Death in Lovers' Lane

by Carolyn G. Hart

  But of course in cases which have not been solved, the information gathered by the police is not open to the public.

  However, these fine points are not always known to everyone working in a law-enforcement agency. I knew better than to try and be clever with the Derry Hills PD. I recalled Lieutenant Urschel’s steady, intelligent gaze with respect. The campus patrol was, in my mind, another matter entirely. Once again The Clarion morgue was very useful. I found a feature written the previous year, when a new director, Roland Steele, took over. Steele was in his forties, another retired military cop.

  I looked up Steele’s number in the University directory. And if it took a little dissembling to gain

  my objective, I was quite willing to do it.

  “Chief Steele, this is Henrietta Collins in the Journalism School. I’m working on some exercises for my students in covering crime news. I’d like to do some surveys in your old files, oh, say, in the seventies, so it wouldn’t be anything current, to gather some materials. Would it be convenient for your office if I dropped by in a few minutes?”

  Chief Steele was pleased to be of service. In fact, he was quite genial and obliging. “Come by anytime, Mrs. Collins.”

  The campus force was still housed in the basement of the stadium. My shoes echoed against the concrete runway.

  Chief Steele had already given instructions to the cheerful student who was a part-time aide. She led me to a small, dingy backroom.

  “Our old files are in these cabinets.” She waved toward a bank of very old-fashioned wooden cabinets.

  “Thanks so much. I’ll be quick.”

  “Do you need—”

  “No. I’m fine. I needn’t take up your time.”

  And I had the room to myself.

  It didn’t take long. The files were kept by year. Within that section, the Nugent case filled two accordion-sized folders. Each folder had a table of contents. Chief McKay, by God, had been master of his own domain.

  The first folder contained what I was looking for: photographs from every angle that provided a complete record of everything visible in the office of Darryl Nu-gent. The photos were dated the day after his disappearance.

  Thank you, Chief McKay.

  There was a large—at least nine-by-twelvefoot—Oriental rug directly in front of his desk.

  That was the only rug visible in the entire room.

  No rug lay in front of the fireplace.

  But I wanted to be sure.

  There were twenty-four photos. I looked at each one slowly, carefully, thoroughly. There was one rug in the dean’s office, and only one, the morning after his disappearance. The pictured rug was much too large to be the one Maude Galloway had described.

  But the photos revealed more than that.

  Family photographs took pride of place on Nugent’s desk. I counted eight. The desktop was bare of papers. A lovely old conference table sat in one corner of the room. Roses filled an elegant cut-glass vase. The blooms drooped. On the west side of the room, a circular iron staircase rose to a narrow balcony. Filing cabinets filled the balcony. The dean’s suit jacket hung from a coat tree tucked between the spiral staircase and a glass-fronted bookcase. Huge casement windows, eight to ten feet tall, were in the west and south walls. Heavy draperies were looped to each side of the windows.

  Except for one window.

  In the west window nearest the circular staircase, the draperies hung straight. I glanced from that window to the next one. Yes, those draperies were looped, held in place with long braided ties.

  I found the photo of the south wall and saw four casement windows with draperies looped to each side. I estimated each tie to be at least four feet in length, more likely six. Two ties knotted together would afford a piece of cord eight to twelve feet in length.

  Then I studied the photo of the balcony. It was an old-fashioned balcony enclosed by a balustrade.

  One of the photos showed that corner of the room. The floor was parquet.

  It was a floor I wanted to see.

  Charlotte Abney rose to greet me. “Henrie O, what a pleasure to see you!”

  Charlotte and I often played tennis together, but I’d never dropped by her office unannounced.

  “What can I do for you?” There was the faintest hint of reserve in her tone.

  “Actually, Charlotte, will you permit me to roam around your office for a few minutes?”

  Charlotte is slim and attractive, with a vibrant face that mirrors her enthusiasms. This morning, however, she looked aloof and thoughtful. There was an instant’s hesitation before she replied, “Certainly.”

