Foul Deeds: A Rosalind Mystery

by Linda Moore

  “Do they live with you?”

  “Occasionally. Mostly with their mom. I mean, I’m never home.”

  Our breakfasts were suddenly in front of us. Harvie dived in.

  “What time do you have to be in court?” I asked.

  “Nine,” he said chewing on the challah toast. “How we doing?”

  “Eight-thirty by my watch. Do you know Carl Spiegle?” I decided to get direct, since time was running out.

  “Oh yeah—Planning. He’s a hard ticket, that one.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, he’s very tough, very assertive. Has all his ducks in order. Usually gets his way.”

  “And in this case, what did he want?”

  “Definitely wanted to go with the conglomerate—wined and dined them according to Peter.”

  “God.” I started to get chills.

  “Something wrong?”

  “I just had the creepiest dream, and I think he was in it—though I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen him. There may be reason to associate him with Greta King.”

  Harvie looked perturbed. “Really? Peter certainly never mentioned any such connection to me.”

  “Do you have any idea how long Spiegle’s been in Canada?”

  “I was on Council when he was hired. He came here from Germany. He has all kinds of impressive credentials in urban affairs—both admin and planning.”

  “Credentials from where?”

  “Well, from Hamburg where he worked before this and prior to that…I think it was Zurich. He’s Swiss you know.”

  I put down my fork and leaned in closer. “Greta’s family is from Zurich. Look, would you do me a huge favour Harvie? Daniel gave me a video of the funeral. Would you come over to my house and view it with me to see if you can identify him and other people?”

  “Sure I can, but when—you have rehearsal, don’t you…Speaking of which, Roz, when are we going to talk about Hamlet? You know, I’ve been reading Hamlet for as long as I can remember. Hamlet’s one hell of a great play.”

  “It is Harvie,” I said, caught off guard by his genuine interest. “I’d love to talk with you about it.”

  “Well, what time are you finished rehearsal?” he asked.

  “Usually around ten o’clock,” I said.

  “I can be there by 10:30 tonight. It shouldn’t take us too long to view the video, although there were a lot of people at the funeral. The Anglican Cathedral was packed.”

  “Is that where the funeral was? My god, that’s really strange. That’s where we’re rehearsing, underneath the church in the Crypt. No wonder my dream had Peter King’s funeral and the gravedigger scene from Hamlet all mixed in together.”

  “I’d like to hear about your dream,” he said, “but I’d better go.”

  “I’ll get this,” I said, indicating our breakfasts.

  “Already taken care of,” he said. I handed him my card with my address on it. “See you tonight Roz.” He picked up his three briefcases and negotiated his way out the door. I watched him through the window as he crossed Hollis Street and headed down towards the law courts. His eager gait showed a dauntless enthusiasm that lifted my spirits.

  Maybe we’re getting somewhere, I thought, spreading a little strawberry jam on the last of my challah toast. Finally.

  I got back home from the breakfast meeting around 9:30 and settled down at my desk. I picked up the guest book from the funeral. There were indeed several hundred signatures—some completely illegible. Peter had been a well-known and highly respected member of the community with plenty of connections. There were signatures of judges and solicitors and several politicians. There was Eloise Radner’s signature. That’s interesting, I thought, recalling her intense emotion when she had spoken about Peter. I was flipping randomly through the pages looking for the name “Spiegle” when the phone rang.

  “Hi Roz—it’s me.” Sophie’s voice.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “I just spoke with Aziz.”

  “You did? That was fast work. Any problems getting him on the phone?”

  “Remarkably easy. I called the Planning office and asked for him as we discussed. I said I was calling to confirm an appointment for him. And then the woman who answered the phone said he had just come in. Next thing I knew, he was on the line. So it was good timing or good luck, I guess.”

  “Wow!”

  “Yes, and we made a plan. He’s going to come to my place for a tarot reading.”

  “Oh, Sophie—not your place!”

  “It’s okay, Roz. Heavens, he sounds perfectly sane.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow morning at eleven o’clock. Saturday right? He doesn’t have work. I guess if he has anything to pass along, he’ll bring it with him.”

