“Okay,” said Dubinsky. “I never said she should be left alone.” He shook his head. “If she buys it, that’s five in four months. One guy. I can’t believe it.”

“If it is the same one. That’s what I find hard to believe.”

“This last one looks close enough,” said Dubinsky. “Everything was the same—except no knife marks and she still had her clothes on. He was probably interrupted again.”

“Yeah,” said Sanders, “But it just doesn’t have the same smell to it. I went through the newspaper accounts last night. Everything that was done to that woman has already been published in the papers. It could be a copycat.”

“You think we’ve got two rapists running around the ravines now?” He got to his feet again. “That’s really great, isn’t it? You want some more coffee?”

“Sure.” He looked down at the papers on his desk, spread them out a bit, and thought. Dubinsky put a fresh cup of coffee on his desk, out of range of his elbow, and sat down. “Thanks. We still don’t have anything positive on her background, do we? Did we get anywhere on next of kin?” He lifted his cup cautiously to his mouth. “You’d think she was some rubby or sailor on a spree. No one seems to know anything about her except her name.”

“Well, I did talk to one woman at the school who seemed to know her, but I haven’t been able to follow up on the details yet.” Once again he flipped slowly back through the pages of his notebook. “A Miss Madeleine O’Connor, part-time teacher of Russian and German. She said that she talked to her a fair amount because they had a spare period together every day. And that she felt sorry for her, because she was having a hell of a time with the kids and with the department head, and no one was really willing to help her. Then she went on about how teachers treat newcomers and so on. Pretty bitchy, if you ask me. And she never shut up. None of them did. I never heard anything like it.” He paused to shake his head. “Anyway, Conway’s husband is a graduate student at the University of Toronto, in the Department of Biology, and they’re separated; she and this O’Connor woman had a lot in common because they were really graduate students, not teachers like everyone else on the staff. Whatever that means. The husband’s name is Doug. And that’s all I got, except that they used to go out for a drink once in a while after work.” He sighed. “And if there are any other women at the school to interview, I wish you’d do it. They seem to be more your type than mine.”

“So all we know about her is her name, and her husband’s name, and where she worked. Great. Someone must have recommended her for the job—I have it here somewhere”—Sanders searched through his notebook—“Right. Recommended by Professor George Simmons of the Department of Physics, University of Toronto, who apparently said that she probably knew enough to teach high-school kids, as long as no one asked her too hard a question. Jesus. There’s a sweet guy.” He thought for a moment. “But we know more than that,” he said finally. “She used to work out at a gym near the school. They might know something about her there. Anyway, call the Department of Biology and see if you can locate Mr. Doug Conway, and then we’ll go through that apartment for whatever leads we can pick up. Otherwise off to the gym. Okay, let’s get moving.”

Dubinsky and Sanders stood at the entrance to Jane Conway’s apartment and looked around. It wasn’t quite ten o’clock; they had a promise they would be able to find the elusive husband at two o’clock in the Biology Department, and it was quite possible that it would take them the full, boring four-hour interval just to go through her papers, looking for background material. The apartment had a dreary, faded look with the spring rain trickling down the window panes. The furniture was dark and heavy; the rug an old, bleached-out red Persian. Dubinsky looked resigned, Sanders depressed. At last he turned and spoke. “Why don’t you start with the bedroom, and I’ll get going on that desk.” They moved off in separate directions and started in to work.

Sanders began with the brown leather briefcase leaning against the side of the desk. It contained two brutally large textbooks, which he flipped through. They appeared to be just that, but tarted up with more pictures than he remembered from his schooldays. Under them was a large red notebook, each page of which was dated and ruled off in eight or nine sections. The pages were filled with abbreviations and page numbers that meant nothing to Sanders, but were more likely to do with teaching than with her private life, he suspected. On the other hand, there might be something there—he put the book to one side, just in case he wanted to go over it with someone who could tell him how much of it referred to school. There was nothing else. On the desk he found a bundle of tests, partially marked, and the usual desk-top paraphernalia—telephone, notepad, Toronto phonebook, an electric typewriter, carefully covered, with nothing in it, and a little circular container filled with pencils and fine-line markers, with pictures on it of lambs gamboling among spring flowers. He picked it up in astonishment. It seemed so unlike anything else in that sober room. He noticed some laconic scribbles on the top piece of notepaper and picked it up carefully, stared at it a moment, and put it to one side.

He cleared everything off the top of the desk and started to go through each drawer, removing everything from the drawers so that they could be checked for odd bits of paper caught in corners. The top drawers were tidy and characterless, containing miscellaneous stationery, typing paper, pens, pencils, a stapler, a Dymo labeler, three sets of mathematical instruments, and an expensive-looking calculator. She certainly was neat. He thought of the chaos in his desk and shook his head. When he pulled the brass handle of the next drawer, he found a deep and capacious file drawer, legal size, filled with neatly labeled file folders. He yanked it out to its fullest extent, pulled the comfortable typing chair up to the desk, and started to go through the files, one by one. The eight folders in front were completely useless to him. They contained notes for courses she was teaching and from courses she had taken. After flipping through each one briefly he gave up. Her notes were neat and legible, however, much neater than anything he had ever taken down himself back during his brief fling as a student. There were only two folders behind them, and they seemed much more promising. One was marked “Van Loon and McHenry” and the other “Correspondence: Personal.” He pulled them both out and settled back to read them in comfort.

Van Loon and McHenry was a legal firm with offices on Church Street, not far from Rosedale, according to their letterhead. She had several pieces of correspondence from them, dating back to October: one pointing out that her new will was ready for signature, and the next one confirming the points discussed in a previous meeting and stating that she would have extreme difficulty in blocking her husband’s action for divorce, should he institute proceedings. Sandwiched in among these were a few bills, in which she was also charged for advice given by telephone. Sanders carefully put all these documents back and placed the file on top of the red notebook. The personal correspondence file was bumpy with bundles of letters tied together still in their envelopes. Some of them he didn’t bother to read—the postmarks were from years ago and the paper was yellowed. Two bundles had fairly recent letters on top, both sets postmarked Cobourg. He undid the first one. Those letters were all the same, each one page in length, neatly written, thanking her for something or other and talking about the farm, and signed, “Uncle Matt.” He put them to one side with the other things. He picked out a few from the large bundle in his hand. They were long, misspelled, and had a frenzied quality to them. They spoke of love, and eternity, and passion, all in appallingly banal terms. The dates went back five or six years; they were all signed “Mike.” Sanders sighed and put them to one side as well. A thought occurred to him. Maybe this guy was—when were the last letters written? He flipped quickly. There were none after January 10th. He took that one out and read it: