The K Handshape (8 page)

“I have no idea. Not to me she didn’t. I did not search her, er, her body but I didn’t see any sign of a cellphone or a purse. I gave her a cellphone when Joy was born so I would assume she had it with her. I can give you her number.”

Katherine went on. “I’ll pass that on to Ed Chaffey. Eleven o’clock at night is late for a get-together and the monument is hardly cosy. However, on a cold November night the park was likely to be deserted. Was the meeting arranged there for the purpose of secrecy?”

“Not necessarily,” interjected David. “It could simply have been a place they were both familiar with and that was private, as opposed to secret.”

“Point taken. Either way, does that then mean the writer of the note is her killer? And if he is, why is he?”

“I’d say the casino is a good place to start,” said Ray. “We should have a look at the security tapes first and have Ed’s guys check the buses and taxis. Perhaps she came back into town on the bus after she found she had a flat tire. Leo, do you know if she’s a member of CAA?”

“Yes. I pay for it.”

In spite of having been cut out of his daughter’s life, Leo seemed to have been a good dad in the financial sense.

“We’ll check to see if she did make a call but it doesn’t seem like it,” said Katherine. “Now we don’t know if she communicated with her rendezvous via phone. ‘I’m on my way, etc. etc.’”

“I’d guess not,” I said. “If they were able to text message, why leave a note?”

“Good point. So she comes out of the casino, sees the flat — we’ll know soon enough what caused that. She didn’t call for help, which again reinforces our idea that the appointment was for eleven o’clock last night. She didn’t have time. So let’s say she got into town by bus or taxi or…”

“Somebody gave her a lift,” David finished for her.

“Exactly. If she did take a bus, she could have easily walked to the park from the terminal for her meeting. In which case, though, she would certainly have got there way past eleven. And if the writer of the letter meant what he said, he would have left. Even if she took a taxi, she would have been pushing it.” Katherine tapped her fingers on the table. “We don’t even know at this point where the murder occurred. Out on the pier seems far too public. If she knew her assailant she might have been standing out there with him and say there was some kind of quarrel. The scarf was tied at the back which tells us that her assailant was behind her…”

“It was her own scarf,” said Leo. “It was a birthday gift from her mother.”

Katherine paused to take a drink of coffee. I could imagine what she was thinking. Maybe it was a mistake to have allowed Leo to be present. It was very hard to maintain objectivity.

“All right then. We can probably assume she was wearing the scarf. She might have been running away from her assailant. Regardless, there would have been a struggle.”

I could see there was a quick, almost involuntary lowering of heads. Nobody wanted to dwell on what that meant. We were all conversant with the mechanics of strangulation, including Leo.

Katherine took a quick check of Leo and continued. “She is overcome, then she is lowered to the ground. It would take several minutes to gather the stones and fill her pockets, so once again there is a great risk here of being seen.”

Jamie interjected. “I’d say she was killed somewhere else, possibly in a vehicle, and then brought to the pier, stones stuffed in her pockets, and she was simply dump… er, rolled over the side into the lake.”

He was trying to be sensitive to Leo’s feelings but it was impossible to completely soften the facts of what had happened. Leo was sitting quite still and his expression was impassive but I thought every word was hitting him like a blow. Katherine noticed it too.

“It’s obvious we need more evidence. Forensics have promised to be as fast as they can be and Ed has all his men out doing house-to-house. He’s going to ask for reinforcements from Barrie. When all that starts coming in, we should have a clearer picture. In the meantime, Leo, I think you should go home and get some rest. I promise I’ll keep you informed every step of the way.”

I expected him to protest but he didn’t. He got unsteadily to his feet.

“I’ll leave the note here for the forensic lab.” He swallowed hard. “Thanks everybody. I, er,” he stumbled over his words, “I want you to know I do appreciate your support.”

Underneath the tetchiness, Dr. Leo Forgach was a very lonely man.

CHAPTER NINE

Leo picked up his briefcase and headed for the door. Then he turned back to Katherine.

“I wonder if you would mind if I borrowed Christine? I…” His voice tailed off. “I took a cab here and my car is still at the park… If she’s willing, that is.”

Katherine looked over at me, eyebrows raised. “All right with you, Christine? We can’t do much more here at the moment.”

“Sure.”

“I’ll meet you in the lobby,” he said and shot away. It must have been hard for him to sit still as long as he had. His agitation demanded he move and move fast.

I got my outdoor things and hurried outside to the parking lot. Leo was pacing up and down. His dapper cashmere overcoat had been replaced by a scruffy blue raincoat and he was wearing a black wool toque, clothes that yesterday I would never have believed I’d see him in. I wished there was some way I could soothe his hurt, but there wasn’t.

He waited impatiently for me to unlock the car.

“I’d like to go to the place Deidre worked. I should tell them what has happened. They won’t know.”

I let him into the car and got in myself.

“Geez, Leo, should you be the one to do that?”

“Why not? I know she has a couple of friends who also work there. They might be able to help us.”

I groaned to myself, realizing what he was up to. I headed out of the lot and turned onto Memorial Drive.

“Leo, why did you ask for me to come with you?”

He refused to look at me but I could see him clenching his teeth. “Frankly because I need a witness and you’re a woman. They’ll open up to you whereas they might not with me.”

I felt like shaking him, sympathy temporarily gone. I couldn’t coddle him; it was doing him no favours. I pulled over to the side of the road and stopped the car. It was pelting down now and cars swished past, spraying the windshield so we were soon closed inside a cocoon of wet glass that we couldn’t see out of.

“Look, Leo. You are in danger of compromising this investigation. When we catch the bastard who killed your daughter, we have to have a clean case. You cannot be directly involved.”

This time he did look at me. His eyes were cold and hard.

“All I’m proposing doing is giving my daughter’s friends the courtesy of telling them
myself
what has happened. Any parent would do the same.”

“Cut it out, Leo! You can’t pretend this is an ordinary situation. It’s not. I repeat. You could compromise the case.” I let that sit for a minute, then I turned on the wipers. “I’m going to take you to your apartment. I will go myself and talk to Deidre’s friends and I promise I will come back and report to you.”

He reached for the door handle. “I can get a taxi. You can’t stop me from doing that.”

“I can call Ed Chaffey and have you prevented from entering the premises. Please don’t make me do that, Leo. It will be embarrassing for everybody, and I repeat, the absolute last thing we want is to contaminate the investigation.”

He slumped back in the seat and sat like that with his eyes closed. The windows were completely fogged over. I waited him out.

“Very well. Do you know who the friends are?”

“Yes. Nora gave me two names.”

“Who are they?”

“Why do you want to know?”

He blinked. “They were part of Deedee’s life. It comforts me to have their names.”

I could see how hard it was for him to reveal this much vulnerability.

“One of them is Jessica Manolo; the other is Hannah Silverstein.”

He nodded. “I recognize the names. They graduated from university together … I saw the class list — she didn’t invite me.”

I started the engine and headed for his condominium. As I was about to make a turn onto Barrie Road, he sat forward.

“I need to walk, Chris. Let me out here. I promise I won’t interfere.”

I had no alternative but to trust him and I thought he’d be all right. I let him out and proceeded on to Lachlie Street. I could see him in my rear-view mirror, a small man hunched up against the rain, moving slowly and stiffly as if he’d had the breath knocked out of him and wasn’t sure he had regained use of his limbs.

Like a lot of smaller associations dotted around the city, the OHHA had taken over a Victorian-era mansion which had once housed an affluent family with numerous offspring and several servants. It was a large, well-proportioned, red-brick house with gables, chimneys, and gracious windows. There was a striped canopy from the front door to the street and two workmen, muffled up against the cold, were digging up the path with jackhammers. They didn’t seem to notice my approach and I walked around them carefully to get to the door, only to read a sign that told me, somewhat redundantly, that work was in progress and to watch my step. I pushed open the heavy wooden door and went inside to what had once been the gracious foyer of the old house. An enormous crystal chandelier, which looked original, blazed down warm, welcome light on this grey day. The floor was marble and the walls were panelled in oak. There had to be some concession to the house’s present-day function, however, and one chunk of the space had been sectioned off by glass panelling, and behind that was a desk where a young woman was sitting. She saw me and smiled. I could tell she said, “Can I help you?” but the noise of the jackhammer outside drowned out her words. I took my ID out of my purse and held it up to her and shouted.

