“Mrs. Collins, Rita Duffy’s had quite a lot of time on her hands. Sounds to me like she’s put it to good use…”
There was a brisk knock on my partially open door. “Delivery,” a cheerful voice called.
“…given it some real thought. Now, I’ll agree that this might be damn interesting—if it really happened. Funny thing, Mrs. Duffy didn’t say a word about any phone call to us. You’d think she might have. Interesting she’d tell the press first.” And he didn’t like it one little bit.
A freckle-faced woman in her thirties shouldered my door wide. It took both hands to carry the flowers.
I motioned for her to come in and wondered how I could break through Urschel’s resistance.
“Rita’s scared,” I told Urschel. “Lieutenant, she’s scared to death. And she talked to me because her husband arranged it. It definitely wasn’t an interview.”
The delivery woman asked softly, “Mrs. Collins?”
At my nod, she placed the arrangement on a corner of my desk. She took a moment to regard it with pride.
I was impressed, too. I wondered how many carnations it had taken to create the single-engine airplane in blue and pink and white and red blossoms, nose high, taking off, a flight to fantasy. The woody perfume of the flowers wafted over me, sweet and refreshing as a kiss.
Urschel cleared his throat. “But you’re going to do that series. Right?”
Dennis’s creative use of my name in The Clarion might give me a little traction with Urschel. Not much, because cops don’t cozy up to reporters. But some.
But maybe there was a better way. “Yes, Lieutenant, I’m doing the series. But I’m doing it for Maggie.” I paused, then spaced out the words. “Not for any other reason.”
Now his silence was considering.
I waited. I knew I didn’t have to explain, not to a man who spent his life trying to catch killers.
“Yeah.” He spoke so quietly, I might have imagined it. “Okay, Mrs. Collins…”
I signed the delivery slip for the flowers, still cradling the phone. “Thank you,” I mouthed. The delivery woman gave me a parting smile as she ducked out the door.
I didn’t reach for the card. I knew who’d sent this gorgeous bouquet. I was listening to the gravelly voice in my ear and I could have whooped with thanksgiving as Urschel continued, “…when did Mrs. Duffy say she got the call?”
Thank you, God. Urschel was willing to listen. He was going to give me—and Rita—a chance.
“A few minutes after six.” I pulled my legal pad closer, marked an X on one side for the Duffys’ home and drew a curving line. It touched a square that represented Maggie’s apartment, then slanted to the campus and a triangle for the Journalism School.
“Six or so.” Urschel’s gruff voice was patient. “All right. The Duffy house is on Morrissey Avenue; the deceased’s apartment is on Canterbury Lane. If Mrs. Duffy got this call at six and immediately left home, she could be at the Winslow apartment by six-ten, the Journalism School by six-thirty. That timing fits. Then out to the parking lot—where she could easily have found Maggie Winslow.”
Urschel still saw Rita as the murderer, consigning the story of the phone call to the realm of make-believe. Or, if true, simply as the trigger to the night’s violence.
But he was willing to think it through. “All right, Mrs. Collins. Let’s look at it. There are two possibilities: Mrs. Duffy invented that phone call, or the phone call occurred. If the phone call is real, there are two further possibilities. It was simply a malicious anonymous call and the caller did it for no reason other than dislike of the Duffys. Or of Maggie Winslow.”
That opened up a broad field.
“And it sent Rita Duffy out in search of Winslow and when she found her, she killed her. Or,” he said thoughtfully, “the phone call came from the murderer with the definite intent, knowing Mrs. Duffy’s explosive temper, of setting her off in two public forums, the apartment complex and the newsroom, with the result that when Maggie Win slow’s body is found, Mrs. Duffy is suspect number one.”
“Bingo,” I said softly. “And if that is the case, Lieutenant, it tells us a very important fact.”
“Yes, Mrs. Collins?”
“That Maggie was dead by six o’clock.”
“According to the autopsy, that’s possible,” Urschel agreed. “She was last spotted about five-thirty—so far as we’ve been able to trace her—eating an early dinner in the Commons.”
I added those helpful facts to my little hoard of information:
According to the autopsy, Maggie could have been dead by 6 P.M.
Maggie was last seen at the Commons.
Thank you, Lieutenant Urschel.
“Or,” he thought aloud, “the call could mean the murderer planned to kill Maggie Winslow and knew it would occur soon.”
“Quite a gamble, don’t you think?” I crumpled a paper napkin in my hand, still trying to get rid of the stickiness on my fingers. I looked across my desk at the carnations and felt warm inside.
“It would mean the murderer had an appointment with Winslow.”
I tossed the napkin in my wastebasket. “What if Maggie didn’t show up?” I reached across the desk, felt a flowery wing tip.
“She was reliable, wasn’t she?”
“That’s too big a gamble. No, I think it was a done deal.” I took a last sip from my bottle of cola. “And it gives us somewhere to start.”
I heard a phone ringing in the background in his office and the rattle of papers and the squeak of a chair. Then Urschel said, and his voice wasn’t un kind, “I’ll tell you something, Mrs. Collins. I think you’re wasting your time. But we’ll look at what you find. Okay?”
