Blue Moon (17 page)

Sergeant Preston, placing a handkerchief over his face, informed my mother that he and Wood would examine the suitcase and its contents at the police station. There, in the presence of Deadman, the cement was chipped away. Among the contents was a blue leatherette zippered shopping bag. When the bag was unzipped, the police found the decomposed body of my son, clad in the tiny sweater coat I had knitted for him.

Having made this discovery, Wood and Preston decided to pay a further visit to Rosslyn Avenue, where they discovered a locker to which my father on their previous visit had claimed to have lost the key. When he was informed that the lock would be forced, he presented them with the missing key. Inside were two shotguns, a deer rifle, a .22 rifle and a hunting knife. In a brown hunting bag was $4,400 in cash. In the cellar, an axe and an eighteen-inch carpenter's strip saw were hanging on the wall; on a small nearby table was a black-handled butcher knife with grease on its fifteen-inch blade, “as if, “Wood observed, “meat or something had recently been cut with it.”

According to Wood, however, the most intriguing piece of evidence was the book—the August 5, 1944 issue of
Famous Detective Stories
—which he found on my father's bedside table. It contained this narrative, which the police red-pencilled:

Nearby were the tools of Dr. Zimmerly's barbaric surgery: a dull saw, a knife with blood dried on it, some smaller knives, none of which was clean, some bottles filled with narcotics, and a number of filthy rags. The old doctor lost no time in going to his gory chore. One by one he cut away the legs, the arms, the head. He worked like a butcher—first the knife, then the saw. The floor was wet with new blood before he finally finished. The dull sun of a new day had routed the night of horror before the bloody job was completed.

Wood did not have to be a genius to interpret this intriguing literary clue. Rather than a paucity of suspects, he now had two. The complication was that my father and Bohozuk were sworn enemies who never would have conspired to kill John Dick. Not a person to look gift horses in the mouth, Wood did not seem to consider that his case had quickly taken some extremely easy curves. Why had my mother volunteered information so fulsomely? Why was the cash at my father's house so accessible? Why was the book containing a description of a similar crime conveniently placed in his bedroom?

My mother informed me late on the same Thursday afternoon of the true circumstances surrounding the death of Peter David a year and a half earlier. My father had strangled the baby and later encased the baby in cement. I was in shock, unable to take anything in. She explained that the suitcase must have been at Rosslyn Avenue and then moved to Carrick Street by my father on the Wednesday before she discovered him in the house. She was also certain—based on what she had heard about the discoveries at father's house—that the
murder of John Dick had taken place there. Perhaps my father had been one of the executioners? At the very least, she was convinced, he had been following orders.

Throughout her ramblings, my mother paid no attention to the obvious fact I was fixated on the true circumstances of the baby's death. I simply could not process the information and kept stumbling back to that irrevocable fact. “You knew all along … you planned it … you're a horrible old witch.” In her matter-of-fact way, Mother understood everything I was saying, but this was not a topic for discussion.

“Keep your voice down. I have received instructions from the man who ordered everything. You must now inform the police that you did not meet Mr. Romanelli on the Mountain—that Bill told you what happened. You must confess merely to having assisted in the disposal of John Dick's face and limbs.”

“Why should I do anything to help you?”

“Simple, my girl. Your precious Bill Bohozuk's life is still under threat, and you can revenge yourself on your father. If the police have too many suspects and too many circumstantial details, they'll never convict anyone of Dick's murder. Not even you. But you can blacken your father's name—and you can save Bohozuk.”

In a whisper, she continued: “You must also tell the police that Bill killed the baby. To further confuse them.”

On Friday, March 22, a dull, rainy late winter day, John's funeral was held at the United Mennonite Church in Vineland. According to the
Spectator,
“Dick's aged mother and his two sisters followed the flower-covered plain grey casket as the remains of the murder victim were carried to their last resting place in Vineland Cemetery.” Although the authorities told me I could attend, I declined on the grounds I was unwell. Later that day, following Mother's instructions, I made my third statement to the police.

