The K Handshape

by Maureen Jennings

  By now he was back to his dispassionate, professional voice, but you didn’t have to be Dr. Phil to see behind the words. Giving birth to what was seen as a defective child had broken the marriage apart.

  “I was very busy establishing myself as the pre-eminent forensic psychiatrist in the country and I will admit I was only too happy to escape into my work to avoid the increasing tensions at home. Deidre was a bright child but neither Loretta nor I knew what to do with her. I tried learning sign language but I didn’t get very far and Loretta refused to do it at all, insisting that Deidre learn to read lips and to speak. Which she did and very well. Loretta wanted to send her away to a special school for the deaf, and after we had considered the options, I agreed it would be the best thing for her.”

  We’d all been scribbling notes and he waited for us to catch up.

  “Deidre has essentially been in residential schools most of her life. She went to Gallaudet University in the States and that’s where she became what I’d have to call militant. And I mean fiercely so. Deaf Culture is equal to and as good as the hearing culture is the mantra. She stopped reading lips and refused to use her voice other than to make noises. It’s all sign language for them.” He pinched his nose again. “You know the scene, I’m sure. Same scenario, different characters. ‘We the blankety, blank, totally reject the oppression foisted upon us for decades by the blankety blank, and we insist on our rights and privileges the same as everybody else.’ We can fill in the blanks, you can say black people, Native, labour, women. Personally I’m all for equality but I resent being held to ransom or threatened if I don’t comply. One of Deidre’s classmates heard she could have a cochlear implant that would restore her hearing loss almost completely and the girl was literally spat at in the cafeteria when she made the mistake of telling people what she was thinking. She was called a traitor, a defector to the hearing world.” He looked around the table. “I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. Fanatics. Their teaching fell on fertile soil and when Deidre graduated she was into it. She wouldn’t communicate with me except by sign language, which I didn’t understand, so we didn’t communicate.” Another pause. He straightened his papers. “Then shortly after she graduated, she wrote to me and told me she was pregnant. She also said that the father was a deaf man and that she had deliberately worked the odds to have a deaf child. Which is what happened. Joy, her daughter, has the same affliction. I admit I was furious. It’s one thing to stomp around demanding your rights; it’s another to deliberately choose to inflict your handicap on your child. You’re shutting them out from one of the most sublime experiences we godforsaken humans can have.”

  His voice was filled with both anger and anguish. Leo was notorious in the office for his dedication to operatic music. He listened to it on his headphones in his office, but sometimes the sounds would leak out, and if you went in to talk to him, you’d find him, expression rapt, swaying and waving his hands like a conductor in time to the music. He let slip one day that he was part of a music group that put on opera excerpts once a year. I could understand how it would have been so hard for him to have a child who would never be able to share that passion with him and then to have her deliberately engineer a deaf grandchild.

  He went on.

  “This was a rare instance when Loretta and I were in agreement. She wanted Deidre to have an abortion but she flatly refused. She wouldn’t tell us the name of the father, who she actually referred to as the sperm donor, and as far as I know from Nora, there has been no man involved in Joy’s life at all. Now, here comes the crunch. About six months after Joy was born, totally deaf as planned, the story hit the newspapers and media. I don’t know how it got out but it caused quite a stir. Deidre received a lot of hate mail.”

  He paused to have a drink of coffee.

  “You said you haven’t seen her since Christmas?” asked Katherine.

  “That’s right. I dropped in on Christmas Day with my gifts as I’ve done each year since Joy was born. It wasn’t a good meeting. We had a row, if you can call it that when one person is yelling words the other can’t understand and the other is waving her hands about and screaming incomprehensible noises. I’m not even sure what I communicated to get Deidre so angry with me except that I would like to have a relationship with my only grandchild.” He stopped again, lost momentarily in his painful memories. “Anyway that was that. She wouldn’t answer my messages or my emails. Since then, I have been cut off completely.”

  “Where is Loretta now?” asked Jamie.

  “In the Yukon. I have emailed her and I assume she will come back as soon as she can. Deidre, by the way, changed her name after she graduated. She took her mother’s name of Larsen. I don’t know if Dee was in touch with her mother or not. She and I do not communicate either.” He fidgeted with his papers. “I should add I have another son from my first marriage. He lives in Barrie. His name is Sigmund.” He grimaced. “He hasn’t forgiven me for that one and calls himself Sig. To my knowledge his relationship with his half-sister is virtually non-existent.”

  He looked over at Katherine, who nodded. “Thank you, Leo. Now let’s have a look at the letter again. Chris, would you say male or female?”

  I had a brief study of the note. “It’s hard to tell with this short piece but the writing is quite bold and sprawling; more significantly, the tone is peremptory, no softening words. It doesn’t say, ‘Please, don’t be late,’ which a woman might do. I’d go for a male.”

  “Anybody else?”

  The others agreed with me, even David who often disagreed on principle.

  “What else?”

  “The writer is replying to a previous letter, presumably from Deidre. The ‘okay’ isn’t a question; it’s a statement. Otherwise it would follow after ‘monument.’ ‘I’ll meet you at the monument, okay?’ She must have said something like: ‘Can we meet on such and such a day?’ The answer is ‘Okay.’ He suggests the location, no asking. He’s calling the shots. ‘11:00’ supports my first statement. Deidre has already suggested a time so he doesn’t have to specify morning or evening or which day. He’s responding. He also doesn’t say which monument, which suggests they both know what he’s referring to, which in turn definitely points to a previous acquaintance. And then the scold, ‘Don’t be late, I won’t wait.’ Lots of irritation in those lines.”

  “She was chronically late,” interjected Leo. “I’ve not known her to be on time once. It was infuriating.”

  “That’s important to know,” I went on. “It reinforces the possibility that he knew her well enough to have experienced the problem.”

  “You say you found the note in the car,” said Katherine.

  Leo took up the story once more. “It was slightly crumpled up but quite dry. No envelope. It could have been sent through the mail, of course, and she didn’t have the envelope with her, but I have the feeling it was left on the car. Would you agree, Chris?”

  “I would. It’s written in pencil and torn out of a pocket-sized notebook. That suggests to me a spur-of-the-moment thing.”

  “But if it was on her windshield, she’d hardly drive to the casino with it there, so it was placed on the car either before she left the house or while it was parked at the casino,” said Ray. “Do you know where she usually parked her car?”

  “She had street parking.”

  “Don’t forget, Doctor Forgach said it was dry,” interjected David. “And it had been raining most of Tuesday evening if I remember properly. Anybody know when it started?”

  I took that up. “I do. I walk dogs for the Humane Society and I’d just got them back when it began to pour down. I’d say that was just before six o’clock. The afternoon was overcast but no rain. So either she took the note to her car after receiving it in the mail — we can ask Nora about that — or it was left on her windshield before it started raining, meaning she got it before six.”

  “Let’s go over this so far,” said Katherine. “Deidre has some sort of correspondence with a
person she knows in which she proposes a meeting at 11:00 p.m. Given that we’ve been told Tuesday is her only night out, let’s assume she suggests Tuesday and that she was intending to meet this person after she had been at the casino. We don’t know if that communication happened by snail mail or email. Did she use text messaging, Leo?”

  “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 w
ho 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.