The K Handshape

by Maureen Jennings

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  Paula woke up early. She had been moaning in her sleep, which in turn woke me up so we lay talking for quite a long time. Some of it was rehashing the situation with Craig, but some of it was serious reflection about what would happen if she did have cancer and if that meant a death sentence and what would happen to Chelsea in that case.

  We must have been talking for almost an hour and daylight was just happening.

  “I don’t have to ask you to take care of her, I know you will,” said Paula.

  I grabbed her hand and squeezed it hard.

  “Chelsea will be getting up soon, I’d better look lively… Thanks Chris. When we were teenagers did you ever imagine we’d end up as two old broads lying in bed together sharing deep thoughts about the meaning of life?”

  “Hey, who are you calling an old broad? I’m three months younger than you. Call yourself an old broad if you like but don’t include me.”

  “Can you hold your pee for eight hours the way you used to?”

  “You have to be kidding?”

  “Old broad! Have you noticed some of your eyebrows are migrating to your chin?”

  “On occasion.”

  “Old broad! What’s the best definition of a really old broad?”

  “I’m almost afraid to ask. What is it?”

  “If a man asks to see her tits, she lifts her skirt.”

  I dumped a pillow on her head and got out of bed.

  “Speaking of holding your pee, I’ve got to get to the bathroom.”

  “Another characteristic of an old broad, you build your trips according to how many bathroom stops there are along the way.”

  We did old broad jokes right down to the kitchen, sharing them with Mrs. Jackson who had one of her own.

  “Old broads know if they can’t be a good role model to the younger generation, they can at least be a dire warning.”

  Chelsea soon joined us and we had to stop as everything needed explaining. But we actually had fun and when I left I was happy to see some colour in Paula’s face and a sparkle in her eyes.

  The office meeting was scheduled for nine-thirty so I raced back to my apartment long enough to change my clothes and give Bertie and Tory a couple of rubs they were mad about. I brought the papers with me that Barbara Cheevers had handed to me in Tim Hortons, which seemed a lifetime away.

  As usual, Janice greeted me with a cheery, “Coffee’s freshly made.”

  “No calls for now, Janice, unless they are urgent.”

  “Does that include, ‘this is her mother and it’s urgent’ calls?”

  “Bless you, Janice, I leave that to your judgement, but it especially includes those kind.”

  “What if your friend phones? Shall I just talk to him myself? I don’t mind a bit. He sounds like Sean Connery.”

  “Keep your hands off, that call should most definitely come through.”

  I poured a cup, carried it to my office, and turned my “busy” sign around.

  Barbara had photocopied all the records from Sunshine Lodge as far back as the changing of the locks three years ago and she had added some notes of her own.

  January 14, 2001: Locks changed on outer doors and each individual apartment. (Before that we had open access to the building which the residents preferred but when we had what seemed to be a rash of petty thefts, the city decided for security reasons to change its policies. Each resident was given a key to the outer door and a separate key to their apartment. The superintendents had a master key for both the outer doors, front and back, and the apartments. The superintendents at this time were Mr. and Mrs. John Nicholls. They had been with the city in the Sunshine Lodge for twenty years. In March 2001 they retired and went to live in Florida.)

  On the page was a list of complaints that had been made to the superintendents. Nothing that stood out, a litany you might expect.

  Mrs. Sweeney, apt. 201, says her toilet keeps overflowing. Plunged it out. She keeps putting paper towels down.

  February 17, 2001: A call from Mrs. McGinnis that her husband was breathing funny. On checking, I found Mr. McGinnis in the middle of an apparent heart attack. Called 911 and he was removed to hospital.

  March 1, 2001: Miss Burman found in the hallway. She had had a stroke. Removed to hospital. Two malfunctioning televisions were replaced and a new stove installed in apartment 333.

  March 2001 to March 2002: New superintendents Mrs. Pereira and son.

  Either the new supers had had a trouble-free year or they hadn’t bothered to keep a record of the light bulb changes and TV fixing. However Barbara had attached, on a separate sheet, a report from the social worker, a Miss Avril Bentley. The report was handwritten on yellow lined paper. I got a bit of a jolt from that.

  February 22, 2002: I received a complaint from Mrs. Pereira that one of the residents was harassing her son by making inappropriate remarks and touching inappropriately. I was unable to determine exactly what constituted these actions except that Mrs. P. said the resident was “acting sexy.” Miss Cohen, the woman accused, is an elderly woman. I questioned her as delicately as I could but she denied doing anything amiss and she was very upset at the suggestion. All I can say about her is that she is in the habit of wandering down to the common room in her nightclothes. However, Mrs. Pereira is still upset about the incident and has tendered her resignation.

  April 2002 to December 2002: Unable to find a suitable replacement. We are using Reliable Cleaning Services.

  That grabbed my attention. This must be the woman that Grace had mentioned.

  Miss Bentley wrote:

  I spoke to Mrs. Salamonica as best I could but she is very confused. I also reported it to her son who is her guardian. He saw no reason to involve the police as his mother is having delusions on a regular basis and should be placed in a long-term facility as soon as possible.

  May 15: Done.

  January 2003 to June 2004 Norman Evans: Norman resigned in May citing personal reasons. He has returned to Nova Scotia. His long-time partner apparently has died from AIDS.

  April 29, 2004: Mrs. Maria Salamonica has complained to me that a man entered her apartment and “tickled her all over.”

  July 2004: Mr. and Mrs. L. Desjardins hired. Some doubt about their suitability but beggars can’t be choosers.

  So there was one complaint of sexual harassment, no, that’s not right, two, if you include the super and her son, but I couldn’t conceive of an old lady with Alzheimer’s continuing on to a life of crime.

  There was a phone number on the sheet and I keyed in Avril Bentley’s number.

  She answered right away. Her voice was lightly accented, British.

  I explained who I was and why I was calling.

  “Oh my yes, I remember Mrs. Salamonica. It was most distressing. Poor woman was in the grip of Alzheimer’s and her family were in complete denial. She would say the most outrageous and inappropriate things and they would just laugh at her.”

  “Can you give me an example?”

  “Hmm. Let me see. There was one time when we were having a do in the common room, somebody’s birthday, I believe it was, Mrs. Salamonica suddenly called out, ‘Hands up all those here who are getting laid on a regular basis…’” Miss Bentley gave an embarrassed chuckle. “I mean to say, the average age in the room must have been eighty. And such a vulgar term. Heaven knows where she heard it.”

  This was an old broad indeed.

  “That was the last straw as far as her son was concerned,” continued Miss Bentley. “He had her put in a long-term facility the same week.”

  “Do you think there was any credence to her story about a man coming into her apartment?”

  “None at all. I’ve seen it happen so many times now. Some people with Alzheimer’s lose control of their libidos, shall we say. They will, er, touch themselves, constantly and in public. It can be quite embarrassing. Maria was like that.”

  “Was she upset when she made her report to you?”

&nb
sp; “She was but then she was prone to cry about everything. The news on television, the state of Africa, you name it… I assure you, Sergeant Morris, if I had thought for one moment that what she said was true I would have been on the blower immediately to you people.”

  “May I ask how strict a control you kept on the keys?”

  She made tut-tutting sounds. “We are as careful as we can be but with elderly residents it’s very difficult. They give out a spare key to family members who forget to return them if the resident moves on. And we can’t possibly afford to change the locks every time a resident loses a key or if they move on.”

  I could see her point. I went back to Barbara’s report. “Could I just ask you about one other case? In February 2002 the super, Mrs. Pereira, lodged a complaint about one of the residents who she said was harassing her son and quote, making inappropriate remarks and touching inappropriately, unquote. What was all that about?”

