Dead Write: A Forensic Handwriting Mystery

by Lowe, Sheila

  He jerked away, reflexively brushing at his jacket sleeve as if her fingertips had left dirt on it. His eyes closed momentarily. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. I just—I have trouble being touched. I mean, when it’s unexpected. I’ve always—”

  “It’s okay,” Claudia said softly. “It’s all right.”

  “You think I’m crazy, and I don’t blame you. Since I lost my daughter—” His voice thickened and he broke off.

  “The pain must be unbearable.”

  “Nothing has been the same since Jessica’s been gone. She was my life.” He stared into the tiny pool of sediment at the bottom of his wineglass as if he were a tea leaf reader and the dregs would reveal something important that he needed to know. “You should be glad you won’t be here long enough to get to know me, Claudia. People who get close to me always suffer.”IT

  That shook her. “Why do you say that?”

  He was silent for a long moment, his eyes downcast. When he looked up, the anguish had been extinguished. Placing his knife and fork on the plate in the exact correct position that would signal their waiter that he had finished his meal, Ian leaned back in his chair. “I must apologize for allowing this conversation to become so maudlin.” He trotted out the lop-sided smile. “I hope you’re enjoying your dinner?”

  Was he playing some kind of game with her? If so, she was unaware of the rules. The man was maddening in his quick change of direction and she felt as if she were stumbling around in the dark.

  “Okay,” Claudia said. “If you want to change the subject, why don’t we talk about Grusha. I’ve never met anyone like her. She’s quite a character, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Ian stared back at her for a long moment. “My dear Claudia, you have no idea just how much of a character our baroness really is.”

  Claudia had no intention of making herself vulnerable to another rebuff. Her curiosity was piqued, as he must have known it would be, but she just raised her eyebrows.

  He took the bait. “She’s been to prison, you know.”

  “No, I can’t say I did know that,” Claudia said, her interest quickening. “What landed her in prison?”

  Ian scrubbed his hand over his beard as if ruminating on how to reply. “I think I’d better not. I’ve said too much already.”

  Claudia’s intuition told her that this was probably what Jovanic had tried to share with her in their last conversation, when she’d refused to listen. This information was too important to let it go. She would just have to eat crow and ask him.

  Chapter 18

  Claudia’s attempts to persuade Ian to open up about Grusha’s past met with failure. He was steadfast in his refusal, placing the blame for loose lips on the three glasses of sauvignon blanc he’d downed. When she pointed out that the cat was already out of the bag and he might as well tell her the rest of the story, he brushed her off, pleading embarrassment over his indiscretion.

  She refused dessert, so he paid the bill and they left their table in silence. On their way out, Ian suggested a walk along the Hudson. Claudia, more than ready to call a halt to the evening, gave a quick shake of her head. “It’s freezing; let’s just go back to the city. It’s supposed to snow tonight.”

  Ian took her hand and tucked it under his arm, ignoring her protest. “I need to clear my head before the drive. Just a short stroll along the pier.”

  The beginnings of a familiar and unpleasant sense of uneasiness crept over her. For so long, she’d managed to keep it under control, but since coming close to violent death, the sensation had come rushing back with a vengeance. Why couldn’t she just say No, thanks when she felt pressured by a man? There was something overpowering about Ian that made her hold her tongue.

  As they walked outside, Claudia pulled her coat collar up around her neck and pointed out that a light rain had started. Ian squeezed her hand. “I might not have been a Boy Scout, but I am prepared. There’s an umbrella in the trunk.”

  He was steady on his feet and she had no concerns about his ability to drive safely, but she could hardly refuse him the time he claimed that he needed to sober up. She had to admit, her suspicions notwithstanding, it was hard for her to imagine him killing his own daughter. Or any of the other people who had died such awful and untimely deaths. A short walk along the pier was not a big deal, she told herself. There were plenty of other people around.

  As they neared the Aston Martin, Ian popped the trunk. A few feet closer, he came to an abrupt halt. “Those bastards! Look what they’ve done!” He dropped Claudia’s arm and rushed over to the vehicle.

