Carolyn G. Hart_Henrie O_03

by Death in Lovers' Lane

  My sympathy curled a little around the edges.

  He lifted his hands in elaborate bewilderment. “Hell, I don’t know. I had drinks with Maggie a couple of times. I don’t know, maybe somebody told Rita about it.”

  “Why?”

  He looked blank.

  I spelled it out. “Why did you have drinks with Maggie? That’s not part of the curriculum, Dennis.”

  “Yeah, well.” He grew sad. “Maggie was a gorgeous girl. You know? And sexy as hell. So, I gave it a try. Goddamn.”

  Dennis was too jowly to be called handsome, but it wasn’t hard to trace the good-looking young man he had been. His ebullience and hard-driving aggressiveness would make him sexually appealing to most women—unless they prized fidelity.

  “Did it ever occur to you to keep your hands off women reporters?”

  “I don’t rape anybody.” His glare was defiant.

  But this was not the time for a discussion of sexual harassment, in all its infinite varieties.

  “So what did Rita say this morning?”

  Dennis blinked, shook his head. “I never saw her. I slept in the den. I got up early and got the hell out and had breakfast at the Green Owl. Then Kitty Brewster called in about Maggie. I couldn’t believe it. I thought it was crazy. The next thing I knew, the cops had brought Rita in.”

  “And you still haven’t talked to Rita about what happened last night?”

  “No. But, Henrie O, she didn’t do it.” He looked at me earnestly, hopefully. “That cop won’t listen to me. But you can find out what happened.”

  He heaved himself to his feet, leaned toward me. I smelled sweat and fear and the sweet muskiness of bourbon.

  “Henrie O, it has to be one of those old crimes. It has to be. Nothing else makes sense. Listen, you can figure it out.” His voice was eager, clear. If he’d been drinking, he was still able to speak distinctly. “You can see Rita in the morning. I talked to her lawyer. He’s going to set it up. I’ll let you know what time. When you talk to Rita, you’ll believe me. She didn’t do it.”

  “Dennis…” I started to shake my head.

  “Henrie O, I’ve never begged in my life. Except when Carla died. And that didn’t do any good. But I’m begging you. Because you’ve covered the news big time. If it’s out there to be found, you’ll find it. Please. Not for me. For Rita. For Maggie. Please.”

  I straightened my desk, but it didn’t corral my thoughts. I wasn’t looking forward to tomorrow. I’d not promised Dennis that I would talk with Rita.

  But I knew I would.

  I couldn’t ignore the kind of plea Dennis had made.

  Even though one cold, analytical portion of my mind wondered about Dennis, wondered a lot. Was he a panicked husband determined to save his wife? Or was he a killer posturing as a devoted (in his own fashion) husband?

  And I couldn’t forget the look of panic and fear in Rita’s eyes as she was led away.

  But I’m not a reporter anymore. What the hell did I think I could do? Cops don’t make an arrest in a capital murder case on a whim. There had to be evidence, and plenty of it.

  Irritably, I pushed back my chair. But maybe the truth was that I needed to talk to Rita Duffy on my own account. For my own peace of mind, I had to know what had caused Maggie’s murder.

  So, if I was going to play in this game, I’d better get some chips.

  I looked out into the newsroom.

  Helen Tracy’s fingers flew over the keyboard of her computer. She thought fast and typed fast. If you want to know what’s going on in any small town, who the movers and shakers are, where the skeletons are buried, who’s sleeping with whom, take your favorite LifeStyle editor out to dinner. As a guest. Her restaurant of choice.

  The doughy smell of pizza and the sour scent of beer washed over us as we stepped inside the Green Owl. We were enveloped in sound, a roar of conversation punctuated by peals of laughter, the bang and crash of dishes, the Beach Boys immortalizing California girls. The Green Owl has an eclectic juke-box—the owner claims it has been in nonstop use since 1938—with every kind of music from Benny Goodman to Hootie and the Blowfish.

  Helen was scanning the huge room, waving hello in every direction. The horseshoe bar, reputed to have come from a Colorado mining town, was to our left. Straight ahead was the coffee area. No matter the hour of day—or night—these tables were always nearly all taken, students studying, checker and chess players sunk in concentration, newspaper and magazine readers engrossed. The coffee area was set off from the bar and the main dining area by potted tea palms, which added an incongruous but charming 1920s aura. To our right was a sea of rustic wooden tables with red-and-white-checked cloths. Booths lined the walls.

