Murder in the Family

by Jeff Blackstock

  “That’s right. Mom died in Canada,” Dad replied, his eyes unfocused and glassy.

  “Why? What happened?”

  “Well, she died of the sickness she had here in Buenos Aires. The doctors in Canada couldn’t save her.”

  Doug and I burst into tears. It was a long time before we were able to stop crying.

  Dad sat there, maintaining his self-control, waiting for us to finish. I’d never seen him cry, and he didn’t on this occasion.

  For some reason, the next thing I asked was, “What will we do with all her things?”

  “We’ll have to remove them. They’re not going to be needed anymore.”

  “Oh,” I replied.

  Dad didn’t offer, then or at any time afterwards, to give us something of Mom’s to remember her by—a photo, a lock of her hair, some favourite books, a bracelet for Julie—nothing.

  He said, “I have some presents for you boys from Canada.”

  “Okay,” said Doug. “Can we open them?”

  Dad produced the presents—some of our favourite home-baked cookies from Grandma Gray, a penknife for me, a ball and glove for Doug.

  * * *

  —

  WE COULD HAVE no inkling that on September 22, the day after George’s return to Buenos Aires, a forensic chemist at the Medico-Legal Institute in Montreal named Bernard Péclet made a “Preliminary Toxicological Report” based on his chemical analysis of Carol’s organs. His findings were that her liver, kidneys, brain, and toenails contained significantly large doses of arsenic. The subsequent completion of the toxicological analysis would also show a massive dose in the ileum (small intestine), which she hadn’t fully digested. The preliminary report’s one-sentence conclusion read, “The toxicological analyses have shown that the viscera of Mrs. Carol Blackstock contained some large doses of arsenic, the values of which are situated in the limits of those observed in poisoning cases.”

  This is the only one of several autopsy documents which is dated, providing tangible evidence that the cause of death was known within a relatively short time (less than two months) after Carol’s death.

  * * *

  —

  THE FOLLOWING WEEKS and months in Buenos Aires were a blur of sadness, pain, and confusion. I struggled to comprehend the idea that Mom was gone from our lives forever.

  Complete strangers who knew Dad would come to our house and put their arms around Doug and me, expressing sympathy for our loss. They only bewildered and annoyed me. Who were these people anyway? Had they even known Mom? María told me to stay away from one stranger in particular, because he was “a dirty old man.” My teacher excused me from writing a composition in Spanish for Mother’s Day. A nice, thirtyish Argentine lady, the teacher gave me a hug and said how sorry she was. It was very kind of her, but I still felt uncomfortable. Mrs. McKenney, the mother of my pals Michael and Danny, also told me how sorry she was, adding, “I guess God just needed another angel.” I thanked her, but didn’t believe what she said.

  Dad’s social life in Buenos Aires carried on unabated. It was as if nothing had happened. He was out of the house most evenings, but fortunately the household staff were always around. They were caring and affectionate toward us and provided some sorely needed continuity in our lives.

  I know George saw the Krapfs around this time. Louise Krapf would tell Julie years later that he regaled them with stories of his visits in Canada, New York, and Mexico City. After that, apparently, Louise and Rolf lost their appetite for seeing him. As we confirmed later, George didn’t put a memorial service announcement or even a simple death notice in the Buenos Aires Herald, the English-language daily read by the expatriate community, or La Nación, the leading Spanish-language daily—a courtesy that would have been appreciated by the Krapfs and, no doubt, by Carol’s many other friends in Argentina. I can say with confidence that there was no memorial service, because it is highly unlikely that I would not have been included or would not remember attending it. I do not.

  Dad was around on weekends sometimes. He played kick the can in the garden with Doug and me. We enjoyed that. At the dinner table, he’d laugh heartily while reading Pogo cartoon books or perusing a newspaper.

  “What’s so funny, Dad?” I asked. “Can we read Pogo too?”

  “No,” he replied, without looking up. “Pogo is really for adults.”