  “Sophie, what if he’s followed or something? I think you should postpone this until McBride gets back.”

  “Too late Roz—it’s all set up and I’m looking forward to seeing McBride’s face when I deliver the goods!”

  “Well then, I should be there,” I said.

  “No, absolutely not. Besides, Molly will be here to protect me, won’t you Molly? Listen I’ve gotta go—I’ve got some errands to run. I’ll see you tonight. Get ready for that mad scene; I’ve got lots of questions. Bye.” She hung up quickly so that I couldn’t protest any further. I determined to talk to her again after the rehearsal.

  I closed the funeral guest book and decided to have Harvie look through it if he had time. In the meantime, Sophie was right, I should do some preparation for the rehearsal. My brain was always better in the morning. I decided to spend a couple of hours going through the next section of the play. I’d always wanted to prepare an analysis of the symbolic meanings of Ophelia’s wildflowers and this would be a chance to do so.

  That night at rehearsal, as we got to Ophelia’s entrance, the company stopped their work and sat around me while I gave them a little dissertation on the ditties and the flowers.

  “What we refer to as Ophelia’s mad scene is actually two scenes,” I began. “In the first scene, where we stopped just now, Gertrude refuses to see Ophelia. In fact, her first line is—” I looked at Liz, who was playing Gertrude.

  “I will not speak with her,” Liz said on cue.

  “That’s right,” I said. “She’s emphatic about that and only when it’s pointed out that seeing Ophelia may prevent dangerous conjecture in ill-breeding minds does Gertrude decide to allow her in. Ophelia enters the scene singing, ‘How should I your true love know,’ a song about the grave, with the well-known, He is dead and gone, lady refrain. We can see this song having resonance for both Gertrude and Ophelia. Is she singing about Old King Hamlet, about her own father, Polonius, or about the death of her love with Hamlet? She insists not once but twice that Gertrude listen carefully—‘Pray you mark.’

  “When Claudius enters the scene, Ophelia greets him with, ‘God dild you,’ and we cannot help but hear an uncharacteristic vulgarity in this greeting. She then says, ‘They say the owl was a baker’s daughter,’ based on the folktale that the baker’s daughter was not generous to Christ when he asked for bread, so he changed her into an owl—‘Lord we know what we are, but know not what we may be.’ In other words, unexpected awful things can befall us. One day you’re just a girl, the next you’ve said the wrong thing to the wrong person, and you’ve been completely cut off from the world you once knew. Everything is changed. She then sings, ‘Tomorrow is St. Valentine’s day,’ about a maid who gives her virginity to her lover and is then betrayed. ‘Quoth she before you tumbled me, you promised me to wed.’ He answers, ‘So would I ‘a done by yonder sun, and thou hadst not come to my bed.’ The maid in the song has been cruelly tricked, much as Ophelia is betrayed by Hamlet in the nunnery scene. ‘I did love you once,’ he says to her. ‘Indeed my Lord, you made me believe so,’ she replies. ‘Believe none of us. I loved you not,’ he says vehemently. Ophelia’s songs and words in this first scene are filled with i
nnuendoes, ironies, and obscenities. They are a grotesque commentary on her bereft circumstances, and her extreme isolation.

  “Barely a beat later, her brother Laertes bursts into the castle bent on revenge for the death of Polonius. Ophelia re-enters with her wildflowers, and Laertes is horror-stricken to see his sister so undone. The flower imagery in the scene begins with Laertes referring to her as the Rose of May, the symbol for purity, eternal spring and harmony. Ophelia’s first gifts, apparently to Laertes, are rosemary and pansies—‘that’s for remembrance, Pray you love remember.’ Rosemary is often used on graves as a pledge of remembrance. The name literally means Rose of the Sea and is also a symbol of constancy. ‘There is Pansies’—she says—‘that’s for thoughts.’ Indeed the name pansy comes from the French feminine noun pensée, meaning “thought.” Pansies can also be symbolic of shyness in young maidens and of the trinity: father, son, and holy ghost—a possible echo of the Hamlet story. But more importantly, it is almost as though Ophelia is conducting her own memorial. And it reminds us of the ghost’s command to Hamlet, ‘Remember Me.’

