Chapter 5
Charles second-guesses himself wildly as Julian leads the way to his car. As the detective flips the OPEN sign over to read “Out on business. Call 412-555-9545 to make an appointment,” Charles studies the angle of his back with the same ardent attention an ancient astronomer would have given the heavens, as if by connecting the constellations made by his ear and neck and the collar of his coat he might decipher some elusive key to his thoughts. Did he do the right thing, getting Piper to agree to the investigation? Or does Julian think the case a waste of time—did Charles corner him into accepting against his wishes? When Julian unlocks his grey Corolla and gestures for Charles to take the front seat, he feels a surge of unbridled excitement and triumph—surely he has impressed him, surely he’s glad he chose Charles; but as Julian starts the engine in his customary silence Charles is seized with panic and despair: Julian resents him, he regrets hiring him, he is a disappointment to him and now he will be forever beyond Charles’ reach. Charles shakes himself mentally. This is absurd. Julian probably isn’t thinking of Charles at all. His mind is likely a million miles away—focused on the case, probably, as it should be. For some reason, this makes Charles feel depressed rather than relieved.
Piper and Lu live about fifteen minutes away, in an apartment on the top floor of a narrow house whose blue paint is peeling slightly in a half-picturesque, half-shabby sort of way. As Charles and Julian climb the back staircase Charles has vague memories of his own abortive period as a grad student, the warped floorboards and cozy closeness of a Philadelphia apartment he could barely afford but toward which he felt a complicated mixture of fierce protectiveness and tender affection. He suspects that Piper and Lu feel the same; even before they enter, it’s clear from the woven welcome mat and the wreath of dried flowers on the door that this is more than just a place to sleep.
And then they walk inside.
The front door opens onto the sitting room, whose walls are covered in fleur-de-lis wallpaper in cream and maroon. A faded chaise lounge stands in the corner and two antique armchairs sit with a small table between them, upon which rest an oil lamp and a tattered copy of Treasure Island. The chairs face a fireplace—or rather, the façade of one, for there is clearly no flue—atop which a stack of letters is affixed with a knife, its blade digging into the wood. Next to the fireplace is what looks like an old-fashioned coal scuttle, full of cigars, and beside the stack of letters is a silk slipper, stuffed with—
“Tobacco,” Charles says, not realizing he’s drifted over to the fireplace until the shoe is in his hand. “There’s tobacco in the Persian slipper.”
Piper looks at him, startled. “You’ve recognized it,” they say, and Charles feels his stomach flip over, euphoria or fear or maybe both setting his heart pounding.
“It’s—” he swallows. He looks around, running his hand down the Victorian wallpaper, testing its solidity. He catches sight of a low desk in the corner, upon which sit several glass vials, a facsimile copy of The Illustrated London News, and a magnifying glass.
“It’s 221B Baker Street,” he says.
Beside him, Julian makes a strangled noise. Charles and Piper glance over. He seems possibly to have grown even paler than usual. His fists are clenched. But he catches them looking and says, abruptly, “Where’s her bedroom?”
Piper takes them down a small hallway off of which lie two bedrooms and a bathroom. They open Lu’s door and then say, awkwardly, “Um…”
Charles and Julian blink, confused, at the doorway. It’s covered in a thin shroudlike layer of white gauze stretched delicately from hooks on the floor to a curtain rod at the top of the wooden doorframe. The room inside is obscured by the filmy fabric and for a moment Charles wonders how to get in.
“It’s for a project,” Piper explains inadequately. “There’s a slit in in here—sorry, uh…”
They slide their hand along the length of fabric until it catches. Gently, Piper pulls the gauze aside and steps into the bedroom. Julian follows, ducking his head and slipping through, and then Charles remains alone in the hallway, the dim shapes of the other two blurred behind the taut curtain. For a second he hesitates, feeling like a boy about to step through some oversize 3D model of the throat canal or a butterfly’s cocoon in a science museum. He puts his hand up and touches the fabric. It gives a little under his hand. It’s light but not exactly smooth against his skin.
Touching it makes his heart pound.
He slips his hand in the slit and gently pulls it back. He steps one foot through and ducks, parting the fabric enough to fit his shoulders and torso. He puts the other foot through, and as he steps into Lu’s room the fabric springs back into place.
“It’s not a vagina,” Piper says abruptly. “Well, I mean, it’s not not, but that wasn’t Lu’s intention. She was trying to replicate the curtains spirit mediums hung over the cabinets they sat in during seances to prove they weren’t impersonating spirits.”
Julian blinks. Charles is caught slightly less off guard only because of his own brief stint in academia. He remembers the stubbornness of the genital imagery theme.
“Anything out of the ordinary in here?” Julian asks.
