Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 122, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 745 & 746, September/October 2003

Fine. Now I knew that it was possible for someone to get up and down the ravine easily enough. But how about getting into the house? I sat at the kitchen table toying with the string. I could think of no way of getting through a locked screen door without leaving a trace, unless it were either open in the first place, or somebody had opened it for me. Valerie might have opened it to someone she knew, someone she felt she had no reason to fear. If she were distracted by her anger at Tony, her surprise at seeing a friend appear at the back door would surely have overruled any caution or suspicion she might otherwise have felt. On the other hand, if the door was locked when the police arrived, that was a problem.

As I sat twirling the string around my fingers and idly glancing at the two first editions in their nest of brown paper, I became aware of a niggling discrepancy. It was unconscious at first, nothing I could put my finger on, but as it turned out, it was on my finger. I unraveled the string and tried to fasten it around the books. It didn’t fit. Much too short. I looked around on the floor but saw no more, and I could think of no reason why either Tony or the police would secrete a length of string.

I went over to the screen door and examined the catch, which looked like an upside-down earlobe, and surely enough, when I looked closely, I noticed scuff marks around the narrow neck. Making sure I had the house keys in my pocket, as an experiment I opened the door, hooked a length of string over the catch, then shut the door, standing outside, holding the string. When I tugged gently, the catch engaged and the screen door locked. I let go of one end and pulled the string towards me. It came free.

I still had nothing concrete, no real evidence, but I did have the solution to a very important problem. If Valerie had let someone in through the back, whoever it was could easily have killed her, left the same way, and locked the screen door from outside. Now I knew that it could be done.

4

Jacqui Prior, my next port of call, lived in an apartment off The Esplanade, close to the St. Lawrence Market, the Hummingbird Centre, and all the wine bars and restaurants that had sprung up around there. I found her in torn jeans and a dirty T-shirt, lustrous dark hair tied back in a ponytail, busily packing her belongings into boxes she had clearly picked up from the local LCBO store. While she seemed surprised to see me, she was also curious. She said she was just about to take a break anyway and offered me a cup of Earl Grey, which I gladly accepted.

There was a superficial resemblance to the photograph of Valerie Pascale I had seen at Tony Caldwell’s house, but Jacqui seemed somehow unformed, incomplete. She had the kind of face that was beautiful but lacked personality. I imagined that was probably what made her a good model. She must be the kind of person who would shine and sparkle in front of the camera, given a role to play. Her olive skin was smooth as silk, perfect for beauty soap, shampoo, and bath oil commercials, and I could imagine her looking wholesome in a way that Valerie Pascale didn’t.

“Where are you moving to?” I asked.

“I’ve found the perfect little house in Leaside.”

“Leaside? Won’t that be a bit quiet for you after all this?”

She smiled, showing perfect dimples. “I like things quiet. I need my beauty sleep.”

There wasn’t much I could say to that, so I sipped some Earl Grey.

Jacqui frowned. It could have been real, or it could have been a model’s frown. I didn’t know. “It’s awful about Valerie and Tony,” she said. “I feel terribly responsible in a way, but I don’t see how I can help you.”

“It’s not your fault,” I said. “People do what they do. I’m just not convinced that Tony Caldwell did what he’s been accused of.”

“Oh? What makes you think that?”

“Just a few inconsistencies, that’s all. You and Valerie were old friends. How did you meet?”

“We were at high school together, then we both went to UBC. We shared an apartment in Kitsilano.”

“So you knew her pretty well?”

“As well as one could know Valerie.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“She wasn’t exactly an open book, you know.”

“She had secrets?”

“We all have secrets. Valerie could make the most innocent thing into a secret. It was her nature to be mysterious, enigmatic. And she liked to be in control, liked to have the upper hand. She needed to feel that, ultimately, if the walls came tumbling down, she’d be safe, she’d have an escape route.”

“Didn’t work this time,” I said.

Jacqui wiped away a tear. “No.”

“Who told her about your affair with her husband?”

Jacqui looked shocked, and I was beginning to feel more and more that I was being treated to her repertoire of faces. She was good. “Do we have to talk about that?”

“I’m trying to help Tony.”

“Yes. Yes, of course. I’m sorry. I don’t know how she found out. I’m sure nobody knew about us.”

“What happened when the two of you went to the washroom?”

“Nothing. We just talked it out, that’s all. Sort of made up.”

“Sort of?”