Murder in the Family

by Jeff Blackstock

  Aunt Kay hosted a dinner at her home for Ingrid, Granny, and us kids, all of us crowded around the dining room table—it had been decided there was no room for Grandma and Grandpa. Ingrid sat quietly in the tiny living room with a drink and cigarette in hand while Kay, who hated smoking in her house, attended to the roast, boiled potatoes, and green beans. Uncle Grant doubled as assistant cook and host in the living room. Grant was a brick, a family soldier, who seemed unfazed by whatever circumstance threw his way. Here he was playing waiter to his mother-in-law, still and forever “Mrs. Blackstock” to him, and his soon-to-be sister-in-law, who was already addressing Granny as “Mother.”

  To George’s family and friends, Ingrid’s arrival in Toronto was a big deal. Other Blackstock family members did their share of fêting her. Granny took her for drinks at the Badminton and Racquet Club and gave her a brooch. A group of aunts and cousins took her to lunch at the Toronto Women’s Club, where they gave her a silver maple-leaf pin. Another cousin invited both Ingrid and Granny for drinks at her house to meet still more cousins and still more aunts. Some of George’s friends dropped by Granny’s house to be introduced to his new fiancée.

  In retrospect, it was probably fortuitous that most of the socializing didn’t involve me and my siblings. Ingrid vastly preferred to be the star of the show, and besides, I doubt all those family members and friends who had known and liked Carol would have felt comfortable hearing us call Ingrid “Mum.”

  With us safely deposited at Granny’s, Ingrid soon escaped to West Germany, where she would meet up with Dad for the wedding. A small entourage saw her off at the airport. Instead of Uncle Grant playing chauffeur, this time it was my godfather, Bill Dafoe. Even Grandma and Grandpa went to the airport. Granny, totally in character, didn’t go. There probably wouldn’t have been room in the car for her anyway; Ingrid had a lot of baggage.

  * * *

  —

  DOUG AND I needed to start the new school year in Toronto, which wasn’t synchronized with the Argentine school calendar. In Buenos Aires, I’d been halfway through the equivalent of fourth grade when we left. So, in September 1960, I skipped ahead half a year to start fifth grade at Brown School, a turn-of-the-century, red-brick public school on Avenue Road, a few blocks from Granny’s house. Doug too was moved ahead, into third grade.

  Because Granny usually preferred to stay uninvolved with our doings, I was surprised when she took us to school to meet our new teachers and help us get settled. I listened quietly in a chair next to my teacher’s desk, while my prim, grey-haired, sixty-year-old grandmother, large black leather purse in her lap, told the teacher my story, or part of it: I had just arrived from Argentina, my parents were away, and I needed to be at the school until Christmas, after which I would be joining my parents in New Orleans.

  The school building was huge compared to St. John’s. The classes had twice as many kids in them, but, of course, they were all strangers to me. No uniforms. No Spanish. Over the following weeks, I learned some Canadian geography and some French-Canadian songs, such as “Frère Jacques.” I felt out of place. There was no Mrs. Toppie to help with homework, so once again I was barely passing.

  We stayed at Granny’s during the week, Doug and I in one bedroom on the third floor, Irma and Julie in adjoining bedrooms. Most of the time, Irma was occupied with Julie, so Doug and I fended for ourselves. We explored the dank, dark basement, which looked as if it hadn’t seen a human being in fifty years. It still had the original coal chute, and moss grew on the walls between the bricks. There were cobwebs in all the corners, rusted-out iceboxes, and other household relics. I missed Lassie; she would stay in Buenos Aires until Dad decided it was time to send her to Toronto. I felt lonely for Grandma and Grandpa. Mrs. Pike, Granny’s long-time housekeeper, overheard me telling Grandma on the phone that I missed her and said to me afterwards, “But we love you too.”

  Luckily, we got to spend the weekends with Grandma and Grandpa. Their apartment was cramped for three kids and two adults, but that was fine with us. Grandpa and I watched Harry Jerome run the hundred metres for Canada at the 1960 Rome Olympic Games. Grandma had Doug mixing ingredients in the kitchen while she was cooking or gave him crayons and colouring books to keep him amused. She took Julie along to the grocery store, sitting her in the cart while she shopped. Doug and Julie spread toys all over the living room floor and turned the place into a romper room, and Grandma and Grandpa didn’t mind at all.