These were the circumstances that led to the contradictory accounts I gave to the police. All of a sudden, within six days, the police had two corpses and an abundance of clues that cancelled each other out. Utterly confused, the police charged both my father and Bohozuk with killing John Dick. Now three people had somehow conspired to kill the same man.

The murder of the baby was ascribed to my former lover. As instructed, I told the police I had taken a taxi from the hospital to the Royal Connaught Hotel, where I had arranged to meet Bohozuk. We got into his car, whereupon he said: “I will get rid of the little bastard,” and he proceeded to strangle it by knotting a blanket around its neck. He then pushed the corpse into a small zipper bag and told me: “Here's the brat. I can't get rid of it until we start rowing in the spring.” I took the bag home, where my father encased the body in cement.

Two gruesome murders. The only common dominator in the complicated mathematics the police were forced to employ was Evelyn Dick.
Cherchez femme.
Yet, behind the death of John Dick and the story of Bohozuk's involvement with the death of the baby resided a brilliant legal intellect.

That mastermind had sent me, I now realize, a coded warning. Many years earlier, in October 1905, three lads from Hamilton's north end hiked up the Mountain to search the farmlands on the brow for chestnuts. At Limestone Ridge, they walked into a clump of hickory trees. Almost at once, they noticed a woman's boot sticking out from beneath a pile of leaves. A bit later, under a heap of thorn bush, they came upon the body of a woman, her head lying in a pool of blood. She had been shot in the head with a .32-calibre pistol just below the right ear. A handkerchief was stuffed in her mouth. Fashionably dressed in clothing available only in the States, she was a few months pregnant. The body of Miss X was taken to the morgue at Blanchard & Son, a funeral parlour, in downtown Hamilton. Before the woman was buried, more than ten thousand people streamed through that establishment to view her. She was never identified, her murderer never discovered. The
Spectator
was certain she was a prostitute. A man in Flint, Michigan eventually fessed up but recanted the following day, claiming to have been under the influence of drugs when he made his confession.

To this day, I am convinced that the murder of John Dick was contrived to bear similarities to Miss X's gruesome death. I had been spared—the parallel circumstances proclaimed—and might wish to take heed. The fact that John's huge penis was his only limb to survive was the perfect ritualistic warning to a prostitute who, like all members of her calling, earned her bread and butter servicing that part of the male anatomy. The mastermind must have been one of two
clients, well versed in the history of Hamilton. To this day, I am uncertain which of those two clients it was. It had to be Judge X or the distinguished barrister, Mr. Y. They are both still alive. Even in the privacy of my study on this evening in 1999,1 am frightened to write down their names in full.

For the next two weeks, I remained in jail—still held on the charge of vagrancy, a particularly strange charge since I was a property owner who also leased a flat. I cannot recall that time of my stay with any precision and, in this regard, I am not assisted in having my memory prompted by the late Marjorie Freeman Campbell's
Torso
(also published under the slightly less salacious title of
Unholy Matrimony).
Campbell, a native of Hamilton who wound up living in Toronto, became fascinated by all the complicated zigzags of the case and recorded verbatim many of the ensuing proceedings. In 1999, at the age of 79, I do not have instant recall. Part of me does not wish to dredge up the past, another is
compelled to relive it daily. Memory, when filled with guilt and recrimination, is an onerous burden.

Wood and, therefore, Preston had become convinced that my father had murdered John Dick, abetted and assisted by Bohozuk. The evidence pointed in this particular direction, particularly the contents of the arsenal, the heavy traces of blood, and the intriguing episode in the book discovered at Rosslyn Avenue. However, my experience on the Mountain flew completely in the opposite direction, suggesting the murder had been perpetrated there.

If I was lying about my night ride, then another scenario could emerge: Bohozuk, provided with a weapon by my father, had done away with John Dick on the Mountain, returned to Carrick Street where the body was dismembered, drove the body back to the Mountain and disposed of it there. Mr. Romanelli and his companions were unacceptable to Wood's way of thinking; he wanted to be freed from them and, in order to do so, I had to recant their existence. In other words, he wanted me to lie in order to prove the truth he had reached in his deliberations.