“Detective Sergeant Morris, I’d like to speak to the supervisor, please.”

She glanced at the card, looked a little alarmed, and held up one finger, indicating I should wait a moment while she punched in a code on the telephone. I noticed she was wearing a hearing aid, tucked behind her ear. She looked to be in her early twenties, pretty, with long fair hair and blue eyes. I wondered with some dread if she was one of the good friends that I would soon be delivering such bad news to.

The jackhammer stopped abruptly and at the same time a door behind the reception desk opened and a woman came out. She was middle-aged, with auburn hair, well-hennaed, and a full round figure. She came straight around the partition.

“Hello, I’m Mrs. Helen Scott. How can I help you?”

The jackhammers began again, making conversation impossible. I saw the girl fiddle with her hearing aid, no doubt switching it off against the din. She was watching us curiously.

The supervisor gesticulated to me to follow her and she led me to her office where she closed the door behind us and somewhat muted the noise.

“Sorry about the row, we’ve had to take up the old paving out front. It was collapsing.”

She faced me directly when she spoke and enunciated distinctly. She took a seat behind the desk and I perched myself on one of the chairs in front. She didn’t seem to be hard of hearing and as far as I could see she didn’t have a hearing aid.

“I’ve come about Deidre Larsen. I’m afraid I have bad news…”

I told her what had happened. There isn’t any way to soften the impact of news like that and she gasped and covered her mouth with her hands.

“I can’t believe it. That is dreadful. Absolutely dreadful. She was a lovely young woman. Very capable and well-liked. Oh, I can hardly believe it.”

Tears were spilling unheeded over her hands. There was a box of tissues on her desk and I got up and handed it to her. It took a while before she was sufficiently composed to continue.

“You will be required to give a statement later to the police, Mrs. Scott, but right now I am not here in a formal capacity, more as a representative of her father, Dr. Forgach. He wanted Deidre’s friends to be told personally.”

“Of course.”

“I am interested in speaking to the two young women who I understand were Deidre’s particular friends. Jessica Manolo and Hannah Silverstein.”

“Of course. Jessica is the person on the reception desk.” She checked her watch. “Hannah should be coming in shortly. I … er, sorry, I’m having trouble getting my thoughts together. What would be the best way to go about this? Hannah is deaf and communicates through sign language. Jessica has some hearing, but I could act as interpreter.”

“I would appreciate that. I will need to ask them questions.”

She stood up and then leaned for a moment against her desk. “Oh dear, my legs are quite shaky. This has been a most dreadful shock.”

I can’t tell you how much I hated this part of my job. Helen Scott was a decent middle-class woman and nothing like this had ever entered her life before.

“Do you want to sit for a moment?”

“No, I’ll be all right. I’ll get Jessica.”

She left and I went over to the window. The office was pleasantly furnished in light oak and one half of a deep bay window let in as much light as was on tap. Perhaps in its previous life it had been part of the drawing room, which had been rather crudely severed by a dividing wall. Outside, the two workmen were taking a smoke break, sitting on a concrete planter near the door. I considered sending them away so we could have some easier conversation, but I realized the noise wasn’t going to make any difference to the young women. The door opened and Mrs. Scott ushered in the blonde girl. Behind her was a shorter, dark-haired girl who still had her outdoor clothes on.

“Hannah has just arrived.”

She indicated the other two chairs in front of the desk and they both sat down. Hannah shoved back the hood of her raincoat. She wore glasses and they had misted over so she removed them and wiped them off on the edge of her sleeve. Mrs. Scott was looking quite distraught and the two young women stared at her, curiously. She pointed at me, made a sort of chopping gesture, one hand on the other, then made some rapid finger signs. At the same time she said out loud, “This is Sergeant Morris from the OPP. I’m afraid she has brought some very bad news.”