up the library and trudged down the stairs to the parlor.
“Hey, Dawes,” Alex said awkwardly. No response. “Pamela.”
She was in her usual spot, huddled on the floor by the grand piano, a highlighter shoved between her teeth. Her laptop was set off to one side, and she was surrounded by
stacks of books and rows of index cards with what Alex thought might be chapter titles for
her dissertation.
“Hey,” she tried again, “I need you to go with me on an errand.”
Dawes shuffled From Eleusis to Empoli under Mimesis and the Chariot’s Wheel.
“I have work to do,” she mumbled around the highlighter.
“I need you to go with me to the morgue.”
Now Dawes glanced up, brow furrowed, blinking like someone newly exposed to
sunlight. She always looked a little put out when you spoke to her, as if she’d been on the
brink of the revelation that would finally help her finish the dissertation she’d been writing for six years.
She removed the highlighter from her mouth, wiping it unceremoniously on her nubbly
sweatshirt, which might have been gray or navy, depending on the light. Her red hair was
twisted into a bun, and Alex could see the pink halo of a zit forming on her chin.
“Why?” asked Dawes.
“Tara Hutchins.”
“Does Dean Sandow want you to go?”
“I need more information,” Alex said. “For my report.” That was a problem dear
Dawes should be able to sympathize with.
“Then you should call Centurion.”
“Turner isn’t going to talk to me.”
Dawes ran a finger over the edge of one of her index cards. Heretical Hermeneutics: Josephus and the influence of the trickster on the Fool. Her nails were bitten down to the quick.
“Aren’t they charging her boyfriend?” asked Dawes, pulling at her fuzzy sleeve. “What
does this have to do with us?”
“Probably nothing. But it was a Thursday night and I think we should make sure. It’s
what we’re here for, right?”
Alex hadn’t actually said, Darlington would do it, but she might as well have.
Dawes shifted uncomfortably. “But if Detective Turner—” “Turner can go fuck himself,” Alex said. She was tired. She’d missed dinner. She’d wasted hours on Tara Hutchins and she was about to waste a few more.
Dawes worried her lip as if she was legitimately trying to visualize the mechanics. “I
don’t know.”
“Do you have a car?”
“No. Darlington does. Did. Fuck.” For a moment, he was there in the room with them,
gilded and capable. Dawes rose and unzipped her backpack, removed a set of keys. She stood in the fading light, weighing them in her palm. “I don’t know,” she said again.
She might have been referring to a hundred different things. I don’t know if this is a good idea. I don’t know if you can be trusted. I don’t know how to finish my dissertation. I don’t know if you robbed me of our golden, destined for glory, perfect boy.
“How are we going to get in?” Dawes asked.
“I’ll get us in.”
“And then what?”
Alex handed her the sheet of notes she’d transcribed in the library. “We have all this stuff, right?”
Dawes scanned the page. Her surprise was obvious when she said, “This isn’t bad.”
Don’t apologize. Just do the work.
Dawes gnawed on her lower lip. Her mouth was as colorless as the rest of her. Maybe
her thesis was draining the life right out of her. “Couldn’t we call a car instead?”
“We may need to leave in a hurry.”
Dawes sighed and reached for her parka. “I’m driving.”
8
Winter
Dawes had parked Darlington’s car a little ways up the block. It was an old wine-colored
Mercedes, maybe from the eighties—Alex had never asked. The seats were upholstered in
caramel leather, worn in some places, the stitching a bit threadbare. Darlington had always
kept the car clean, but now it was immaculate. Dawes’s hand no doubt.
As if asking for permission, Dawes paused before she turned the key in the ignition.
Then the car rumbled to life and they were moving away from campus and out onto the