The K Handshape

by Maureen Jennings

  “I wish you all the best, Doctor.” his voice was soft and sympathetic but I could see Leo bristle. He wasn’t used to being the object of pity and he didn’t like it.

  “Come on,” I said. “Let’s get back to the office right away. Thank you so much for your help, Mr. Snake.”

  “I’ll take you downstairs.”

  We went out into the other room. Mr. Torvill was nowhere to be seen. The monitors flickered on, people lost their money and their hopes.

  We walked back to the parking lot, not speaking. Deidre’s car had been removed by the forensic guys, but we knew where it had been parked. I saw Leo looking around as if some clue would hit him and set his mind to rest. All that happened was the wind gusted and blew a discarded chocolate wrapper onto his foot. He shook it off angrily. I let him into the car, just as my cellphone rang. It was Katherine. I moved away so I could talk.

  “How’d it go?”

  “Let’s say there were some surprising developments but I’d rather tell you when we come in.”

  “I’ve just had a call from Ed. Good news. We have a sighting on that camper van.”

  “Fantastic. Where?”

  “Over on Colborne Street. It seems to have been an attempted break-in. The resident is an elderly woman, apparently, but she gave an excellent description of the man who was trying to get in her apartment. It could be Zachary Taylor, from what I’ve seen on the DVD. She says a blue and white camper van was parked in the parking lot and she saw it drive away.”

  “Colborne Street is only a couple of blocks from where Deidre lived, isn’t it?”

  “One west and two south. Ed is over there now but he thought you might want to talk to the woman yourself.”

  “I’m there.”

  We disconnected and I went back to the car. I told Leo about the phone call.

  “I want to talk to him.”

  “Not now, Leo. I think it would be best if I got you back to the office and you can follow up on Sigmund.”

  “What if this Zachary fellow is the one who murdered Dee?”

  “If he is, we’ll charge him. It won’t change matters for you to see him at this point.”

  He didn’t like it but his better judgement prevailed and he nodded agreement.

  There was a steady stream of cars leaving the casino and I moved into the lineup to get out. I glanced up as I drove through the gates but the cameras were nothing if not discreet and I wouldn’t have noticed them if Ben hadn’t told me they were there.

  As we headed across the narrows toward Orillia I had another déjà-vu experience. Except that it was midday, it was an exact repeat of our experience of yesterday morning, which felt like years ago. Leo was completely silent, almost asleep. I realized I was getting really hungry. When I was front line, I’d learned to live with very unpredictable meal times but after two years of regular office routine, my stomach was accustomed to eat in the middle of the day. I was contemplating stopping to grab a quick slice of pizza to take with me, bad idea, when Leo said “You don’t have to drive all the way back to the Centre. Just go to Colborne Street and I’ll take a cab from there.”

  I was afraid he might be getting sneaky on me and was actually hoping to confront Taylor. What I felt must have showed on my face because he said with a touch of irritation, “Don’t worry. I won’t do anything. I’m not a complete idiot. Put me down a block before if you want to.”

  I actually thought that was a good idea and, making the excuse that I was going to turn right on Memorial Drive at Barrie Road, instead of left for the Centre, I let him off. He looked small and vulnerable, his collar turned up against the chilly air as he stood at the side of the road waiting to hail a cab.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  There was a female constable standing at the door of the building. I showed my ID and she directed me to apartment 305.

  “I hope you catch the bastard,” she said angrily. “The woman’s eighty-two.”

  There was no answer to that so I hurried off. Katherine had said there was a reported break-in. I hoped it was no worse. At the apartment door, another young constable examined my ID with infuriating carefulness. He was going by the book and going against common sense but this wasn’t the time to give him a lecture. “Look at me, not just the ID.” He opened the door and I went inside. Ed Chaffey was sitting in an armchair across from two elderly women, one of whom was in the process of pouring tea. Ed was waving his hand, indicating he didn’t want any more but she refilled his cup anyway. He looked relieved to see me and stood up, a white napkin sliding off his lap as he did so.