  He was crouched by the front tire, running his hand over the front fender, as she came up behind him. “What’s wrong?”

  “The valets—they’ve keyed my car. It’s because I wouldn’t let them drive it.”

  Claudia leaned down, the light of a nearby streetlamp illuminating the front fender. She could see nothing more than a few streaks of dirt—a splash of gutter mud by the looks of it.

  Ian straightened and spun around. “I’ll have someone’s job for this.” He strode off toward the valet kiosk, leaving Claudia to wonder about his mental stability.

  The rain had become a cold drizzle that dampened her hair and numbed her ears and nose. She tried the passenger door, but Ian had not unlocked the doors. She hurried around to the back of the car in disgust. The umbrella was there, predictably tidy, attached to the fabric of the trunk’s inner wall.

  She unfurled the big black umbrella and took shelter under it, glad for the protection. Over at the valet kiosk, Ian, who appeared oblivious to the stinging rain, was shouting at the young man. Even from fifty feet, she could hear him accusing the kid of damaging the Aston Martin, and demanding to speak to the manager.

  Claudia thought his behavior so obnoxious that she considered asking the maitre d’ to order a cab to take her back to the city. Her hotel room might not be five-star, but at this moment she would have warmly welcomed its solitude. Realizing that at this time of night and so far north of Manhattan, the chances of getting a cab would be slim, she quickly gave it up as a bad idea.

  She should have refused Ian’s invitation to dinner. Reminding herself once again that she was not a private detective, she wished she’d refused the entire damned assignment. A trip to New York was not going to help her avoid dealing with her problems at home.

  Claudia started to close the trunk, pausing halfway before opening it again. Her eyes were drawn back to a cardboard box. She had observed the box earlier, but as intent as she had been on getting the umbrella opened and over her head, she hadn’t given it any thought. Now something urged her to check it out.

  The box was open, so the stack of manila medical file folders that lay inside was in plain sight. A large purple L was stamped on the cover of the top file, and the trunk light was bright enough for Claudia to read the typed label. The patient name on the label was Heather Lloyd.

  Despite the cold weather, her palms began sweating inside her gloves, her heart racing as she glanced back at Ian. He was now shouting at a white-haired man who she guessed was the valet manager. The other man was gesticulating, yelling back just as angrily at Ian. A couple of restaurant customers walked outside. Seeing the argument, they hurried back into the building.

  Holding the umbrella over the trunk to keep the rain out, Claudia pulled off her gloves. She leaned in and picked up Heather ’s folder and found several additional files underneath it. The second was labeled Shellee Jones. The third, predictably, Ryan Turner. The one missing name was Jessica McAllister, for what she thought were obvious reasons.

  Slow down, she told herself. This was exceeding the job she had come here to do. Still, the situation was intriguing. She had allowed herself to become involved and now she felt compelled to follow it through. So she asked the question: Why did Ian have these files in his car?

  She flipped through the first folder and found a typical patient chart, the type that could be found in any doctor’s office. These people had been Ia
n’s patients—long enough for him to screen them for Grusha, at least. That gave him a legitimate reason to have the files.

  But it can’t be a fluke that he has these particular charts at this particular time in the trunk of his car.

  Ian would never give permission for her to take the files as Donna Pollard had done. The small evening purse she carried would not conceal anything for later perusal. Another backward glance told her that Ian’s diatribe was continuing unabated. With her heart in her mouth, Claudia opened Heather Lloyd’s patient file and got her first glimpse of the doctor’s handwriting on the chart notes.

  Most people thought that all doctors’ handwritings were illegible, but after studying the handwritings of thousands of physicians, Claudia knew that the cliché was a fallacy. Handwriting always told the truth about the writer, regardless of his or her profession, and many doctors had clear, legible writing. Ian was not one of them.

