe after. If she could get into the library by noon, Dulcie thought, turning off Mass Ave, this would be a most beautiful day.

An hour later, it registered with Dulcie that she had not even gotten coffee. It wasn't that Nancy hadn't made it. As soon as she'd skipped up the steps to the old clapboard house that served as the departmental headquarters, she'd smelled that marvelous, ever so slightly burned aroma, the result of too many drips left on the institutional coffee-maker.

But before she could even step from the front hall into the former sitting room that now served as an all-purpose office-cum-gathering space, Dulcie was grabbed and hustled into the conference room opposite.

‘Dulcie, thank God.' It was Trista, looking a little frantic. ‘Do you have a minute?'

‘Hey, Trista. Yeah, I talked to Suze—' Dulcie tried to respond, but her friend cut her off.

‘There's something going on – something I hadn't thought of. It might  . . . well, we should talk.'

‘Miss Schwartz, there you are.' Martin Thorpe had walked in. ‘I was wondering when you'd get here.'

‘The meeting's not till—' She checked her watch. Ten thirty-five. ‘I'm only five minutes late.'

‘These are not ordinary times.' Thorpe looked at her over his glasses. ‘Your presence is requested immediately.' He looked up, as if seeing Trista for the first time. ‘Yours, too, Miss Dunlop.'

‘What?' Dulce mouthed the question silently to Trista as they trekked up the stairs behind their leader.

Trista shook her head. ‘Not here,' she whispered, looking down behind them.

There wasn't time for anything more. Dulcie ducked instinctively as she watched Thorpe stoop under the lintel that led into the upstairs conference room. The building dated to the Revolutionary War, and as far as its current inhabitants could tell, it had barely been renovated, except for the addition of electricity and a flush toilet that could be temperamental. That made it almost contemporaneous with the author of
The Ravages
, a fact that usually pleased Dulcie, who liked to imagine the scenes the old wood must have witnessed. Only, today, Dulcie didn't have time for such fantasies. She made it up to the doorway and stopped short, until Trista, behind her, gave her a small shove.

‘Ladies, please.' Thorpe motioned to two chairs in the far corner. He himself had not taken his usual seat. That was occupied by a man they all knew well, the man whose unexpected appearance had caused Dulcie to stop so suddenly. Even as she scurried over to one of the empty chairs, his image stayed with her and set her mind racing.

He was big, for starters. Big enough to make the little room seem claustrophobic, and his grey hair – thick and swept to the side – and substantial salt-and-pepper moustache did nothing to soften features that could have been carved out of granite. Like a nightmare version of Theodore Roosevelt or some dyspeptic walrus, he looked as substantial – and as tall – as Thorpe, even while seated at the conference table. Almost as tall, Dulcie noted, daring a glance at the visitor, as the university police officer who stood behind him to his right.

What he was doing here was a mystery, but his presence had subdued the usual hum of speculation. She stole another peek at the big man. Yes, it was whom she thought: Dr Gustav Coffin, head of Widener's rare book collection and university legend. Dr Coffin, rumor had it, had built the priceless Mildon rare book library through a combination of charm and bulldog-like tenacity, bullying donors and experts alike to contribute to his own personal climate-controlled fiefdom. Immune to the vagaries of the stock market, which had played such havoc with the university investments as a whole, he had emerged from the jet-setting world of private philanthropy and commanded respect far beyond the halls of academe. It was said he had his own personal keys to the Mildon Collection rooms, set deep within Widener's stacks. And that when he did emerge, it was to fly to New York or London to secure some new prize, or to consult for the Met, the Louvre, or the Hermitage.

Every day he worked with the kind of treasures Dulcie and her colleagues only dreamed about, she realized, swallowing hard. But they never seemed to make him happy. Whether it was because of a graduate student disturbing him with another request, or because he was in the midst of dismissing yet one more university request for tighter budgeting when it came to conservation or restoration, he was known as much for his temper as that stone-carved scowl. This morning he looked positively thunderous.