by Cathy Ace
I stopped again, and weighed how I should continue. I couldn’t resist it. ‘So, shall I tell you now who killed her and how? I’m assuming you know.’
This time Dufray stood to reply. He smiled at me, but the shark-teeth weren’t on display this time. ‘I think we must all congratulate Professor Morgan on an excellent job,’ and he started applauding. The rest of the officers were as confused as me; was this Dufray’s way of closing down the session, I wondered? The applause grew throughout the room, then Dufray announced, ‘Thanks for being here – see you the next time.’ And that was it; the officers were dismissed, and started to head for the door. They’d seen their chance to get out, and they were taking it; I was nonplussed, and more than a little annoyed.
Dufray and I remained at opposite sides of the room as the officers drifted out into the empty corridors beyond the lecture hall. When the last one had gone, the door slamming behind him, Dufray turned to me and let me have it with both barrels.
‘That was very impressive, professor. I suppose you think you’re very bloody clever. I’ve had a team of ten on that case for a week – and you just pretended to know it all in a few minutes. I won’t stand for it. I will not be made fun of in front of my officers; I want to know who gave you your information, and I want to know now. Someone will pay for this.’
He was somewhat pink in the face; I counted to ten before I answered, telling myself to be calm when I did, but my blood was boiling too. He really wasn’t a terribly nice person; I don’t like bullies or hypocrites, and he was both.
I took a deep breath and forced myself to relax my shoulders. ‘Chief Superintendent Dufray, all I can do is assure you I know nothing about the case you’re working on. Everything I’ve told you is what I’ve deduced from what I saw via that camera, then interpreted using my knowledge, insights, and training. No one is trying to make a fool of you, chief superintendent,’ I concluded. Inwardly, I was thinking he was quite capable of doing that for himself; outwardly, I smiled as genuinely as I could.
His face screwed up in what I judged to be a torrent of swirling thoughts for a few seconds, then he looked me in the eye and said simply, ‘I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you could deduce from the scene what you just did. And, as for making out like you know how she died and who did it – there’s no way you could know that just by looking at what you saw.’
I responded a little more sharply, ‘If you don’t believe me, I can take you through everything I’ve said, and tell you what I saw and how I interpreted it so you can understand the process better. As for how she died, and who did it, I agree I don’t know exactly who did it, but I can tell you the man’s name; it was Don. I can also tell you she was probably strangled or smothered by him after she had dinner with him at her home. Don was the ex-boyfriend she’d dumped in early February; he’s probably quite a large, powerful man, and when you find him you’ll discover that, although the apartment looked undisturbed, he stole all her jewelry and a few other small, high-value items. Oh – and he also probably drives a leased, high-end SUV, that won’t be subtle in any way. Probably lots of spinning rims, that sort of thing. He’s a wannabe gangsta-type, though I don’t believe he’d have links with the gangs hereabouts.’
Dufray got even redder in the face. ‘That’s it! I’m out of here. I never want to see you again, young woman, and I never want to hear you’ve been trying to push this victimology crap to any of my officers. I will find out who has been leaking information to you, and I will have them up on disciplinary charges. You academics are unbelievable – you’ll do anything to make us think your weird ideas work so you can keep getting government money and grants, just so you don’t have to get a real job. Just you wait till I find out who did this to me; you haven’t heard the last of this.’
He slammed out of the room and I was left alone, shaking with anger and frustration.
I’ve always been used to being a woman in a man’s world, and all I’ve ever done is act like a human being, and treat others the same way – regardless of their age, gender identity, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or religion; at least, that’s what I’ve always tried to do. But the veneer of political correctness is still just that, merely a veneer, for so many people, and Dufray had just shown his true misogynistic colors as well as his own insecurities, and his total inability to believe anyone else’s way might actually work. That said, there I was with a boost of adrenaline running around my body, and the huge anticlimax of having no answer to my burning question: was I right about any of this?
I sat down for a moment to try to calm myself, then nearly jumped out of my skin when a loud, disembodied voice called out, ‘So have you finished with me now, Professor Morgan?’ In a nanosecond I realized I was hearing the voice of Constable Webber, who was smiling into the camera and much larger than life on the screen above me.