  More tutting sounds on the other end of the phone. “In my opinion, Mrs. Pereira completely overreacted. The resident, Miss Cohen was her name I believe, was a sweet rather dotty old lady who was deaf as a post. To make sure people were talking straight at her, she’d turn them around. She was always very gentle about it but she liked to get up close so she could hear better, I believe. Mrs. P. said she had her son around the waist, which she might have done, but it wouldn’t have been lechery like it was with poor old Maria.”

  “And inappropriate remarks? What about them?”

  “I couldn’t make head nor tail of that from Mrs. Pereira. She is Portugese and has a heavy accent. But as far as I can tell, Miss Cohen had said something like ‘I love you sweetie,’ when he’d done something nice for her.”

  “Was the boy bothered by that?”

  “What boy?”

  “The superintendent’s son.”

  She laughed heartily. “Oh no, he wasn’t a boy. He was an adult. Must be in his late forties, early fifties. No, it didn’t bother him. I think he liked the attention he got from the old ladies. But his mother had such a grip on him. I doubt he could take a pee, excuse my language, without her permission.”

  “Do you remember the man’s name?”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t.”

  “Miss Bentley, I understand you are now the supervisor for all of the city lodges.”

  “That’s right. I’ve been here since last year.”

  “Have there been any complaints from residents in any of the other lodges that were to do with sexual harassments, assaults, or anything like that?”

  “No… if there were I would call the police as I said. We are required by law to do that.”

  “So there was nothing?”

  “Not in my time, except…” Another pause. “There was one incident but it wasn’t a formal complaint or anything like that, and it didn’t involve a resident as such, but there was what you might call an incident at the Atrium Lodge last October. The granddaughter of one of the residents stayed over in the lodge. She has Down’s syndrome but is quite high functioning. She told her grandmother that a man had come into her room and asked her to do naughty things. The girl lives in Huronia Residence and apparently she says this at least once a week.”

  “So it might have been a case of crying wolf once too often.”

  “I doubt that.” Miss Bentley sounded quite huffy, as if I were impugning her reputation. “It was all a fabrication, all her imagination.”

  I tried a different tack. “At the time this last incident happened, was there a lock on the front door?”

  “Yes. All of the lodges were changed over at the same time. Do for one, you have to do for all.”

  “And did the superintendent confirm that the door was securely locked?”

  “Yes, of course… no, wait a minute, that was when Arthur Bennington was the super and he had a sudden appendectomy. He had complications and was off for a month.”

  “So there wasn’t anybody checking on security?”

  “Dear me, of course there was. In cases like this we always get in a temporary super.”

  “The temps come from Reliable Cleaning Services, I understand.”

  “That’s right. But Sergeant, please don’t make a mountain out of a molehill. We, I, take the best care of our residents. These cases you have dragged up are isolated incidents. I discount Mrs. Pereira. Nothing happened.”

  “Something did happen to Doris Bryant. That was not a figment of her imagination.”

  Dead silence. “I am very sorry about that.”

  I heard a beep on the line. “I have another call. I’m afraid I have to go.”

  “I don’t mind waiting.”

  “Very well. Never mind, I’ll leave it.”

  “You said, ‘in my time,’ earlier. Was there a complaint concerning sexual assault at another time?”

  “I understand there was but I don’t know much about it. I can’t be expected to look over every single previous report, can I? The social worker in charge was Elaine Mortimer, who is an experienced woman. It would have been settled before I took over.”

  “Can I have a copy of the report you’re referring to?”

  “I suppose I can dig it up.”

  “Please do. One other question. I see you use yellow notepaper for your report.”

  “Yes, I do. I don’t type and I didn’t expect to be raked over the coals for it.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing like that. I just wondered if your notepaper is accessible to others. Did you ever miss any?”

  “The answer to that is no. I keep it in my drawer and I suppose somebody could steal some if they were so inclined but it’s not exactly vellum, is it?”

  Quite right. And at best it was only a slender connection to the anonymous letters sent to Deidre. But then spiderwebs look slender and are virtually indestructible.

  We hung up. It was part of my job to make mountains out of molehills, then you can knock them down again if you have to. I’d rather have four unnecessary mountains than one overlooked molehill.

  My suspicious friend at Reliable Cleaning Services had faxed Barbara a list of their employees. Each column recorded the name of the temp, where they were sent, and for how long.

  I laid it alongside of Barbara’s report. At Sunshine Lodge, the one complaint, fanciful or not, from Mrs. Salamonica had occurred when the lodge was using temps. The incident with the girl with Down’s syndrome at Atrium Lodge was also at a time when Reliable Cleaning Services was supplying supers.

  Bingo.

  I reached for the phone and punched in Miss Bentley’s number. This time she sounded decidedly frosty. She obviously now considered me a confirmed impugner.

  “Miss Bentley, you said you couldn’t remember the name of Mrs. Pereira’s son. The one who was supposedly being harassed by a resident. Do you have it written down anywhere?”

  “No, I don’t. He had a different last name, as I recall. Something to do with a stepfather he didn’t get along with. He kept his own father’s name.”

  “Does the name Sylvio Torres sound familiar?”

  “Why yes, that’s it. I was thinking Sylvester, but no, that’s it. Sylvio. What is happening, Sergeant? They haven’t reopened the complaint surely.”

  “No, they haven’t, but I’m going to.”

  I got off the phone, grabbed my papers, and raced out of my office. Time for a team meeting.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  While the team was assembling, I made a couple of phone calls. One to Elaine Mortimer, the social worker Miss Bentley mentioned, the other to the Huronia Institute. The team had assembled quickly except for Leo, who excused himself and decided to stay with Joy and Loretta at the house. He said things were going as well as could be expected. He’d even learned a few signs by now. I didn’t tell him at this point what I’d discovered.

  I’d got everybody copies of Barbara Cheevers’s report and the list from Reliable Cleaning Services and we were going over it.

  “Torres and his mother, whose name is Belva Pereira
, were the supers at the Sunshine Lodge for one year, 2001 to 2002. This means that Torres could easily have copied the master key and gained access to the building whenever he wanted to. As we know, there was no sign of forced entry into Doris Bryant’s apartment. He also made sure she couldn’t see him. Doris was a resident when Mrs. Pereira was superintendent.”

  I told them what Avril had reported about Mrs. Pereira’s complaint. “It seemed completely innocuous but his mother resigned and kicked up a fuss. I’d say she was revealing a high level of protectiveness.”

  David, who always liked to be shown as eager and attentive, pointed to the Reliable list. “I see he was hired out again at the end of April 2002 for a week. He was sent to Leisure World on West Street. And a resident there lodged a complaint on June 10, Chris has given us that report separately. The resident said a man entered her apartment and tickled her. There is no reference to his being masked or of her face being covered.”

  I took up the thread. “The woman is eighty-nine and suffers from macular degeneration so her eyesight is very poor and it was dark. She couldn’t give a description of the man except, get this, that she kept referring to him as a farmer. Nobody made sense of that, but I’m guessing she may have meant he was wearing overalls, and I saw Torres in a pair of blue overalls when I was at his apartment.”

  “Has that come up anywhere else?” asked Ray.

  “No. Doris never saw him because he blindfolded her. But she told Grace he smelled of disinfectant. Cleaning fluid, maybe? She also used the word stroked, by the way. She said he stroked her legs.”

  Nobody likes hearing stories like this no matter how experienced we are and there was a brief silence around the table. I let everybody have a breather to absorb what I was saying, then I continued.

  “There was one more complaint from yet another lodge, the Atrium. This did not involve a resident as such, but was concerning her granddaughter, who is a Down’s syndrome woman. She says a man came into her bedroom and asked her to show her bum-bum but she was scared and she shouted for her grannie. Grandma is hard of hearing and it took a while to wake her up and by then the man, if there was one, had fled. Now ladies and gentleman, if you look at the Reliable list, you can see that our Mr. Torres was hired out to the Atrium while their super was off sick. He was there one month earlier.”