  We settled at a table with a good view in all directions and ordered salads, southwestern chicken pizza, and iced tea.

  Helen has a long face and puffy crescents under coal-black eyes. She not only looks like a bloodhound, she’ll stick with a story through swamp, field, and forest, baying her findings in a piercing voice. Moreover, Helen knows all the whispered scandals that are never printed, and one of her primary pleasures in life is sharing the unprintable with anyone who will listen.

  All I had to do was murmur, “The Rosen-Voss case…”

  And Helen was loping down the long-ago trail. “…never made any sense, Henrie O! For starters, Lovers’ Lane!” She peered at me from beneath frizzy, silver-streaked bangs, her mobile face miming incredulity. “I mean, this was 1988, not 1958!”

  Helen vigorously swirled her teaspoon in her mint-sprigged glass. “He had an apartment. She had an apartment.”

  I knew Helen meant Howard Rosen and Gail Voss.

  “Oh, they had roommates. But these were upscale kids. Everybody had his or her own room. So, we’re supposed to believe Howard and Gail were having backseat romance in his car! I told everybody, No way, José. But do the cops ask me?” She shrugged and grabbed a breadstick.

  “Were they dressed?” I took one, too. Hot, garlicky, good.

  “Fully.” Once again her tone was scathing. “You’d think anybody would see how weird this was. What were they doing there? Why were they there? Lovers’ Lane, give me a break.” She took a big bite of breadstick. “But Dennis went right ahead and played the story with the Lovers’ Lane angle. I told him, Sweetheart, this is baloney! Of course”—and she rolled those mournful eyes, “Dennis is still into backseats with willing coeds. The Flamingo costs a buck.”

  Helen thought Dennis was too tight to spring for a motel room. Did that mean he knew Lovers’ Lane very well indeed?

  The waiter brought our salads. Mine was a Caesar with strips of anchovies.

  “So you think it’s strange Howard and Gail were in Lovers’ Lane?”

  Helen speared a radish slice. “Real strange. Weird,” she said again. “Phony. I don’t know”—she squeezed her face like a quiz show contestant—“like it was staged.”

  But I scarcely heard. I’d had a thought, and it was ugly. “Helen, was Dennis after Gail Voss?”

  “Oh, Dennis, stud man of the newsroom.” Her eyes widened, then glinted with interest. She reached out and grabbed my arm. “Speak of the devil!”

  I craned to see.

  Dennis Duffy, head down, walked heavily toward the bar. He slid onto a stool. His back was to us. He slumped against the counter, despair in every sagging line of his body.

  “If you sit here long enough,” Helen murmured cheerfully, “you’ll see everyone you’ve ever known.”

  I gave her a swift glance. As far as Helen was concerned, it obviously wasn’t Feel-Sorry-for-Dennis Week.

  She chattered on, her voice light. “Even Dennis probably wasn’t clod enough to go after a girl like Gail. I mean, who’s to say he didn’t lust. But Gail was a lovely girl, really sweet. Not a backseat type for anybody. And she was crazy about Howard. Nuts about him. I’ll tell you”—Helen swallowed—“Howard and Gail were two nice kids. And according to my students, it was just silly to even ask if they
had enemies. What normal, nice college students have enemies? They didn’t have enemies. Oh, one of the girls told me Gail’s brother didn’t want her to marry Howard. Said he ‘wasn’t our kind.’ So, her brother was a prejudiced drip. But everybody says he loved his little sister. As for the usual motives for murder, money’s always at the top of the list. But they didn’t have any. They were college students. His folks were rich. I think Howard had an older brother, so I guess he’ll inherit twice as many millions. But nobody ever suggested Howard’s brother was in Derry Hills that night, and of course the cops would have checked that out. Gail? Her folks were upper middle class. So, what difference does that make? And you can check off all the other reasons—revenge, jealousy, fear, hatred—none of them fit.”

  I didn’t have an answer.