‘I’m so sorry, I completely forgot you were there,’ I exclaimed.
‘Has the chief gone?’ he asked sheepishly.
‘Oh yes, he’s well and truly gone,’ I replied with a sigh.
‘Good. You know, he had no right to speak to you like that, professor. But it’s how he is with everyone. They all say he’s got a heck of a temper on him, but that’s the first time I’ve seen it – or I guess I should say heard it, because I can’t see you there, of course. Did you really work out all that stuff for yourself, or did someone tell you? I mean, we only just arrested the guy today and I don’t think anyone on our team would have said anything. You did do it all on your own, didn’t you?’ He sounded as though he wanted me to be right, and his boss to be wrong.
‘Yes, Constable Webber, I did do it all on my own. No one in your team told me a thing; I was totally in the dark when you and your camera-feed came up on the screen. I’m sure Dufray’s annoyed this little experiment of his has backfired. Or has it? I don’t even know if I was right.’ I suspected the young officer could hear the hopelessness in my voice.
He replied with a gleeful, ‘Well, I guess I get to be the lucky one to tell you everything. You were right about everything, I mean it was so cool. The woman, what she looked like, what she did, where she worked, how she lived her life – everything. How did you know that stuff? How? Like – how did you know she dumped the guy in early February? How could you know that?’
‘The greetings cards in the box – you know, the box with the birthday card?’
‘Yeah?’
‘There was a birthday card that said that one gift wasn’t fair, so I worked out she had a birthday near Christmas which meant she often only got one combined gift for her birthday and Christmas, and the guy who signed himself as Don gave her a card for that, but there was no Valentine’s card from him, which she’d probably have kept if she kept the birthday card, so they’d split up by then.’
‘And how do you know she dumped him?’
‘If she’d been dumped she’d have kept more bits and pieces from times they’d spent together; she’d obviously cleared out most things connected with him, except a few items. The female dumper does that; the female dumpee keeps everything. The guy she lived with earlier – back in her past – dumped her; hence the little drinks umbrellas from Dukes in Honolulu, and the swizzle sticks and all those napkins and so forth. The littlest things mean a lot; you don’t throw them away until you can’t remember why you kept them in the first place, and – when you get dumped – you remember the happy times together for a long, long time.’
‘Okay, I guess that makes sense, but what about all the other stuff?’
‘Constable Webber, do you have a first name?’
‘Dave.’
‘Okay, Dave, do you want to sit down and settle yourself, and I’ll tell you all about it?’
Dave Webber jumped up, jiggling the camera about, and smiled broadly into it. ‘I’d love it, prof. Have you got time?’
Of course I had time; what else was there to do on a lovely June evening but grade papers? Also, if I’m honest, I just
can’t help myself when there’s a chance to educate someone who wants to learn.
‘Indeed I do, Dave, and please call me Cait. Ready?’
‘Ready.’
‘Looking around it’s clear to see she lived alone, agreed? Nothing male at all about the place, or in the place.’
‘Yep – agreed.’ He nodded into the camera.
‘Her physical description? Age is easy; the yearbook date allowed me to work that one out. Figure? Size eight clothes, no bathroom scales, that’s pretty straightforward; she’s slim and doesn’t worry about weight, so probably a natural ectomorph not an endomorph. Height? Heels are mid-sized, not flats or huge stilettos, so she’s tallish, and the height of the make-up mirror would suit someone about five eight. Hair? All her clothing and make-up colors tell me she’s a brunette; she’s always well-turned out, but there’s the fact she’s probably got a few greys coming in – she’s the kind of woman who’d cover that up with both high- and low-lights. Length is deduced from her shampoo which is for flyaway hair – you’d never have that type of hair cut too long, but she wouldn’t want the tomboy look of a crop. How am I doing?’
There was a slight pause and I thought Webber was somewhat distracted, but then he beamed and said cheerily, ‘Spot on, prof – just keep going, this is great.’
I was enjoying it; it’s such fun to show someone how something’s done, knowing there’s at least some chance they might learn something.
