The Price of Love and Other Stories

by Peter Robinson

  Now that she mentioned it, I did remember hearing something about the case. I don’t usually pay a lot of attention to true crime stories, especially when they involve celebrities, but sometimes you can’t avoid picking up a few details, especially if it’s close to home. “Tony Caldwell, right?” I said. “The famous fashion photographer. He’s accused of murdering his wife.”

  “Yes. But he didn’t do it.”

  “Ms. Caldwell, Susan,” I said, “I don’t usually investigate murders. The police don’t like it, for a start, and I try to stay on good terms with them.”

  “The police.” She spat out the word as if it were a cockroach. “Don’t talk to me about the police! They’ve just decided Tony’s guilty and that’s that. They’re not even looking for the real killer.”

  “They must have a good reason,” I said.

  “Well, maybe they think they have a good reason, but they don’t know Tony like I do.”

  “What could I do that the police can’t?”

  She looked me in the eye. “You could believe me for a start,” she said. “Then maybe you could talk to him. At least you could keep an open mind.”

  She had a point. There’s nothing the police like more than an open-and-shut case; it’s neat, like balancing the books, and it makes the statistics look good. And most cases are open and shut. Why should Tony Caldwell’s be so different? Because his sister said so? If I killed someone, I’d hope that my sister would refuse to believe it, too, and defend me just the way Susan was defending Tony. Still, I was tempted to give it a try.

  “Where is he?” I asked.

  “He’s staying with me. He just came out on bail. Our parents live in Sarnia and Tony’s not supposed to leave Toronto.”

  “Give me the details,” I said.

  Susan sat back in her chair and spoke softly. “It was about one o’clock in the morning. Tony and Val—that’s Valerie Pascale, his wife-had been out, and they just got home.”

  “Where do they live?”

  “The Beaches. Or Beach. I never know which.”

  “Either’s fine with me. Go on.”

  “The neighbors said they heard them arguing loudly. Then, after it had been quiet for a while, Tony called the police and said his wife was dead.”

  “Is that exactly what he said?”

  “On the phone, yes, but when they came, before they warned him, or whatever they do, they say he said, ‘I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry, Val.’”

  That didn’t sound good. “Did they argue often?”

  “They loved each other very much, but it was a pretty volatile relationship. Valerie grew up in Vancouver, but she was half French,” Susan added, as if that explained it all.

  “Did Tony explain what he meant by the comment?”

  “He said that he was apologizing for the argument, that he was sorry the last words they’d had together were angry, and that he’d never have a chance to make up.”

  “Did he say anything else?”

  “He admitted they’d had a quarrel, and said he stormed upstairs. I know this might sound odd, Mr. Lang, but he had a shower. If you knew Tony, you’d know he’s a compulsive showerer, and he always does it when he gets upset. Ever since he was a kid. When he went downstairs about twenty minutes later, he found Valerie dead in the living room, stabbed. He says he doesn’t remember much after that.”

  “You say she was stabbed. What about the knife? Did the police find it? Were Tony’s fingerprints on it?”

  “It was just a kitchen knife, I think. He said he’d been using it earlier to cut the string on a parcel.”

  “So his prints were on it?”

  “Only because he’d been using it to cut the string.”

  Again, it wasn’t looking good. “Did he confess?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “Was there any other reason the police charged him so quickly, then?” I asked, almost dreading the answer.

  “Well,” said Susan, shifting uneasily in her chair. “I suppose so…I mean, you know, when they got there…it might have looked bad.”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, when the police arrived, Tony was kneeling beside her body holding the knife, and he was covered in blood. Valerie’s blood.”

  PART TWO

  “Look, the kid did it. Period. It’s a cut-and-dried domestic. And the only reason I’m talking to you is because my boss told me to. Money swears almost as loudly as public relations.” He stabbed a finger at my chest. “But I don’t like private eyes, and I want you to know that. You should get back to the gutter where you belong.”

