Anonymous Sources (2 page)

F
or me this story begins in a tiny, greasy wine bar in Harvard Square. I was waiting, as usual, for Jess. I checked my watch. Scanned the sidewalk again. Sighed.

Still, there are worse places to be stuck waiting than the patio of Shays. The service is terrible, old beer rings stain the tables, and you're not ten feet from the buses crawling up and down JFK Street. But they're generous with their pours. Any place that gets three glasses from a bottle of wine deserves the benefit of the doubt. And Shays is one of the few places in Cambridge where you can order a drink and sit outside. It was a glorious evening for that: one of the first really warm
nights of the year, warm enough to believe the New England winter might finally be over, warm enough to leave your sweater at home.

I stretched out an ankle and admired my new Louboutin sandals. They'd cost nearly a week's pay from the
Chronicle
. Shoes are a weakness of mine. I eyed my empty glass and conceded—not my only one. I inherited a tendency to drink from my mother. That's not an excuse, just a fact. My mother can knock back the better part of a bottle of single-malt Scotch in a night. I generally stick to gin. Clear, simple. They say that people drink to forget. To numb the pain. But I drink because it tastes good. Because it feels good. I find that nothing numbs the pain. We'll get to that.

For the moment, I was focused on looking around for a waiter and a refill. That's when my phone buzzed. It was the newsroom, an all-staff e-mail. The police scanner had picked up some sort of incident under way on the Harvard campus: 101 Dunster Street. Cops were on the scene, an ambulance dispatched. The
Crimson
, the college newspaper, had already slapped a “Breaking News” banner across its website and was citing eyewitness accounts of a body. We had a late-shift general-assignment reporter en route, but it could take a while in traffic. Was anybody close? Who could perhaps file a quote or two for the website?

I felt a prickle of annoyance. I'd been at work early this morning to finish up a series for the weekend magazine. And it was such a beautiful night. But I had a feeling Dunster Street was the one right around the corner. I looked around. Still no Jess in sight. So I slid a $20 bill on the table, tapped
I'm on it
into my phone, and grabbed my bag.

BY THE TIME I ROUNDED
the corner from JFK onto South Street, I could already hear sirens. I turned another corner. Followed the flashing lights down to where Dunster Street ended in a neat cul-de-sac and a number
of imposing redbrick dorms.
Houses
, as I knew Harvard modestly called them.

I could see police already cordoning off the area. I would have to work fast. I strode toward the officer who appeared to be in charge. He was bunched in a group with two other cops in front of a large, white doorway.
ELIOT HOUSE
, read the neatly painted letters above the arch.

“Hi, wondering if I could ask you a couple questions. About what's going on in there? We're hearing reports of a body . . .”

The officer raised an eyebrow. “And you are?”

“Alexandra James, with the
Chronicle
. Can you confirm what kind of call you're responding to?”

The officer shook his head and motioned to another cop.

“No reporters. Frank, can you please help this young lady back behind the tape?”

“Yes, sir, but any guidance at all? Is this an accident or a crime scene?”

But he was already turning his back. The one named Frank was steering me none too gently back onto Dunster Street.

I scowled, stepped beneath a tree, and pulled out my phone. No new messages. The other
Chronicle
reporter must not be here yet. I watched a second ambulance pull up. But its sirens were silent, and the paramedics took their time getting out. No sense of urgency. Clearly whatever had happened here was over. Some poor person had died, and that was that. I hated this kind of reporting. I've never been a subscriber to the “if it bleeds, it leads” school of journalism.

Still, I was here. Worse, the newsroom knew I was here. No point in completely embarrassing myself with the editors. I surveyed the scene again. The police commander and his buddies were still blocking the door marked
ELIOT HOUSE
. That's where the action was. And no one who could tell me anything was being allowed to leave. Then I noticed a long, low-slung extension that seemed to connect Eliot House to the next dorm.

I tracked back.
KIRKLAND HOUSE
, read a brass plaque on the wall. A guard was posted here too, but he seemed to be letting people inside. I watched them flash cards at him: Harvard IDs, presumably.

So this might be a way in. I glanced down: I would never pass for a student in these heels. I groped inside my bag and dug out the flip-flops that I wore to ride the subway to and from the office. Then I peeled off my suit jacket. I had on a plain white T-shirt underneath. That was better. I tucked my phone and reporter's notebook under my arm and stashed my bag under a bush.

My timing was good. Three girls were just turning up the granite steps toward the guard. Backpacks, jean shorts, long hair. I walked up and touched the closest one's arm, then began chattering as if we were old friends. The girl started. Stared at me. And then began to chatter back. It was getting dark by now; I could have passed for someone she knew. One of the many advantages I've found to being a female reporter is people find you less threatening. They assume you're friendly, that you won't hurt them. Sometimes an inaccurate assumption in my case, but useful nonetheless.

I bunched closer to the girls, ducked my head, and kept talking. They waved their IDs. The guard waved us past. I waited until we were well away from him before I looked up. We had stepped through a black iron gate and under several arches, into a square courtyard.

“And apparently he just fell, like, dropped right in front of the windows while she was eating,” the girl now clutching my arm was saying. She looked stricken.

I nodded, only half-listening and eager now to get away. Where was that passageway I'd spotted from outside? Of the doorways on the far side of the courtyard, the one that looked most promising was marked
DINING HALL
. I waited until a few others joined our circle and then slipped away. Inside, the hall was dimly lit and cool. A few scattered students sat hunched over their dinner trays. I kept moving. The kitchens must be back here. I have a pretty good sense of direction and this felt right.