  “Chri… Detective Morris, thank you for coming.”

  He retrieved the napkin and put it on the table near a plate of chocolate biscuits. Both women looked at me expectantly. The one with the teapot beamed.

  “Hello. I’m Mrs. Ruth Burgess, Grace’s sister. May I offer you a cup of tea?”

  I caught a fleeting expression on Ed’s face but I was already nodding and she poured very dark tea into a china cup.

  “Milk and sugar?”

  I didn’t know how Mrs. Burgess had spent her adult years but I imagined it was in very high social circles with minor royalty and ambassadors. She was impossible to hurry or deny. I accepted milk and she added a couple of drops to the black brew and handed me the cup. As I took a sip, I caught an under-the-eyelids glance from her sister. She looked furious.

  “Maybe she doesn’t want tea, Ruth. You always make it too strong anyway.”

  Ruth’s thin lips tightened. “This is a day that calls for very strong tea, Grace.”

  I took a sip from my cup and almost choked. The brew was so bitter it was virtually undrinkable. Ed grabbed the napkin and dabbed at his mouth.

  “Miss Cameron, I’m sorry to have to ask you this, as I know it has been an ordeal, but Detective Morris is from our forensic science department of the OPP and I know she would like to hear from your own lips what happened.”

  “Forensic science? How interesting,” said Ruth before her sister could say a word. “We watch CSI all the time. By we, I mean my husband and I. I know Grace doesn’t care for it. My favourite is the Miami one, although on occasion I have enjoyed New York.”

  There was another poisonous glance from her sister. Grace Cameron must have grown up all of her life with Ruth seizing the limelight. Now she had an opportunity for her fifteen minutes of fame and she was having a hard time getting it. I returned my cup to the table and took my notebook out of my bag.

  “I’m sorry too that you have to repeat yourself, Miss Cameron, but it would indeed be helpful if you would. As you know we are keen to speak to the young man driving the camper van. You say you saw him…?”

  “He tried to break into her apartment,” answered Ruth. Grace squirmed a little further away on the couch. I wasn’t going to get very far unless I bound and gagged her sister.

  “Mrs. Burgess, do you live here with Miss Cameron?”

  “Oh dear no. I have my own house near the lake. Grace telephoned me as soon as this happened and I came over directly.” She took a sip of her own tea and her hand shook a little, whether from emotion or palsy I didn’t know.

  “The nice policewoman thought I should have somebody with me,” said Grace. She didn’t have to speak out loud the subtext. I wouldn’t have called you if I hadn’t been told to.

  “How are you feeling now?” I asked her. “Are you up to one more interview?”

  “Yes. I’ve only spoken to two people. This gentleman here and a lady police officer who came after I telephoned emergency. What would you like to know?”

  Before I could answer, her sister interjected again. “Can you not look at the other officer’s notes? Grace is putting on a brave front but she is eighty-two and last year she had a heart attack. She has to have a pacemaker.”

  I thought that Grace repeating her story to me was less likely to cause her stress than the decades-old dynamic between her and her sister, which was obviously making her blood pressure soar. Ed Chaff
ey came to my rescue.

  “Mrs. Burgess, I think that Detective Morris needs some privacy. Perhaps you and I could go downstairs for a few minutes.”

  He held out his hand and Ruth didn’t have much choice but to accept. She got to her feet stiffly, picked up a walking stick that I hadn’t noticed was leaning against the couch, and with Ed at her side, she shuffled away. I waited until the door had closed behind them.

  “Miss Cameron, will you just say in your own words what happened this afternoon.”

  She had lowered her head during Ed and Ruth’s exchange but now she met my eyes. She had probably been very pretty in her youth. Her white hair was still abundant and wavy, her features delicate. I suspected she had made good use of those big blue eyes in her youth.

  “Good thing it didn’t happen to Ruth; she would have been prostrated. I used to be a nurse. I even went through the war and served overseas. She stayed here and rolled bandages and knitted socks. I saw a lot of ugly things. If I can survive that, I can survive some silly boy trying to get into my apartment.”