  I stopped asking about Pogo.

  More than ever, María became our surrogate mother. She was always there when we needed her—when we scraped our knees or needed to buy new clothes, since all three of us were outgrowing our old ones. She made the arrangements for our birthday parties. More and more often, she and Martín took us on Sundays to the house they were building in Boulogne, which now had a working toilet. With Julie in tow, María and Cristina would entertain neighbours who dropped by to share mate, the local sweet tea sipped from a gourd through a metal straw. Martín would always be working at the back of the house.

  Julie later told me that at three years old she still didn’t understand Mom was dead and never coming back. Every time a plane passed overhead, she’d wonder if that was Mamá. She doesn’t remember anyone actually telling her that Mom had died. The toddler who “never puddles,” as Carol wrote from the SS Argentina, was now wetting the bed.

  As for me, I would just lie on my bed for long stretches of time. The bedroom had become my sanctuary, a place to escape from the false and intrusive condolences of strangers who purported to know my mother but didn’t, and pretended to know how I felt but didn’t. They didn’t have the right. My feelings were private. Though I was alone a lot, wondering what had happened to Mom and struggling with the realization that she was gone, I didn’t like the attention of other people on the subject. I’ve always been a person who keeps his feelings to himself.

  Even though my mind was co-operating with this approach, my body revolted. I guess the body gets to a point where it says it’s not going to take it anymore. On November 23, 1959, I had an epileptic attack while walking to school. My feet started dragging, my hands turned spastic, and as hard as I struggled, I couldn’t walk. I wound up lying on the sidewalk on my side, confused and frightened. I had no idea what was happening to me.

  A young, well-dressed Argentine gentleman passing by on the other side of the street was my good Samaritan. He saw I was lying helpless on the ground and came to my assistance, asking me where I lived. I said I was okay, but he could clearly see I wasn’t. He picked me up and carried me home, where María thanked him and took charge.

  I was taken to the British Hospital. I stayed there for three days while the doctors ran tests on me, putting sticky pads all over my head with wires running to machines. It was messy, but it didn’t hurt. I still have the hospital admission form, which states, under “Diagnosis,” “Ataque Epileptico.” One of the referring doctors was Dr. Mercer.

  After I left the hospital, I was all right again. I’d never had an epileptic attack before, and I’ve never had one since. Now I understand that they can be triggered by extreme emotional stress.

  * * *

  —

  DAD’S FAMILY IN Toronto hadn’t been hearing much from him. On December 15, 1959, replying to an evidently rare and overdue letter from Dad, Aunt Kay complained about his failure to write home earlier.

  Dear George:

  Thank heaven you wrote at last. For weeks [we] heard nothing else from Mother – why don’t you write? It really is a great wrong to her….

  She wishes you would write to the Greys [sic] too. If you do not want to, why not have one of the children write? Children normally like to do this esp. at your dictation more or less and the Greys would be so thrilled and also they would know that you had gone to the trouble of getting the kids to do it.

  Naturally, Grandpa and Grandma were also upset by my father’s lack of communication after he had promised to keep in touch about us. I k
now he was busy filing medical expense claims after Mom died, on top of his workload at the office and his demanding social schedule. But Aunt Kay wasn’t thinking about all that. She’d been reflecting on other matters.

  I’ve been thinking a lot about your problems myself and I feel that if you are so sure you have something to offer the children that is better than what the Greys can offer (and don’t forget they have a lot to offer in the way of love and devotion which is what children thrive on) you must be with them in order to impart anything to them. It isn’t even enough just to take them to someone else’s house but I’m sure you realize this yourself.

  Evidently, George and Aunt Kay had been discussing which living arrangements would be best for us kids. What amazed me on finding this letter among my father’s papers was Kay’s seeming suggestion that he consider giving us up to our grandparents to raise. Maybe she was trying to illustrate her point that it wasn’t enough “just to take them to someone else’s house.” Or maybe she realized that the Grays would have been better parents for us.

