The K Handshape

by Maureen Jennings

  “If you were straight, I’d seriously consider it.”

  He gave me a flamboyant kiss, first on one cheek, then the other. His chin was unshaven and bristly and he smelled like Scotch.

  “Thank you, dear friend,” he whispered.

  Once again it was pre-dawn when my phone rang.

  Groggy, I struggled to grab the receiver, already blaming Joan for an inconsiderate call. I didn’t switch on the light so didn’t see the call display.

  “Hello?”

  “Miss Morris, this is Grace Cameron…”

  The voice was clear, words precisely enunciated, but for a split second I couldn’t remember who she was.

  “You were at my apartment yesterday. I returned home after all.”

  “Yes, yes, of course, I’m sorry, Miss Cameron. I was momentarily in another world.”

  “Of course and I do apologize for the early hour but I wanted to speak to you particularly because I found you quite a sympathetic person … I have just received a telephone call from my friend who lives in a seniors’ building just two blocks from here…”

  I heard her intake of breath. “Sorry, I had to use my puffer. My friend’s name is Doris Bryant. She is confined to a wheel chair…” Another gasp. There was something coming through the line that made me alarmed. “Before I continue, Miss Morris, I should say that I have given my word to my friend that I would not contact the police. It was with great difficulty that I persuaded her to give me permission to call you…”

  What the hell…?

  “Doris has told me that she has been the victim of an attack. A man has raped her.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  The strong ageless voice suddenly wavered. “Doris is eighty-three years old. She has been in a wheelchair since she had a stroke four years ago but she manages very well. Who would do something like that to an old lady, Miss Morris? What monster would do such a thing?”

  “Can you tell me what happened?”

  “As I said she had just now telephoned me but she is understandably very upset and it took me a while to make sense of what she was saying. However, perhaps it would be best for you if I related what happened as I now understand it.”

  “Please do, Miss Cameron.” Automatically, I scrambled to get a pen and paper so I could copy down what she said.

  “Doris is a light sleeper. She said she got up about two o’clock to answer a call of nature. She can manoeuvre herself quite well into the wheelchair and she went into the bathroom. As she was coming out, she was grabbed from behind and some kind of bag thrown over her head. Her arms were pinned to her sides by what turned out to be her own dressing gown belt. She could put up no resistance. The man told her to be quiet or he would kill her but he also tied something around her mouth, so she could not scream if she had wanted to … Excuse me, Miss Morris, the excitement has aggravated my asthma, I must use my puffer again.” I waited while she did so, hoping she was all right. “I am not completely clear as to what happened next because it was almost impossible for Doris to speak coherently but I gather he removed her undergarments. She was wearing a nightdress but always wears special underpants when she goes to bed. She has no sensation in her legs but she thinks he interfered with her in her private parts. She found … she found his semen. Then he said he was sorry and he would make sure somebody discovered her before too long. That turned out not to be the case. Nobody came. She eventually wriggled free from the cord and freed her arms. She then took the hood off her head. It was an ordinary bag that she uses for collecting her delicates.”

  I heard the drag of breath again. “Are you all right, Miss Cameron?”

  “Yes. My door is securely locked… Doris said that she got herself into the shower and stayed there for a long time.”

  I bit my lip. Unfortunately for us, this human reaction to rape was the worst thing to do from a forensics standpoint. Key evidence would be washed away.

  “She says that she sat in a sort of daze, not knowing what to do. I had talked to her previously about our encounter, yours and mine, Miss Morris, and said how, er, safe you made me feel. Finally, she called me and asked me to telephone you and ask if you can come to her apartment as soon as you can. At this moment, she cannot face telling the regular police but she believes she owes it to other women to report what happened in case he strikes again.”

  I could have wept.

  “Miss Cameron. I will go and see her immediately but I’m afraid I cannot promise to keep this quiet. I will have to report it. We must catch this man.”

  “I told her that would probably be the case but she says it must be you first. I think she can only proceed in small stages.”

  “Where does she live?”

  “In the seniors’ building at the corner of John Street and McKenzie. It’s called Sunshine Lodge.”

  “I know it.”

  Grace drew on her puffer. “I was thinking that I had better come with you. She is one of my oldest friends and I believe she will feel better if I am there. She is a widow and has two daughters but neither lives in town.”

  I hesitated. She was probably right about her friend but she herself was a frail elderly woman. I didn’t want to cause her harm in any way. She picked up on my thoughts.

  “As I told you previously, Miss Morris, I used to be a nurse and even though it was some time ago, I was good at my work. I was frequently called upon to calm hysteria and nerves.”

  “All right. Will you call your friend back and say we’ll be there in about fifteen minutes? I’ll come and get you.”

  We hung up and a sleepy voice called from the next room.

  “Chris, is everything all right?”

  I got out of bed and started to get dressed. “I’ve got to go out, Gary. Help yourself to whatever you need.”

  I hurried off to the bathroom and when I came out Gary was standing in the hall.

  “Bad news, huh?”

  I nodded.

  “Take care then. Don’t worry, I’ll look after the pussycats.”

  I collected my tape recorder and headed out. Gary followed me to the top of the stairs. He had brought up his dressing gown, a rather sedate blue terry cloth, and as he saw me off, I had the sense of how domestic the scene would look to an outsider but with typical roles reversed. Me, a daring police officer off to catch the bad guys, him soft and homey ready to handle the household affairs. I almost laughed at my own thoughts, which was when I realized how deeply troubling the phone call had been.

  I found Grace waiting for me outside her apartment building. The needles of rain shone in the lamplight and the chill air was penetrating to the bone. Grace was bundled up in an ankle-length down coat and faux fur hat and she was leaning on a Zimmer frame.

  “I was too agitated to wait inside,” she said as I jumped out of the car to help her in. She’d forgotten her gloves and her hands were cold. I turned up the heater to high.

  “I called Doris back to tell her we were on our way, but she didn’t answer. She might have gone back into the bathroom.”

  As usual, her voice was controlled but I felt her fear. I knew it was rare for a rapist to return immediately to his victim but it did happen. I shoved the accelerator to the floor and we raced down the street. The tires on my car, squealed melodramatically as I roared around the corner, ignoring the stop sign.

  The seniors’ building was only three blocks away so we were there in two minutes. I pulled to a stop in front of the entrance.

  “I’ve got a key,” said Grace. “We have each other’s. It saves having to buzz somebody in all the time.”

  The door was timed to accommodate residents in wheelchairs and it opened with agonizing slowness.

  “Doris is on the first floor at the rear,” said Grace. “We’ll have to take the elevator.”

  She was doing her best but she couldn’t walk quickly.

  “Shall I go on ahead?” I asked her but she shook her head vehemently.

  “She’ll be frightened if I’m not with you.”r />
  And she, I realized, would be frightened if I left her alone.

  I pressed the elevator button and we waited, me scouting out the place. There were four floors in the building and the elevator must have been at the top and seemed to be stopping at every one of them on the way down.

  The hall lights were on low and I could glimpse an open entrance into what was probably the lounge. A door opposite us said Office.

  “Stay here a minute, Grace.”

  First I tried the office door, which appeared to be firmly locked, then I went down to the lounge and flicked on the light. It was empty and there were no hiding places. I shoved open the fire-exit door. There was nobody skulking in the stairwell. I returned to Grace. She was actually sitting on the seat of her Zimmer frame and I could see all colour had drained from her face. She managed a wan smile.

  “I think the old dears press every button by mistake and the doors take an hour to open and close which is why it takes so bloody long.”

  Finally the elevator reached ground level and the doors slowly opened. There was nobody getting out. Grace shuffled in and we crept upward to the first floor. I was on full alert, registering as much information as I could. We’d have to go over it all again with the other police but I knew from experience, these first impressions were important. It might have been residents inadvertently pressing the buttons, or it might not, especially at this hour of the morning. It was certainly a way of delaying the elevator.

  Doris’s apartment was at the far end of the hall, right next to the stairs. The obligatory fire door was closed. Grace was moving valiantly as fast as she could. The place was utterly quiet and I felt a sudden pang of distress at the impact what had happened might have on the sleeping residents.

  Grace knocked softly on the door.

  “It’s me, Doris. And Detective Morris.”

  There was no reply and she inserted her key and we stepped inside.

  Doris Bryant was in her wheelchair in the centre of the small living room. Her head was slumped forward onto her chest and her face was an ugly livid colour; saliva had trickled from the side of her mouth, which had drooped to a grotesque angle. She was not breathing.

  “Oh my god, what’s happened to her?” Grace was right behind me, staring in horror at her friend.

  I went over to the body and touched the woman’s bare arm. Her skin was still warm. She must have died within the last half an hour.

  “I believe she’s had a stroke,” I said.

  As far as I was concerned, Mrs. Doris Bryant was now a homicide.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  There was a list of emergency numbers fastened with a cat magnet to Doris’s fridge. First I made the 911 call, then I roused the superintendents, Mr. and Mrs. Desjardins. The phone rang for a long time and when Mr. Desjardins finally answered, he didn’t seem able to comprehend what I was saying. I repeated myself and then asked him to come to the apartment so he could take care of Grace. She was sitting on one of the kitchen chairs as I’d directed her and she could hear my half of the conversation. She began to gesticulate violently and when I hung up she said, “They drink, that’s why he couldn’t understand you. I don’t want to be with them. I’ll sit here.”

  “Grace, you can’t. This is now a crime scene and there will be all kinds of officers swarming all over the place.”

  “Well, I’m not going to be with those two parasites. Besides, they smoke and their apartment stinks. The woman in the next apartment was a friend of Doris’s. I’ve met her a few times and she impressed me as a steady sort. She was a doctor herself years ago. I’d rather wake her up and be with her until you need me.”

  If anything Grace had gone even whiter but her voice was still strong. She was gripping her walker tightly but otherwise she herself was steady. No tears, no trembling, just the awful pallor.

  “Come on then.”

  I put myself between the body and Grace as we walked across the living room and she kept her eyes straight ahead.

  Unlike the superintendents, who still hadn’t appeared, the neighbour, whose name was Edith Cowan, answered quickly. She was a tiny woman who at the moment was wearing a mesh hairnet over iron grey hair and a serviceable navy dressing gown. As Grace had said, it was apparent she was a “steady sort.”

  I didn’t go into details, just explained who I was and said that Mrs. Bryant was dead and could Grace stay with her for a while.

  “Of course.”

  At that moment, the elevator doors opened and disgorged two paramedics, four firefighters, and a uniformed constable.

  Grace, who had been so stalwart up to this point, said quietly. “I think I’m going to vomit.”

  Edith put her arm around Grace’s waist. “Let’s get you to the bathroom.”

  She whisked her inside and closed the door, leaving me free to deal with the emergency crew.

  I told them I was pretty sure Doris Bryant had died as the result of a stroke but because of other circumstances, I was treating it as a case of equivocal death, which meant the body had to remain where it was until the coroner and the forensics team arrived. Coincidently, the paramedics were the same pair who’d answered the call to come to the pier.

  “We probably should check her vitals to make sure,” said the girl. She and her partner, although to my eyes looking as if they were barely out of high school, were calm and professional. I suppose old ladies felled by a stroke were much more within the norm than a girl strangled and dumped into the lake.

  “Just you then. And you, constable. I can’t have a lot of people traipsing through.”

  They went inside and I had a brief talk with the firefighters, who started to pick up their equipment and head for the elevator. One of them lingered.