  She stopped and seemed to fall into a reverie but whether it was about her war experiences or what had just happened I couldn’t tell. For all her tough-minded words, she seemed frail to me and shaken. I could see a bluish tinge to her lips. She looked at me, and as if I had spoken she said, “You’re right. He did give me quite a fright. I was twenty years old when I was in London with bombs falling all around us. It’s different when you’re young.”

  I moved the teacup so I could have room for my notebook.

  She frowned. “You don’t have to drink that muck. As long as I have known her she has never made a good cup of tea. I keep telling her it’s too strong but she doesn’t listen.”

  I tried not to make my sigh obvious but she must have seen it. “All right then. Here we go.” She consulted a wooden cuckoo clock that hung on the wall over the entrance to the kitchen. The apartment was small but built when it was considered necessary to have high ceilings so it didn’t seem cramped. The furniture was well-worn and I could see evidence of cats on the shredded arms of the couch and chair. The perpetrator was nowhere to be seen.

  “It must have been about a quarter past twelve. I was sitting here with my feet up listening to the radio. I usually do that in the afternoon. I get tired, although sometimes I couldn’t tell you for the life of me what I’ve been doing that’s so tiring. Well never mind that, here I was on the couch…” She actually swung her legs up and put her head back on the pillow so I could see.

  “I heard the chain rattling. I always keep the chain on. In my old house, I did have a burglar once. At least I thought it was a burglar, but the police came to the conclusion it was my neighbour who drank too much, and got mixed up. It was a semi-detached house and the two front doors were next to each other. Mr… Dawson or Dawkins, I forget his name. I didn’t like him. He was a bachelor, might have been one of those,” her voice dropped to a whisper, “… homosexuals. I never saw a woman around ever but I did see a lot of young men. Anyway, where was I?”

  “You said where you lived previously, your neighbour might have tried to gain entry to your house.”

  “That’s it. I had my nephew install a chain on the front door and I just got into the habit of keeping it on. So when I moved here … let’s see, that was four years this coming January … I had a chain put on, no I lie, there was one on already… There’s a family that lives on this floor at the end of the hall and they have a boy who’s a bit simple. Very sweet boy but childish. I like to bake so I give him cookies all the time, those are mine on the plate, try one, it won’t be as bad as the tea, I promise.”

  “I’m fine thanks.”

  “You can take some with you then. Now where was I?”

  “The boy down the hall.”

  “Yes. Tommy. He doesn’t know to knock and he would walk right in on me. I was in the toilet once. He doesn’t mean anything by it. ‘Tommy,’ I called. ‘Tommy, you must knock first,’ but he keeps forgetting. I just started to put the chain on so I had some warning.”

  Her glance moved to the door. “So as I said, I was lying here listening to the radio when I heard the door open and the rattle of the chain. ‘Tommy, I told you to knock.’ No answer. Usually he says, ‘Sorry, Miss Grace,’ and he giggles, but there was nothing. The chain rattled again. I could see somebody was there trying to get in. I thought it might be my home care worker, Lou Ann, but she always knocks.” Miss Cameron raised her voice. “I yelled, ‘Who is it?’ but nothing again except the shoving of the door against the chain. I got up and went to see, still half-thinking it must be Tommy. I peered through the crack and there was this young man standing there. I’ve never seen him before. He was quite tall and he was wearing one of those sweatshirts with hoods which he had pulled up over his head.”

  “Could you see his face or do you think he was trying to hide himself?”

  “Oh yes, I could see his face quite clearly. My eyes aren’t what they were but I was close enough. He wasn’t coloured or Chinese or anything like that. He was quite fair-skinned, blue eyes. One of those pointy beards, which I detest. Makes the man look like the devil, if you ask me. But that’s what he had.”

  “How would you describe his demeanour? Was he threatening in any way?”