  “Shakespeare leaves it up to the producer to decide who gets which flowers in the next section, so Sophie, you may want to try various possibilities to see what really rings true here.

  “‘There’s fennel for you and columbines.’ Fennel can be a symbol of paganism and witchcraft, but also of renewal and rejuvenation; it causes snakes to molt their skin. Columbine symbolizes cuckoldry, disloyalty, and marital infidelity. Perhaps she gives these to Gertrude.

  “‘There’s rue for you, and here’s some for me,’ she says. Rue, or ‘Herb o’ Grace a’ Sundays’ is meant to be effective against evil spirits and is a symbol of repentance and regret. Ophelia says, ‘You must wear your rue with a difference.’ Is she asking Claudius to repent his sins?

  “‘There’s a Daisy’—a symbol of the sun, the ‘day’s eye,’ eternal life and salvation, but inverted, a symbol of lies and dissembling. Finally, she says, ‘I would give you some violets but they withered all when my father died.’ Violets symbolize virtue, beauty and humility—her own attributes now withered.

  “So while there can be a variety of meanings and inverted symbols for the flowers, Ophelia is finding a language which is hauntingly resonant with the truth—that those around her are flatterers, traitors, faithless to the point of evil, short on memory and thoughtless. Indeed, they are all so caught up in their own tangle that they do not even attempt to stop her as she makes her final heartrending exit to the willow, from which she falls and drowns.”

  “I like what you said about her conducting her own memorial,” Sophie jumped in. “I mean, her life is over at this point and on some level she knows it. It does have that spooky sense of prophecy in it, so often connected to madness.”

  “Yes, I guess you could say it’s already too late. But of course you can’t really play it that way. It’s more dramatic to be seeking rescue. That’s why she is so determined to get in to see Gertrude. And at the end of her first scene, she says, ‘I hope all will be well. We must be patient.’ And more importantly, ‘My brother shall know of it.’ In other words, she’s still fighting for her life, holding out some hope. When she returns for the second scene only a short time later, she’s draped in the wildflowers and much further gone into the madness. Laertes is devastated and angered by her state, but he offers Ophelia only pity, not help. He’s already grieving for her. This second scene has much more the sense of a goodbye ritual to it.”

  “God—poor Ophelia.” This was Tom.

  “Yes I guess that’s what Shakespeare was saying about the nature of these power machinations. They leave the innocent destroyed. And of course it really sets the audience up to want some kind of retribution. When Claudius and Gertrude both die later, we have a sense that they deserve what they get. The brutal reality is that no one comes out unscathed. Even Horatio,” I looked at George, “though he lives, is burdened with forever re-telling the tragic story.”

  The cast worked through the two Ophelia scenes a couple of times. Sophie had unnerving insight into Ophelia’s desolation, and I was struck, as I had been so often over the years, by her luminous quality and the sheer force of her talent. The company decided to call it a night and tackle the section again the following evening.

  After rehearsal, I stopped Sophie on the way out to try to talk her out of the appointment with Aziz the following morning, but she was determined.

  “Look Roz, I’ve taken this on and I’m seeing it through.”

  “Sophie, if he does bring you something, it’s best not to look at it, and please put it somewhere safe.”

  “I’ll put it in my secret drawer,” she whispered conspiratorially. “Remember.”

  “And promise me you’ll call as soon as you can to let me know how it has gone.”

  “Promise,” she said as we left the cathedral and walked out towards the street.

  “Listen, I’d drive you home, but I have a meeting in a few minutes.”

  “That’s okay, Roz. George said something about people going out for a drink.”

  “You could probably use a drink—that was stunning work tonight, Sophie.”

  “You too. You know it makes such a difference when you help us penetrate what’s being said. It’s inspiring. Thanks for doing all that research.”

  “Don’t worry, I love it. See you tomorrow.”

  I was home just before 10:30. I’d made a hasty trip to the Agricola Street liquor store on the way to rehearsal and picked up an Australian Cabernet and a six pack of Keith’s—I had no idea what Harvie drank, if anything. I also grabbed a few snacks from Brother’s Deli. I pulled the bags out of my trunk and was just putting my key in the lock when Harvie ran up the front steps.

