Carolyn G. Hart_Henrie O_03 (13 page)

“I know,” I assured her.

“But the dean was very, very proud of his family. He was a very proud man.”

“That last day, do you remember anything that you think could have had a bearing on the dean's disappearance?”

Her fragile hands clasped the edge of her afghan. “I've thought and thought over the years, and there's nothing. I said, ‘Good night, Dean. You'll be going home soon, won't you?' I was worried about him. He'd had such a hard day, and I knew he was very tired, very upset. He looked toward me and nodded and said, ‘Yes, Maude. Soon.' And I went out the door and I never saw him again.”

I slipped my notebook back into my purse. There didn't seem to be anything more here.

And what had I expected or hoped for? The police, of course, must have talked to Maude Galloway many times over the course of the weeks after Dean Nugent's disappearance.

I stood.

With the acuity of the blind, her face lifted.

“Miss Galloway, I certainly appreciate your—”

“There's only one thing.” She sounded uncertain.

“Yes. That last day?”

“No. It was the next day, Tuesday. But there was so much to be done and people asking questions, oh, so many people. Very nice men from the police, but so many questions. And they took photographs, the town police and our own campus police. Almost falling over each other. I tried to tell them, but they weren't interested. They said they would have pictures of everything.” Her hands kneaded the pink wool of the afghan. “And later I tried to tell President Tucker—”

A bulldozer couldn't have budged me from that room. I listened, scarcely breathing.

“—but he said I must be mistaken. By then, of course, so many things had been moved out of the room, the things that belonged to Dean Nugent, to make way for Dr. Pruitt's furnishings. Dr. Pruitt became acting dean.”

“Yes?”

“But I'm just sure that when I went to the office on Tuesday morning, the morning after Dean Nugent disappeared, the rug in front of the fireplace was gone.”

“The rug in front of the fireplace?”

Her laugh was embarrassed. “Of course, I know it doesn't matter. What difference could it make?”

“What size was the rug?”

“Oh, it wasn't very big. Perhaps eight feet long and three to four feet wide.” Her blind eyes stared emptily at me. “All these years I've wondered who took that rug and why. Because”—her pleasant face looked unaccustomedly firm—“I know it was gone the next morning. Even if President Tucker didn't think so.”

 

I met my Monday-morning classes, Advanced Feature Writing at 9
A.M.
, Editorial Writing at 10
A.M.
Shortly before the close of each class, I announced: “If anyone knows anything about Maggie Winslow that might be helpful in investigating her death, I will be in my office at eleven
A.M.
today and will be glad to speak with you. Or you may make an appointment for another time.” I posted the same announcement on the bulletin board outside
The Clarion
newsroom.

Buddy Neville was leaning against my office window when I arrived after my second class. I'd had Buddy in Reporting 101 two years ago. He was small, dark, and always looked dirty. In part, that was because he was one of those men whose beard made a bluish stubble on his cheeks by midday. But his jeans were usually wrinkled and he habitually wore the same shirt, a dark-brown pullover jersey. Buddy didn't quite smell bad, but there's nothing attractive about breath sour with last night's beer and pizza and clothes that have absorbed both sweat and cheap talcum.

I try to be tolerant about the Buddy Nevilles of the world. But each time I saw him I felt a mixture of impatience and sadness. Impatience, because Buddy was bright and energetic, so why didn't he
have the wit to figure out that cleanliness, if not next to godliness, was an essential in the workplace? Sadness, because I figured Buddy came from a slovenly background and I happened to know he held three part-time jobs to finance college and nobody'd ever encouraged him and he was probably bone-tired every day and the effort of clean clothes was just one effort too many.

“Hi, Buddy.” I unlocked my office.

He managed a grunt and followed me inside. Unbidden, he immediately slumped in a chair.

“Coffee?”

He shook his head. I'd probably have scored if I'd offered cola. I still shudder at what some students choose for breakfast. But I reminded myself cola was caffeine, even if cold and fizzy.

He rubbed his stubbly cheek. “Mrs. Collins, listen, all that stuff about Maggie's a lie, that she was screwing Duffy.”

I suppose my utter surprise must have been clear in my face. I distinctly remembered Buddy's cruel smile Wednesday night when Rita Duffy careened into the newsroom, clamoring for Maggie and Dennis.

A dull flush mounted his dark cheeks. “Yeah, I know. I thought it was funny when Duffy's wife blew in. Duffy's a jerk. Everybody knows he hustles the babes. But he didn't get to first base with Maggie. And I never figured anything weird would happen—I mean, that Mrs. Duffy would go psycho. I just figured it was super that Duffy's ass was going to be in a crack because he was leaning on Maggie, trying to make time. But it wasn't Maggie's fault. Listen—I knew her real well. We were in a writing
group. She told me Duffy was after her and wouldn't take no for an answer.”