  The speaker was Detective Nick Enamoretto, chief investigator on the Caldwell investigation. If you could call it an investigation, that is. We were talking in the divisional canteen, a few stained and cracked Formica-topped tables and an alcove full of vending machines—coffee, soup, sandwiches, chocolate, you name it. Ignoring me, Enamoretto put his money in a slot and picked up a cup of black coffee. I followed suit and ended up with scalding, bitter tea. We sat down at the nearest table, where Enamoretto lit a cigarette so quickly I hardly saw the flame. He was a slim, dark, hatchet-faced man with darting hazel eyes and a droopy moustache.

  “I thought there was no smoking in the workplace,” I said.

  “So arrest me.”

  “Look, there’s no need to be so hostile,” I went on. “All I want to know is could it have happened any other way?”

  He scrutinized me, blew out a mouthful of smoke, and stubbed out his cigarette. “I can’t see how.”

  “Was the back door open?”

  “Yes. But the screen door was locked.”

  “Windows?”

  “Closed.”

  “And there were no signs of forced entry?”

  “Of course there weren’t,” Enamoretto snapped. “Do you think we didn’t bother to look?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know what you did and didn’t do. Did you look out back, down the ravine?”

  “Listen, wise guy, if you’re asking did we go over the area with a fine-tooth comb, the answer’s no, we didn’t. We didn’t need to. Have you any idea how expensive an investigation like that is? It was a routine case, and it still is as far as I’m concerned.”

  I took a sip of tea. It tasted as bad as it looked. “What if she let somebody in while Caldwell was taking his shower? Someone she knew.”

  “Give me a break, Lang. A friend doesn’t climb a ravine at one o’clock in the morning and knock at your screen door.”

  “Some people have weird friends. Maybe it was someone who didn’t want to be seen, especially if he had murder on his mind.”

  “If she let someone in, how did he get out again? The screen was locked when we got there. That type of door locks from the inside.”

  “How about the front?”

  Enamoretto shook his head. “Locked, chained and bolted. Besides, the neighbors would’ve noticed. They were still worried after overhearing the argument. They didn’t see anybody except the Caldwells come or go.”

  “His sister said he was covered in blood.”

  Enamoretto scowled. “On his hands. Down the front of his dressing gown. But there wasn’t that much. Most of the bleeding was internal.”

  I was getting nowhere fast. Enamoretto kept tapping on the table. I felt my time running out as quickly as the level in his coffee cup dropped. Finally, he moderated his harsh tone just a little. “Look, Lang, why don’t you drop it? You’re wasting the family’s money and giving them false hopes. Caldwell’s guilty and he’ll go away for it. Oh, not for very long, maybe, but he’ll go away. In a few years he’ll be out and about again. Maybe get another wife and knife her, too.”

  “Don’t you think it’s odd that he hasn’t confessed? Isn’t that what most domestics do?”

  Enamoretto said nothing, and I could see that it bothered him, too. All the evidence was stacked against Tony Caldwell. His crime matched a common domestic pattern, but all along he maintained that he was innocent. That didn’
t fit the profile. I found myself thinking that perhaps Enamoretto wished he had time to get to the bottom of it himself. Cops are under so much pressure that they can’t afford long and expensive investigations. They take things at face value unless something very obvious points them in another direction. To Enamoretto, this was just another boring domestic crime, with only one negligible difference, and perhaps he was resentful because I had all the time in the world to devote to that one case, and I might just find out something he had missed.

  “I know what you’re thinking, but you’re wasting your time, Lang. The fight was between Caldwell and his wife, and the wife lost. Save the family a lot of heartbreak and get back to hanging around sleazy motels.”

  “I think I’ll just dig around a bit first,” I said, “and see if I come up with anything. Give it a couple of days.”

  Enamoretto shrugged and stretched out his hands. “What more can I say?”

  I smiled. “Thanks for your time, anyway. You’ve been very helpful.”

  Enamoretto scowled. “Let’s just hope we don’t meet again.”

  PART THREE

  Susan Caldwell lived in a two-bedroom apartment in the Yonge and Eglinton area, or “Young and Eligible,” as it was known locally because of the hordes of singles who filled the apartment buildings and frequented the restaurants, bars and clubs every night. Susan was waiting when I arrived, and without further ado she showed me into her brother’s room.