  “Wow, I got here just in time,” I said. “I wouldn’t have wanted you waiting on the doorstep. You don’t have a car?”

  “Well, I don’t use it much in the city. I try to walk whenever I can.”

  “But the three briefcases?” I said.

  “Oh yeah. Well, I don’t always have three—two of them are back in the office tonight.”

  “How was court?”

  “Great, I think we’re winning.”

  “Come on in, Harvie. It’s chilly out here.”

  “So, this is your house.”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “It’s big—all yours?”

  “For my sins.”

  “Must cost a bit to heat.”

  “It’s ridiculous. I have this fantasy that the oil company execs raise their glasses to me at the beginning of every quarter. You know—‘Here’s to that crazy woman on Brunswick Street who single-handedly sends our profits into the stratosphere.’”

  “Ouch!”

  “I’ve got some beer and red wine here. What would you like?” I said, taking his coat.

  “I’ll take a beer, but I should have a bite first. I haven’t eaten since our breakfast.”

  “Well, right in this bag, I’ve got some nice rye bread, some good cheeses, and some pastrami. If you don’t like that, I’m afraid we’re out of luck.”

  “Sounds great. Let’s go.”

  In the kitchen, I poured him a Keith’s and put the food out on a big wooden cutting board. He opened my fridge. “Look at this Roz. You don’t have any food in your fridge.”

  “That’s not true. There’s that can of cat food in the door and some ice cream in the freezer.”

  “So you should come with me tomorrow morning to the market. I go every Saturday. One of our city’s great features! Come with me—lay in a few supplies, some fresh veggies, some nice fish, a chicken. It’s all organic, and it’s reasonable. It’s local. It’s not right you should have such an empty fridge.”

  “Okay. I’d love to. I always mean to go, but I never do it.”

  “It’s a date. I’ll pick you up at eight o’clock.”

  “Another 8:00 a.m. date? This is getting to be a bad habit,” I said.

  “Mmm! Good. Thi
s is good pastrami,” he said taking a bite out of the substantial sandwich he’d made. “Brothers did you say? Very nice. So look, we’d better get going with that video.”

  “I hope you won’t think this is a set-up,” I said, “but the TV’s in my bedroom.”

  “You’re a goer, Roz.”

  I laughed, picked up my beer and the bread board and gestured for him to follow.

  We didn’t find anything of interest on the tape except the possible exit of Carl Spiegle from the church. The image was obscured and Harvie couldn’t be sure it was him. There were no surreptitious hand-holdings with Greta in evidence. Harvie pointed out the back of her head where she sat in the pew next to Daniel, and from what I could see, she was blond and didn’t look at all like Jackie Kennedy. Although there were some moving tributes to Peter King, the audio was poor and funerals make for pretty dull television. Both of us were so exhausted we fell asleep on the bed with the cat curled up between us. At some point, Harvie got up, put the quilt over me, turned off the TV, wrote a note to say he’d pick me at eight o’clock the next morning, and left quietly. Not very romantic, but better than I’d been doing for a long time.

  Chapter Twelve

  The next morning found us having coffee at the Trident Café on Hollis Street, getting ready to visit Harvie’s favourite market vendors. We were both managing to avoid mentioning that we had fallen asleep together on the bed. “Thanks for coming over last night. I’m sorry the tape was so bad—what a waste of your time.”

  “Listen, I’ve found valuable evidence on much poorer videos. It’s always worth a try. So tell me what you think is going on in this case.”

  I reviewed the facts as succinctly as I could, filling him in on what had happened to McBride the night he was at the meet to get information indicating that King was a target, my being followed by the same nasty character, the lab results showing that the yew samples were highly toxic and Daniel’s confusion over his mother’s behaviour after the funeral. “How well do you know Greta King?” I asked.

  “Well, I’ve met her socially several times at fundraisers and so on for organizations that Peter and I were involved with. She’s never been very outgoing in my opinion. Kind of private and enigmatic. But Peter thought the world of her, and she’s a very beautiful woman. Bit of a fish out of water, I think.”