Read Online The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova - Free Book Online Page B

Rossi‘s behavior?‖
    What could I say? Yes, actually—he told me that vampires are real, that Count Dracula walks among us, that I might have inherited a curse through his own research, and then I saw his light blotted out as if by a giant—
    ―No,‖ I said. ―We had a meeting about my dissertation and sat talking until about eight-thirty.‖
    ―Did you leave together?‖
    ―No. I left first. He walked me to the door and then went back into his office.‖
    ―Did you see anything or anyone suspicious around the building as you left? Hear anything?‖
    I hesitated again. ―No, nothing. Well, there was a brief blackout on the street. The streetlights went off.‖

    ―Yes, that‘s been reported. But you didn‘t hear anything or see anything out of the usual?‖
    ―No.‖
    ―So far you‘re the last person to see Professor Rossi,‖ the policeman insisted. ―Think hard. When you were with him, did he do or say anything strange? Any talk of depression, suicide, anything like that? Or any talk of going away, going on a trip, say?‖
    ―No, nothing like that,‖ I said honestly. The policeman gave me a hard look.
    ―I need your name and address.‖ He wrote down everything and turned to the chairman.
    ―You can vouch for this young man?‖
    ―He‘s certainly who he says he is.‖
    ―All right,‖ the policeman told me. ―I want you to come in here with me and tell me if you see anything unusual. Especially anything different from two nights ago. Don‘t touch anything. Frankly, most of these cases turn out to be something predictable, family emergency or a little breakdown—he‘ll probably be back in a day or two. I‘ve seen it a million times. But with blood on the desk we‘re not taking any chances.‖
    Blood on the desk? My legs were weakening under me, but I made myself walk in slowly after the policeman. The room looked as it had on dozens of other occasions when I‘d seen it in daylight: neat, pleasant, the furniture in precise attitudes of invitation, books and papers in exact stacks on the tables and the desktop. I stepped closer. Across the desk, on Rossi‘s tan blotting paper, lay a dark reservoir, long since spread and soaked and still. The policeman put a steadying hand on my shoulder. ―Not a big enough loss of blood to be a cause of death in itself,‖ he said. ―Maybe a bad nosebleed, or some kind of hemorrhage. Did Professor Rossi ever have a nosebleed when you were with him? Did he seem ill that night?‖
    ―No,‖ I said. ―I never saw him—bleed—and he never talked about his health to me.‖ I realized suddenly, with appalling clarity, that I‘d just spoken of our conversations in past tense, as if they were ended forever. My throat closed with emotion when I thought of Rossi standing cheerfully at the office door, seeing me off. Had he cut himself somehow—on purpose, even?—in a moment of instability, and then hurried out of the room, locking the door behind him? I tried to imagine him raving in a park, perhaps cold and hungry, or boarding a bus to some randomly chosen destination. None of it fit. Rossi was a solid structure, as cool and sane as anyone I‘d ever met.
    ―Look around very carefully.‖ The policeman released my shoulder. He was watching me hard, and I sensed the chairman and the others hovering in the doorway behind us. It dawned on me that until proven otherwise I would be among the suspects if Rossi had been murdered. But Bertrand and Elias would speak up for me, as I could for them. I stared at everything in the room, trying to see through it. It was an exercise in frustration; everything was real, normal, solid, and Rossi was utterly gone from it.
    ―No,‖ I said finally. ―I don‘t see anything different.‖
    ―All right.‖ The policeman turned me toward the windows. ―Look up, then.‖
    On the white plaster ceiling over the desk, high above us, a dark smear about five inches long drifted sideways, as if pointing toward something outside.