Murder in the Family

by Jeff Blackstock

  He stapled some paper, closed the file with a rubber band, and sat back in his high-backed, almond-coloured wooden chair, which matched his desk. He clasped his hands behind his neck, stretched back, and peered at me through his tortoiseshell glasses, as if sizing me up.

  “Well, Jeff, you’re graduating from grade eight soon, going off to boarding school in Canada. So I thought this would be a good time for us to have a little talk, man to man, as they say.”

  Not the man-to-man talk, I hoped.

  “You’ve got the brains in the family, Jeff.”

  This was news to me. Nothing in the way Dad treated me had ever suggested he thought this. He mostly just ignored Doug, Julie, and me. When any of us did have something to say, it was usually squelched by Ingrid, and that was that.

  “I’ve looked at your last report card and it’s pretty good. Well done.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  “So have you thought about what you want to do in the future?”

  “I don’t know, Dad. I only just turned thirteen.”

  “You’ll want to go to university, of course.”

  “I guess so.”

  “And perhaps do post-graduate work. I could carry you through graduate school.” He mused for a moment. “Then a PhD? I don’t know whether you’re really PhD material.”

  “I hadn’t really thought about it, Dad.”

  “What about other things in life you might want?”

  “Like what?”

  “The good things in life, for example. Nice house. Nice things. The good life. Everyone wants that.”

  “Oh, yeah…”

  I wasn’t sure what he was talking about. All the “nice things” my brother and sister and I got were hand-me-down clothes, measly allowances, Saturdays filled with chores. My clothes came to me from Dad himself. He was such a pack rat that he still kept golf shirts, jockstraps, and other attire from his Upper Canada College days, which had shrunk in the dryer, so they no longer fit him. Ingrid, on the other hand, had a closet replete with fashionable outfits for every conceivable occasion, a jewellery box overflowing with gold bracelets and pearl necklaces, and maids, and us, to clean up after her. She and Dad were out at parties all the time. They paid us so little attention—positive attention, that is—that we might as well have been the hired help. Doug couldn’t get the bicycle he’d wanted for his birthday. He would go through his childhood hoping for a bike. Julie’s wardrobe was the bare minimum. Was this the good life? For Dad and Ingrid, yes.

  “How do you feel about having a family someday?”

  “I don’t really know.”

  “You won’t understand this until you’re older, Jeff. But having a family is the most satisfying thing you can do in life. Love makes the world go round. I loved your first mother very much, and I love your second mother very much. You know, I still have pictures of your first mother. I take them out sometimes and look at them.”

  I thought this was very odd, especially after the fraught incident with Mom’s portrait. We still felt we weren’t allowed to talk about her.

  But Dad seemed to be in a conversational mood, so I worked up my courage to ask him something that had been bothering me for a long time.

  “Then why weren’t we given the picture of our first mom that Grandma and Grandpa sent us?”

  “That was a misunderstanding, Jeff. Mum and I decided to keep it for you because Mum wanted to give it to you herself. When your grandparents tried to give you the picture directly without speaking to Mum and me first, they created a lot of bad feelings. We felt they were going behind our back with our children.”

  “So what’s going to happen to the picture?”

  “We’re keeping it for you children so that you’ll have it someday.”

  Though this made no sense, I felt emboldened to take another chance.

  “And what about reading our letters between us and Grandma and Grandpa? I don’t understand why you and Mum have to read our letters.”

  “Well, Jeff, you won’t understand this until you’re a parent yourself. Parents want to protect their children. Your grandparents have been difficult. They’ve done things that interfered with our family. You know, Mum has had a hard enough time as it is, moving away from her parents in Argentina, coming to a new country to be with us and look after you kids. She’d never been a mother before and now she has four children. She’s doing the best she can. I know you kids think she’s strict, but we believe children need strong parenting.”

  “But what about—”

  “Your grandparents should be supportive. They should be helpful. They need to talk to Mum and me about you kids before interfering. But they don’t. We’re worried about what they might say to make things worse in our family. I don’t really expect you to understand this until you’re older. For now, you’ll just have to trust me.”

  * * *

  —

  IN FACT, GRANDPA’S patience with Dad was now completely exhausted. As I later learned, he had made repeated attempts to get a straight answer from him about the cause of Carol’s death. He’d never received one. In his frustration over George’s evasions and stonewalling, he’d launched his own investigation.

  When Grandpa contacted the Montreal Neurological Institute, he was put off at first, given the runaround. Then a breakthrough occurred. In September 1963, my mother’s medical case was presented, ostensibly under the cloak of anonymity, at the annual meeting of the Canadian Society of Forensic Science, in Quebec City. A few months later, in 1964, the society published the presentation in its journal, along with the related autopsy and toxicology reports. As before, the identity of the deceased was disguised under the moniker “Mrs. C.B.” But given those initials, as well as other details cited in the case study, there could be little doubt that it was based on Carol Blackstock’s autopsy. Although it wasn’t explicit enough to reveal her identity to the world, this development must have made it difficult, if not impossible, to block or ignore Grandpa’s enquiries any longer.