On 11 April, having been left to my own devices for almost three weeks, I asked to see Preston. According to him, I greeted him with these words: “When are you going to bring the old man in? My father?”

“Why?” the man of few words rejoined.

“Why? Well, he is in it. He loaned Bohozuk his gun. I saw it.” Then, pausing, I added: “You have got to help me.”

“I am not able to help you. It is up to your lawyer. Is Bohozuk in this thing?”

“Absolutely. What can I do?”

“I cannot answer that. You are putting me on the spot, but if you want to talk, I will sit and listen. Why did you marry John Dick?”

“John was kind and lovable before marriage. He washed the dishes and brought me things hard to get, like soapflakes. After marriage he changed.”

Abruptly, Preston moved the conversation in a new direction, one in which he was trying to eliminate the Italianate element.

“Were you in a barn?”

“No, on a side road.”

“Do you mean to tell me this thing happened on a side road?”

“Sure, you will find some pop bottles and a ginger ale bottle which we left.”

“That would be fine. We might get some fingerprints.”

“Would it help if you found Bohozuk's prints on those bottles?”

“Well, it would certainly back up your story. What would you say if you were asked to go out and show us the spot?”

“With you alone?”

“No, not alone “

“Yes, I'll go. Do you want to go this morning?”

“I don't know. I'll see “

As this conversation ended, Preston handed me two chocolate bars, as a reward for being a co-operative witness. According to Wood and Preston, during the drive that afternoon, I changed the crime scenario completely; under instructions from Bohozuk, I lured John into my car, and the three of us drove up the Mountain. Bill shot John twice, covered the body, drove to Carrick Street, removed the body, and then drove me to the Connaught, where his car was parked.

At this point, the story of the torso murder begins to take on a Marx Brothers surrealist logic. Somehow my father removed the corpse from the garage on Carrick Street and dismembered it on Rosslyn Avenue. The burnings of the limbs took place on both Rosslyn Avenue and Carrick Street. At a later date, the torso was then dumped on the Mountain by Bohozuk and myself. This reconstruction ridiculously touches all possible bases.

This fourth variant was concocted by the detectives, not me. At the conclusion of that trip, I was asked if I would be willing to put this new account into writing. I supposedly agreed, was driven to the Ontario Provincial Police office but then changed my mind. In disgrace, I was returned to the Barton Street Jail.

What is true is that on the following morning I told my lawyer that I had been removed from the jail against my will and, while subjected to severe questioning, had been told a new scenario, to which Wood and Preston attempted to force my assent.

Almost two weeks later, my mother, father and Bill having been arrested for vagrancy, the four of us were presented for arraignment before Magistrate Burbridge. The
Spectator
thought Bill and I made a
handsome couple. He wore a blue suit, blue shirt and a bright tie; I was “smartly dressed” in a fawn, fur-trimmed coat and black pancake beret. My mother's wardrobe—a black seal coat accompanied by a small brown tarn—and my father's—a grey suit—obviously disappointed the observant, fashion-conscious journalist.

Although Wood and Preston had showed no interest in Peter David White, his murder was the first order of business that day. Dr. Deadman described in lurid detail the desiccated body of the baby: his dress, sweater, booties, shirt and the diaper held together by two rusted safety pins. At that point, the proceedings were closed to the public because, under prodding from Bill's lawyer, I was forced to provide a partial list of the citizenry of Hamilton I had kept company with.

“Is it not a fact that the father of that dead baby could have been one of four hundred men in this city?”

“No, not that many.”

“Three hundred then?”

“Well, no.”

“How many then? Tell the court how many men you had sexual intercourse with.”

“A hundred and fifty maybe.”

“One hundred and fifty men, any one of whom could have been the father of the child. Now Mrs. Dick, I want you to name those men for the court right here and now. Who are they?”