Foul Deeds: A Rosalind Mystery

by Linda Moore

  “And how will he get by?” We had arrived at the cathedral and were walking towards the door that led down to the Crypt. “Does he still have his part-time job with the City?”

  “So far. They can hardly fire him for noticing what Spiegle was up to.”

  “Well, speaking of jobs…I have news for you, Roz.”

  “You do?”

  “As of Monday, you are officially on contract as a researcher for the Crown in the cases against Carl Spiegle and Greta King.”

  “Seriously? Oh Harvie, I’m thrilled.” I spontaneously threw my arms around him. “Thank you for going to bat for me.”

  Harvie looked very pleased with himself as we entered the Crypt. Several actors had already arrived and were getting themselves into partial costumes for the rehearsal—anything that would affect timing or be part of the action: outer garments, cloaks, swords, belts, hats, boots.

  I introduced Harvie to the actors and then to Michael, the stage manager, whom I described as the best stage manager in the world because he seemed so to me—always good-natured, tireless, unbelievably well organized, detail oriented, and with a real love for the actors and the play. We were lucky to have him.

  Sophie bounded in. “Oh god, I’m late,” she said, meaning she wasn’t early, which was her custom. “Harvie. Hi! Good to see you. We’ll chat later—I have to get ready.”

  “Good, good, right. See you later. I’m looking forward to this. I love Hamlet.”

  “So you can just take a seat in any of those audience chairs that are set up. I probably won’t sit with you because I’ll be taking notes at the production table,” I said.

  Harvie went over and sat about three rows up on the risers. I took my place beside Michael’s chair and opened my script.

  “Five minutes to the top,” Michael announced for all to hear.

  A striking and very skinny blond girl sat down on the other side of me. She looked about twelve.

  “Hi. I’m Rosalind—text stuff.” I smiled at her.

  “Margot,” she said, “lighting stuff.”

  “Is this your first look at it, Margot?” I knew the actors had been having a difficult time finding someone to light the show.

  “Yes. Thank goodness there was a run tonight. I’ll figure out a lighting plot as soon as the rehearsal ends and start hanging whatever instruments I can scrounge up tomorrow. Preview’s next Wednesday right?”

  “That’s right, there are two previews, then we open next Friday.” It was Michael, suddenly appearing beside us. “Places, everyone!” he called out. “Did you guys meet?”

  “Just now. I can’t wait to see it with lights,” I said to her. “But, my god, it’s a tall order and there’s probably not much available to you in terms of circuits either.”

  “Well, the good news is it’s so intimate in here that one little lamp goes a long way. Basically, looks like I’ll be using anything that takes a bulb.”

  “Roz, the actors want me to keep an eye on the blocking tonight, so would you mind being on book?”

  “Not at all.” This meant I would be glued to the script and ready to give a prompt if an actor called for a line.

  “Okay. Let’s get this baby rolling,” Michael said to me with a grin, then announced: “Stand by everyone!” He called out, “And we’re going to black in three, two, one,” as a substitute for the real lighting cues, which wouldn’t be there until Margot got her work done. Two actors came out and stood at opposite corners of the square space as he noted the start time in his book.

  “And lights up!”

  The two actors began, imagining themselves on the dark, windy ramparts of Elsinore, knowing that the ghost of Old Hamlet could rise up before them at any second.

  Who’s there?

  Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.

  Long live the king!

  Bernardo?

  He.

  The opening dialogue was off to a good start, but then almost immediately the actor playing Francisco stumbled and called for a line.

  “For this relief much thanks. Tis bitter cold and I am sick at heart,” I said clearly, feeding it to him. Not a good sign, but to my surprise they got right back in stride. Over the last few nights the overall pace had improved and the sense of haste and urgency was finding its way into the scenes. The first half of our production galloped by.

  We had placed the intermission at the end of Act 3, scene 1. The devastated Ophelia is left on stage as Claudius begins to grasp the real threat that Hamlet represents.