  * * *

  —

  BY A CURIOUS coincidence, George received another letter dated December 15, 1959, the same day as the letter from Aunt Kay. It came from Santiago de Chile and was written by someone I’ll call Ingrid. Since her letter was mostly in Spanish, I’ve translated those parts into English and put them in roman type. The italicized parts were written in English, a language Ingrid evidently hadn’t yet learned to speak with complete fluency.

  Hotel Carrera

  Santiago de Chile

  15-12-59

  Dear George!

  I’m in the wonderfullest hotel I have ever seen. Big rooms, and a swimming-pool on the roof. The trip through the Andes was very nice and interesting, but too long. You need to make this trip by plane or by car. The trip from Buenos Aires to Mendoza was fantastic. Pullman car with air conditioning. – Santiago, the hotel and everything so nice that I needed to write to you right away. If I can I will write to you again from Chile, if not soon after from Bariloche. In the meantime, I wish you mery [sic] Christmas and Happy New Year for you and your children.

  “Ingrid”

  My address in Bariloche is: Hotel Llao-Llao.

  Clearly, Ingrid wasn’t writing to a complete stranger. To judge from her familiar, eager tone and her implicit assumption that George wanted to continue their correspondence, she and he had already known each other for a while.

  We don’t know exactly when George met Ingrid. My parents’ friend Bibi Fischer later would tell George’s mother in a letter that she and her husband, Peter, “brought them together.” After Peter met Ingrid at a party, he opined to Bibi that Ingrid would make a perfect wife for George and a mother for his children. Nevertheless, Bibi wrote that it was “quite some time” before she and Peter introduced the couple.

  The problem with Bibi’s version of events is that between George’s return from Canada on September 21 and Ingrid’s exuberant letter dated December 15, fewer than three months had elapsed. Depending on one’s interpretation of “quite some time,” there were scarcely enough weeks in the calendar to constitute what most people would consider an appropriate pause between George’s return and an introduction to Ingrid occurring well before she wrote her letter of December 15.

  Perhaps Bibi was stretching the truth to obscure from Granny the apparent precipitousness of a relationship that the Fischers took credit for encouraging—a relationship that may have begun shortly, perhaps very shortly, after George returned from burying his wife in Canada. We have no evidence, however, to say exactly when it began.

  * * *

  —

  CHRISTMAS WAS EMPTY without Mom. Dad handed out the presents from under the Christmas tree and helped us with them, keeping a list of who had received what from whom. There was no lively laughter, no animated Mom saying excitedly, “Jeffrey, look what you got. Aren’t you a lucky boy!” or, “Oh my, Julie, isn’t that a nice dress for you from Grandma. Won’t you look pretty in it!” or, “Dougie, a new cowboy outfit from Grandpa! It will be fun to go riding with Mummy in that!” I could still hear her voice all the same.

  María, Cristina, and Martín were away visiting family and friends. Alejandra was still there to do the cooking. Doug and I will never forget her ruining the Christmas brunch by putting too much salt in the scrambled eggs.

  Alejandra was a strange bird. At first, instead of speaking to Doug and me, she’d call us to dinner by motioning with her bunched fingers toward her mouth. When she saw me naked after a bath, she’d point and say, “What’s that?” in Spanish. I complained to María, who told her to stop making fun of me. I didn’t like Alejandra much, but I didn’t have a lot to do with her. After dinner, she’d wash up and disappear to her flat above the garage.

  Shortly after she started with us, Alejandra had had a set-to with Mom in which she demanded a huge pay raise and other concessions, including no cooking. Mom said no, telling Alejandra she could pack her bags. The result was that Alejandra backed down and begged to stay. Mom relented and kept her on, and Alejandra was fine afterwards. Mom used to refer to her fondly as Alex and sometimes entrusted her with Julie’s care.

  According to my father, Alejandra had come with the house after working for the previous occupant, Jorge Antonio—“crook number 2” in the Perón regime, as Mom had called him. Much later, for reasons of his own, Dad would make a great deal out of this.

  * * *

  —

  TEN DAYS OR so after Christmas, George received another letter from Ingrid. It was written from Nahuel Huapi National Park, near Bariloche, in the Patagonian Andes, where she was staying with her parents. Ingrid taught kindergarten while living with her well-to-do, conservative, and very class-conscious mother and father in Buenos Aires. She was travelling with them on the same trip she’d mentioned in her previous letter.

  Ingrid wrote this letter on New Year’s Eve—on the same hotel letterhead as Mom’s letter to Grandma seven months earlier, when Carol and George had made their trip to the Andes. When I first saw Ingrid’s letter, I did a double take, thinking there must be some mistake. No: she’d been staying in the same hotel as Carol and was writing to George on the same hotel stationery. However much this may have been a coincidence, it still left me with a cold, queasy feeling.

  Except for the opening salutation, Ingrid wrote this letter entirely in Spanish. Below is my translation.

  31.12.59

  Hotel Llao-Llao

  Parque Nacional

  Nahuel Huapi

  Dear George!

  It’s a week today now since your letter arrived, right on Christmas day.

  You can’t imagine how happy it made me. I thank you very much for it. It is now 5 in the afternoon and I think you will be leaving your house now to go to the Fischers’ ranch. I hope that you have a very nice time and that you enjoy yourself. I am happy that the kids can spend their vacation there. Here, there is the most beautiful sunshine every day. The lakes are still too cold for swimming. However, I went horseback riding and I played golf. My parents have golf classes every day, and I take advantage to learn a little. We made some excursions to get to know some nice spots. Everything is very pretty and interesting here, but not much fun, since there is nobody my age. There are a lot of people 40 and over, and kids 12 and under. I will tell you the rest of it when I get back. Next Thursday, the 7th of January, we are taking the plane and we will be back at home that night. Well, then, I hope that you have a good start to the new year in which your wishes come true.

  Best wishes

  “Ingrid”

  Best wishes to the kids and to Peter if you see him.

  If there were any doubts that Ingrid and George had known each other for some time before her previous letter, they were dispelled by reading the second sentence: “You can’t imagine how happy it made me.” It seems safe to say
that this was already more than a casual friendship.

  Just how long they’d known each other remains uncertain. Many years later, María told Julie that Ingrid started appearing at our house almost immediately after George returned from Canada.

  I don’t remember seeing her then. But as I’ve said, there were a lot of strangers around the house, and I tried to avoid them as much as possible.

  * * *

  —

  AFTER NEW YEAR’S 1960, Dad took us to the Fischers’ estancia for our vacation. It was the height of the Argentine summer, and we were off school for a couple of months.

  We kids and María drove with Bibi in the Fischers’ car, and Dad flew with Peter in their light plane. Bibi got us singing along to songs she knew in English, like “This Old Man,” as the paved highways out of Buenos Aires turned to dirt roads in the late afternoon, and we drove into the vast grasslands of the pampas.

  Of the Fischers’ two estancias, the one I remember better was located about four hours by car south of the capital, and it was huge. The Fischers raised beef cattle, some dairy cows and chickens, grew potatoes, and kept horses, some for cattle work and others for pleasure riding. They had a large Spanish Colonial house with maids’ quarters and a saltwater outdoor swimming pool. Beyond the main house stood a lonely laurel tree and a hollow Martello tower, a roost for pigeons. Farther out on the pampa was the runway for the plane.

  There was a separate set of dwellings, shacks really, for the extended family of caretakers who worked the ranch and the stables. Like the Fischers, the caretakers were of German heritage, with blond hair and blue eyes, and they spoke German as well as Spanish. But that is where their common ground with the owners ended. The caretakers spoke Low German and lived in squalid conditions. One of the men used to shave outside with a knife, no shaving cream. I’m sure they too had immigrated before the war.