“She told you?”

Buddy pushed back a strand of lank hair. His eyes flashed. “Yeah, I know. You don't think anybody as cool as Maggie could be friends with somebody like me. But we were in this writing group together. She was going to be a great writer.” He glared at me as if I'd disagreed. “She thought I was good, too. Real good.”

I've rarely felt more uncomfortable. Yes, I'd not expected the cool, cerebral, fashionable, arrogant Maggie to have a friend like Buddy.

I'd wronged both Maggie and Buddy.

I remembered his work. “Maggie was right. You are a very good writer, Buddy. And I know”—I picked my words carefully—“that there's a real bond between writers. But Maggie may not have told you everything about her and Duffy. She may have been putting a good face on it. She wouldn't have wanted you to know if she was fooling around with him. Would she?”

He leaned forward, planting his hands on his thighs. “Mrs. Collins, listen to me. Really
listen
to me. I tell you, Maggie and I were straight with each other. We showed each other what we wrote. She didn't even show Eric what she wrote. Not her book. So she didn't pretend with me. She didn't have to. And I'll tell you that Duffy was hot for her. She said she was going to tell him to back off, absolutely.”

I played devil's advocate. “The thing is, Buddy, Maggie apparently went out with Dennis a couple of times—”

“Okay, so she had a drink with him at the Green
Owl once or twice, but that didn't mean anything. Listen, Duffy knew she had a class Wednesday night. I think he left to go after her, one more time. She'd told him no and no. What if Maggie told him this time just to get lost? What if Duffy's the one who went psycho?”

 

What if Duffy's the one who went psycho
?

I mulled Buddy's suggestion all the way across town. What, indeed?

The break-in of Maggie's apartment had convinced me that Rita was innocent and that Maggie's murder was somehow tied to one of the unsolved crimes she was investigating. But if Dennis Duffy strangled Maggie, he, too, might have reason to be concerned about what was in her notes and papers, what she might have written down about his unwelcome advances.

Why, then, would Dennis encourage me to write the series?

Of course, he might not have expected me to make an unauthorized entry into Maggie's apartment. And he needed to make it clear that he believed his wife to be innocent.

And I shouldn't forget Maggie's boyfriend, Eric March. If Buddy was right, Eric had no reason for jealousy.

But Eric had slammed out of the newsroom that night, obviously in search of Maggie, and it didn't matter whether Rita Duffy's suspicions about her husband and Maggie were true; it only mattered that Eric thought they could be true. Jealousy is an irrational master. But Eric would have had no reason to break into Maggie's apartment—unless she kept
a diary that might record they'd quarreled over her relationship with Duffy.

Circles within circles within circles.

 

I found Kathryn Nugent in a moist warm greenhouse. She held a plastic bottle. Mist sprayed over the ferns from the bottle's nozzle.

I smelled dark rich dirt and water and growing plants.

I studied her through the mist. Darryl Nugent's once fashionable wife ignored the click of the closing door. Her faded ginger hair hung straight and unadorned around an oval face bare of makeup. And it wasn't simply the mist that obscured her face. This woman seemed carefully devoid of any scrap of color that would reveal her. She was slightly built, almost swallowed by her oversize man's flannel shirt. Her jeans, molding softly against bony legs, were so old they had a whitish hue. One knee was ragged. The laces of one muddy red sneaker trailed on the dirt floor.

It was hard to think mink.

“Mrs. Nugent?”

Slowly she turned to look at me. “Yes?” There was no welcome. Her voice was as unrevealing as her pale face.

I made a quick decision. “I'm going to ask you to help me solve a murder, Mrs. Nugent.”

She put down the bottle, brushed back a strand of hair with her canvas-gloved hand. “I don't know anyone who's been murdered.” She spoke dully, without a flicker of curiosity.

“The victim is a student of mine. She was looking into three famous unsolved crimes in Derry Hills. I'm Henrietta Collins and I teach journalism
at the University.” I walked closer and brushed against flowing ferns and felt an icy spritz of water.

Kathryn Nugent stood straight-legged and stiff. “That girl who wanted to know about Darryl?”

“Maggie talked to you?”

“No.” She picked up a garden trowel. “I hung up on her.”

A vent spewed a sluggish current of warm air. Despite the heat, my skin prickled.

“Why did you hang up?”