  “Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.”

  “And lights down. End of part one everybody. Good work. Fifteen minutes.”

  Michael sounded pleased and everyone rushed into the dressing room to prepare for part two.

  The first part had taken an hour and twenty-five minutes. The goal was to tighten it up and get it down to an hour fifteen.

  Margot was making little drawings and writing notes like a fiend.

  “What did you think?” I asked her.

  “Awesome,” she said, not looking up from her writing. She seemed just a tad overwhelmed. Well, good luck to her, I thought. She has a mountain to climb in the next few days. I stood and stretched my back and walked over to where Harvie was sitting.

  “I love it Roz! Everyone is so good. Sophie is heartbreaking.”

  “Isn’t she fabulous?”

  “I thoroughly enjoyed it. The text is really clear and well focused. Good for you.”

  “Thanks Harvie.” I smiled, feeling energized by his enthusiasm.

  “I’m so sorry I have to miss the second part but I have a meeting set up for 8:30, so I’d better dash.”

  “That’s okay. Hey, they all die at the end, anyway.”

  “Oh man, I thought it was a comedy. Okay, I’m off.” He was putting his coat on.

  “Well, I hope you’re planning to join us for the opening, so you get to see it with lights, music and full costume—not to mention the party.”

  “Definitely. I want to be there on opening night.”

  “Next Friday, one week from now,” I said. “I’ll book your ticket.”

  “Can I be your date?”

  “We’re on.”

  “In the meantime we’ve got a lot of work to do,” he said running up the little stone stairwell to the door.

  “I’m on for that, too,” I called after him.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Monday was my first day as a researcher at the Crown Prosecutor’s Office. Arbuckle had begun to work the previous week on preparing the charges. He was coming in at two o’clock to meet with Harvie, and I asked if I could join them.

  When Arbuckle arrived we sat down in a well-appointed meeting room, and an assistant named Melanie brought in coffee and biscuits. This is a far cry from McBride’s kitchen, I thought to myself, looking at my reflection in the polished mahogany table.

  “I’m assuming they both have lawyers by now,” Harvie said to Arbuckle.

  “Spiegle’s finally hired one. He’s maintained his right to counsel so I wasn’t able to question him last week.”

  “Who did he end up with?”

  “Ralph McFadden.”

  “The Pugilist,” Harvie said.

  “What?”

  “Yeah, that’s our nickname for him. Well known for delivering the knockout punch too.”

  “Greta does not have a lawyer,” Arbuckle said. “She seems to think she can handle this on her own and she has one strategy: denial with a capital ‘D.’ She won’t even discuss her background, her family history, where she’s from, how she met her husband. She’s made herself into a fortress of secrets.”

  “Let’s get Daniel in here,” Harvie said to me. “We can ask him how their meeting went and suggest that he look after securing counsel for her.”

  I called the King house and left a message for Daniel, then noticed that I had an Ontario cell number for him. I dialed it and he answered. He was downtown at the bank, still sorting out some details
of Peter’s estate. I asked him how he was doing and he said he was making progress with the estate, but still feeling stunned by the extent of his mother’s apparent involvement. I asked him if he would mind coming in to see us, and he agreed to join us within the hour.

  Harvie cut to the chase. “So, what’s the best approach, Donald? Do we try them together for the murder?”

  “Greta King will be charged separately for her actions against Aziz, and in my opinion, it would be best to try that case later—by then all the groundwork regarding the poison will have been done.”

  I nodded in agreement.

  “With regard to Spiegle,” he continued, “I’m having my first interview with him as soon as possible. In the meantime, I’ve been working on all the evidence we’ve got in terms of sequence of events and on what I’ve been able to get out of those two clowns that worked for Spiegle. We also have the background information from Aziz’s file.”

  “That’s a good starting point for your research, Roz,” Harvie said. “Find out the scope of those overseas projects, what Spiegle had to gain and what he had already lost and was going to lose because of Peter’s actions. Spiegle didn’t want Aziz’s file to come to light and likely that’s because it provides motive. All of Peter’s files were packed in boxes and are still at his firm. Let’s have them picked up and get as much information as we can out of them.”

  “I’ll get them delivered first thing,” I said, savouring the feeling of swinging into action as a Crown researcher. “There’s also an email Daniel received from Peter the week prior to his death, saying that the situation he was involved in was heating up. I believe Spiegle may have been involved in that deal as well—I’ll get a copy of that email.”

  “As for Greta,” Arbuckle continued, “she’s still denying even knowing Spiegle for heaven’s sake.”

  “If she didn’t know Spiegle, why would she steal the file? Why would she pay that deadly visit to Aziz? We have McBride witnessing them together at the house, which, by the way, I’d prefer we keep to ourselves for the time being. I hope none of us has let her know that she was seen there.” Harvie said this looking at us to make it clear. It was interesting to observe him in his professional role. He was methodically getting control of this large, potentially unwieldy case.

  “No. I agree that this is a revelation that could be useful later,” Arbuckle said.

  I jumped in. “And let’s not forget the detail that alerted me to their connection in the first place—Daniel’s telephone message to me saying that she had gone to Paris and that the contact name was Spiegle.”

  “Back to the question,” Harvie said. “We can’t charge them both with Peter’s murder unless we can demonstrate there’s a conspiracy.”

  “But if we can gather enough evidence to establish motive on Spiegle’s part we can certainly charge him with the murder,” Arbuckle said. “There’s a record of him being on the premises when the ambulance came for Peter.”

  “It’s the poison that complicates things,” I said. “The yew tree that produced the taxine grows on the King property, and we have every reason to believe Greta had it in her possession the morning she visited Aziz.”

  “If Greta prepared the taxine for the purpose of poisoning her husband, that certainly makes her, at the very least, an accessory before the fact if not an accomplice to the murder. In fact, if she administered it to her husband, that could make her the murderer and Spiegle the accomplice,” Harvie said.

  “Or maybe Carl Spiegle really was an innocent bystander,” Arbuckle said.

  Melanie came into the room to let us know that Daniel had arrived.

  “Good, oh good. Okay—show him in,” Harvie said. “Why don’t you initiate discussion with him, Roz.”

  Greetings were exchanged all round and Daniel sat down with us.

  “Daniel, how have your meetings with your mother been going?” I asked.

  “Meeting. I’ve only seen her the once. She’s not forthcoming, if that’s what you mean.”

  “We’re concerned that she does not have counsel. She’s potentially facing very serious charges and she needs to have a lawyer to advise her and to help her through the process,” I said.

  “She says she lived with a lawyer for so many years, she knows how they think.”

  “But she herself is not thinking clearly, so for her to try to provide her own defence…it’s ludicrous.” Arbuckle stopped there. He didn’t want to offend Daniel or come right out and say Greta wasn’t in her right mind, but that’s what was in the air.

  “Is there someone you know that she would trust?” Harvie asked.

  “Well, at one time, that would have been you,” Daniel said.

  “That’s right, I crossed the floor. No more defence law for me,” Harvie said. “And I was celebrating the fact that I would be in a position to help prosecute your father’s perpetrator. But I certainly didn’t anticipate that your mother would end up being a suspect. Life is never simple.”

  “Can you give me an indication of what the charges may be?” Daniel asked.

  I looked at Harvie. He nodded. “Well…we now know your father was poisoned, and it’s looking very much like your mother may somehow have been a party to it. She may have been an accomplice, so she will need an experienced criminal lawyer.”

  “An accomplice to this man Carl Spiegle?”

  “That’s right, Daniel.”

  Daniel suddenly looked at me and said “Roz…could I speak to you privately?”

  “Of course,” I said without hesitating. I could feel something troublesome brewing under the surface. I looked at Harvie.

  “Go ahead.”

  “I’ll come out with you now. Let’s go somewhere.”

  Daniel and I left the Maritime Centre and walked along Barrington Street in silence. It was chilly, so we turned in at the Mediterraneo diner. There were a number of regulars in for their afternoon coffees, perusing The Coast or The Daily News. Some were just having breakfast. There were several art college students, including a group energetically discussing their film projects. Compared to the intensity I could feel coming from Daniel, the clientele seemed carefree. We found an out-of-the-way booth and sat down.“What’s up?” I said, stirring a little milk into my coffee.

  “It’s—there’s a memory that’s come back to me. It’s the kind of memory that feels like a dream, because I was so young—but it’s very clear.” He paused.

  “Please,” I said. “I’d like to hear it.”

  “I’m seven, maybe. I’m in Zurich with my mother. We’re visiting because my grandmother is dying of lung cancer. I’m sitting at my grandmother’s antique dressing table—you know, the kind with a large central mirror and two side panels. I have a picture book my mother has given me to look at, Hans Christian Andersen, I think. But when I look up into the mirror, I can see my grandmother in the big bed and my mother beside the bed on a straight-backed chair.

  “I remember my grandmother’s breathing being very laboured. This must have been just before she died. Then, as I watch them, she says, ‘I know how much you hate coming here.’ And my mother says, ‘That’s not true. Just be quiet and rest.’ My grandmother says, ‘You hate coming here because you blame yourself. But it was my fault—I never should have let your father move the boy in here to begin with. It was a mistake and I knew it right from the start.’ Then my mother says, ‘Please don’t talk about it.’ And my grandmother says, ‘It killed him in the end. That’s why he killed himself—because of you and Carl.’”

  Daniel looked at me. “That’s it. I can’t remember anything more. But I think it’s key to whatever is going on here.”

  I nodded and silently reviewed what he had just said. He seemed relieved to have told me. He let out a long breath, picked up his coffee for the first time and took a drink.

  “When you say it’s key, do you mean you think the Carl in the memory is Carl Spiegle?”

  “I think that’s why the memory’s come back to me. Because suddenly
there’s this person Carl, with whom my mother is apparently involved but whom she’s never ever mentioned, as far as I know.”

  “Well, according to the CV that Harvie saw during his days at City Council, Carl Spiegle is from Zurich.”

  “There you go, it really could be him.”

  “And Daniel, is it true that your grandfather killed himself?”

  “I knew he had died in the sixties and it was something no one ever talked about. My mother’s relationship with her mother was not warm. I think my grandmother was right when she said my mother hated going there—and we only went that time because my grandmother was on her deathbed.”

  “So that summer years later when you went to take the architecture course…You said you stayed with cousins. Who were they?”

  “They were actually second cousins, the family of my grandmother’s sister. One of her daughters, who would actually be my mother’s cousin, was a childhood pal of my mother, and so she invited me to stay with them.”

  “When you were there, did your mother’s cousin talk about your mother, about growing up?”

  “Only to say how much she missed my mother after she left at sixteen. My mother went to study in France then had gone on to England, where she eventually met my father, and they pretty much lost contact after that. But now that you ask, I do recall her saying that my mother’s departure had been unexpected, that she left abruptly when her father died, so his death must have been what triggered it.”

  “And if it was suicide, and if your mother did blame herself, that would be a lot for her to handle.”

  “Yes.”

  “And your mother’s cousin—what’s her name?”

  “Helga.”

  “You don’t recall Helga ever referring to someone in your mother’s household named Carl?”

  “No, I don’t. But when I was there, I was always busy at class or doing the assignments. And I knew that my mother’s relationship with her own family had been rancorous. It just wasn’t something we naturally spoke about.”

  “Is Helga still there? Is she alive and well?”

  “I can try to find out. I must still have the telephone number for them.”