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

Ray jerked his head in an abrupt nod, then turned damp brown eyes on me. “How could he? How could he treat her like that? Oh, she never looked at me twice. It’s not that I thought... or even hoped... but I couldn’t bear to see it anymore, them carrying on the way they did, and Valerie not knowing.”

“So you told her.”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Just before dinner.”

“Did you kill her, Ray?”

“Why would I kill her? I loved her.”

“Maybe you went round to the house later and found her alone, Tony in the shower. You thought you were in with a chance now, but she turned you down, laughed at you, and you lost it. Is that how it happened, Ray?”

For a moment, I thought he was going to confess, then he said, “No. I didn’t do it. But I’d have a closer look at Jacqui Prior if I were you.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because of something Valerie said when I told her about the affair.”

“What did she say?”

“She said, ‘I’ll ruin her. The little bitch. You see if I don’t. And don’t think I can’t do it, either.’ ”

6

“You’d better not have come around with more of those ridiculous accusations,” Jacqui Prior said, flopping on the sofa and crossing her long legs.

I took out the safety-deposit-box key and held it in front of her. “I’ve been talking to Tony,” I said, “and we’ve been through some of Valerie’s papers. According to her Visa bills, there’s an annual fee of forty dollars at a BC credit union. The people there were not forthcoming, but they did admit that Valerie rented a safety-deposit box. I asked myself why she kept a box in Vancouver when she lived in Toronto.”

“And?”

“It’s my guess she got it while she was still living there, and she doesn’t need frequent access.”

“So it’s probably empty.”

“But why keep paying? She can’t have forgotten about it. The annual bill would remind her.”

“So what’s your explanation, great detective?”

“That there’s something in it she wants to keep.”

“And how does that relate to me?”

“The two of you grew up in Vancouver.”

“So?”

“What’s in the box, Jacqui?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“You’re lying.”

“How dare you!”

“What’s in it? Was it worth killing her over?”

“I didn’t kill her.”

“So you say. But the way it looks to me is that you had the best motive. You were having an affair with her husband. She threatened you. And she was keeping something in a safety-deposit box in Vancouver that may be related to you.”

“That’s just conjecture.”

“But it’s pretty reasonable conjecture, you must admit.”

“I’m admitting nothing.”

“Well,” I said, standing to leave, “the police will probably be less polite than me, and there’ll no doubt be media interest. Your choice, Jacqui. If you’re innocent, you’d be far better off telling me the truth. I don’t have to tell anyone.”

I could see her thinking over her options: Whether to tell me anything. How much to tell. How many lies she might get away with. In the end, she came to a decision. “I need a drink first,” she said, and went over to the cocktail cabinet and poured herself a Pernod. It turned cloudy when she added a few drops of water. As an afterthought, she asked me if I wanted anything. I said no.

“Strictly between you and me?”

“Of course.”

“When Valerie dropped her little bombshell and all hell broke loose, I took her to the washroom.”

“I’ve always wondered what went on in there.”

“She told me she’d ruin me.”

“How?”

“When Val and I were students,” Jacqui said, “we were... well, to put it mildly, we were a bit wild. We got into coke and stuff in a fairly big way and it can skewer your judgment. There was a man. We thought it would be fun to make a video. He didn’t know. No copies. Only the original. Need I say more?”

“The three of you?”

“Yes.”

“And Valerie kept this?”

“I told you she liked control.”

“Why would she want to have control over you?”

“Not me, you fool. Him. He was a politician. Still is, and climbing the ranks.”

“So Valerie used it to blackmail him?”

“She never used it for anything, as far as I know.”

“But that gave him a motive for killing her. Who is he?”

“He didn’t even know about it. I’m sure of that.”

“But Valerie threatened to use it against you?”

“Yes. This Cherub contract is a really big deal, and I need to be squeaky-clean. It’s a family line, so if it got around that their cherub wasn’t quite as cherubic as they thought, I think you can see where that might lead.”

“The unemployment line?”

“Exactly.”

“You do realize, don’t you, that you’ve just given me another motive for your killing Valerie? If she made the video public, you’d have been ruined.”

“No. You don’t understand. There was no video.”

Now it was my turn to look puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“You don’t think I wanted that thing lying around, do you? I can make myself look enough like Valerie to fool people, especially strangers behind the counter in a bank, and her signature is easy enough to forge. One day, while she was at the dentist’s, I borrowed her key and her ID.”

“So you’re saying—”

“Valerie didn’t know, because she never checked from one year to the next, but the video was gone. I destroyed it. That safety-deposit box was empty.”

“Then who...?”