The K Handshape

by Maureen Jennings

  “Detective Sergeant Morris, I’d like to speak to the supervisor, please.”

  She glanced at the card, looked a little alarmed, and held up one finger, indicating I should wait a moment while she punched in a code on the telephone. I noticed she was wearing a hearing aid, tucked behind her ear. She looked to be in her early twenties, pretty, with long fair hair and blue eyes. I wondered with some dread if she was one of the good friends that I would soon be delivering such bad news to.

  The jackhammer stopped abruptly and at the same time a door behind the reception desk opened and a woman came out. She was middle-aged, with auburn hair, well-hennaed, and a full round figure. She came straight around the partition.

  “Hello, I’m Mrs. Helen Scott. How can I help you?”

  The jackhammers began again, making conversation impossible. I saw the girl fiddle with her hearing aid, no doubt switching it off against the din. She was watching us curiously.

  The supervisor gesticulated to me to follow her and she led me to her office where she closed the door behind us and somewhat muted the noise.

  “Sorry about the row, we’ve had to take up the old paving out front. It was collapsing.”

  She faced me directly when she spoke and enunciated distinctly. She took a seat behind the desk and I perched myself on one of the chairs in front. She didn’t seem to be hard of hearing and as far as I could see she didn’t have a hearing aid.

  “I’ve come about Deidre Larsen. I’m afraid I have bad news…”

  I told her what had happened. There isn’t any way to soften the impact of news like that and she gasped and covered her mouth with her hands.

  “I can’t believe it. That is dreadful. Absolutely dreadful. She was a lovely young woman. Very capable and well-liked. Oh, I can hardly believe it.”

  Tears were spilling unheeded over her hands. There was a box of tissues on her desk and I got up and handed it to her. It took a while before she was sufficiently composed to continue.

  “You will be required to give a statement later to the police, Mrs. Scott, but right now I am not here in a formal capacity, more as a representative of her father, Dr. Forgach. He wanted Deidre’s friends to be told personally.”

  “Of course.”

  “I am interested in speaking to the two young women who I understand were Deidre’s particular friends. Jessica Manolo and Hannah Silverstein.”

  “Of course. Jessica is the person on the reception desk.” She checked her watch. “Hannah should be coming in shortly. I … er, sorry, I’m having trouble getting my thoughts together. What would be the best way to go about this? Hannah is deaf and communicates through sign language. Jessica has some hearing, but I could act as interpreter.”

  “I would appreciate that. I will need to ask them questions.”

  She stood up and then leaned for a moment against her desk. “Oh dear, my legs are quite shaky. This has been a most dreadful shock.”

  I can’t tell you how much I hated this part of my job. Helen Scott was a decent middle-class woman and nothing like this had ever entered her life before.

  “Do you want to sit for a moment?”

  “No, I’ll be all right. I’ll get Jessica.”

  She left and I went over to the window. The office was pleasantly furnished in light oak and one half of a deep bay window let in as much light as was on tap. Perhaps in its previous life it had been part of the drawing room, which had been rather crudely severed by a dividing wall. Outside, the two workmen were taking a smoke break, sitting on a concrete planter near the door. I considered sending them away so we could have some easier conversation, but I realized the noise wasn’t going to make any difference to the young women. The door opened and Mrs. Scott ushered in the blonde girl. Behind her was a shorter, dark-haired girl who still had her outdoor clothes on.

  “Hannah has just arrived.”

  She indicated the other two chairs in front of the desk and they both sat down. Hannah shoved back the hood of her raincoat. She wore glasses and they had misted over so she removed them and wiped them off on the edge of her sleeve. Mrs. Scott was looking quite distraught and the two young women stared at her, curiously. She pointed at me, made a sort of chopping gesture, one hand on the other, then made some rapid finger signs. At the same time she said out loud, “This is Sergeant Morris from the OPP. I’m afraid she has brought some very bad news.”

  It was a little like watching a game of charades. “Bad” was somebody taking a drink and turning it away. Mrs. Scott continued, making a sign that looked like somebody firing a gun, “Deidre has been killed.”

  She didn’t need to say aloud the word strangled. It was the universal sign. Hands clasped around the throat.

  CHAPTER TEN

  It was a long time before the two women were ready to answer my questions. Jessica spoke in the flat guttural tones of the hard of hearing. She kept repeating “Who? Who killed her?” and all I could say was, “We don’t know yet.” She essentially took over the job of interpreting to Hannah, who was making odd panting noises and weeping into the scrap of tissue she had used for her glasses. I went over the details of finding Deidre, where she was, time of day, and so on. At this point there weren’t any particular trenchant facts I needed to hold back. The autopsy wasn’t done yet, so I couldn’t say if she’d been sexually assaulted, which was a question Jessica asked. I also didn’t say she had been strangled with her own scarf. Even though the possibility that either of these women had killed Deidre was remote, you never told interviewee’s everything about the crime scene. Many a suspect has been nailed because he or she knew something no one else but the murderer would know.

  The two friends huddled together, hands and fingers flying, communicating I knew not what to each other.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” asked Mrs. Scott. “I can offer juice, water, or soft drink?”