  Helen waggled her fork. “I knew Gail’s roommates. Lovely girls. They were double-dating at an all-night fraternity party that night. I heard the cops really looked at Howard’s roommate. That was Stuart Singletary. He’s on the English faculty now. Stuart had a heavy date, but he wasn’t alibied for the whole night. But why would Stuart kill Howard? Nobody’d ever heard them quarrel. They had no reason to quarrel.” Helen retrieved another breadstick. “There was nothing odd in either Howard’s or Gail’s life. Everyday. Ordinary.” Helen munched on her salad, then added thoughtfully, “But you know, Henrie O, even after all these years I get a funny feeling in my gut when anybody mentions the Rosen-Voss murders. There’s something strange there, stranger than hell.”

  The anchovies were saltier than the crust on a tequila shot glass. I forked over the lettuce, looking for another strip.

  Helen took a gulp of iced tea. “So, why are you nosing around?” Her eyes clung to me avidly, the better to retrieve every morsel of intelligence.

  Quid pro quo.

  “Dennis says Rita didn’t kill Maggie.” The waitress brought our pizzas. I gave up on the salad. No more anchovies. I pulled free a green-chili-laden wedge of pizza. “What do you think?”

  Helen shook Parmesan over her pizza. Her dark eyes were thoughtful. “Rita Duffy’s famous for her scenes. Did you know that? Last year she came in here”—Helen pointed toward a back booth—“yelling her head off. Dennis was tête-à-têteing with a nifty little redhead from Topeka. In August, he and Rita had a screaming match at the Faculty Club. That time, it was about a blonde from Omaha.”

  “So Rita raises hell.” It was easy to sound amused, but there’s nothing funny about that kind of jealousy. Still…“So how many bodies has she left behind her?”

  “None.” Helen took a bite of pizza and chewed. “But Dennis picked a bad day to set her off, Henrie O.” Of course she knew about the Duffys’ daughter.

  Helen looked toward the bar. “The jerk.” Her face was disdainful. “Oh, hey”—now her eyes were avid—“it looks like stud man’s in trouble.”

  I twisted to see.

  Dennis stood, one hand on the barstool for balance. He wavered on his feet.

  The bartender was shaking his head. He scooped up Dennis’s empty glass, shook his head again.

  Bars don’t serve drunks anymore, at least not if the owner has studied the liability law.

  The back of Dennis’s neck flushed an ugly red. He shoved over the barstool and almost fell down after it.

  “Oh, hell.” Helen was on her feet, tossing down a twenty on the table. “We’d better get him out—” She broke off as a redheaded man hurried from the coffee-bar area to Dennis’s side. In his early fifties, he had a broad, open face spattered with freckles. He slipped an arm around Dennis’s shoulder, bent close to him.

  Helen plopped back into her chair, but she didn’t take her eyes off the bar. “Tom Abbott to the rescue. He used to live next door to the Duffys.” She smoothed her hair, surged back to her feet. “Think I’ll go lend a hand.”

  I must have looked astonished.

  She gave me a faintly embarrassed smile. “I can carry it off. One J-School faculty member to the aid of another—and maybe Tom will bring me back for a drink after we get Dennis home. I’ve been trying to figure out a way to hustle Tom for a couple of years.”

  Abbott’s name was familiar to me. He was the chair of the English department. Helen was loping across the room.

  I had finished my third slice of pizza when she trooped disconsolately back to her chair. “Tom said he could take care of it. So, I strike out again. Damn, I’ve put a lot of effort into tracking that man. But I never pick up any vibes. I guess I won’t be the second Mrs. Abbott.”

  “What’s so attractive about being the second Mrs. Abbott?”

  She flashed me an insouciant grin. “It would be kind of like cozying up to the mint, but sexier.”

  “A rich English professor?”

  “Sweetheart, Tom is Derry Hills’s claim to literary fame. His book hit the best-seller list a few years ago, and it’s clung like bubble gum on a sneaker. He plays chess here almost every night. I drop in so often, they have me on automatic order. But so far I haven’t gotten him to offer more than a grin.” She sighed.

  I wasn’t interested in Helen’s pursuit of Tom Abbott and his money. I was interested that Abbott had once lived next door to the Duffys. He might well be a man to see. Then I realized Helen had kept right on talking and I had to wonder about ESP or corollary thought.

  “…be good to talk to Tom. His daughter, Cheryl, is the girl Stuart Singletary was out with that night, and they’re married now. Tom might know something, or have some ideas. And I’d talk to Stuart and Cheryl, too.”

  I paid the check and we stepped out into the chilly November night. The silence was almost shocking after the maelstrom of sound in the Green Owl. It was just a block up the street to the campus and the J-School parking lot where our cars were parked.

