Advertisement for Murder

by Nadine Doolittle

  “Oh God, the music! I was crazy about The Hustle,” Karen cried. “Remember that? I practised those moves over and over again until I got them exactly right.”

  Their laughter died away when Helen tapped Jenny Blake’s photograph. “She’s very pretty. There was a story about her, wasn’t there?” She glanced at Josie. “A tragedy of some kind...?”

  “She was found murdered,” Josie supplied, playing her role admirably. “You were in her class, Karen. Do you remember the story?”

  “Like it was yesterday,” she replied. “And just like the song—all my troubles seemed so far away.” She smiled sadly. “Jenny was my best friend and Jesse Sutcliffe killed her.”

  Chapter Six

  HELEN TRIED to gauge Josie’s reaction out of the corner of her eye. She was barely managing to control hers.

  “It was my understanding that the police cleared him of suspicion,” Josie said calmly. “Maybe I’m misremembering what happened.”

  “Oh, they cleared him, but he did it all right. Jenny and I landed jobs as lifeguards that summer, which was just about the coolest job a teen could have. She was so beautiful. All the guys wanted to go out with her. She could’ve had her pick. No one could understand why she settled for Jesse Sutcliffe.”

  “What was wrong with him?” Helen examined Jesse’s high school photo. “He’s a good-looking boy.” Long dark hair, broody dark eyes, full mouth and sensitive brow—yes, Helen could see the attraction for a seventeen-year-old girl.

  “We’re not allowed to say anything is wrong with a student nowadays, but back then, we’d have said Sutcliffe was a social misfit. He wouldn’t make eye contact. I remember that. Not friendly at all and Jenny was so sweet and bubbly! He never said hello to me in the halls—so rude. It doesn’t sound like much but we know a lot more about anti-social behaviour today. It’s a huge red flag.” Karen shook her head. “I told her he was bad news. She didn’t listen and look what happened.”

  “Why do you think Jesse Sutcliffe had something to do with her death?”

  Karen appeared mildly distressed, as though she wasn’t she should tell them. “This isn’t proof of anything, okay? It’s just something that happened. My locker was close to Jenny’s and one day I got to school and the words ‘Die Bitch’ were painted on her locker in red poster paint. Jesse was into art in high school.” She paused. “And that’s not all. We had summer jobs that year as lifeguards. One day I got to the pool just as Jenny was changing into her swimsuit and I saw bruises on her lower back and stomach. I was really shocked to see something like that. I asked her about them and she said ‘oh, Jesse did that.’ Apparently, he was wild with jealousy after their break-up and became violent.”

  Helen exchanged a glance with Josie. “Did you tell the police about this?”

  “I didn’t think it was connected at the time, and now—well, I wouldn’t want to make his life worse than it already is. Josie and I belong to the Women’s Auxiliary at the church,” she explained to Helen. “We bring food and clothes to the homeless living near the tracks. Jesse is one of them. I’ve seen him from time to time. He might not be behind bars, but he’s paying the price for what he did.”

  “Have you ever talked to him about that night?”

  Karen leaned in. “No, but I think he knows that I know something. I was walking home from work a few years ago and I felt a presence behind me. I turned and there was a man with a hoodie pulled down over the top part of his face. He hurried his steps to catch up and then he walked beside me for several minutes, really close. I asked him what he wanted and he just smiled.” Karen shuddered. “I’m sure it was Jesse.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “To intimidate me. The fact of the matter is, as close as I was to Jenny, I would never go to the police. Let sleeping dogs lie. We have to forgive and move on.”

  As Helen followed Josephine and Karen back up the stairs, she wondered at Karen Haggerty’s willingness to forgive and was mystified by it. If she knew the boy who had strangled her best friend was living in the same town as her, she doubted she could move on until he was caught and punished.

  Two ways of thinking and neither of them wrong. For all of Helen’s high-mindedness, she may have to accept the fact that Jenny’s killer would never be brought to justice and Karen’s philosophical acceptance was the only way to peace.