  I accepted the juice but the girls ignored her. There was a small cooler tucked in the corner of the room underneath a bookcase and Mrs. Scott took out a bottle of apple juice and handed it to me. Suddenly, she was crying. “It’s such a funny little thing but Deidre liked apple juice best. I always kept some especially for her. Oh dear, dear me, what a tragedy.”

  Neither Jessica nor Hannah paid attention to her, didn’t even seem to notice that she was weeping. Mrs. Scott finally wiped her eyes.

  “You said you had some questions you wanted to ask the girls.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  She stamped hard on the floor to get their attention and they stopped and looked up at her.

  “Ms. Morris wants to ask you some questions.” She nodded at me. “Go ahead. Speak slowly, please.”

  “We found a note near Deidre’s car that suggests she may have been meeting somebody in the park. Was she seeing anybody? Did she have a boyfriend?”

  Mrs. Scott signed that for me. The girls glanced at each other quickly then shook their heads.

  “Nobody,” said Jessica. “She wasn’t seeing anybody.”

  “How long have you known her?”

  Jessica passed that on to Hannah, who held up six fingers, clenched her fists, and rotated them around each other.

  “Six years,” said Jessica. “Me the same.”

  Hannah made a sweeping sign, one hand on top of the other, then held up the first two fingers of her right hand rather like a girl scout’s pledge.

  “We were at university together,” said Jessica.

  “Do you know anybody who might want to harm her?”

  “No. None at all. It must have been a stranger.”

  Hannah was gesticulating and making signs vigorously. This time, Mrs. Scott, who had been sitting quietly watching the goings-on, was the one who interpreted.

  “Hannah is very concerned about Deidre’s daughter. Who is going to tell her and who is looking after her?”

  “At the moment, she is staying with the woman who sometimes babysits. I don’t know who is going to tell her. Nora the live-in nanny, I presume.”


  “No.” The sound came from Hannah. So she could read lips. Awkwardly, she said slowly. “She bad woman. Not her tell Joy.”

  She brought her hand high up on her chest and her face lit up and went back to normal with disconcerting suddenness and I realized that was the sign for Joy.

  “Why is Nora a bad woman?”

  “Not deaf.”

  That made a large percentage of the population on the sin side.

  Jessica tapped me on the arm to get my attention. “Hannah means that Nora is not suitable. Joy understands sign language, but Nora hardly does. She is also prone to take drugs. She is not suitable to tell our dear friend’s daughter what has happened. We will do it.”

  Having met all three women, I must say my sympathies were with Hannah and Jessica, but I supposed technically Leo had the right to make that decision.

  “I will pass this onto Deidre’s father. How can I reach you?”

  “I will be here until four,” said Jessica.

  Mrs. Scott jumped in. “Absolutely not. We can manage. You should take the rest of the day off and be with Hannah.”

  “Thank you. In that case, Ms. Morris, I can give you my cellphone number. You can text me.”

  I wrote it down. So far I hadn’t got much further in the investigation, but then I wasn’t supposed to be doing the serious interviewing. That was going to be up to the local squad. Nevertheless I wasn’t going to pass up this opportunity.

  “I would like to get the names any other friends in your circle that you think I can talk to. Phone numbers and or emails would be great, too.”

  Mrs. Scott fussed a little in her desk, finding paper and pens. I watched them as they wrote down the names. They both looked so young to me. Jessica in particular was a head turner. Even on this chilly day, she was flashing some smooth flesh between the top of her jeans and her T-shirt. Hannah wasn’t quite as pretty but she too was dressed up-to the-minute in layered clothing and designer small-framed glasses.

  The intercom on Mrs. Scott’s desk flashed and she picked up the phone.

  “Yes. Wait there, I’ll be right out.”

  She hung up the receiver. “There are two staff members outside. They are supposed to run classes this afternoon. Do you want to talk to them as well?”

  I hesitated. I was within the bounds of legitimacy by talking to Jessica and Hannah on Leo’s behalf but further questioning should be done by Ed Chaffey’s team. Also I was frankly a bit bummed out by being the bearer of such bad news.

  “I don’t think I will at this time, Mrs. Scott. There will be police officers coming later today to talk to everybody.”

  I reached for my purse and picked up my coat, which I had draped over the back of the chair. The two young women were both watching me intently, presumably to understand what I was saying. Hannah signed something to her friend and whatever she said back seemed to cause her great distress and she let out another wail. I raised my eyebrows questioningly at Mrs. Scott, who tapped Jessica on the arm and made some rapid signs to her.

  “Has something upset Hannah?”

  Jessica herself was visibly distressed. “She thinks that Ms. Morris should see the letters that Deidre received. They are in her locker.”

  Good, that could mean only one thing.

  “She received many letters when the newspaper reported the story of Joy’s conception … most of them are very nasty. I wanted her to throw them away but she wouldn’t. She kept all of them.”

  Hannah had been watching her friend’s lips as she spoke and she interjected loudly. “Hearing people don’t unnerstan. We have no need of them.”