It would be hard to tell without Piper’s help. The room is cluttered—messy, really—with an assortment of unusual objects scattered amongst socks, empty containers, pens, papers, and the nub ends of incense sticks. A big bundle of cream-colored fabric is piled on the desk; thread and needles and scissors litter the floor; a cardboard box painted black on the inside sits atop an old-fashioned wooden-framed armchair embroidered with birds and flowers.
“Not that I can see,” Piper said hesitantly. “Well. Her laptop is gone. And her retainer, from the bedside table.”
Julian looks at them sharply. “And?”
Piper takes a breath. “Some of her clothes are gone too.”
Julian walks briskly to the closet. But he is caught up short by the picture tacked to the white door. He stands, staring at it, for long enough that Charles and Piper exchange a confused glance. Charles tips his head so he can see around Julian. His breath catches.
The picture—which is on unframed 8x11 computer paper—is a printout of a beautiful pen-and-ink drawing of a country scene: dappled light, fat hovering bees, the sea on the horizon, and Sherlock Holmes and John Watson kissing.
In a strange, calm voice, eyes still fixed on the picture, Julian asks, “Is ‘believe me to be, my dear friend, very sincerely yours’ a deliberate quotation from Holmes’ farewell letter to Watson after faking his own death at the Reichenbach Falls?”
Charles stares at him, startled. So that’s why the line in Lu’s goodbye note sounded familiar. Piper nods, looking faintly impressed, and also a little sheepish.
“I see.”
Julian thrusts a hand out to steady himself against the wall and for a crazy second Charles thinks he’s about to fall over. He certainly looks pale enough. Piper seems too caught up in thoughts of Lu to fully register Julian’s response, but Charles can’t look away as Julian shuts his eyes and takes a long, deep breath. His white-blonde eyelashes flutter against his nearly translucent skin—Charles can see the delicate blue veins in his eyelids—what on earth is happening?
“All right,” Julian says, his eyes snapping open, his tone suddenly businesslike. He takes a seat in the desk chair and crosses his lanky legs. “Tell me about Lu. Whatever you think is most important.”
Piper nods, silently looking around the room for a moment, as if the secret of Lu lies in the furniture and the books and the rumpled blankets. Then they sit on the bed. Charles takes up a position on the embroidered footstool; the three of them make a triangle with Julian at its tip.
They both look at the detective, until Piper speaks, and Charles remembers to look at Piper.
“I guess to really understand Lu,” Piper says, “you have to understand her scholarship.” They take a breath. “She’s sort of—experimental. She doesn’t do what she’s supposed to do, you know?”
“And what’s that?” Julian asks.
Piper bites their lip. “So…she works on Victorian stuff. Partly. And…” They hesitate, as if searching for the right words. Carefully, they say, “So, it’s really hard to get a job in nineteenth-century British lit if you don’t stay within the parameters of the field—if you don’t write about the kinds of things or use the kind of methodology the major conferences and publications expect. I mean, it’s kind of impossible to get a tenure-track job in English anyway right now, no matter what you do. But there’s a lot of, um, people who say your best chance is really to stick to a traditional way of approaching scholarship.”
Charles frowns. “Like, what? Studying dead white guys? New Criticism?”
Piper looks at him, startled.
“I, uh,” Charles says, “majored in English.”
“Oh, okay. Cool. Well, no, not quite. New Criticism,” they explain hastily to Julian, “is this mid-twentieth-century way of reading literature where you’re only supposed to do a formal analysis of the text itself. You don’t, like, look at historical context or things like gender or race or materiality or any of that. But no, that’s not what I mean by ‘traditional.’” They laugh. “Well, we do have one professor who’s still into that stuff at Schenley, and literally no one takes his classes. No, this is like—” They hesitate. “Do you know what historicism is?”
Charles nods a little reluctantly; all this talk is bringing up bad memories. Julian shakes his head.
“So, in its purest form, historicism is a method of reading texts where you’re trying to get at ‘what really happened.’ What the past was like. How the Victorians themselves would have read Darwin or Dickens. What terms and concepts they’d have had for, say, sexuality—like how the word ‘homosexual’ didn’t exist till the later nineteenth century, so…trying to use accurate terms when talking about earlier decades, sticking to language and concepts the Victorians themselves would have used. And if you do this, supposedly you’ll be able to understand how different things were back then, and get a more accurate idea of the past. And like, sure, okay, that’s useful, but not in a vacuum, you know? Why does it matter how the Victorians read or understood stuff if not because we want to get some insight into current ideas or make some impact on what’s happening today?” Piper pauses for breath for the first time in awhile. Their cheeks are flushed and their voice has gotten louder. Julian is watching closely.