‘Background next. The family wedding has to be her mum and dad – take a look behind them in the photo – there’s a sign that tells you they’re in a Kiwanis Lodge in somewhere I’ve never heard of in Alberta; I know the cities and larger towns in Alberta, so it wasn’t much of a leap to work out they’re in a small town. My socio-economic and historical knowledge tells me people stayed pretty much where they married to raise their children in those days, plus, of course, there’s the same town name, with the name of the school, on the yearbook, so that’s where she’s from. I infer a university education from her management position, and suspect she’d have wanted to get away from small-town Alberta, hence university in Vancouver. Maybe the family had come here to see Expo in ’86 and she’d decided to come back some day? A brother? The catcher’s mitt, a memento of backyards and summer days – it’s not her dad’s, it’s too small, so a brother – but there’s nothing else, so they don’t see each other often. A gap year? She’s the sort of girl who doesn’t really know what she wants to do – you don’t wake up one morning and say “I’m going have a career in advertising sales”, you sort of drift into it, so I’m sure she’d have taken a year off with itchy feet. The little Thai elephant next to her bed shows she cherished that place, and she’d spent enough time there to know elephants always have to face out of a room to bring good luck into it. Her job? The magazines you showed us; she’s not reading the magazines, she’s researching them. All the titles are up-market, and she’s looking at where her potential clients are advertising. She’s taking an overview – no category specialization, so she’s management – that knowledge comes from the times when I worked at an advertising agency in the UK. So she’s an advertising sales manager for an up-market magazine, and I happen to know that means her target advertising agencies and media planners will be in Toronto for Canada, New York for the USA, and London for Europe – hence her business travel pattern. And there’s some nice underwear from the UK – she’d have bought the Marks & Spencer’s stuff, and the Rigby & Peller items there – which confirms the UK business trips. Mixed salary and commission compensation package? Again, management will draw a salary, but she was a hard worker and she’d be driven by big commission opportunities. All that stuff in her closet has to be paid for, you know; any woman with thirty-three pairs of five-hundred-dollar-plus shoes needs to know she can earn big bucks.’
‘Hang on a minute,’ interrupted Dave, ‘how do you know she’s got thirty-three pairs of shoes?’
‘You took the camera into the closet, and I saw them all lined up on the racks.’
Dave jumped in again, ‘But how do you know there are exactly that many pairs? Do you know what colors they are too?’ He was almost taunting me, and I knew I’d have to come clean about my ‘gift’ – but I didn’t want to sound weird.
‘Okay, I confess,’ I laughed, ‘I have what they call a photographic memory. The proper term is an eidetic memory, and many people believe there’s no such thing; sometimes when I find myself standing in my kitchen wondering why I went there, even I question if it truly exists. But I do have a special ability to encode and remember all types of stimuli and recall them in great detail at will – so it is somewhat like looking at a photograph, but for every one of my senses. It’s awfully hard to explain, and I prefer to not do so, to be honest, Dave, so I’d be grateful if you’d keep that confidence for me. And the shoes? There were eight black pairs, five brown or tan, two navy – do you want me to go on?’
‘No, I guess not. That must be cool, eh? Have you always been like that?’
‘It’s not like having a second head, Dave; it’s something a lot more people could do well – or at least better – if only they trained themselves. If you wanted to learn some helpful techniques, I could always suggest some reading for you.’
Dave chuckled. ‘I think it’s kinda over my head, prof, but I bet it’s pretty cool to remember everything. I’d do great at my exams if I could do that.’
‘Yes, it’s pretty cool to be able to remember everything,’ I agreed, but didn’t add that with it went the problem of not being able to erase images you’d rather you’d never seen. Instead I continued, ‘So, onto her lifestyle – I imagine you’re getting the picture now; her shoes tell me she doesn’t drive – no scuff marks, but she does walk – some of them have been repaired and some need a bit of work. Given her income and the quality of clothes she wears she’s not going to use public transit or even a normal cab, and the media companies do so like their car services. There are no workout clothes, but she’s got shoes you could walk in; however, there are no running socks, so she walks on fairly even ground, and doesn’t jog. Thus I deduced she walks the sea wall; she’d have easy access given where she lives. Her job means she’ll have to entertain a lot, no stretch there, but her natural preference is for the lower end of the market; the matchbook from The Onion tells us that. We all know what that place is like, don’t we?’
Dave nodded. ‘Yeah, it’s a bit rough even for me.’
‘The drinking? She’s from small-town Alberta so she’d have gone to pubs – and she likes pull-tabs and Keno; definitely a pub girl. Look around you. See all the spaces there for wine bottles? See how few bottles there are? She’s been used to having a lot around, now, not so much; so she’s trying to cut back. And the smoking? Lighters and matchbooks in the discarded handbag, the one she was given by her ex, Don, I believe. It’s a fake, by the way; you can tell by the way the material is cut through the LV logo – that’s exactly what they won’t do with the real ones, and she knew it. For a girl with class and money, she must have had a difficult time dealing with knowing she was in a relationship with someone who thought she’d be happy with a knock-off. The music likes? Just look at the CD collection. One of her few books is a copy of the Anglican Order of Service; she’d have been given that at her confirmation, so I know she was brought up as a churchgoer – but I suspect she’d be too tired and hungover to make it to church on a Sunday for many years.’ I paused, thinking about what to say next. ‘And that’s about it, I suppose. Does that explain how I did it?’
‘I guess so, except for all the personal stuff. I mean, how can you know what she was like with her friends, and all that stuff about being lonely?’
Immediately I saw a line rushing toward me I didn’t especially want to cross; I didn’t want to tell this young man I recognized and understood the life of a workaholic single woman, living in a world where everyone wants something from you, and where every time you trust someone they turn around a
nd hurt you. How it becomes natural to compensate by having lots of people with whom you do things, but to whom you aren’t truly attached. How life is lived so you’re always in demand as the one who can make a party go with a swing, but who knows the bleak reality that everyone always lives alone, no matter how much of a crowd you try to mix yourself into. I’d lived it; he didn’t need to know that.
Cover up Cait, curl and roll; bounce back, every time. Thicken that shell.
I gritted my teeth. ‘I’m a psychologist first and foremost, Dave; I’ve turned my training in psychology to focus upon criminal psychology in the past decade, and more recently on victimology, so I can draw on what I know about general patterns of behavior for certain personality and social types, when I need to.’ I left it at that.
Then I heard another voice, and the camera was showing me another face. ‘Hello, Professor Morgan – Bud Anderson here, head of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team. They call me Mister I-Hit. You can call me Bud.’ He chuckled. ‘I’ve been listening in on your explanations to young Webber here; don’t blame him for not telling you I was in the room, I wouldn’t let him say anything, and he’s an obedient young constable.’
‘Sorry, prof, he is my boss,’ came from Dave in the background.
‘I’ve been fascinated,’ continued Anderson. ‘I wanted to get to your lecture tonight but I was tied up with a little interrogation we had to finish. The guy we’ve picked up for this job, in fact. What I’d be interested to hear more about is how you made your deductions about him; that would be quite something.’
Once again I was pushed off balance; prove yourself, then prove yourself again. No one ever said life would be easy, but it can become totally annoying sometimes.
‘Welcome, Bud. I’ll be brief, it’s getting late.’ I didn’t mean to be rude, but I was getting thoroughly cheesed off. ‘So, who dunnit? It wasn’t a robbery gone wrong; the expensive bedside radio clock, and all the music and TV equipment remaining untouched prove that. Clearly she’d had someone around for dinner; the dishwasher tells me she prepared food for two, it was eaten, cleared away, and she ran the dishwasher, so it wasn’t a hot and heavy date. No, her guest was someone she felt comfortable inviting to her home, and someone around whom she could clear up. Not a new man in her life, but an old one. She dumped him, she can invite him for dinner. And nothing says “the evening’s over” like putting someone’s wine glass into the dishwasher, and running it. This man – the “Don” who signed the birthday card – he wasn’t what she’d thought he was; he showed her a façade. She might have met him at one of the lower end clubs she liked to go to, and I believe at first he seemed to be just like her – maybe an ordinary background, now earning a lot of money, and happy to spend it on a newly-acquired taste for fine clothes, foods, wines and vacations. Remember the Vegas matchbook and chip? I believe he’s the gambler, and I suspect they went there together. Also, a chip from a low-end casino but a matchbook from the high-end? Probably he did the gambling and she bought the dinners.’