  ✽✽✽

  THE SUN was stopped at chilly noontide when the group met in the Crown and Thistle for lunch. The restaurant and pub on Queen Street was nearly empty. The pub’s usual clientele ate lunch at their desks and wouldn’t file in until after five. A few university students on a break from regular classes were the only other customers.

  Avery slipped into a booth big enough to hold them all. Elliot claimed the opposite bench. Drink orders were placed all around with no one opting for coffee. Everyone felt the need for something stronger after a morning of chasing a murderer.

  “It’s one thing to imagine solving a crime,” Avery said. “It’s another to actually do it.”

  In addition to a large glass of Pinot Grigio, she ordered a basket of onion rings. To hell with her waistline, she needed deep fried food. The idea that Jenny Blake’s murder could have been a ritual killing had unnerved her. Elliot had dismissed the idea, but Avery wasn’t so sure.

  “Before we go any further,” Dennis said, hunching over his glass of beer, “we should ask ourselves if we’re opening a Pandora’s Box here. Poking around, asking questions, getting people thinking about things and remembering things they’d put out of their minds long ago—could get someone hurt, or worse.”

  “You mean there could be another murder?”

  Hector answered Josie’s question. “It’s a possibility. Powerful people could be involved, people with a lot to lose. We’re not psychologists, but in our professions we learned to anticipate trouble and read the signs. Dennis and I talked to Jesse Sutcliffe and we came to the same conclusion. He’s not our killer.”

  “Which means someone else is,” said Dennis, “and we have the name of a possible suspect. He’s the guy she was dating at the time—Duncan Carmichael.”

  “The councillor?”

  “The very same.”

  Josie elbowed Helen who was sitting next to her. “We have his photo from the yearbook,” she cried. “Give me a minute to find it ... there he is.” She held up an image of a blonde, handsome teenage boy. “I give you Duncan Carmichael, circa 1975.”

  Everyone leaned forward to get a better look, except Elliot.

  Dennis and Hector gave them a brief rundown of what they had learned from Jesse Sutcliffe about the night Jenny died and why they thought he was innocent. “She called him in tears. She was at a party and obviously something happened to upset her. Jesse says he went to the house to find her because he had a bad feeling.”

  “Ex-boyfriend wants to play hero,” Hector put in.

  Dennis nodded. “Exactly. When he looked in at the party, Jenny wasn’t there but a bunch of kids were doing The Hustle in the living room. It was too specific a detail to be false. I believe he was there which meant he wasn’t at the Abbey murdering Jenny.”

  Helen and Josie shared a look. “Where was the party?” They both asked at once.

  “The Haggerty house. It’s kitty corner to the Abbey.”

  “Karen Haggerty told us she was into learning The Hustle back in 1975 and if the party was at her house, it’s a safe bet Jesse wasn’t lying about the song choice. But she told us something else—something that may change your mind about Jesse Sutcliffe’s innocence.”

  “He was beating her,” Josephine said. “According to Karen, Jenny was very popular with the boys and Jesse didn’t like that. There were threats painted on her locker and Karen saw the bruising on Jenny’s back.”

  The food arrived, putting the conversation on hold. Avery tucked into her basket of onion rings. She was starved. Breakfast had been a boiled egg and oatmeal in the ongoing battle with the scale. If she had a light dinner,
there was nothing wrong with a few onion rings at lunch.

  Hector and Dennis both ordered chicken wings while Elliot faced down a house salad, dressing on the side. Helen and Josie were sharing a plate of nachos. Beer and wine glasses were replenished. No one was driving.

  Avery bit into a delicious greasy onion ring. Her eyes moved to Elliot Marks who was eating his salad rather fussily, frowning at every forkful as if a leaf of lettuce baffled him.

  “You’re awfully quiet,” she said belligerently. “Why don’t you tell the club what you told me in the Abbey?”

  He looked up with an air of exasperation. “Certainly, but I want to clarify something first. Jesse Sutcliffe stated that the girls were dancing. We can assume he noticed them because he was looking for Jenny. But he also noticed that Jenny’s boyfriend at the time, Duncan Carmichael, wasn’t with the group of boys. So it is safe to assume he turned his attention to that group when he saw Jenny was missing.”

  “What of it?” Helen wiped a smudge of salsa from her chin.