  She shook her head. “Not exactly threatening. In fact he looked surprised. I asked him again what he wanted but he didn’t answer, just turned around and started to walk off down the hall. Well I wasn’t going to open the door or go after him because I didn’t like the look of him. I thought it might be wise to call the police because I’d heard on the news this morning about that poor young girl being murdered.”

  She got up and went over to the window where there was a table. She moved a little stiffly but much more easily than her sister.

  “But as I looked down I could see this young man with a hooded sweatshirt come out of the building. Unfortunately, I overlook the parking lot. It’s not much of a view, as Ruth is constantly reminding me.”

  She beckoned to me to join her at the window. “The young man came out and got into a van that was parked near the entrance there, in the visitor’s spot.”

  I looked down onto a small empty parking lot. Bedraggled trees lined each side and another apartment building was behind them.

  “Was he running or walking?”

  “Walking, but fast.”

  “Did you see which way he turned out of the driveway?”

  “To the right. I realized then that the news report had said the police wanted to know if anybody had seen a blue and white camper van.” She looked at me. “That was when I did become afraid thinking a murderer might have been outside my own door. I dialed 911 and the young woman who answered was very kind. She told me to stay exactly where I was until the police arrived. They must have been here in, oh, five minutes at the most. In a moment of panic, I did call Ruth, but that was a mistake. She keeps acting as if it happened to her and not me. But she’s always been like that. And that’s it. That’s all I can tell you.”

  I closed my notebook. There was no doubt her visitor had been Zachary Taylor. He hadn’t replied because he couldn’t hear her. But why her? What was he doing?

  The clock struck the hour and a wooden cuckoo flew out, its beak opening each time.

  “I’ll get something to wrap up those cookies for you so you can take them with you,” said Grace, and she shuffled into the tiny kitchen which adjoined, emerging with a plastic baggie filled with cookies. “Here you are. I made chocolate chip and peanut butter ones. Tommy likes them.”

  There was no way I could refuse.

  “Miss Cameron, you mentioned you only moved here about four years ago…”

  “Yes, that’s right. My house was getting too much for me and this is a reasonable rent. I’m on a pension and I don’t have money to throw around.”

  “Do you know who was the tenant before you?”

  She stared at me. “Why I suppose so. I sublet for two months, then t
ook over. It was a young woman. She was quite harum-scarum and she left the place filthy. If she’d cleaned the stove once in five years you’d never know…”

  “Do you know her name?”

  “I forget.” She pulled open a drawer in the table. “But let me see, I keep everything in here.” She took out a pile of papers, dumped them on the table, and started to riffle through them. “Ah, this is it. The original lease.” She peered at the paper. “Grace Cameron agrees to sublease… etc., etc., there you go. Her name was Nora Cochrane. That was the young woman. Nora Cochrane.”

  Was it indeed?

  And why was Mr. Zachary Taylor calling on Nora, a woman who claimed never to have met him?

  “Do you know a man named Zachary Taylor?” I asked Miss Cameron.

  She thought for a moment, looking as if she were going through a Dewey decimal file index in her mind. “No, I don’t. I knew a Zachary Bennett in school. You don’t mean him, do you?”

  “No, this man is young, early twenties.”

  She gaped at me. “Is that the person who was trying to break into my apartment?”

  “I think it might be.”

  “Why would he do that if I’ve never even met him?”

  “It’s possible he was looking for the previous tenant, Nora Cochrane.”

  Grace made a sort of snuffling noise of disapproval. “I’m not surprised. She was quite a wild young woman in my opinion.” She tapped her own nose. “She must have had at least three rings in her nose. Very ugly, if you ask me. Young people today are worse than savages with their rings and tattoos and going about practically naked no matter what the weather.”

  She pulled out the chair and sat down with a sigh of relief. “I am actually relieved to hear that this man had a purpose for coming here and he wasn’t just randomly breaking into seniors’ apartments. I’ve heard stories lately about some pervert peeping through the windows of seniors’ residences. And they’re old ladies like me. What possible pleasure could it give anybody to see my wrinkles? I don’t even like them myself.”