“So there’s this other methodology called ‘presentism,’” Piper continues, voice steadying, “that’s against historicism. That thinks it’s really important to connect the study of past literature and culture to contemporary literature and politics and things. And Lu’s really pushing that methodology as far as she can. She’s studying texts that scholars don’t usually put together because they’re not from the same period or place.”
“What sorts of texts?” Julian asks slowly, looking like he’s not sure where all this is going.
“Mostly, she pairs her readings of Victorian literature with readings of slash fanfiction,” Piper says. “But some other stuff too, like her teenage diary.”
Charles and Julian glance at each other. There’s a pause, like they’re not quite sure where to start asking questions.
“Slash?” Charles says finally.
“Ah,” Piper replies. “Right.” They hesitate, looking slightly nervous. “So, just in case you’re not familiar, fanfiction is stories people write about preexisting fictional characters. Like from TV or movies or books—usually popular media but not always. Well, and sometimes they’re about real people, like boy bands or athletes. But basically, a lot of it is about romance and sex between fictional characters. And slash is—it’s pairing two characters of the same gender in a romantic or sexual relationship. Shipping them, it’s called. It happens a lot even if that pairing isn’t canonical. There are literally millions of slash fics and pieces of slash fanart on the Internet. Lu’s working on a chapter about Holmes and Watson slash fic—”
“And you think this is relevant to her disappearance how?” Julian interrupts abruptly. Charles turns to him, startled; he’s never heard him use that tone—curt, dismissive, impatient—not in real life and not on TV. Piper looks surprised, and a little defensive.
“You asked me what was most important about Lu, and that’s it,” they say. “These aren’t just ideas for her. For any of us. They’re about changing the way people think. Both the fic she writes and her academic work, they’re really important to her. They matter. If you don’t understand that, you won’t get anywhere in trying to figure out why she does what she does.”
Julian is quiet. Charles can see his reluctance to accept Piper’s words, but after a moment he speaks again, keeping his voice carefully even.
“So why would she write, ‘It’s time for me to go?’”
The fire fades abruptly from Piper’s eyes; their gaze drops to their knees. They look—caught, Charles thinks. His stomach churns, with excitement or dread, he can’t tell which.
“I don’t know,” Piper says unhappily. “I can’t…that’s the point. Why would she?”
“What did she mean, Piper?” Julian asks sharply.
Piper shakes their head, stubborn now. “I don’t know.”
Charles turns his gaze to Julian. The detective’s forehead is puckered slightly, and after a long second of silence he turns his eyes to Charles. He wants me to draw Piper out, Charles realizes instantly. People skills.
Communicating silently with Julian is like being allowed access into the secret backyard fort for the first time; it’s like a touch on the nape of Charles’ neck, intimate and utterly private; it makes his toes curl and his stomach shift.
He takes a breath and hopes fervently that he can find the right thing to say. “The note says she thinks you’ll understand,” he tries quietly, turning to Piper. “Understand why she’s leaving.”
After a long moment, Piper nods, not meeting Charles’ eyes. “I think…I think she meant me to think she’d decided she needed leave academia.”
What aren’t they saying, Charles wonders? “Piper, had she talked about this before?” He leans forward almost imperceptibly, keeping his voice low so as not to startle them away. “Did she ever talk about leaving academia?”
They take off their glasses—their face looks unfinished without them—and rub their palm over their eyes.
“But why now?” they burst out. “Her dissertation is finally what she wants it to be. She’s got a ton of support for her work. And she only has one more year left in the program after this one.”
Julian’s eyes narrow. “So she had considered leaving before.”
Piper nods reluctantly. “But not recently. Things had…things were good.”
Julian taps his fingers against his knee. “Well. You ask why now. Whether or not she left of her own accord, there’s an answer to that question out there somewhere.” He nods briskly. “All right. I have a few more questions, and then I’m going to make a thorough search of this apartment, with your permission, of course,” he says. Piper nods. “Good. Now. Possible reasons for Lu leaving at this particular moment: can you think of any besides a general dissatisfaction with academia?”
Piper shakes their head. Charles’ stomach suddenly flips: he remembers this from Young Sherlock, Julian firing off a series of questions, taking in information rapidly, the wheels in his head turning too fast to be seen.
“Money troubles? Perhaps the university was threatening to withhold her diploma until she paid off outstanding debts?”
“All the Ph.D. students get full funding,” Piper replies. “Thank goodness, or I wouldn’t be here. A teaching salary, too. Not much, but enough.”
Julian nods briefly. “What about her family? Anything happening back home—illness, maybe something she wouldn’t want anyone to know about, that sort of thing?”
“Lu doesn’t talk to them,” Piper says. “She hasn’t been back to Connecticut in years. The Fairchilds are an old family, very wealthy and very snobby, and they hate everything about Lu.”
Julian raises an eyebrow. “And she hates them back?”
Piper smiles wryly. “Well, they did name her Lucretia. Wouldn’t you?”