  “Jenny called Jesse from the party—her ex-boyfriend. She wouldn’t do that unless the problem she was having had to do with her current boyfriend. Something went very wrong between her and Duncan Carmichael. My guess is she told Jesse what it was. When he showed up at the party and found her missing, he automatically scanned the room for the culprit—Duncan.”

  They each of them exchanged a look of astonishment.

  Hector shook his head ruefully. “That call bothered me and I couldn’t figure out why. But now we have a new problem. Why would Jenny call the ex who was beating her?”

  “And she was at her best friend’s house—Karen Haggerty. Why wouldn’t she turn to her if she was upset? We only have Jesse Sutcliffe’s word for it that she called him. I don’t imagine the phone company would have records after all these years.” Helen sat up straight. “I just realized something—Karen Haggerty goes by her maiden name. She doesn’t strike me as a feminist. She said she has grandchildren. Was she a single mother?”

  Josephine wiped her mouth on a napkin. “It’s been so long, I think most of us have forgotten that Karen Haggerty was married and divorced in short order. She got pregnant in high school and I gather it was a shotgun wedding. I’m vague on the details. I was living in Toronto and didn’t pay attention to the scandals of the younger St. Ives set. My mother told me about it when I came home on vacation.”

  Dennis chuckled. “That happened to a couple of guys in my school. Boy, how times have changed. Baby or no baby, I wouldn’t want any of my daughters’ boyfriends from high school as a son-in-law. Immature good-for-nothings at that age. Girls have to set their sights higher.”

  “Yes, dear,” Helen said repressively. She turned to Josie. “Who was the father of her baby? I remember she said she was dating the most popular boy in high school.” Helen opened her phone again and scrolled through the images of the St. Ives High School 1975 yearbook.

  “Karen said those were the happiest days of her life.” Josie’s steel grey head tilted to one side. “She said at the time that she thought their love would never die. That isn’t something a teenage girl thinks when she’s facing an unplanned pregnancy. I think we’re talking about two different fellows.”

  “Here’s the bio about her—‘Special K plans to take over the world one bake sale at a time as she has no discernable life skills. Friends say her obsession with DC is largely responsible for her lousy grade point average and not the fact that she is a blonde.’” Helen looked up from the screen. “Who is DC?”

  “Duncan Carmichael,” Elliot said, inspecting his salad. “Karen Haggerty was in love with Duncan Carmichael in 1975.”

  “How do you know that?” Avery demanded.

  “She said she was dating the most popular boy in school. Duncan Carmichael was the most popular boy in St. Ives High School in 1975. Check the yearbook. I think you’ll find that I’m right. Karen Haggerty was in love with Duncan Carmichael who was her boyfriend until Jenny Blake came along. That gives her a motive for murder.”

  Avery held up her hands. “Hold it. Hold on. Before you lead us down another rabbit hole, tell everyone what you told me at the Abbey. Tell them, Elliot. You have a bigger stake in this then you’ve let on. You formed this club for a reason—a personal reason. Tell them.”

  He set down his fork with a sigh. “You’ve set them up for a disappointment, Mrs Holmes, promising deep dark secrets. My motives are not that interesting or sinister.”

  “But you have an ulterior motive for placing that ad and bringing us all together.” Hector wiped his hands on a napkin. “I’d like to hear it.”

  Elliot shrugged acquiescence. “Jenny Blake was my babysitter that summer. I was ten-years-old. She would come to our house after the pool closed, make me dinner and keep me company until my mother got home at ten.” He delivered this bombshell as if it were the most banal piece of news in the world.

  “What?” Helen’s shock expressed what they were all feeling. “You lived in St. Ives? You knew the victim? That’s something we should’ve known from the start, Elliot,” she said severely. “From the start.”

