“We dropped Jacqui off at her apartment, then we went home,” Ginny answered.
“Did anything unusual happen on the way?”
“No. Scott had had too much to drink, so I drove.”
“Where’s home?”
Scott answered this time. “Scarborough, down near the bluffs.”
“So you weren’t too far away from Tony and Valerie’s place?”
Scott’s bonhomie vanished in an instant, and he stuck his chin out. Ginny looked on coolly. “What are you getting at?” Scott said. “You come around here asking damnfool questions, and then you start accusing me of murdering Valerie?”
“I haven’t accused you of anything,” I said.
“You know what I mean. You certainly implied it.”
“I merely implied that someone other than Tony could have done it.” I looked at Ginny. “Did either of you go out after you got home?”
Ginny looked down at her hands folded on her lap before answering, “No.”
“Of course we didn’t,” Scott snapped. But something was wrong. Ginny didn’t want to look me in the eye, and Scott was blustering. Was she protecting him?
I took the safety-deposit-box key from my pocket. “Have either of you seen this before?”
They both looked genuinely puzzled. “No,” said Scott.
“Never,” said Ginny.
“Okay. Thanks for your time.” I pocketed the key and headed back to my car.
Tony Caldwell’s photographic studio was located in that urban wasteland of movie studios and sound stages between Eastern Avenue and the Gardiner, where Toronto pretends to be New York, London, and even a distant galaxy. At least parking in one of the vast empty lots was easier than around Spadina, which had cost me a small fortune. The studio had an empty feel to it, but Ray Dasgupta was in the office working at the computer. He stopped and looked up when I knocked and entered. I told him who I was and what I was doing.
“You probably think it’s odd, me working here while all this is going on,” he said.
“I suppose it takes your mind off other things,” I said. “And no doubt there’s work to be done.”
“Mostly bookkeeping.”
“What’s going to happen to the studio now?”
“I don’t know. Tony was the real creative energy behind us. I’m not much more than a glorified administrator. Oh, I know a shutter speed from an f-stop, but that’s about as far as it goes. Tony has a flair for striking up relationships with his models...” He paused. “That wasn’t meant to come out the way it did,” he said. “I mean behind the camera.”
“I know what you mean,” I said. “But seeing as you mention it, how much do you know about these other relationships?”
Ray sucked on his lower lip, frowning.
“It’s not that tough a question, Ray,” I said. “Jacqui wasn’t the first, was she?”
“How do you know?”
“Never mind. But if anyone ought to know, it’s you, his partner. How many? How long?”
Ray squirmed in his chair. “Always,” he said. “As long as I’ve known him, Tony’s been chasing women. He couldn’t seem to help himself.”
“And Valerie didn’t know?”
“I don’t know whether she suspected or not, but she never acted as if she did. Not in public.”
“And you think she would have done something if she’d known?”
“Yes. Valerie is a proud woman, and jealous, too, not someone to take an affair lightly. She might not have divorced Tony. After all, she’d given up her own career, and she liked the lifestyle, but...”
“Maybe she’d have killed him?”
“But he’s not the one who’s dead, is he?”
Still, it was another possible scenario. Maybe Jacqui was the last straw. Perhaps there’d been a struggle, Valerie with the knife, trying to kill Tony, and things had turned around. That didn’t help me much, though, as he hadn’t even tried to claim self-defense. “What do you think of Jacqui?” I asked.
Ray’s lip curled. “Jumped-up little slut. It’s not as if she can’t have any man she wants. Why Tony? Why steal her best friend’s husband?”
“And Valerie?”
Ray looked away, clearly disturbed by the question.
“Ray? Something you want to tell me?”
“Look, I... I would never have... I mean...”
“Were you in love with her, Ray?”
His silence told me all I needed to know.
“Was it you who told Valerie about Tony and Jacqui?”
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.