Free Carolyn G. Hart_Henrie O_03 by Death in Lovers' Lane Page B

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.
    â€œI’ve talked to Mrs. Collins,” 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.
    S. Singletary.
    I grabbed a University directory, flipped to the faculty section: Stuart Singletary, assistant professor of English. According to Helen Tracy, Singletary had shared an apartment with Howard Rosen.
    That was certainly a link to the old crime, wasn’t it?
    So Maggie’s final class had been with someone involved—okay, maybe involved was too strong—with a man who had been interviewed by the police in the double murder in Lovers’ Lane.
    On the other hand, Stuart Singletary had had a big date the night of the Rosen-Voss murders. And he had been teaching the night Maggie died.
    I wished I had a better sense of when Maggie died. Lieutenant Urschel had grudgingly said early evening. What did that encompass? I needed to trace Maggie’s movements Wednesday night.
    Â 
    Ivy clung to the soft-gray limestone walls of Evans Hall. The turreted battlement looked like something out of Disney by way of an Irish Spring soap ad.
    As befitted a junior member of the faculty, Stuart Singletary’s office was on the third floor, next to a storeroom at the far end of an ill-lit hall. Old bookcases were stacked haphazardly by one wall.
    I tapped on his partially open door.
    â€œCome in,