  Grandma showed me mementoes of Mom: some of her books, a favourite doll, a dress that Grandma couldn’t bear to part with. I was especially drawn to the wonderful pastel portrait of my mother hanging on the living room wall. It portrayed a beautiful, unsmiling, almost sad young woman with wavy mid-length dark hair and a strong and determined bearing. Every time I looked at the portrait, it made a powerful impact on me. She looked so alive, her deep, penetrating brown eyes gazing directly into me. She’d have been only nineteen when it was done, but she looked more mature than that—almost timeless—and regal.

  The artist was the well-known portraitist Audrey McNaughton, a family friend, who had also painted former Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent for the House of Commons of Canada. Grandma promised she’d ask Audrey to make a copy of Mom’s portrait for us, and I told her we’d love to have it. I didn’t realize what a time bomb this promise would become.

  * * *

  —

  ON SEPTEMBER 1, 1960, shortly after she arrived in West Germany, Ingrid wrote George a letter. He was still in Buenos Aires. She wrote him partly in English, partly in Spanish; I’ve translated the Spanish excerpts, which appear below in italics.

  She’d had to deal with a lot of last-minute errands in preparation for the wedding, including registering at the local police station. She gave George his marching orders on the matter of the formal attire required for the festivities.

  All the men are coming in black or cut [cutaway] suits. Papá went to see what it costs for cut suits here, but they are so expensive here that he decided to buy them in London…. If you don’t wish to buy one…there is a shop here which rents brand new cut suits. One thing that is very important for you to bring is a smoking jacket. My Uncle…and his wife…are hosting a formal smoking dress party for us the night before.

  Ingrid wanted his tacit approval of the wedding venue. Then there were the post-nuptial arrangements. For the wedding luncheon “we invited only 50 people more or less,” she wrote, and some guests still hadn’t confirmed their attendance. For their wedding night, “My parents booked us a very nice room (according to them) in a hotel (old castle) nearby.”

  Ingrid signed off, “Well my love, I’ll go to sleep and dream about you. I love you very much and I can hardly wait to see you. Come soon. Many hugs, kisses and love to you.”

  Julie and I found the letter years later among Dad’s papers. I’ve quoted it because it’s the only document we have describing what was happening between him and Ingrid just before their wedding. There wasn’t a single mention of us, his three kids, even in passing—nothing to let him know we were all right when she’d been with us in Toronto. It was as if we didn’t exist.

  A peculiarity of the situation was that George never showed up in Toronto to introduce his fiancée, the stepmother-to-be of his children, to his family and friends. Ingrid had to manage all the social visits, gifts, luncheons, and dinners entirely without him. He was waiting in Buenos Aires while bureaucrats of two nations processed the legal paperwork he needed to get married. The Canadian embassy required certification of certain documents: the birth certificate of George Edwin Blackstock, the marriage certificate of Carol Janice Gray and George Edwin Blackstock, and the death certificate of Mrs. George Blackstock, née Carol Gray. George received the embassy certification stamps on what may have been, from his perspective, the earliest acceptable date: July 26, 1960, exactly one year and one day after Carol’s death. An earlier date would have made him appear in unseem
ly haste to remarry. A later date could have jeopardized his wedding arrangements, delaying the remaining paperwork required for the wedding to take place at all.

  For some reason, the involvement of the West German embassy in Buenos Aires was also required. Once the documents had been approved and stamped by the Canadian embassy, they needed to be seen and approved by West German authorities as well. This could only be because Ingrid was a German national. It wasn’t until August 29, 1960, over a month later, that the West German embassy put its “Visto Bueno” (“Approved”) stamp on all the documentation that the Canadian embassy had already certified. This was just nineteen days before the wedding.

