In the living room of the neat, multi-layered townhouse, he put the phone back on the hook and turned his gaze once more to the three daily papers spread out on the floor in front of him. “Terror Stalks City as Mad Rapist Strikes Again” screamed the headlines of the morning tabloid. “Another Victim in Metro Rape-Murders?” asked the sedate morning daily in a secondary headline, tucked under the latest international news. “Action Demanded in Toronto Deaths” cried the crusading voice of the afternoon paper. The stories, however, were all the same: a woman in her twenties was attacked and killed while out jogging in the Rosedale Ravine—identification withheld pending notification of next of kin. Metro police spokesman Daniel Kennedy agrees that it could be the work of the person who raped and killed three other woman and seriously injured another in the period of January to April this year and continues to advise caution for women out alone, especially in remote areas. He picked up each paper in turn and re-read the stories slowly and carefully, shook his head and smiled slightly, then neatly folded them and carried them out to the garage before his wife had time to come in the door.

Sanders and Dubinsky now stood in front of a plain door with four names tucked into little metal slots nailed to it. Their visit to the school had produced nothing but a welcome diversion to twenty-four giggling girls who watched, fascinated, as Sanders went through all the drawers in the physics lab. When he had produced the red notebook in order to ask Mrs. Antonini if there was anything in it that did not pertain to the school day, she had snatched it up with cries of glee and was most unwilling to give it back. She finally agreed to photocopy it and return it to him, saying most discouragingly as she flipped through it that it looked like a normal daybook to her, and that Jane’s replacement was going to need all the information in it. So much for that hope. Perhaps this visit would produce more.

Doug Conway was the first name in the alphabetized list of occupants. Sanders knocked, a casual voice called out, “Come in,” and the two men entered. The room was just barely large enough to hold four desks jutting out from opposing walls and to leave a narrow passageway through to a large window. The spaces on the walls not filled with desks were covered with utilitarian steel shelving, crammed with books, papers, and what appeared to Sanders to be junk. The desks themselves were piled to overflowing with books, coffee cups, plants, photographs, and computer read-outs in catholic disarray. There seemed to be only four chairs, one for each desk.

“Do come in. Sorry for the mess in here—it is awfully cramped—but just grab a couple of chairs. You’re not in my section, are you?” He gave them a puzzled glance.

Sanders returned the look and introduced himself. “I understood from your secretary out there that you were expecting us. I mean, she told us to come this afternoon at two. Apparently you didn’t get our message?”

“Oh, Lord,” he said. “Police. I’m sorry, but that girl is absolutely hopeless. She has discovered that the easiest thing to do with messages is to throw them out. This is when I have office hours; that’s why I’m here. Otherwise I’d be in the lab. I mean, we don’t really do much work in this office; that’s why it looks like this. We just store books and see students here. We’re all T.A.’s.”

“T.A.’s?”

“Teaching Assistants. Anyway, what can I do for you? Brian Jones over there is the one who deals with most of the forensic problems that get referred to us but I’ll do what I can.”

“Forensic problems?”

“Isn’t that why you’re here? I’m sorry, maybe we should start one more time from the beginning.” He smiled and settled back in his chair, his long frame perfectly relaxed, but his high forehead slightly crinkled, and his dark eyes fixed intently on the two men. Sanders began to feel like a specimen of some sort. He pulled over a chair and sat down. Dubinsky cautiously shoved aside a few papers on someone else’s desk and perched on the edge of it, notebook in hand, filling the office with his bulk.

“No, I’m afraid that what we came over here for is rather less pleasant. There has been a most unfortunate”—Sanders searched for a word. He hated this sort of thing anyway, and when a man is separated from his wife, one has no idea whether he’s going to be crushed or relieved at the news. Or perhaps, not at all surprised—“occurrence concerning—”

“Who—?” he said sharply, his face changing. “What’s happened?”

“Your wife, Jane Conway.”

“Jane?” He sounded relieved. “What’s happened to her?” Sanders wondered whose name he had been expecting to hear when that expression had crossed his face.

“You may have seen in the papers—there was a woman killed while jogging in the park late Wednesday. I’m afraid it was your wife.”

“Running.” He spoke automatically. “She hated the term ‘jogging.’ Poor Jane. She never did have much luck with things.” He picked up a pen and put it down again. Sanders continued to look at him, trying to gauge his reaction. “I won’t pretend that I’m grief-stricken, you know. But I’m terribly sorry that something like that should have happened to her. Was she badly hurt? That’s stupid—I mean, before she died. She was a real coward about sickness and pain, poor thing.”

“No. She seems to have died instantly.” Sanders paused a moment. “We would like to ask you a few questions.” Conway smiled agreeably and nodded. “I take it you were separated?” He nodded again. “For how long and why?”

“Since last summer, actually. Around the beginning of August, I think. I came home from the lab one evening and she wasn’t there. Why she left is a harder question to answer. I think there were a lot of reasons.” He paused for a second. “I’ve thought about this quite a lot. We got married the year she was at O.C.E.—teachers’ college—at Christmas. That was in 1980. There weren’t many jobs around, but she managed to get one up in the Bruce Peninsula. We only saw each other on weekends, but I was working very hard on my doctorate, and as a research assistant, trying to impress the hell out of the big boys—which I did—so only having her around on weekends was great as far as I was concerned. But she really hated teaching. The kids just ate her for breakfast, I guess, and she didn’t seem to be able to figure out what to do about it. Anyway, she got fired at the end of the year and I talked her into going to graduate school. Well, I had sort of forgotten what a slog she had found university when we were both at Queen’s together. Anyway, she started in, and after a while had to drop a couple of courses because she couldn’t manage a full load, and by spring it was clear that when she did finally get a degree, it would be a terminal MA—sounds like a terrible disease, doesn’t it? That’s how she felt about it.”

“What is it?”

“A degree with marks too low to get you into the PhD program. It’s just another way of failing really, if what you wanted was a doctorate. Meanwhile, of course, I was going great guns. Professor Griffiths took me on as a graduate student—he’s the really big man in the field around here—and people were inviting me to give papers and stuff like that. I think she started to hate me for it. Anyway, she began to screw around a bit. But by this time we hardly saw each other, except that we sometimes went running together. I hadn’t slept with her for months; she couldn’t stand me talking to her, much less touching her, and I had struck up a friendship with a terrific girl. That was all it was at the time, anyway. I think Jane was involved with some guy, though. At first, she just came on strong with almost anyone at parties; it was kind of gruesome in a way, but then that stopped, and she started disappearing for the night from time to time.”