  I walked to the windows. The draperies were a stiff red brocade, the ties gold cords with two-inch tassels at the ends. I unlooped a tie. A chair scraped. Charlotte joined me at the window. “I’ve heard some gossip.” Her voice was crisp.

  I held the cord up. Yes, it was fully six feet long. “I’ll bet you have.” I pressed the braided cord between my fingers. It felt strong.

  “Henrie O, they say you’re in trouble.” Her tone was distant.

  I relooped the tie, pulling the stiff drapery back in its customary place. “My husband always insisted that trouble was my middle name.”

  Charlotte leaned against the mantel, her arms crossed. She looked especially striking, her crimson blazer crisp, her black skirt short and fashionable. She also looked wary.

  I patted her shoulder as I turned toward the corner of the room and the winding stairs. “Don’t be worried on my account, Charlotte. I’ll survive, one way or another. Here, or somewhere else.”

  I looked up at the balcony. It ran the length of the room, which I estimated to be about thirty feet. The staircase was in the northwest corner. The police photographs showed Nugent’s desk to be midway between the staircase and the east wall.

  I walked to a spot halfway between the staircase and where Nugent’s desk had sat. The floor was bare of carpet now, as it had been then.

  Charlotte followed me.

  I knelt and began to study the parquet flooring.

  Charlotte stood with her hands on her hips. “Henrie O, what in the world are you doing?”

  But her words seemed to come from a long distance. I traced the long scar that had at one time—but I knew when—been gouged into the wood.

  I looked up. The balcony was directly above me. I stood, glanced around, pulled a Windsor chair to that spot.

  I could see two ways the chair could have scored the wood.

  In a struggle, a chair could have been violently shoved. That was one way.

  Or—I stepped up onto the seat. I looked at the balustrade above. Then I looked thoughtfully at the draperies.

  Charlotte drew her breath in sharply. She stared at me with shocked eyes. “Jesus Christ, Henrie O!”

  I didn’t yet know exactly what had happened between five and six o’clock on the evening of March 15, 1976, but I knew enough to have a very interesting talk with President Tucker. However, I didn’t go to his office.

  Instead, I nosed around the rear of Old Central’s ornate main lobby. An inconspicuous door opened onto steep narrow stairs.

  The basement was painted gray and was a repository of folded tables, stacked chairs, and discarded furniture. There were several even more subterranean rooms, but I was interested in the dark and shadowy north side, where a huge unused coal furnace sat. The modern heating system, all gleaming metal and softly humming machinery, was along the east wall.

  At the very far end of the basement, past the unused furnace, I found a wide wooden overhead door. I stood on tiptoe, peered out of dirt-crusted windows and saw the sloping concrete drive of the service entrance.

  It would have been easy for someone who knew the building well to move the gargoyle, temporarily placed here, out of the basement and into a waiting car—the gargoyle and anything else that required disposal.

  Why the gargoyle?

  So far I could imagine, but no farther.

  I walked out of Old Central, circl
ed around the building.

  Yes, a car had been essential.

  But what then?

  I stood on the lawn that sloped from Old Central to the street. The J-School was directly across from

  me. The street then curved to the right to pass Frost Library.

  Beyond the library, Frost Lane plunged into the wooded preserve, becoming, in popular idiom, Lovers’ Lane, and leading to the amphitheater and the lake.

  The lake. Oh God, of course.

  Suddenly I understood why the gargoyle was taken, the absolute necessity of the gargoyle.

  I crossed the street, hurried up to my office and picked up my tape recorder. It is an excellent little machine. I tucked it in my purse. If I put my purse down and opened the flap, I’d get a good recording.

  I definitely wanted a record of what Tucker said.

  I reached for the telephone.

  Bernice Baker was, as always, polite. “Just a moment, Mrs. Collins. I’ll see if the president is free.” I would have loved to see her expression if she listened when I spoke to her boss. Even the perfect secretary might be startled.

  While I waited on the line, I got up and retrieved my water pitcher. I poured water into my flower arrangement. Some of the carnations on the top were browning. I needed to call Jimmy. He would be leaving for Mexico on Friday. The fact that I was teaching this semester hadn’t stopped him from asking me to come, and come now.

  Yes, someone else could take my classes. Obviously, next fall someone else would be teaching in my place. I didn’t doubt that. But I’d committed for this academic year.

  Yet, there was something incredibly appealing at the prospect of doing what one wanted to do without regard for consequences. I put down the pitcher, touched a blue propeller.

  A click. Tucker’s voice was brusque. “Yes?”

  I wasn’t surprised he’d taken my call. I supposed he’d half expected it to come.

  “Dr. Tucker, please meet me in half an hour at the end of the pier on Boone Lake. It is, as you are well aware, an exceedingly private place. We can talk freely. We have a great deal to discuss, including the rug that was missing from Dean Nugent’s office the day after he disappeared, what use was made of two drapery ties, and what happened to the gargoyle that was stolen from the basement of Old Central. I think you’ll agree that I’m making progress on a definitive story about Dean Nugent and Leonard Cartwright. Whether I write that story will depend upon your response.”

  I hung up without waiting for a reply.

  I had the same feeling you get the last instant before you plunge off the high dive. Only worse, because pools don’t have uncharted, potentially deadly currents.

  But I damn sure wasn’t going to jump without a life preserver.

  I looked through my window into the newsroom. My choices for backup were slim to none. Only one person owed me big time.

  Dennis Duffy sagged in his chair, looking as lumpy as a potato sack. Even across the room, I could see the greenish tinge of his once-handsome face. Nursing a hangover, I was willing to bet. I was also willing to bet that Dennis was soon—in the next few seconds, in fact—going to feel a lot lousier.

  I opened my door and started toward the city desk.

  I might have laughed—if I hadn’t been quite so tense.

  I turned up the collar of my coat. The wind off the lake came from the north, carrying the bite of winter as well as the bone-chilling damp of the water. Moisture beaded the wooden pilings, making the planks underfoot slick and treacherous. The water and sky flowed together, the color of dull pewter. Whitecaps bristled as harsh and glittery as chunks of broken pop bottles.

  My yellow MG had the graveled lot to itself. I’d dropped Dennis short of the lot while we were still in the protective cover of the firs. Sullen, swearing, shivering, he’d hefted my mobile phone and a pair of binoculars from the sports editor’s desk and skulked into the woods.

  No, it wasn’t on a par with having a SWAT team at the ready. But even a hung-over Dennis should be able to punch 911 if the need arose. And Dennis should by now be crouching in the pine grove that grew almost to the tip of the point.

  I leaned against a piling, wrapped my arms tightly together, and tried not to shiver. I watched the parking lot.

  My first warning was a bump against the pier. The wooden ladder creaked.

  I jerked around to face the choppy water.

  Tucker’s massive head rose above the edge of the pier. Gloved hands reached for the stanchion, looped the rope around it. Thorndyke’s president heaved himself over the side with surprising agility for a man of his bulk. He wore a dark stocking cap, dark turtleneck sweater, and wool trousers tucked into gum boots.

  I suppose my surprise was evident.

  “I often row, Mrs. Collins. I keep a boat in the University boathouse.” He nodded toward the east shore.

  “So you’ve always been familiar with Lake Boone. Even in the early days of your presidency.”

  There was grudging admiration in his eyes. “Oh, yes.” A bleak smile. “I’d enjoy giving you a closer look at the lake. If you’ll come this way—”

  “Thanks so much, but I’d rather stay here.”

  He glanced around at the end of the pier. “Quite an interesting spot you’ve chosen for our meeting, Mrs. Collins. And I suspect it may have all the electronic capabilities of a well-equipped office. But if you wish to talk with me at any length about the subject you mentioned in your call, I would much prefer a sojourn on the water. There we can indeed speak freely. As you promised.”

  I was dealing with a highly intelligent man who was quite well aware that any rendezvous, no matter how apparently remote or rustic, can be wired for recording.