  “I apologize. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want my personal interest in this case to colour your judgement or to pressure you into participating. That is all. Nothing nefarious. I was very ill that summer.” He lifted up his fork again. “I had a hole in my heart from a severe case of strep throat I’d contracted in childhood. I was frequently sick as a child. In the summer of 1975, I was felled by pneumonia and confined to my bed for the duration. My mother worked from two pm until ten pm and didn’t like to leave me alone at night. After a few false starts, Jenny Blake was hired. It was a terrible job for a teenager. I expected she would do what the others did—load me up with comics and television and spend the evening talking on the phone to her friends. I was lonely, too smart for my age and virtually friendless.” Elliot paused. “That is inaccurate. I had no friends. Jenny Blake, for one wonderful summer, was my friend.”

  “You fell in love with her,” Hector murmured.

  “I suppose I did. I was ten. I was in love as much as a ten-year-old can be in love.”

  “Tell us everything,” Avery said gently. “Tell us how you knew she was killed in the sanctuary ruin behind the Abbey.”

  “I knew and I didn’t know. That’s why I needed to see the site. It was important to be certain because the whole of Sutcliffe’s guilt or innocence hangs in the balance. Her body was found on the Abbey grounds, but where exactly? As soon as I saw the ruins, I felt certain she was murdered on that spot or very close to it. Sutcliffe confirmed my hypothesis when he said he found her on the stone table and her body was still warm.”

  “You had a hunch.” Avery popped an onion ring into her mouth.

  “I had a theory,” he corrected. “Sutcliffe said he came looking for Jenny about ten minutes after she called, which would be around ten-forty. The coroner narrowed time of death to between ten-thirty and eleven-fifteen. Jesse called the police from a phone booth on the corner at five minutes to eleven. You see the problem. If there was another killer, how did Sutcliffe miss seeing him or her? He doesn’t have an alibi, he had a motive, and his story doesn’t add up.”

  “He told us she looked like she was asleep. I don’t know why, but that struck me hard. I don’t believe he’s our guy,” Dennis said firmly.

  Hector agreed. “Sutcliffe’s not a killer. He’s broken but not from a guilty conscience. It’s the presumption of guilt that’s destroying him. It’s like a sickness that never goes away.”

  “Then we have to clear him,” Josie said solidly. “We have to do what the murder club was formed to do—clear his name and find Jenny’s killer.”

  Chapter Seven

  AVERY WASN’T going to let Elliot off the hook that easily. “Tell us the rest of it,” she urged him. “I asked you but you avoided giving me a straight answer. How did you know she was strangled?”

  “Her parents told me.” Elliot’s brow furr
owed. His fork dangled between his fingers, a tomato wedge speared on its tines. “At the end of the summer, my mother was offered a promotion in Edmonton. We moved away but I never forgot Jenny Blake and what happened to her. When I was eleven, I took the leap and decided to write her parents and tell them how much she meant to me. Mr and Mrs Blake returned my letter with a black-edged card, thanking me, and went on to say that they were trying to forgive the person who strangled and I should do the same.”

  “I’m sorry.” Josie squeezed his hand comfortingly.

  He waved off the sentiment. “I was a child. What I felt was nothing compared to what her parents suffered. For years, I put it out of my mind. I assumed they had caught the killer believing, as a child does, in the wheels of justice. A few years ago, I discovered the case had never been solved.”

  “Is that what brought you back to St. Ives?”

  “Among other things. I was happy here. As happy as a sick lonely boy can be. And the Abercrombie place captured my imagination. It was an impulse buy,” he said apologetically. “I’m prone to those.”

  “It’s a money pit,” Dennis grunted. “I appreciate the back story and clearing up why you placed an advertisement for murder—a clever pitch, by the way—but I’m not convinced Jesse Sutcliffe killed Jenny Blake. There was no time to commit the crime and no motive that I can see. He came to rescue her from the real killer—Duncan Carmichael.”

  “But he was too late,” Elliot said musingly. He turned his piercing gaze on Hector. “Do you agree with that hypothesis?”

  Hector nodded. “I do.”

  Elliot sat back. A deep frown creased his forehead. “The obvious suspect is Jesse Sutcliffe and the obvious suspect is usually the right one, contrary to what the mystery books say. We don’t know the murder weapon. Cause of death was strangulation but the item used was never identified. According to the autopsy report there were unusual marks on her neck. Given the limited resources of the St. Ives PD, the weapon will likely remain a mystery.”