  Grandpa finally worked his way through to the Montreal coroner’s office. There, he learned the truth about the cause of Carol’s death. His discovery must have occurred roughly around the time I had my “man-to-man talk” with my father in New Orleans.

  Of course, I, and the world at large, knew nothing of this. And as it would turn out, my grandfather was not in a good position to reveal it. I can only imagine my grandparents’ pain and anguish.

  * * *

  —

  AS DAD HAD announced to me in his study, a new chapter was opening in my life. That summer, he took me to visit Ridley College, the boarding school for boys in St. Catharines, Ontario. Ridley had accepted me as a student, and I’d be boarding there, far away from New Orleans, for the next four years.

  When Canadian foreign service families are on posting, to ensure the children continue to receive a high quality of education, the government offers them a choice: their kids can attend, at public expense, either a local private school in the host country or a boarding school back home. Dad and Ingrid elected the boarding school option, which meant eventually Doug, Julie, and I would all be living away from home as children.

  Dad had arranged for us to meet an assistant headmaster at Ridley, who gave us a walkabout tour of the extensive grounds. Since the decision that I’d attend Ridley had already been made, our visit was just a pro forma introduction, and a chance for Dad to establish his presence with the school. During my four years there, he’d visit me no more than three or four times.

  By September, Dad was back in New Orleans, and it was Grandma and Grandpa who drove me from Toronto to start the fall term at Ridley. Grandma packed me some sandwiches and cookies, as she always did. Grandpa gave me some pocket money.

  I was installed in the Lower School in ninth grade. At first, it was lonely living in a dorm with linoleum floors, sleeping on steel-frame
beds with thin mattresses on wire mesh, and sharing one toilet with eleven other boys. When the bell would ring at 7 A.M., I’d wake up wondering what I was doing there. That bleak feeling was familiar from the days when I’d boarded at St. John’s, in Buenos Aires, but then I’d known I was staying only a short time, until we found a house. The duration at Ridley was going to be far, far longer.

  Most of the other boys were from Toronto, less than two hours’ drive away, where they had networks of friends and family. I didn’t have any friends in Canada, and the only family that really mattered to me were my grandparents. There were some boys from the United States and Latin America, but they were mostly returning students, already familiar with the place.

  Academically, I got off to a slow start—something that seemed to happen whenever I moved to a new school in a new country. But I was a determined kid and took pride in my accomplishments. After a period of adjustment, I began doing much better. I made friends and enjoyed playing on the soccer, swimming, gymnastics, and cricket teams. I participated in some theatre productions and represented Ridley in a discussion forum with public school students from the region. In twelfth grade, I studied tirelessly to wind up near the top of the class and get accepted at Neuchâtel Junior College, a Canadian school in Switzerland with high academic standards.

  One Sunday, when Dad was on a business trip to Canada, he visited me at Ridley. It was the day after my sixteenth birthday. I was in eleventh grade. He took me out to lunch and, while we sat in his rental car, he gave me a birthday card, along with fifty dollars and some little presents such as comic books. The gifts would have been more appropriate for a much younger boy. I don’t know whether Dad actually believed I was still a child or just wanted to believe it. It had been a long time since we’d seen very much of each other.

  * * *

  —

  THROUGHOUT THE YEARS at Ridley, my real home base was my grandparents’ place in Toronto. Every year, I’d spend the Thanksgiving long weekend and Easter holidays there. For the Christmas holidays, I went at first to New Orleans, where Dad and Ingrid stayed on for another two and a half years. Their next posting was Bern, Switzerland, in summer 1966, and after that I spent Christmases in Toronto. Dad considered it too expensive to fly me to Bern; I think the government paid for only one trip “home” a year.

  As before, Doug and I had our summer holidays with Grandma and Grandpa. Doug joined me at Ridley in my second year, but he didn’t like it much. Julie continued living with our parents throughout their six years in New Orleans, then three more in Bern and another in London before she could get out of the house—where, in her mind, she was living as a hostage—and away from Ingrid to attend an English boarding school.

  My grandparents loved to play bridge and socialize with friends. Grandma taught me the basics of bridge: “Length before strength,” she’d tell me, a tenet of the game I’ve retained ever since. Grandpa showed me how to use the tools in his basement workshop in their apartment building, took me to baseball games, and regaled me with his First World War stories.

  My grandfather was my mentor and role model. He was kind and big-hearted, with a great sense of humour, but he was no pushover and could be tough when necessary. I admired his toughness, just as I admired his work ethic. Although retired from his corporate job, he still prepared tax returns for individuals as a chartered public accountant and managed a medical building for business clients. He told me about one client who insisted on paying him less than his normal fee, on the grounds that Grandpa was retired and therefore shouldn’t charge the going rate for his services. Grandpa sued him in small claims court and won.

  Grandpa didn’t like phonies and was very frank in expressing his opinion of my father. Dad had told me he sent Grandpa “fat cheques” to pay for our room and board during the summers. Grandpa told me flatly this was false.