  Tony Caldwell lay sprawled on his bed reading a photographic magazine. He looked more Queen Street West than East in a white T-shirt with Japanese characters scrawled in red across the front, black jeans, hollow cheeks and gelled, spiky blond hair. Handsome if you liked that sort of look, effeminate if you didn’t. I didn’t care either way. I just wanted to know if he was a murderer.

  I introduced myself, and he gestured me to a hard-backed chair by the window. We were on the twelfth floor, and below I could see lunchtime swarms of office workers hitting the trendy Yonge Street bistros and trattorias.

  “I really didn’t do it, you know,” Tony said. “It happened exactly the way I told the police.”

  “Tell me about that evening. Who was there? What were you doing?”

  Tony propped himself up on a cushion. “Val and me, Jacqui Prior, my business partner Ray Dasgupta, and Scott Schneider and his wife, Ginny. We were supposed to be celebrating. Jacqui had just been chosen as the new Cherub girl. It’s a whole range of soaps, bath oils, shampoos and stuff due to be launched next year. Major, multinational campaign. Anyway, Jacqui was the face, the look, and our studio got the contract for the still photography, so we all had a lot to celebrate. Scott is Jacqui’s agent, so he and Ginny were over the moon, too. You’ve no idea what a boost that will give Jacqui’s career—not that she’s done badly so far, but it’s a whole new ball game for her. For all of us, in fact. It’s like we’ve all suddenly moved into the big time.”

  “When did things start to go wrong?”

  “Just before the cappuccino. We’d had quite a bit to drink, and Val had been moody all evening. Finally, she hit us with the news. When everyone got around to toasting Jacqui for the fiftieth time, Val said something about her face not being so photogenic if she didn’t keep her hands off me. You can imagine how that heated things up.”

  “Was it true? About the affair?”

  “I’m not proud of it, but I won’t deny it.”

  “How did Valerie find out?”

  “I don’t know. I thought we were discreet.”

  “Could someone have told her?”

  “I suppose so, but I can’t imagine who. I didn’t think anyone else knew.”

  “What happened next?”

  “Well, there was a very embarrassing scene in the restaurant, and Jacqui had to take Val to the washroom to quiet her down.”

  “Didn’t that surprise you, Jacqui and Val going off together after what had just happened?”

  “I never looked at it that way. They’d been best friends for an awful long time. But Val was a lot calmer when she came back, and Jacqui left almost immediately with Scott and Ginny. Val and I stayed a bit longer with Ray, drank some more champagne, but it was obvious the party was over. We started arguing again in the cab on the way home. When we got there, the fight went on. I tried to calm things down, but Val was really wild. She’s always been extremely jealous. Anyway, I was looking for a distraction, and I remember there was a package of books I wanted to open. Modern first editions. I hadn’t had time in the morning. I got a kitchen knife to cut the string, then Val started on at me again for being more interested in the books than in what she had to say, which, to be honest, was nothing really but a string of insults aimed at me. That was when I threw the knife down and went for a shower—they always seem to calm me down—and when I came back she was dead. That’s all there is to it.”

  “You didn’t hear anything?”

  “Nothing at all. The shower’s pretty loud.”

  “Could someone have got in the house while you were showering?”

  “I don’t see how. The front door was locked and bolted, with the chain on.”

  “And the back?”

  “The door was open because it was a warm evening, and we get a nice breeze from the lake, up the ravine, but the screen door was locked. I know because the police kept going on about it when they were trying to get me to confess. They kept telling me how it couldn’t have been anyone else, that there were no signs of a break-in.”

  It was exactly as Enamoretto had said it was. “How long had you been seeing Jacqui?” I asked.

  “Only a couple of months.”

  “Was it serious?”

  “I don’t know.” Tony sighed, running long, bony fingers through his hair. “She’s a hard one to fathom. I thought I was serious, but maybe I was just infatuated. Jacqui’s a fascinating woman, complicated, very difficult to get to know.”

  “You say she and Val were old friends?”