“There was nothing to talk about.” She stared at me with empty, lonely eyes. I thought of a photograph I'd seen of her in
The Clarion
from long-ago happy days. What an enormous toll her husband's disappearance had taken. There was no trace here of a once vibrant and lovely woman.

A tabby cat jumped up on the table, nosed against her. She put down the trowel, slipped off her gloves. Her fingernails were cracked and stained. She picked up the cat, nuzzled her face against its striped back.

“Mrs. Nugent, Maggie was strangled by someone who didn't want her to write about those old crimes. I know it's hard for you, but please, help me.”

The cat squirmed up on her shoulder. She said nothing and reached for the gloves.

I had a quick inspiration. “You have a daughter, don't you?” I asked.

Those blank pale eyes widened. It was the first spark of life I'd seen in her. “Yes. Why?”

“Maggie was someone's daughter.”

She gave a little derisive snort. “Piranhas have parents, too. But who gives a damn?” She leaned forward until the cat jumped onto the plant table. As she straightened up, she glared at me. “I know
who you are. It said in the paper last week. You're another one of
them
. Pulling and sucking and tearing at people, never giving them any peace, any rest. Do you know what it was like, after Darryl disappeared? Call after call after call. Reporters slipping up to me in the grocery store, at the beauty shop, in the gym, at my daughter's recital, at my son's basketball games—‘Had you quarreled, Mrs. Nugent?' ‘Was he having an affair, Mrs. Nugent?' ‘How was your sex life, Mrs. Nugent?' ‘Has he called you, Mrs. Nugent?' ‘Do you have insurance, Mrs. Nugent?'” She clutched the big earth-stained gloves against her chest.

“Mrs. Nugent, all I want to know is what kind of man your husband was. Won't you even talk to me about him?”

The animation drained out of her face, leaving it once again bleak and composed. She pulled on her canvas gloves. “I've got work to do.”

“Mrs. Nugent—”

“Get out.” Her voice was abruptly deep and harsh. “Leave me alone. Leave me
alone
.”

I
pulled into the graveled parking area in front of Acme Garage, Transmissions a Specialty. I found Emmett Wolf in the second bay, leaning beneath the open hood of a white Oldsmobile. A small space heater glowed brilliantly red. It did little to warm the cavernous, poorly lighted garage.

“The kid who fell out of the tower? Sure, I remember.” Wolf wiped his hands on a rough red cloth. “When they rolled his body onto the gurney, it wobbled. Made me sick. The driver told me it meant the kid was all smashed up inside. And his head'd knocked into the wall and it was mashed and oozing blood. That's when I decided I didn't want to be a cop, and I went to work in a garage. Now I've got my own place.” He thumped his fist against the fender of the sedan. “Damn sure better than fooling with people's broken-up bodies.”

Wolf was mid-fortyish, with a skinny, wrinkled face, thinning brown hair, and oversize ears that sat square to his skull. His eyebrows drew down toward his nose, giving him a faintly worried look. A ragged orange muffler curled around his throat and disappeared into the neck of his stained green coveralls. He blinked at me owlishly. “You're the
second one in a week wanting to talk about that kid. What's going on?”

“Do you read
The Clarion
?”

“Nah. Who cares?” He lifted his shoulders in disdain.

I'm always amazed when I find someone who neither reads newspapers nor watches newscasts. But these people exist.

I had to make a quick decision. If he was telling the truth, he didn't know what had happened to Maggie.

I didn't want to scare him.

“I work for the newspaper. The girl who came to talk to you—”

“Pretty.” His grin was admiring.

“Yes. I'm working on that article, too. So, if you don't mind going over it again…”

Emmett Wolf glanced at the car.

It was a struggle between promised work and the pleasure of a break in routine.

“Well, I've got a few minutes…”

“So you saw Leonard Cartwright's body at the base of the bell tower?” Pernicious cold eddied up from the old, oil-stained concrete floor. I kept my hands in my coat pockets.

“Leonard Cartwright.” Wolf drew out every syllable, as if his tongue were making acquaintance with the name. “Yeah. I'd forgotten his name. Like I told the girl. Forgot his name. Never forget his body.” The mechanic sniffed, rubbed his nose with the back of a grubby hand, leaving a smudge of oil on his cheek. “Not at the
base
of the tower. Out some. Maybe ten feet. The guy who took them pictures said the kid must have flipped over as he fell. When his head whacked into the wall, that shoved
him way out. He slammed into the ground so hard it left a print. Damnedest thing I'd ever seen.”

“What time did you get there?”

He leaned against the fender, crossed his arms over his chest. “I'd just gone on duty. Maybe five minutes after six. I'd been a campus cop for about two months. It was a pretty good job. I had a dandy uniform, shirt and pants kind of a light blue. Even had this patch on my shirt sleeve, ‘Thorndyke University Campus Patrol,' it said. I thought I was pretty hot stuff. The chief was Old Man McKay. Was he tough! He'd been a Marine and he never thought civilians did anything right. He stood like they'd rammed”—brown eyes squinted at me—“he stood up straighter than a flagpole and walked with his chest poked out and his butt tucked in. But even the chief didn't look so starched when he saw the kid's body. I was the first one there, except for the guy who found him. Our headquarters was an office in the basement of the stadium. I'd just opened up my sack of doughnuts—you know, my breakfast—when the door burst open and this chemistry prof ran in, wild-eyed and about to puke. He was riding his bike to his office and he ran right over the kid's body. Knocked his bike over. He kept saying, ‘There's blood on my bike. There's blood on my
bike
!' First thing I did was call the chief at home, then I went to the tower. The prof wouldn't even go with me. He was too shook up. It was still dark when I got there. Sun hadn't come up yet. I remember the light from the prof's bike showed the kid's hand. The chief got there real quick. Only time I ever saw the man that he wasn't spit-perfect. Always remembered he didn't have his shirt tucked in right. Hell of a day.”

“What did you do first?”

“The chief called President Tucker and the town cops.” He frowned. “And that was kind of funny.” His face creased in thought.

“What was funny about that, Mr. Wolf?” I kept my voice casual, unassertive.

Wolf gave me his worried look. “Well, Tucker was the president. A real big shot on campus. So I guess he figures he's in charge. And he lived practically right next door, so he got there before the town people. He walked all around and craned his neck and stared up at that tower, then he told the chief they'd better go up and take a look. The chief held back, but Tucker charged ahead, so the chief went after him. They hurried around the building and just left me there. You have to go in the main entrance and up to the third floor to get into the tower. I didn't like being down there by myself, just me and this dead kid. I kind of wandered around for a minute, then I decided to go after them. When I went inside the building, I couldn't see them. I ran up the main stairs. They were already on the tower stairs. I started up after them, and it was real spooky, like some old castle. I'd never been in there before. The stairs were made of stone, and the walls too. There wasn't much light, just these glass lamps screwed into the walls. I could hear the sound of their shoes on the steps. I didn't go all the way to the top. I started thinking maybe the chief'd be mad at me, and man, I didn't want that. That would be worse than being stuck down there alone with the body. So I turned around to go back down, but I could hear them. The chief says something like, ‘Look at that.' Tucker says, ‘I don't see a thing, Chief.' Then Tucker says in this real loud voice,
‘Nothing of interest here.' There's a funny silence and all of sudden I hear steps coming down, so I hightail it out of there. I just made it outside before the chief got down. His face was red and his eyes had a glitter like a dog gone bad, but he didn't say a word to Tucker and then the town cops showed up and that's all there was to that.”

“What do you think happened up there?”

Wolf pushed away from the car, stepped closer to the little heater. “Hell, I don't know. Maybe there was some pot and Tucker didn't want that to get in the papers. I don't know. I know the chief didn't like it. But he was the kind of guy who'd do what he was told, follow orders. And I guess it didn't matter. They seemed pretty sure the kid jumped. They put out a story he was fooling with that statue, but that was just to make it sound better.”

“Why were they so certain he jumped?” I edged nearer the heater, too.

“His car. It was parked in the street close to the tower and it was crammed with his stuff, all jammed in there, books and clothes and everything. They figured he was upset and running away and then decided just to take a leap instead of drive off.”

No one had mentioned Leonard's car. Why hadn't that been included in the police file? Was it because the University had taken advantage of the history of student pranks centering around the gargoyle and convinced the DHPD that Leonard's death was just an unfortunate accident?

The car stuffed with belongings certainly presented a different picture than Leonard's cheerful departure from the dean's office on Friday, his A-plus paper in hand.

What had happened between his good-bye to Maude Galloway and the moment that he tumbled from the bell-tower window?

“Did you ever tell anybody about Tucker and the chief going up in the tower?”

“Just the girl from University,” Wolf said. “Last week was the first time anybody's asked me about it in a long time. Until you.”

“You told her all about Cartwright's fall?”

“Sure. And she wanted to know about the dean who took a powder, too. He disappeared that night. See, the kid's fall was big stuff that day, but nobody ever talked about it much after that because the dean disappeared later the same day. The whole campus went crazy trying to figure out what happened to that guy.” Remembered bewilderment permeated his voice. “The chief had search parties all over the place. Student volunteers put up posters and flyers with his picture in shopping centers and along the highways in and out of town. But nobody ever found a trace of him. Not to this day.”

“What do you think happened to the dean?”

Wolf's lips curled in a knowing smile. “I always say when a guy takes a powder, look for the dame.”

I doubted Wolf knew the phrase “Cherchez la femme,” but it doesn't take knowledge of French to understand human nature.

No dame had surfaced in connection with the handsome dean, which ought to reflect a happy marriage. But Maude Galloway had recalled a man who was terribly proud of his family, yet not a man who seemed touched by love.

And Kathryn Nugent didn't want to talk about her missing husband.

Was it because Mrs. Nugent hated reporters? Or
were there facts about Darryl Nugent that she didn't want to remember?

“What did Chief McKay think?”

Wolf folded his arms over his chest.

“He was ticked, I can tell you.”

“About the dean?”

“Oh, no, ma'am. About the town cops taking over the case. So the chief just went right ahead and did his own investigation. Funny—he didn't figure it was a dame. He swore that guy was dead. I remember the look on the chief's face, kind of cold and calm. He says to me, ‘Emmett, only a dead man's that quiet.'”

 

I had an hour before my appointment to have my portrait taken at Rodgers Studios, so I went back to my office.

I found a note pushed under my door. The handwriting was large and childlike:

I wondered, recalling Eric March's harsh appraisal of
The Clarion's
police reporter, just what Kitty would have to say.

I rang her extension in the newsroom.

“Kitty Brewster.” Her voice was pitched low. I wondered if she watched old Lauren Bacall movies.

I asked her to come see me.

My first thought when she hurried into my office was: Dennis, you should be ashamed.

Kitty Brewster was apple-shaped, her clothes were cheap, and her huge brown eyes had the lost and vulnerable look of a child nobody had loved. Too much hair frizzed around a forlorn face liberally coated with unflattering orange-red makeup. The girl stumbled in her eagerness, bumping my desk, then floundered into the chair, her face flaming with embarrassment.

I suspected this child's face was often flushed.

Her eyes skidded away from mine, locked onto the carnation airplane.

Her mouth curved into an admiring bow. “Oh, Mrs. Collins, that's so clever! Where did you get it?” She leaned forward and smoothed a wing tip, her blunt fingers surprisingly gentle.

I'd crumbled an aspirin tablet and added water earlier. I'd not really looked closely, but now I did and I was surprised at the lift the elegant flower piece gave me, the sense of well-being and good humor.

“A friend,” I said quietly. It was like pulling up an afghan on a snowy day.

Kitty's eyes eagerly absorbed every detail: bronze propellers, blue fuselage, white windows, pink wings and tail. Her nose wrinkled, seeking the dry, special scent of the carnations. “Oh, I love it.” Her lips curved again and her soft smile gave her face a winsome charm. “And someone must love you.”

Those lost, lonely eyes looked at me in surprise.

There was no bridge to span the gulf of years and experience that lay between us.

I simply smiled and picked up her note. “Kitty, what can you tell me about Maggie?”

The transformation of her face was startling, from softness and eagerness to sullen hatred. Her voice, too, grew venomous. “It's time somebody told you the
truth
. Everybody goes on and on about how wonderful Maggie was. Well, she wasn't wonderful. She was a slut—a jealous slut. And she was driving Eric crazy.” She scooted the chair so close she pressed against my desk. “Mrs. Collins, I'm going to have to tell you something private so that you'll understand.”

“Yes, Kitty.” I knew what was coming. When this was over, I intended to have a talk with Dennis Duffy. But of course it was too late. Forever too late for this child.

Once again her face softened. “I know people might not understand.” Her eyes beseeched me. “Sometimes when you fall in love, you have to be brave. Things can be awfully complicated. Mr. Duffy—Dennis—I don't know if you know, but his wife is
awful
to him.” She paused, frowned. “But I guess everybody knows that, now that they've arrested her for what she did to Maggie. But anyway, Maggie was just
throwing
herself at Dennis and she was so jealous of me that she tried to act like he was coming after
her
. And she tried to break us up. She told me”—anger throbbed in her voice—“that he was a womanizer, that he'd screw anything in skirts.” She stopped, swallowed convulsively, “Maggie said, ‘The fatter, the better.'”

The vicious words hung in the air.

I'd suspected Maggie could be cruel. Maggie was so sure of herself, so dismissive of those who couldn't match her talents or brains or looks. And
Maggie would be quick to confront anyone, anyone at all. I doubted she'd realized how much pain she had caused this desperately lonely girl.

Or cared.

I had to wonder where Kitty Brewster had been the night Maggie died.