  “I know Mrs. Bryant. She was a member of our church,” he said. “A good soul if ever there was one. She lived in Orillia all her life. She was my mother’s teacher.” He crossed himself. “May she rest in peace.” He hesitated. “I don’t suppose you can tell me what happened?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t at the moment.”

  He had a kind face and he eyed me sympathetically. “It was nasty, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, it was.”

  The two paramedics came out of the apartment.

  “No vitals,” said Cathy. She and her partner, whose name I had forgotten, started to fold up their stretcher.

  “How’s the man with hypothermia?” she asked.

  “He’s fully recovered, thanks.”

  From that, anyway.

  All of them left except the constable who’d got the emergency call. He was waiting with his notebook in his hand. I briefed him as to what had happened and why I was there. He was a gangly young guy who gave his name as Geoff Purvis. As first on the scene, his job was now to secure the site and then stay with the body until he was told he could leave, and although he didn’t complain, I could see the expression on his face. His shift was almost up and he could be here for hours longer.

  I went back into the apartment but stayed at the door. No sense in making forensics’ job more difficult by the two of us leaving trace elements. At the moment, all I was doing was trying to get an overview. I had more chance to assess the apartment now. Doris must have tried to get out of her wheelchair because her bathrobe was open to her knees. She was naked underneath. I know it wasn’t rational but I felt sorry that she was so exposed. I couldn’t give her some dignity by covering her up but I understood the impulse that makes people alter clothes or the position of the body when the victim is somebody they have cared for.

  “My auntie lives in a seniors’ home,” said Purvis. “It looks just like this. All her stuff crammed into one room when she used to have a whole house. This lady kept it tidy, though, which is more than I can say for my auntie.”

  He was right about it being both tidy and crammed. There wasn’t a lot of room to manoeuvre the wheelchair and I could see faint lines on the carpet where the chair had started to mark a path. To the bedroom at the rear, b
athroom, across the living room to the kitchen. There was a large state-of-the-art plasma TV nestled in a shelving unit along one wall. The senior’s delight. I could see several framed photographs on the shelves. Children and grandchildren probably. Doris’s life. All victims had a life and sometimes the hardest part of a case was dealing with the impact the death had on those left behind. Unbidden, I felt a wave of anger that actually made me clench my teeth. “A good woman,” the firefighter had said. She should have ended her days peacefully, not in this violent shameful way.

  “Did you see any signs of how the guy got in?” I asked Purvis.

  “None at all. The windows are closed, this door is the only entrance and shows no signs of forced entry. Either it wasn’t locked or the bad guy had a key. The bathroom’s been used recently, the towels are wet, but she may have done that herself given what you’ve said.”

  I nodded. “She took a shower.”

  We heard the ping of the elevator and out stepped two officers. One was Detective Inspector Ian Franklin, the other a female plainclothes officer who was a few paces behind. I wasn’t surprised at that. I’d met Franklin on a case last year and I wasn’t happy it was his watch. He was close to retirement, old school, and I thought took undue pride in being “a straight shooter,” which meant in his case, a tactless jerk. Rather unexpectedly, he seemed glad to see me, greeting me as if we were old pals. I felt a bit guilty about my uncharitable feelings toward him and warmed up my smile. He didn’t introduce the woman but I held out my hand and we shook, like good lads.

  “Christine Morris. I’m with the Behavioural Science Centre.”

  “Detective Constable Susan Bailey,” she returned. “I thought you guys never came out in daylight.”

  She had blonde tips, a firm figure, and there was a twinkle in her eyes that softened the sarcasm and made me think she wasn’t as overawed by Franklin as it first appeared.

  “So what’s the story?” he asked. “You saying this isn’t a natural?”

  I filled him in on what I knew so far going from Grace’s call. He scowled but his only comment was, “My mother-in-law’s nearly eighty. I wouldn’t want it to happen to even that old biddy. We’ve got to put this guy away for good.”