  Given the minuscule writing size and letter forms that were simplified almost to the point of skeletal, the doctor ’s handwriting was effectively unreadable. The thick black ink he had used made the words even more difficult to read. Several ink smudges dotted the page, which were at odds with his obsessive need to clean the silverware.

  The passing glimpse of the tiny scrawl left Claudia with a strong impression of a brilliant intellect, impatience, a short fuse, difficulty in connecting empathi cally with others. In the short time she had spent with him, she had already witnessed his acting out several of those characteristics.

  She wanted to take the time to properly examine his handwriting, but she knew there wasn’t a second to spare. At any moment, he might end the argument with the manager and catch her spying on him. The more important and urgent task at hand was to see if she could learn why these charts were in the trunk of his car.

  Keeping an ear on the situation across the parking lot, Claudia quickly thumbed through Heather Lloyd’s chart. From what she could make out in the trunk light, the medical chart detailed the physical examination that Heather had undergone in Ian’s office: blood pressure, temperature, other vitals. But one item caught her notice: On Heather’s visit, Ian had given her sample prescription capsules to treat a head cold.

  The blood thrummed in Claudia’s ears. Detective Gray had told her that Heather had taken a higher than normal dose of cold medication, which left her groggy and probably contributed to her death. Had Ian done something to the capsules to make them more potent? Or advised Heather to take a stronger than recommended dose?

  She moved on to Shellee Jones’ file. The words Severe Peanut Allergy made her catch her breath. Printed in all capital red letters at the top of the chart, the words were surrounded by large asterisks. Someone had written in the chart notes that at her mother’s urging, Shellee carried an EpiPen with her. Claudia knew what an EpiPen was.

  A man she’d once known, a friend of her father ’s who was highly allergic to shellfish, had carried such a kit with him at all times. Once, when this man had gone out to dinner with her family, his throat had swelled after he inadvertently ate food that contained an allergen. A child at the time, Claudia had been horrified and fascinated to see him inject the epinephrine that saved him. He’d stabbed the tip of the EpiPen right through his trouser leg into his thigh. She could still remember his struggle to breathe and how his wheezing respirations had slowly returned to normal after the shot.

  Some people shouldn’t be saved.

  She opened Ryan Turner’s folder with shaking hands. Suddenly, she became aware of the strobe of red lights.

  Turning, she saw that a police cruiser had pulled into the parking lot and stopped at the valet kiosk. Those worried customers must have called the cops. Two patrolmen got out and approached Ian and the parking attendant. Damn! How much worse could the evening get?

  On the other hand, the appearance of the police gave her the gift of a little extra time to browse Ryan’s file.

  The young med student had been in generally good health, but a note in the chart indicated that he had suffered from bronchial asthma after a bout of pneumonia the year before. Could Ian have somehow used his asthmatic condition to engineer his scuba diving death? She knew there were some big holes in that theory, but . . .

  Staccato, angry footsteps were headed in her direction. The red lights were no longer pulsing. Under cover of the umbrella, Claudia carefully replaced the files back in the box and slammed the trunk closed. She spun around to face Ian McAllister.

  His eyes blazed in the pale blur of his face, and for a frightening moment she thought his anger was directed at her.

  “I’ll sue them,” Ian said in a voice hoarse from shouting. He took the umbrella from her hand and held it over them both as he unlocked the car and saw her inside. “The manager wouldn’t even come over and look at the damage. Insisted they never came near the car, but—”

  “Someone called the police?” Claudia interrupted.

  He threw her a dark look as if she were at fault, and didn’t answer. Thank god he was too distracted to realize how long she had been hovering at the rear of his car.

  As soon as they were on the road, the tirade started up and continued in an endless loop throughout the thirty-minute drive: They had damaged his beautiful vehicle; he would sue them; he would never patronize the restaurant again.

  “I can’t believe they would allow this to happen,” Ian ranted. “An Aston Martin DBS! A fine performance machine—do you have any idea what the repairs are going to cost?”