  Our shoes scuffed through leaves on the sidewalk.

  Names eddied in my mind. Maggie. Rita. Dennis. Tom. Cheryl. Stuart. Howard. Gail.

  Which ones mattered?

  Or was it as simple as Lieutenant Larry Urschel believed? An angry wife, an unfaithful husband.

  It was up to me to figure it out.

  six

  FRIDAY morning’s forecast called for a chance of sleet. I chose a turtleneck sweater and navy corduroy slacks. Informal, perhaps, but upscale in a jail, and that’s where I would likely be at some point during my day.

  It wasn’t just the weather that chilled me. As always, I unfolded The Clarion as I poured my first cup of coffee.

  I had expected the lead story to be Maggie’s murder and Rita’s arrest. There was an inset photo of Maggie and a two-column shot of Rita, looking unkempt and bewildered, in the corridor at the courthouse.

  Dennis Duffy had played the story the way any city editor would have. It must have been the grimmest task he’d ever performed.

  Yesterday, I’d agonized for Dennis when the reporters and cameramen surrounded him in the courthouse hallway. Even though they had approached him almost diffidently, it must have been a shock for Dennis to be on the other end of media attention.

  But I wasn’t agonizing now. Not for Dennis. He was using every weapon at his command, and nobody knows the power of the press better than a city editor.

  Blazoned in the bottom five columns on the front page was an interview by Kitty Brewster:

  CITY EDITOR CLAIMS OLD CRIMES LED TO REPORTER’S MURDER

  Clarion City Editor Dennis Duffy insisted Thursday that his wife Rita is innocent of the murder of Clarion reporter Maggie Winslow.

  In an exclusive interview, Duffy revealed that Winslow planned to write a series of articles about three famous unsolved local mysteries: the 1988 murders of Thorndyke students Howard Rosen and Gail Voss; the 1982 shooting death of Derry Hills businessman Curt Murdoch; and the 1976 disappearance of Thorndyke University Dean of Students Darryl Nugent.

  Duffy explained that Winslow was working on the series under the supervision of Henrietta Collins, assistant professor of journalism.

  “I’ve talked to Mrs. C
ollins,” Duffy said, “and she assured me she’d do everything in her power to find out the truth about Maggie’s death. Collins said she will not be intimidated, and she will complete the series, using Maggie’s notes.”

  Collins spent a long career as a reporter for several major newspapers and received acclaim for several investigative series concerning…

  A photograph of me from my wire-service days filled two columns.

  I crumpled the page. “Dennis, you are a sorry bastard.”

  I’d made no such promise. I’d certainly not agreed to write the series. I’d only said I would see what I could find out.

  If I’d had any hope of working quietly, Dennis had destroyed it.

  I doubted that he cared.

  Dennis had only one goal: to save Rita.

  I’d do well to remember that.

  I seethed all the way to my office. I considered requesting a retraction. But frankly, I didn’t know for certain what had happened to Maggie, and yes, I was going to ask questions, to nose about, to poke and prod. That would look odd if The Clarion carried a story saying I wasn’t doing the series.

  So, for now, I’d ride with it.

  But Dennis needn’t think I’d be coerced into doing the articles. I’d make that absolutely clear. The series had once been important to me, but what mattered now was finding out the truth about Maggie’s murder.

  I unlocked my door and kicked an envelope that had been shoved beneath it.

  I picked up the envelope. My name was scrawled on the outside. I opened it, pulled out a memo sheet.

  Henrie O—

  You can see Rita at eleven o’clock.

  Dennis

  Yes, Your Majesty.

  But I couldn’t afford to worry about high-handedness. I needed information, and I’d do what it took to get it. Eleven o’clock wasn’t much time. I had a lot to do before I spoke to Rita.

  I went upstairs and posted notes on the doors of two classrooms, canceling my nine-and ten-o’clock classes.

  Back in my office, I poured a mug of coffee and turned on my computer. I pulled up class schedules for Margaret Winslow and Eric March. I noted Maggie’s Wednesday classes. It gave me some starting points. On a map I could now place her at various times that final day of her life. I rechecked her schedule: 7-9 P.M. W, American Literature, A Popular Cultural Analysis, 1850 to the Present, S. Singletary, Evans Hall, LL1.