  I liked it when Grandpa gave me adult responsibilities. On the first of the month, I’d take my grandparents’ rent cheque for $170 to the landlord in the apartment below. Sometimes, Grandpa would ask me to go to a nearby store to buy Grandma some stockings or perfume she liked.

  My friends were always welcome at my grandparents’ place and appreciated their openness and kindness. My Ridley roommate came from a small town in Northern Ontario, too far away for him to go home at Thanksgiving or Easter, so he’d have to stay at school during the holidays. Instead, my grandparents were glad to have me bring him along so he wouldn’t be lonely. I also brought my first girlfriend, a cute, petite, smart blond girl who attended a public high school in Toronto, for dinner at my grandparents’ place. She fell in love with them, as all my friends did.

  From Ridley, I dutifully sent letters home to Dad and Ingrid, reporting on my exploits on the soccer team or the cricket pitch. In twelfth grade, I bowled a hat trick (three outs in succession off three balls) playing for the second cricket team against Upper Canada College. “Have you ever bowled a hat trick in a game before?” my coach asked incredulously. Dad wrote back, “Well done,” while also expressing his annoyance that, since I’d failed to send my letter by airmail, it had taken weeks to reach Switzerland.

  Doug and I visited Dad and Ingrid in Bern one summer. He took us summer skiing at Zermatt, beneath the towering Matterhorn. It was our first time on skis, and Doug and I slipped and fell so much in the slushy snow and ice that we swore a blue streak in our frustration. Offended, Dad told us, “You know I don’t like to hear that kind of language.”

  The subject of Mom arose from time to time, at first obliquely, later more directly. Doug and I were always at a loss when completing school medical forms requiring us to state the cause of our mother’s death. Dad told me to write “Cause unknown.” On one occasion, Doug asked Dad straight out why Mom had died, and Dad replied testily, “She just stopped breathing.”

  Doug knew better than to ask that question again.

  So what transpired when the subject came up next was a big surprise.

  * * *

  —

  I WAS NOW seventeen and spending the summer holidays with my grandparents as usual. At the medical building where Grandpa was business manager, he got me my first job, working as an attendant in the parking lot.

  Grandpa and I would chat from time to time during my shift, sharing jokes, some of them off-colour. He kept a fifth of rye in his office desk and would take a nip on occasion, though he wasn’t a big drinker. I had to laugh when he said Grandma had asked if he had a bottle in his office: “Noooo, dear,” said Grandpa, shaking his head in earnest denial as he told me the story.

  That summer, Dad was back in Canada on one of his business trips. While in Toronto, he stayed at Granny’s house, and I’d visit him there. He refused to come to Grandma and Grandpa’s apartment. I was unaware of the greatest cause of their antagonism, but I did know that Grandma and Grandpa worried about us grandchildren, especially about Julie still being under Ingrid’s control. “We don’t want Julie to be just a handmaiden for Ingrid,” Grandpa told me.

  Before one of my visits to Dad, Grandpa gave me a note to deliver to him. It was unsealed so that I could read it, which I did.

  “George, it is imperative that you come and see us while you are in Toronto,” Grandpa had written.

  I handed Dad the note in Granny’s kitchen, where he’d been reading The Globe and Mail. After scanning the note, he looked up at me from his chair.

  “Your grandfather wants to see me. What do you think it’s about?”

  “I don’t know exactly,” I replied.

  “He says it’s ‘imperative’ that I see him.”

  “I think there may be trouble,” I offered.

  “Well, I hope not. It really doesn’t do any good when they make trouble.”

  “I think they’re worried about Julie.”

  Dad let out a sigh, as if it was all too tiresome. “I can understand them being concerned about their grandchildren. But t
hey forget it’s the parents who have responsibility for them.”

  “I think they’re concerned that Mum is too strict with her.”

  “Well, you know, we all understand how hard it was for them when your first mother died. But your grandparents are meddlesome—they’ve created more problems for everyone and for themselves by interfering rather than accepting the circumstances.”

  “Meddlesome?”

  “Yes, meddlesome. Your grandmother is a worrywart and a busybody. She doesn’t have her own daughter anymore and has taken to meddling in the lives of her grandchildren—and in our lives, quite frankly. Of course, we all know about the reputation of stepmothers. Mum has two black marks against her from the start—and with your grandparents probably three. Instead of working with us, they create problems. Instead of understanding that you kids have a new mother, who has done a pretty good job in a challenging situation where she could have used their support, they’ve just made things more difficult.”

  I listened in silence.

  “Let’s sit here for a minute,” Dad said, and motioned me into Granny’s living room.

  “Mum came into the family and right away had to take responsibility for you kids,” he continued. “She realized that a little discipline was needed. You hadn’t had a mother for a while and our home needed some order. Your grandparents have chosen to cast this in the light of the wicked stepmother, which is of course nonsense, all twisted around. As you’re aware, people who know us know that’s just not true.