“Thanks, Lieutenant.” I hung up. It wasn’t carte blanche. But it wasn’t a stone wall either.
And I did have a place to start.
Six o’clock.
Where was Maggie Winslow—or her dead body—at six o’clock Wednesday evening? And why, oh why, had there been a delay in leaving her body in Lovers’ Lane?
If I ever learned the answer to the first question, perhaps I would know the answer to the second.
I drove slowly around the apartment complex. It was designed like a motel—two-story, stucco, doors opening to the outside, stairways at either end. Windward Apartments catered to students. With the irregular hours common to students, there was no guarantee that I could approach Maggie’s unit without being seen.
At the end of my second sweep around the complex, I pulled between a pickup truck and a van into a slot facing a ravine. My MG was effectively screened from view on three sides.
I picked up my mobile phone, once again rang Maggie’s number. There had been no answer when I called from my office. There was no answer now.
I left my car unlocked. I might want to leave in a hurry.
Although it was early afternoon, the cloud cover made it dark as twilight.
If the temperature dropped another five degrees, sleet would be a reality. I liked that, and the raw, wet wind. I wore my trench coat, collar upturned, a navy scarf that obscured much of my face, and supple leather gloves—a costume quite unremarkable on a sullen, wintry afternoon and superbly suited for breaking and entering. In it, I was a swift-moving coated figure that offered nothing memorable for description.
Maggie’s apartment was at the east end. No police tape marked the wooden gate to number 16.
I didn’t hesitate. I lifted the latch, stepped into the enclosed patio, and drew the gate shut behind me. The six-foot fence afforded complete privacy.
Two candy-striped canvas chairs sagged forlornly on the small patio. A hibachi was tucked next to the back door.
I pulled open the screen. The back door was locked.
I lifted the flap on my shoulder bag and reached into the zippered compartment, digging past my checkbook, photos, receipts, assorted stuff. At the very bottom—and you’d have to know it was there to find it—rested a tool that I’ve found extremely useful th
rough the years.
I want to be clear. I do not make it a habit to open locked doors illegally. Should anyone inquire, this useful implement is for that rare occasion when I accidentally lock myself out of my house. Certainly that can happen to anyone.
It’s a very simple tool, really, an exceedingly narrow three-inch sliver of steel with a small wooden handle, making it easy to grip. Filament-thin pincers at the other end are magnetized. If I can work the blade between the door and the jamb, most locks are history.
As was this one.
I eased open the door and stepped into a small narrow kitchen, then paused. I stood quietly, scarcely breathing. I faced a closed swinging door. To my right, the length of the kitchen ended in another door. I tried it first and found a washer and dryer. There was no other exit from the washroom.
The kitchen smelled faintly piney. I spotted an air freshener cone sitting on the windowsill over the sink. On the green tile counter, pottery canisters were lined up next to a bread box. There were no dishes, clean or dirty, on the counter or the small white kitchen table.
All the while, I listened as if my life depended upon it.
Because it might.
It had occurred to me as I worked open the back door that if Rita was innocent, the murderer might be very interested indeed in Maggie’s papers, the papers Dennis had so cavalierly (and publicly) announced I would be using to write the series.
Perhaps—and it was a comforting thought in that still, quiet, tense moment—the murderer had already been there.
Once again, I listened. There was no movement, no sound, other than an occasional faint plop from the dripping faucet over the sink.
I placed my gloved hand against the swinging door and pushed, paused, pushed, paused.
No light, no sound, no movement.
I peered through a six-inch wide opening. I could see perhaps a third of the combination living-dining room. On the windows to my left, the draperies were drawn. The light was murky, but good enough to see that Maggie kept her small apartment tidy. The gleaming oak dining table was bare.
So far, so good. I began to relax.
I still moved quietly, but I opened the door wide.
The living room was as silent as the kitchen.
I hesitated for a moment, looking back at the door to the patio. Should I leave it open behind me? If anyone stepped into the patio, the open door would be obvious.
The possibility of crossing paths with a murderer was perhaps remote. But the likelihood that someone from Maggie’s family might arrive at any time was certainly not remote. I needed to make my clandestine search as fast as I could.
Swiftly, I stepped to the back door and closed it. It locked automatically.
I returned to the living room, stepping confidently now. My eyes scanned the bookcases, the coffee table. Novels, textbooks, CDs, cassettes. Nothing there to interest me.
I steeled myself not to reflect on the half-completed needlepoint—a golden surfboard rising out of a jade-green background—lying on the rumpled couch or the stack of letters on the sideboard, ready to be mailed, or the copy of Editor and Publisher, open to the employment ads.
I felt an instant’s surprise at Maggie’s bedroom. It was spartan, a single bed with a plain white cotton spread, a dressing table with comb, hairbrush, and a handful of cosmetics. The bed was made.
I took a deep breath, pressed my lips together as I looked at that simple bed and at the scruffy teddy bear propped on the pillow. It had only one eye. A worn blue cravat hung limply from his neck.
Oh, Maggie, Maggie, so grown up, yet clinging to that remnant of childhood.