  She made a gesture with her right hand, finger bent and stabbing in the air. I was getting to know what the sign for no was.

  “Did you know about this?” I asked Mrs. Scott.

  She shook her head. “I was aware Deidre had stirred up a lot of people. We were deluged with calls when the news broke about her and Joy, but I didn’t know she’d been receiving hate letters.” She pushed her fingers against her mouth as if she was trying to hold back a cry. “I suppose they’re going to be all over us again now.”

  There was no comfort I could give her on that one because I didn’t think such a story would go unnoticed. As I said, Orillia wasn’t exactly a hot bed of crime.

  “She kept the letters in her locker,” said Jessica. “You should probably have a look at them. Whoever sent them was sick, if you ask me.”

  I took my cellphone out of my bag. “Will you excuse me just a minute?”

  I stepped out into the hall, punching in Ed’s number. A man and a woman were standing by the desk and they both regarded me anxiously. I held up my hand to stop their questions and turned my back, huddling into the cellphone like a lovesick teenager. Ed answered right away and I told him what had gone down so far.

  “Sure, get the letters. I’m not going to have anybody free to come out there until much later anyway. We’re doing a house-to-house around the park. Call me.”

  I clicked off and with a quick smile at the couple who were watching me, I went back into Mrs. Scott’s office. She had a key ring in her hand. “I have the locker key here if you need it.” She sorted through the bunch and held up one. All were numbered. “I’ll show you where it is.”

  “We do it,” said Hannah. She looked fierce and Mrs. Scott meekly handed over the key ring.

  Deidre’s friends were certainly protective.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Jessica led the way back into the foyer. The couple standing outside jumped forward and there was a flurry of hand signs punctuated with soft noises. Mrs. Scott was right behind us and she drew the two people away. She had the unenviable task of communicating with them what had happened. Jessica, Hannah, and I all continued across the reception area and Jessica opened a door into a spacious room that must have once been the dining room. The ceilings were high and there were deep bay windows, which were pulling in as much of the light from the day as possible. They faced onto what must have once been a lawn, now a parking lot.

  “This is a lovely room,” I said, and it was.

  Except for a cluttered long table in the centre, the furnishings were elegant and welcoming: a couple of rose-coloured brocade couches along the walls, some wingback chairs, also brocade, and a soft old rug that covered the wood floor. The fireplace with its ornate mahogany mantelpiece was still intact.

  “Let’s have some light, for Christ’s sake,” said Jessica. She flicked on the switch and a beautiful crystal chandelier lit up.

  “Over here,” said Hannah.

  I had expected an ugly metal bank of lockers like you see in high schools but somebody had found an antique oak lawyer’s cupboard and it blended in beautifully with the rest of the décor. It stood against the far wall opposite the windows.

  Hannah opened one of the lockers; it was high and narrow. Maybe the lawyers had kept their robes in there. Both she and Jessica stopped abruptly because, like any other private cupboard, this one contained its owner’s personal possessions. There were a pair of runners, a sweater on the hook, and a photograph of Joy on the door. The sight of these things made Hannah weep again. She leaned her head on Jessica’s shoulder, who stroked her hair softly. She appeared to be the stronger of the two. Her eyes met mine.

  “The letters are in the envelope.”

  On the shelf, there was also a textbook for the deaf, a DVD, and a paperback novel. I checked the title. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. A novel I’d read years ago and considered to be one of the saddest books I’d ever read. Tucked underneath was manila envelope.

  Handling it by the corner I took it out. “I think it would be simpler if I took this with me and looked it over in my office.”

  In my bag I had what I thought of as a forensic minikit. It contained a pair of sterile gloves, several clear plastic zip-locked bags, a pair of tweezers, and a receipt book.

  I put the envelope in one of the plastic bags and labelled it.

  “I’m goin
g to make out the receipt for the envelope to you, Jessica. Is that okay with you?”

  She shrugged. “I suppose so. I’m the executrix of her will. We’re all each other’s.”

  Hannah didn’t seem to have understood what I was doing and she signed at Jessica. I wrote out the receipt and gave it to Jessica, who folded it carefully and put it in her pocket.

  “Have you yourself seen the letters?” I asked.

  “Pardon?”

  I’d been looking down when I spoke. I repeated myself so she could see my mouth.

  “Some of them. I thought they were hateful but Deidre treated them as a joke.” Jessica paused. “She felt they … what’s the word, they vindicated her actions.”

  “In having a deaf baby on purpose, you mean?”

  Hannah had read that and she glared at me. She touched her fingertips to her forehead, dropped her hand, then flicked her thumb from under her chin. Her expression was clear. Why not?

  I didn’t see any point in beating around the bush on this next question because it might be central to the case.

  “Do you know who fathered her child?”

  I was speaking directly to Jessica now, although Hannah was in my line of vision. There had been no signing as yet but it appeared that Hannah understood what I’d said. I caught the quick lowering of her eyes. Jessica shook her head and made the sign to her friend, who also indicated a no then made a back-and-forth and fingers-to-mouth movement.