Charles stifles a grin. They can feel adrenaline releasing in their body. The thrill of the chase.
“No disagreements with professors or fellow students?”
“Well.” Piper’s brow wrinkles, and once again they hesitate, as if to choose their next words carefully. Their eyes travel to their lap. “It’s academia. There’s always politics, that sort of thing. I mean, our department is…But there’s been nothing, you know, nothing unusual.” They scratch an elbow nervously.
Julian and Charles exchange a quick glance again, and Charles gives him a tiny shake of the head: not now. If Julian presses Piper further, Charles senses, they’ll only clam up. He can try again later.
Julian looks back at Piper, tilting his head just as he’d done as a kid—Charles remembers it well—when he was about to ask a sensitive question. “What about your relationship? Any recent fights? Any unhappiness?”
Something flickers in Piper’s eyes, something complicated, and Charles has a second of guilt; as exciting as this is for him, it’s still prying into someone else’s problems. But Piper’s answer is simple.
“No,” they say. “We’ve been good together. Lu believes relationships should be more than just, you know, making dinner and making babies. They should be productive, like Holmes and Watson’s. And ours was. We fed off each other, intellectually, creatively. Our work was better for it.” They look at the picture on the closet door of the detective and the doctor kissing and smile with what Charles can only read as heartbreaking sadness. “It was Holmes and Watson more than anything that brought us together. I’ve always been a fan, and it was exciting finding someone who loved them as much as me.” They laugh, a little less devastatingly than they smiled. “And who shipped them as intensely as me.”
Charles glances at Julian; sure enough, the mention of the detective is making him squirm. Charles wonders with a funny little catch of breath if he will have the courage to ask him why later on.
“Is it possible that Lu was seeing someone else?” Julian asks, as politely, Charles thinks, as he can.
Charles expects Piper to take offense, but instead they look mildly surprised. “Well, yeah,” they say. “I mean, she was. We both were. I thought—sorry, I forget sometimes that I have to explain it. We’re not monogamous. We’re not even in a relationship, really. Just…very close.”
It’s like Charles’ mind has just met an unexpected speed bump; his assumptions about Piper fly up into the air, shaken to bits, and drift back down in different configurations. He has to think back to college to remember knowing anyone who’d been that casual about their sexuality; his own adult life has been characterized by very run-of-the mill heterosexual relationships. Julian seems to be going over his own similar bump as both their brains take a moment to process this information.
“I mean, don’t get me wrong,” Piper says, frowning. “I love her. I just didn’t mind if she slept with other people.”
“That may be true,” Julian says. His voice is unusually gentle, and Charles looks at him, suddenly worried. “But you knew she was going to leave you.”
Piper stares down at the crumpled bedspread. Charles felt that awful empathetic heart-sinking as Julian lets the silence unspool. When Piper finally speaks again, there’s a catch in their voice, and Charles knows they are holding back tears. “How did you know?”
“You’ve talked about her in the present tense this whole time,” Julian answers, “until we started discussing your relationship.”
Piper sighs, a long, shaky breath. “Oh.” They take off their glasses again, settling their head against their palm. Is Charles impressed by Julian, he wonders, or sorry for Piper? Can he be both?
“It’s true. I’ve always known Lu and I would part ways eventually. She just doesn’t want the same things I do.” They slide their glasses back onto their face and look up at Charles and Julian, shrugging helplessly. “I’m an academic, through and through. I’m going to be a professor, if I can ever manage to get a job. I’m going to live in one place and eventually, probably, I’m going to have kids. But Lu’s never going to be like that. She’s going to travel, and sleep on sofas, and do crazy incredible things.” They lean back against the wall, and the light from the window, drawing on towards midafternoon, cuts across their face in bright bands. “I’m lucky to have been with her for as long as I have. So, yeah, I knew she’d leave me. Eventually.” Their eyes sharpen again, like they had in Julian’s office. “But not now. And not like this.” They take a breath. “She would have told me. She would have said goodbye, and she would never have left without telling me where to find her.”
Can Piper feel the unspoken words hanging in the air in the silence that follows? Do they see the tiny glance that Julian and Charles exchange, can’t help but exchange, as they doubt—can’t help but doubt—Piper’s conviction? Do they know how many people in the world have said I know she wouldn’t do that, and how few have been right? Do they know how rare that kind of knowledge is?
But however wise Charles and Julian believe themselves to be, and however naïve Piper might seem, their skepticism can’t shake Piper’s certainty; and looking back, Charles will later ask himself: despite all the secrets it turns out Lu was keeping, and whatever Piper might feel about the fact she didn’t share those secrets, weren’t they justified on this one account? Didn’t they know this one thing about her, really and truly, beyond all doubt—that she wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye?