Carolyn G. Hart_Henrie O_03 by Death in Lovers' Lane

“No.”
    Angel waited for a moment, but he continued to stare at his computer. Slowly she turned away.
    I glimpsed Angel’s round, usually pretty face. Her eyes were dark with worry, her lips set in a grim line.
    I turned to my computer and checked to see if Maggie had filed any stories in the series.
    I didn’t find anything. That would no doubt please Angel.
    But that didn’t matter. What mattered was the fact that Angel Chavez was worried.
    I made a note—“Watch Angel”—then turned back to the papers I was trying to grade. I kept a close eye on the newsroom through my window.
    It was almost three when Buddy jolted up from his chair, clutching the telephone receiver.
    When I reached the city desk, he’d just slammed down the phone. He stared at Dennis, then blurted, his voice an octave higher, “The cops have brought in Mrs. Duffy.”
    Â 
    Rita Duffy’s arraignment was at four-thirty that afternoon. That meant the police investigator—Lieutenant Urschel—had convinced the prosecutor’s office that there was sufficient evidence to prove the case against Rita. I had a gut feeling there had to be more evidence than we—the press—knew about.
    I elbowed my way into the jammed country courtroom.
    Rita huddled at the defense table, her face slack with shock. I’d seen survivors of train wrecks andbombing raids with that same look of incredulity. And horror.
    Was Rita terrified of this proceeding? Or was she trying desperately not to remember the tautness of her own muscles pulling, pulling, pulling a silk scarf until it would tighten no more?
    Rita’s pudgy fingers gripped the edge of the wooden table. Her faded blue eyes were blank, her plump face pasty. Her broad shoulders hunched defensively. She was powerfully built for a woman.
    Lieutenant Urschel had indicated that Maggie’s body had been moved after death. Rita Duffy appeared to be a strong woman, quite capable of that feat.
    But why? Where was Maggie killed, and why was her body moved an hour or so later? What possible reason could there be?
    I edged to my left for a better view of Rita.
    Someone should have told her to comb her hair, put on makeup, sit up straight.
    Dennis Duffy sat stiffly in the first row. It was the only time I’d ever seen him without his perpetual sneer. His big hands were clenched tight and his usually cocky face looked scared and perplexed.
    The machinery of the law—in the persons of Circuit Court Judge Edward Merritt and Prosecutor Paul Avery—moved with juggernaut precision. The arraignment took a quarter hour from start to finish.
    Rita’s lawyer, B. B. Ellison, pleaded her not guilty to the charge of murder in the first degree.
    Paul Avery stood. “If it may please the court.” The prosecutor approached the bench.
    I was familiar with Avery’s name from trial stories in The Clarion . This was the first time I’d seen him. Gary Cooper, I thought suddenly, the samelean, powerful frame, and bony, quizzical face. Avery’s features were memorable—high-bridged nose, cleft chin, piercing light-green eyes. He was about my age, and he moved with an easy, confident slouch. He had the air of a man who never hurried, a man who imposed his tempo on the world.
    â€œIf it please the court, the prosecution requests a million-dollar bond. This is an especially brutal crime, Your Honor.” Avery had a magnetic voice, not the super-proud slickness of a radio announcer, but the full, rich timbre of a lawyer at ease with an audience of one or a thousand. “The young victim was knocked unconscious”—he paused for a definite beat—“then strangled.” Once again Avery let silence fill the courtroom, and the ugly image took shape in every mind. “Your Honor, this demonstrates a cold and deliberate premeditation.”
    â€œMotion granted.” Judge Merritt’s waspish face, beneath a high curl of stiff