No clothes were flung about. The wooden floor was bare of rugs. Maggie’s bedroom was as plain as a barracks.
The focus of the room obviously was the elaborate computer setup along the wall.
A swivel chair was turned away from the computer toward a work area on the left with a legal pad, several folders, and an appointment book. Filing cabinets were to the right of the computer printer.
I sat in Maggie’s chair. A square desk calendar for November was covered with notations in small neat printing—appointments, reminders, deadlines.
I looked at Tuesday, November 14. Four notations:
Collins
Dennis
Campus cops—Wolf
Howard Rosen’s brother
Wednesday, November 15. Four names were jotted down:
President Tucker
Angela Chavez
Stuart Singletary
Dr. Abbott
That was all. There was no information by any of these names. The first three I expected. But why Dr. Abbott? Was he listed because he was Singletary’s father-in-law? Did that mean Maggie was focusing on the young English professor?
On Tuesday, Maggie had given me a summary of her series idea in the hallway, then gone in to talk about it with Dennis.
She’d been scheduled and had duly come for her independent-study session with me, so, in effect we had a definite appointment.
I glanced at my watch, and dialed the newsroom.
“The Clarion.”
“City editor, please.”
A click, a pause, and a voice answered. “Duffy.”
“Dennis, on Tuesday when Maggie talked to you about her series, did she have an appointment with you?”
“No. She just dropped by. Listen, Henrie O—”
I broke in with, “Okay. Thanks,” and hung up. I didn’t have time to talk to Dennis now. I’d deal with him later.
Okay. Maggie listed people she intended to talk to, but it didn’t necessarily indicate an appointment with them.
I knew she’d spoken to Stuart Singletary.
I would find out about President Tucker, Angela Chavez, and Dr. Abbott, ditto the campus cop and Rosen’s brother.
But even as I glanced past the engagement calendar, I wondered if this was an exercise in futility.
In my heart, I hoped so.
If Rita Duffy killed Maggie, I was home free. My student’s death would not have resulted from my insistence upon in-depth reporting.
And clearly Maggie’s papers, including her engagement calendar, were untouched. Everything appeared to be in order—the folders neatly piled, the filing cabinets firmly closed. There was no evidence of a search.
But one thing appeared to be missing. I leaned back in thought. Yes, Maggie carried a small leather notebook.
I searched in earnest. I even went into the living room, checked the little butler’s table by the door. No notebook.
It probably was in her purse or her car. Especially since she’d been working on the series that day.
I would check with Lieutenant Urschel. If he hadn’t found the notebook, it should set off an alarm in his mind.
But this is the computer age. Maggie might not have current notes in her computer, but there should be something.
I booted up the computer. Maggie had Windows WordPerfect 6.0, the same system used at The Clarion.
It took only a moment to find her most recent files. I called them up one by one. The main file—INVST.SER—was saved at 2:47 P.M. Tuesday. It was the material she’d given to me on Tuesday morning, plus one page containing an informal record of ideas, fragments that would serve as pointers in her investigation. It included some information new to me and an excellent series of questions.
Good going, Maggie. You were truly trying, just as I asked you to.
I reached over, turned on the printer. I wanted a hard copy of this final page. Quickly I tore it off, tucked it in my purse, turned off the printer.
I’d found what she’d done to date on her series.
And it was still there, still in her computer.
Did that mean no one cared to see where she’d gone, what she’d learned?
Of course, in a computer age almost everyone knows that erasing a file destroys only the apparent existence of information. The words are still available in the computer’s memory. But you’d have to be looking
hard and be very expert to dredge through all the material erased from the file list, yet retained in the hard drive.
I took this as one more proof that no one else had surveyed Maggie’s research and as yet another clear indication of Rita Duffy’s guilt.
I shivered. I suddenly realized the apartment was very cold. Someone must have turned the heat off. Even in my coat, I was chilled.
I swiveled the chair to my left and the worktable. Three folders, three cases.
I checked the three folders. Maggie had searched The Clarion morgue files, just as I had, and printed out the stories with the most information.
She had included two items I had not found in my first survey.
In the Rosen-Voss file, she’d made the connection immediately that Stuart Singletary, now assistant professor of English, was also the roommate in 1988 of Howard Rosen.
Of course, it probably was obvious to her because she had a class this semester with Singletary.
So perhaps I owed her no kudos on that one.
In the Darryl Nugent file, she’d included an article on a student who’d fallen to his death from the Old Central bell tower the day the dean of students disappeared in 1976.
I nodded in admiration. Maggie had looked to see what else out of the ordinary was happening on the campus that day. Smart thinking.
All right, I’d follow her lead, see if there could be a connection.
But the remainder of the three files exactly corresponded to the papers now sitting on my office desk.
I closed the folders, replaced them precisely as I’d found them.
The cold in the apartment was seeping into my bones. I almost left then. I’d looked at everything.
But not quite.
Trying not to shiver, I got out of the chair and stepped to the three-drawer metal filing cabinet.
The top drawer held folders about classes in order of subjects: Economics, English, Geology, German, History, Journalism, Philosophy.
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