  “Yes. Had been since high school. They both got into modeling together out in Vancouver first, then they came to Toronto about five years ago. That was what hurt Val most—that it was her closest friend. It wasn’t so much that I’d been with another woman, though that would have been bad enough, but that I’d been with Jacqui. We’d always flirted a bit in public, you know, just in fun. But one time we were alone and things just got out of hand.”

  “Can you think of anyone else who might have had a reason to hurt Valerie?”

  “So you do believe me?”

  I remembered Susan’s plea. “I’m keeping an open mind.”

  Tony thought for a moment. “No,” he said. “Since Val gave up modeling, she’s been doing a bit of teaching at the agency. Deportment, public speaking, that sort of thing. She gets along well with everyone.”

  “Did she have any lovers?”

  “Not that I knew of, and I’m pretty sure I would have known.”

  “Okay,” I said, getting up to leave. “Thanks a lot, Tony. If anything comes up, I’ll be in touch right away.”

  Tony seemed surprised and alarmed that I was leaving so soon. He sat up abruptly and crossed his long legs. “You are going to help me, aren’t you? You do believe me?”

  “What I believe doesn’t really matter,” I said. “It’s what I can get the police to believe that counts. But don’t worry, I’ll do my best. One more thing: do you think I could have the house keys? It would help if you’d write down the address, too. I’d like to have a look around.”

  “Sure. You can take Valerie’s set,” he said. “I picked them up last time I was over there, after the police let me out. I couldn’t stand to stay in the house, not after what happened, but I didn’t like the idea of them just lying around like that.”

  I took the ring of keys. A Mickey Mouse key chain. Cute. “Do you know what all these are for?” I asked.

  Tony started counting them off. “Front door, back door, studio, agency. That one I don’t know.”

  There was one key
left, but it didn’t look like a door key to me. Too small. I thought I had a pretty good idea what it was.

  “Did Valerie keep a safety-deposit box?” I asked Tony.

  He seemed surprised by the question. “Not that I know of. Why?”

  I held up the key. “That’s why,” I said.

  PART FOUR

  I wanted to find out where the safety-deposit box was located and what its contents were, but I didn’t know whether I’d be able to get into it even if I found it. Technically, Tony would inherit everything of Valerie’s, unless her will specified otherwise, but criminals aren’t permitted to gain financially from their crimes. On the other hand, Tony hadn’t been convicted of anything yet, so nothing would happen. In the meantime, I had asked Tony to check with Valerie’s bank, and there was plenty of digging around for me to do while I waited for a result.

  The Caldwell house looked like a cozy English vicarage right out of Masterpiece Theater. I parked my 1998 Neon across the street among the BMWs and Audis, and, feeling vaguely ashamed of its unwashed state and the dent in the front right wheel arch, I walked up to the door.

  Outside the house stood a huge old oak tree, and I wondered if it would provide an intruder enough cover from the nosy neighbors. Even so, anyone who wanted to get in would have to get past the heavy door, which Tony told me had been locked, bolted and chained. There was no porch, just the dark, paneled door set in the sandy stonework. The key let me into a small hallway, and a second door led into the living room. The police had taken the carpet, leaving the polished wood floor bare.

  Three of Tony’s photographs hung on the wall. They were very good, as far as I could tell. I’d expected modernistic effects and cut-up contact sheets, but two of the three were landscapes. One looked like a Beach sunset, showing the Leuty lifeguard station in effective, high-contrast black and white, and the other was a view of a rocky coastline, probably in Nova Scotia, where the cliff edges cut the land from the sea like a deformed spine. Again, Tony had used high contrast.

  The third was a portrait signed by Valerie, along with what I took to be her lip prints, dated two years ago. She was posing against a wall, just head and shoulders, but there was such sensuality about her Bar-dot-like pout and the way her raven’s-wing hair spilled over her bare, white shoulders. There was something about the angle of her head that seemed to challenge and invite at the same time, and the look in her dark eyes was intelligent, humorous and questioning. For the first time in the case, I had a real sense of the victim, and I felt the tragedy and waste of her death.