  Claudia didn’t bother to answer. He wasn’t listening to anything but the rasp of his own voice. Shut up! she wanted to shout at him. I don’t want to hear any more. But she wasn’t stupid. She suffered the ride in silence, afraid that if she said out loud what she was thinking, he might turn his rage her way after all.

  Chapter 19

  “Are you out of your mind?”

  Grusha Olinetsky sprang up from her desk and began to pace her office. Her respirations, quick and shallow, could easily be seen through her fashionable charcoal and black striped suit. Anxiety had brought her almost to the point of hyperventilation. She swung back to Claudia, her face a mask of despair. “Do you vant to destroy me even faster?”

  Claudia kept her tone even. “No, Grusha, I don’t want to see you destroyed at all. But you brought me here because you already knew that something was seriously wrong. If Ian is killing your clients—and maybe his own daughter—you can’t just let it go on. How do you know you won’t be next?”

  “Of course I vill not be next,” Grusha said bitterly. “The person doing this vants me to suffer. If I am dead, the suffering vill be over. Where vill be the pleasure for him in that?”

  Claudia chewed on her lower lip, making a mess of her lipstick. So much for the suggestion she had made, that Grusha talk to the police. Yet she could not sit by and do nothing while the indications—if not actual physical evidence—of multiple murder piled up.

  “Why vould Ian do this? I have done nothing to him.”

  “Did you know that his daughter had HIV?”

  “What?” The matchmaker’s mouth gaped open. “But I don’t understand.”

  “Jessica was going to rave parties and sleeping around, doing drugs. She found out she’d contracted HIV, and she planned to tell her father. Then she died.”

  Grusha looked even more bewildered. “But she killed herself.”

  “It seems to look that way. But I have to admit, given the deaths of your three other clients, and with him having their files in his car, it does make me wonder.”IT

  Claudia had spent most of last night lying awake in bed, thinking it all through. When they had parted company in the hotel lobby, Ian offered a half-assed apology for his shameful behavior. But his extreme reaction to the imagined damage to his car, and his abusive manner toward the valet, had left a sour taste in Claudia’s mouth, one that she would not soon forget.

  She said, “The level of anger I saw in Ian last night was utterly appalling. And it was over
nothing—there were no marks on his car. I dread to imagine how he would react to something serious, like the news that his daughter had been defying him, carrying on a secret life, and had HIV. I have two alternate theories about it, but they end up in the same place.”IT

  Grusha dropped onto the sofa and covered her face with her hands. “I did not ask you to develop theories, Claudia,” she whined through her fingers. “You said you are not a detective. Why, then, are you detecting?”

  “When the shit is hitting me in the face, Grusha, I am involved. You involved me, and I allowed it. And, I’m sorry, but I’m not as dumb as a box of rocks. I can see there’s a connection between all these deaths, and you can, too. Now, when we talked about this before, you said that if I saw anything, you would go to the police.”

  “But what you are talking about is not the handwriting. We said if you saw anything in the handwriting.”

  “You’re splitting hairs. Handwriting shows potential for behavior. It can’t predict that someone will kill. Ian’s handwriting shows his short fuse and his anger, but I can’t say that means he set up these killings and carried them out, just that there are some red flags. Bottom line, the situation has to be brought to the authorities. Let them figure it out.”

  Grusha slumped back against the sofa. Her jittery breathing had slowed and she seemed to resign herself. She sighed. “Tell me about these theories you have.”

  “Okay, this is with the assumption that Ian is the culprit. One, Jessica told him about having contracted HIV and her secret party life. He was so frantic at learning about it that he went crazy and killed her. Then, realizing what he’d done, he set it up to look like a suicide. It wouldn’t be the first time that has happened to someone.

  “Two, Jessica did kill herself and he couldn’t stand losing control over her, so in his narcissistic rage, he needed to have a replacement to act out on, and you happened to be handy. The second option seems more plausible because of the way it’s been done.” She floated the concept that she’d discussed with Zebediah. “In his twisted thinking, he could convince himself that you were at fault for her disease, and take revenge by harming what he knows is most important to you—Elite Introductions.”