  First score to David Tucker.

  But the game wasn’t over.

  “I see. I understand your concern. I’d be delighted to take a row with you, Dr. Tucker.”

  “Good. I’ll go down first and hold the boat steady.”

  The ladder was slick, too, but I took my time and stepped safely into the rowboat, with Tucker’s hand firmly on my elbow.

  He could have tossed me into the water.

  He didn’t.

  I remained wary.

  And I hoped to God Duffy was paying close attention.

  When I was seated, Tucker stepped past me and took his place. He shifted the oars and we eased away from the pier. He was strong and a superior oarsman. We glided about twenty yards from the pier. He brought us around until my back was to the wind. Quite the gentleman.

  The waves slapped against the stern. The little boat bobbed up and down.

  Tucker’s moon face was fairly pink with exertion. His cold eyes regarded me stonily. “You mentioned information you are gathering for a story, and whether you might or might not actually write that story.”

  “That is up to you, Dr. Tucker.” My purse was in my lap. I opened it, fumbled for a moment to reach my notebook. I also turned on my tape recorder. I drew out my notebook, leaving the flap of my purse tucked back. I flipped several pages, then said, “I’d like to read from an interview—”

  He was such a large man, it was an easy reach for him to grab my purse. He pulled it smoothly, swiftly away from me. In an instant, he held the recorder in his hand. His gloved thumb pushed the power off. He tucked the recorder back in my purse, closed the flap and handed the purse to me.

  “If you wish to proceed—without electronic aids—please do so, Mrs. Collins.”

  I didn’t need the notebook, of course. I spoke crisply, my eyes never leaving him. “You found Leonard Cartwright’s suicide note, you suppressed it, you made certain his death was attributed to a ‘prank.’ I don’t know exactly what happened next.

  But I’m sure Darryl Nugent is dead, and his body is in this lake.”

  Tucker sat very still, a huge, brooding presence. The boat bobbed up and down. He studied me, his eyes taking on the deathly gray hue of the water. “What do you want, Mrs. Collins?” He shifted on the seat, used one oar to ste
ady the boat.

  I watched that oar, watched it intently. If he lifted it, I could be out of the boat in an instant. I was a good swimmer. And Dennis would call for help. So it didn’t take great courage to meet Tucker’s cold, calculating gaze.

  “I want the truth,” I told him bluntly. “What happened to Darryl Nugent? Either he committed suicide, or you killed him.”

  Whitecaps slapped against the hull. Waves gurgled mournfully among the rocks along the shore.

  Tucker’s voice was quiet. It betrayed nothing. “I will tell you, Mrs. Collins, but only on one condition.”

  “And that is?” I knew, of course, what was coming.

  “You will not reveal—ever—what passes between us.”

  “I make no promises, Dr. Tucker.”

  We stared at each other with mutual animosity and determination.

  The wind had risen and the little boat was running toward the rocks. He shifted the oars, began to row toward the pier. “Then we have met for no purpose.”

  “But if you do not tell me what happened to Dean Nugent that night”—I lifted my voice above the creak of the oarlocks—“I will write a story laying out the possibilities I’ve described. I would

  imagine this might pose some problems for you.”

  He dipped one oar, swinging the little boat about.

  I spoke rapidly. “Nugent’s disappearance was big news. A suggestion that his remains are in Lake Boone would result in a thorough search. I doubt, Dr. Tucker, that the results would please you.”

  Tucker stopped rowing. “If I tell you, what then? Will you simply have the information to provide an even more titillating story for the masses?” His voice was heavy with anger and disgust.

  “If you convince me, Dr. Tucker, that the secret you’ve held for so many years did not lead to Maggie Winslow’s death, then I will have no reason to write about Dean Nugent.”

  There was an instant of naked surprise on his face. He leaned forward, his eyes searching mine. “I begin to understand, Mrs. Collins. At least, I think I do—if you are not lying to me.”

  There was not a great deal of trust between the two of us.