I kept expecting to run into another cop, a kitchen supervisor, some sort of official who would demand to know who I was and what I was doing here. But the kitchens were deserted. Whether dinner would normally be over or the meal service had been cut prematurely short by whatever was happening in Eliot House, I wasn't sure. Steam was still rising from enormous pans of rice and what looked like tacos. I lurched around a wall of cereal dispensers and headed down a short stairway toward a vending machine. This might be right. Another turn. No. Dead end. I was spinning around to retrace my steps when I nearly bumped into a short, droopy-looking man. His name—
PEDRO
—was embroidered on his gray shirt and he was jangling keys. A janitor. I was caught. But I ventured a question.

“Sorry, I'm lost. I'm trying to get into Eliot House. Back upstairs?”

He stared at me. A moment passed. Was he weighing whether to call security? Did he not speak English? To my surprise, he finally nodded. “Yes, back upstairs. This way.”

He stepped in front of me and led me back up, past a grill area and along a tiled hallway, crammed with serving carts and stacks of cutlery. The floors were slick, dishwater and juice spills. We walked through several rooms, past another set of cereal dispensers, trays of steaming shrimp. How vast could this kitchen be?

And then the janitor nodded toward a corner and I saw it: a whiteboard, half-smudged, announcing
Eliot Intramural Playoffs—Soccer 9pm v. Mather
.

Eliot playoffs. Eliot House. I was in.

THE ELIOT HOUSE DINING HALL
was entirely predictable. High ceilings, massive carved chandeliers, an oil painting of a man I presumed to be Mr. Eliot himself dominating one wall. I went to Columbia, so I'm no stranger to the Ivy League's self-important splendor. But Harvard really
does take it to another level. A copy editor once slapped the headline “The Patina of Privilege” on a story I'd written about renovations in one of the Harvard libraries. I had winced; it seemed too cutesy. But inside Eliot, taking in the gleaming floors, the mahogany-paneled walls, I had to admit he had a point.

This elegance—or pretension, depending on your point of view—does not extend to undergraduate fashion. The dress code tonight seemed to range from cutoffs to sweatpants. I glanced down in relief at my own flip-flops and T-shirt and crossed the room.

Half-eaten trays of food sat abandoned on tables. The action was at the windows. Students were pressed up against eight enormous windows that ran the length of the room. It was strangely quiet, considering there had to be a hundred or so people in here. They were all listening to whatever was happening outside.

I squeezed into the thickest throng. I couldn't see a thing.

“I just got here. What happened?” I whispered to a tall boy who seemed to have a better view.

“They're zipping him up.”

“Who?”

“Him. The guy who jumped.”

I wiggled my shoulders and jostled sideways a bit, until the crowd shifted just enough for me to see.

There it was: A blue plastic body bag. A wheeled gurney. Police and paramedics milling about on a wide terrace. And beyond heavy stone railings, another grassy courtyard.

“When did he jump? Did you see it?”

“No. I—I don't know. Half past six maybe? My roommate's up there.” The tall boy pointed across the courtyard to a second- or third-floor window. “He keeps texting me. He says he heard it. A big thud. I guess he landed faceup. You know, like, you could see his eyes were open.”

“Oh. Poor guy.”

“Yeah. But they covered him up. One of the dining-hall ladies. She
ran right out. She had a yellow cardigan and she put it over his face.”

I shook my head. Then I pulled out my phone and started typing. It had been an hour since the newsroom first sent out an alert. The editors would be going crazy.

LATER THAT NIGHT, THE UNIVERSITY
released a statement.

It was with great sadness that they reported the death of Thomas Abbott Carlyle, twenty-three, of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Mr. Carlyle was a magna cum laude graduate of the college and had recently completed a postgraduate year as the Lionel de Jersey Harvard Scholar at Emmanuel College, Cambridge University, in England.

He was remembered as a gifted student, a talented rower, a generous friend, and a beloved son and brother.

The family had been contacted and did not wish to comment. The media was asked to respect the family's privacy at this difficult time.

I STUCK AROUND UNTIL NEARLY
eleven o'clock.

By then the police had rolled in spotlights to illuminate the courtyard. They combed the grass for anything that might have fallen along with the body. Police tape and a dark stain marked the spot where Thomas Carlyle had fallen.

I asked around and no one seemed to know Carlyle. Then again, these were summer-school students. They'd only just moved in themselves.

At one point, the commander who'd tried to throw me off the premises appeared. He cleared his throat and delivered a terse update. There was no cause for alarm. Police officers would be posted outside tonight and at least through tomorrow. They would be interviewing eyewitnesses
to piece together exactly what had happened to Thomas Carlyle. Anyone with relevant information was asked to leave his or her name and phone number. The university would release more details as appropriate about this tragic incident. For now, students should return to their rooms.

I listened to this advice from a back corner, my hair pulled low across my face. I didn't think he would recognize me from earlier in the evening, but I do tend to stand out, and there was no point in risking it.

On my phone I tapped out one last advisory, relaying everything I knew back to the newsroom editors. They seemed to like the yellow cardigan quote. That got posted to the website right away.

It had been a slow news day, and a death and police investigation at Harvard would likely make tomorrow's front page. But frankly, I didn't see much of a story here. It was terrible, of course. A promising young man's life cut tragically short, and all that. I figured the police and the autopsy report would reveal soon enough whether this was a suicide or an unfortunate—maybe drunken—accident. Neither was exactly unheard of on a college campus.

I shoved my phone in my pocket and stood up. It was late. I had what I needed. The crowd had thinned out, and there seemed no point incurring the wrath of that Cambridge police commander if he wandered in again. I decided to call it a night.