  It must have been a very tense time for George. His fiancée was already in Germany awaiting his arrival, with relatives and friends scheduled to fly in from Argentina, Canada, and various points in Europe. The church, hotels, and restaurants were booked, the all-important smoking jackets and cutaway suits ordered, the honeymoon suite reserved, the honeymooners’ travel plans made. The stage was set, and curtain time was fast approaching. But for the many weeks while he stayed on in Buenos Aires, George didn’t have all the stamps and approvals he needed to get married.

  It wasn’t the first time he’d found himself in a close-call situation, and it wouldn’t be the last. Most people would feel so stressed by the prospect of something giving way in this house of cards that they’d allow more time, letting the wedding take place in a more relaxed atmosphere. Most people would have followed Aunt Kay’s advice about holding a quiet wedding in Buenos Aires. Not George Blackstock.

  He had so little time between getting the West German stamp of approval, on August 29, and the date when his presence was required that he flew directly from Argentina to West Germany. No brief stopover in Canada to see his kids.

  I wonder what Ambassador Richard Bower and Assistant Deputy Minister Leslie Brown thought about all this. Only a year earlier, they’d been exchanging cables about the difficult family situation George faced. Bower, describing himself as close to tears, had written Brown an emotional appeal for departmental financial assistance for George. Shortly afterwards, there had been still more cables, containing the sombre news of Carol Blackstock’s death. Now, barely more than a year later, George was about to remarry in Germany. How had this new relationship evolved so quickly? What had happened to the financial hardship he’d been facing only a year ago?

  Brown knew about the Montreal doctors’ initial concern over “the possibility of an unknown toxin” in Carol Blackstock’s body, and without a doubt he knew about the autopsy findings of arsenic. For him, George’s wedding plans must have been—or should have been—horrifying. Here was George, who not long ago had been under suspicion in his wife’s death, and whose behaviour the police had been observing, getting remarried already. Not only that, but his new bride had been living in Buenos Aires throughout his posting.

  It would have been disturbing enough for Carol’s parents to see George remarrying so soon, even without knowing about the “unknown toxin.” What must it have been like for Brown to be burdened with that knowledge? What was he thinking about Carol? What was he thinking about her children?

  Did Ambassador Bower suspect something? If nothing else, Bower must have felt confirmed in the wisdom of not allowing George to complete his full term in Buenos Aires. His early remarriage after Carol’s sudden and mysterious death could have made him an object of unwelcome speculation and an embarrassment to the embassy.

  * * *

  —

  GEORGE MANAGED TO escape the labyrinth of paperwork and board a flight to West Germany in the nick of time. I don’t know much about the great event itself, however. Neither George nor Ingrid nor anyone else told us kids anything about it. Except for Granny and Aunt Kay, who managed to make the trip, the occasion was attended exclusively by Ingrid’s family and their friends.

  All I have by way of a souvenir is a group snapshot taken, I believe, on the night before the wedding. It shows my father in a smoking jacket and striped pants looking as pleased as the Devil himself; Ingrid in formal dress and jewels, turning to smile with satisfaction at the camera; Granny in a fur jacket and pearls, cigarette in one hand, drink in the other; Ingrid’s father keeping to the background, his face mostly hidden by Ingrid; and Aunt Kay in a dark nondescript dress, looking slightly shell-shocked. Kay had probably never been to a formal dress soirée like this one in her life, and this certainly wasn’t the quiet wedding with children she’d envisioned in her letter to George. No Uncle Grant. Granny must have sprung for Kay’s ticket.

  The wedding took place in Ingrid’s early childhood hometown and site of the family business, the large industrial firm that had prospered during the Nazi era. Like many other companies, it had survived the war and was now growing again as West Germany recovered economically. The company remained the basis of the family fortune.

  Unlike my parents’ modest civil marriage before a Justice of the Peace in Toronto, George and Ingrid’s wedding was a full-dress church ceremony. We know from Ingrid’s letter quoted earlier that the venue was a traditional Protestant church for the local English-speaking community, a nice cross-cultural touch. I don’t know if any children were present, but there must have been; Ingrid had lots of nieces and nephews.

  Back in Toronto, we hardly thought about Dad and Ingrid, and their grand doings. Doug and I knew they were off in Germany somewhere getting married, but we didn’t wonder why we weren’t included. Nor did we hear from them while they were gone.

  After all the festivities, the newlyweds embarked on their six-week honeymoon touring Europe. Where they went, I don’t know. Nor do I know for sure who paid for it all, but it certainly wasn’t George. I’m quite familiar with a junior foreign service officer’s salary. I expect Ingrid’s parents paid; my father would continue tapping them for money for years to come. And no doubt he’d already put the bite on Granny to cover airfares and various other expenses he’d incurred.

  * * *

  —

  AFTER THE HONEYMOON, George and Ingrid returned to Toronto for a week or so. They gave us a big toy elephant on wheels, the kind kids could sit on, with a handle for steering. I thought it was an odd present to bring from Europe—if they’d been to India, it might have made more sense. Now I realize it’s unlikely they brought it all the way across the Atlantic on the airplane. Dad must have had Uncle Grant pick it up at a Toronto department store.

  I’d been waiting anxiously to ask Dad and Ingrid when we’d be getting Lassie back from Argentina.

  “Oh, Lassie died there,” Dad replied casually, without any explanation.

  It was only after I broke down in tears that he offered a token expression of sympathy: “Yes, that’s really too bad about Lassie,” he said. Years later, Cristina told me that after we left Buenos Aires with Ingrid, Lassie appeared to be ill. The vet said there was nothing medically wrong with her; she was just despondent because her family was gone. So Dad had Lassie put down.

  On December 5, 1960, María wrote a letter from Buenos Aires to Julie, Doug, and me, care of Dad, to say hello. She was working for our former neighbours, the McKenneys, she said, and she saw my old friends Michael and Danny regularly. They remembered us, and so did Freddy Brander down the street. Her new house in Boulogne was looking very pretty. María hoped we would write back to her, and she sent hugs from her, Cristina, and Martín. She said she would never forget us. Dad never gave us the letter. When Julie and I got in touch with María, it was many years later, and it wasn’t in response to her letter. We only found it in my father’s papers after he died.

  Following their brief visit to Toronto in late October, Dad and Ingrid took off to New Orleans together so he could start his new job at the Canadian consulate. They stayed at a downtown apartment hotel while looking for a home. We kids stayed behind in Toronto and wouldn’t join them until the Christmas school break.

  Once again, George was
setting off on a new posting. He must have felt a rush of triumph at bringing off all his plans so successfully. Within a little over a year, he’d buried Carol, avoided further unpleasant inquiries by the authorities or the consequences thereof, moved out of Argentina, remarried, enjoyed a long European honeymoon, and stayed on track for his second foreign posting. Even better, he’d arranged to have others foot the bill. It’s a marvel that he managed to get away with it all. I wonder what Mom would have said about his tour de force.

  In our worst nightmares, Doug, Julie, and I couldn’t have imagined what was coming next.

  11

  TERROR IN NEW ORLEANS

  “NO, MUMMY! NO, MUMMY! NO!”

  I could hear the terror in six-year-old Julie’s pleading voice. She was in her bedroom down the hall. Not again, I thought. Scared as I was, I couldn’t help myself; from the study I shared with Doug, I bolted down the hallway toward the sound. Through my sister’s open doorway, I saw her standing naked, shivering with fright, her ribs protruding, hands by her side after Ingrid had instructed her to remove them from protecting her buttocks. As she later recalled the scene to me, she heard the whistling of the riding crop before it struck her. She remembered wanting to die in that moment, anything to escape the pain. Struggling for air, she felt to her horror a trickle of pee down her legs. And the punishment carried on, blow after blow. When it was over, Ingrid told her to stop crying immediately. It seemed impossible to stop her sobs, but the threat of more punishment was all it took. Almost worse was having to accept a hug from Ingrid, who felt it was important to be magnanimous and show she was now able to forgive the transgression.

  Doug had run out into the hall behind me. He knew exactly what was going on and scurried down the stairs. After catching a glimpse of my sister, I was right behind him. We both knew better than to be anywhere near Ingrid when she was seized by one of her fits of rage.