In crises like this, time has a strange warp quality. When I left Deidre’s house, it felt like most of the day had passed already but the Orillia morning rush hour was barely tapering off. I hailed a cab and went back to my own flat. When Leo called, I’d dressed hastily in my jogging pants and a sweater and I needed a change of clothes. I also hadn’t even fed my two cats, Victoria — or Tory — and Bertie. Yes, I know that sounds sort of cutesy, but believe me, the names suit them. Tory is a dowager skinny Abyssinian who is often mistaken for a kitten but who is actually eighteen years of age and showing signs of senility. Bertie is a Siamese with a paunch who dotes on Tory, grooms her, always wants to be near her or me. She seems indifferent to him but yowls at me constantly. I’d inherited them from the previous owner of the house, Mrs. Harley, who’d moved back to the UK to be with her daughter.
Both cats were sitting at the window watching the passing parade and when I opened the door they were round my feet in an instant, Tory yowling, Bertie mewing at me in his hoarse Siamese voice. I obeyed, fed them some fresh canned food, popped some toast in the toaster for me, and phoned the OPP Centre so people could have the news about Leo. I keyed in Paula’s extension first. She answered on the first ring.
“Chris. I was just about to get hold of you. Where are you?”
“At home. I’ll be there shortly.”
“Katherine just told us what happened. Leo called her from the hospital. What a shock. How are you doing?’
“I was just giving the bad news to her roommate. Deidre had a child, about two years old. It’s going to be rough on her.”
“Really? I didn’t know Leo was a grandfather.”
“Neither did I. But he is. She’s a cute little kid.”
“And Leo? How’s he doing? Katherine didn’t have many details except he was being checked out in the hospital.”
“Did he say we found Deidre’s body in the lake?”
“Yeah, we got all that. Any ideas?”
“Not really. We found a note in her car which suggested she had an assignation but no names or anything. Unfortunately, Leo jumped in the water to get her out and the note was in his pocket. Still is. I’m not sure if we’ll get anything from it. There is another wrinkle which I got from the roommate.”
I told her the story of Deidre conceiving a deaf child and what a ruckus this had caused.
“My God, I remember that! Frankly, I thought it was wicked. You’d think any mother wants her baby to have the best chance in life, not to deliberately inflict a handicap on them.”
When Paula found out she was pregnant she had immediately stopped smoking. She was a two-pack-a-day woman and it was hell for her but she’d quit cold turkey the day the pregnancy results came back.
“You’re not the only one with those views, Paula. According to her friend, Deidre received a lot of hate mail, post and email both.”
“Leo never once let on, did he? And I never connected him to her at all.”
“You’d have no reason to. She changed her name to Larsen. According to Leo, they’ve had a troubled relationship since Deidre was young.”
“I can see it being hard for him to have a deaf child. You know what an opera buff he is. He’s passionate about it. Still, you can’t not love a child just because they aren’t perfect.”
I agreed with her, but in our line of work, we’d both had too much experience of situations where love for even a healthy child was in short supply. Paula handled her frustration by volunteering at a local women’s shelter, helping women cope with the demands of maternity. I didn’t have the same credentials, no kids, no live-in mate. I found my hope in being a godmother to Paula’s daughter, Chelsea, and whenever I could, I walked dogs from the animal shelter. That has its own heartache, let me tell you, but dogs are more resilient than abused kids are.
Paula’s phone beeped indicating another call was coming in.
“I’d better go. Short day today.”
Damn, I’d forgotten she was leaving early for a doctor’s appointment. She’d noticed a peculiar lump on her sternum and her doctor had ordered a biopsy this afternoon.
“Good luck, La. Call me as soon as you’re finished.”
“Will do. Don’t worry about me.”
We hung up and I drew in a deep breath. Paula Jackson had been my best friend and soul sister since we were teenagers and the thought of anything being seriously wrong with her was more than I could take in. Her husband was going with her to the appointment but I wondered if I should have insisted harder that I go with her. In my book, Craig was more likely to worry about himself than Paula.
I was just on my way out the door when the phone rang. It was the very man himself.
“Hi, Chris. Do you have a minute?”
“What’s up?”
“Frankly, I’m scared. Paula’s going on as if this is nothing but I saw her doctor’s face when he felt that lump. He’s worried. He thinks it’s cancer, I know he does.”
“Even if it is, Craig, these days it isn’t necessarily a death sentence.”
“Maybe not but it’ll be ugly if she’s got to go through that chemo shit.”
“Let’s not cross our bridges, shall we? Let’s hear the diagnosis first.”
“I suppose you’re right, it’s just that…”
His voice tailed off.
“Craig, I…”
I didn’t have a chance to finish what I was going to say.
“Never mind.” He slammed down the phone.
Drat! Craig and I had learned to tolerate each other over the years even though we’d never be best buddies but the old antagonism was never too far from the surface. I could have been kinder.
Before I could do penance by calling him back, my phone rang again. I picked up the cordless extension and walked over to my toast, which was rapidly drying out in the toaster.
“Christine, Leo Forgach here.”
“Leo, how are you?” I tucked the phone under my chin and tried to spread some almond butter on my toast.
“I’m fine. I just needed to get into dry clothes. I’m actually at home now. I’m going into the office shortly.”
“Is that wise? You’ve had a terrible shock.”
He clicked his tongue. “Come off it. We’re professionals. The best medicine for me is to start finding my daughter’s killer.”
There was truth to what he said. Helplessness and inactivity were the most difficult things to tolerate for most people, especially high-energy people like Leo. However, I wasn’t sure what the procedures were for somebody in our unit to be in on a case involving their own daughter.
“Who’s the scene officer?” he asked.
“Ed Chaffey.”
“Good. He’s competent. Hold on a minute, will you?”
I heard him rustling paper and took the chance to bite into my toast. Tory came over and yowled at me. I picked her up and placed her at her food bowl, which she seemed to have forgotten. Leo came back on the line.
“I spoke to Nora and she said she filled you in concerning Deidre’s actions a couple of years ago?”
“You mean about the baby?”
“Precisely…” There was the sound of a breath intake and I realized he was dragging on a cigarette — another thing I didn’t know about him. “I admit I was very upset when she told me she had deliberately conceived a child that would most likely be born deaf. Then when she went to the papers to proclaim it to the world, I was furious with her.” Another drag on his cigarette. “It was all aimed at me, of course. She wanted to pretend it was some high-minded statement about Deaf Culture but it wasn’t. I’m a psychiatrist. Day in and day out, I see these scenarios. Murderers, rapists, felons, all acting out some script from their childhoods.”
That might be true but Deidre was hardly a rapist or a murderer and Leo’s clinical tone was rubbing on my nerves.
“Speaking of mothers, have you contacted her mother yet?”
“I had to leave a message. She is in the Yukon saving the polar bears or the icebergs or some such thing. I don’t know when she’ll check in. It might be days.”
I think he ate his cigarette at that point, his anger burning through the wires.
“Anyway, what I was going to say was that after the news broke, Deidre began to receive hate mail. Some of it was by post, some email. She mentioned it to me on one of our few visits. If she kept them, they might be worth taking a look at.”
“I agree. Nora told me about them but according to her they aren’t in the house. She did think Deidre had kept them.”
“Let’s find them.”
Nora had referred to Leo’s daughter as the most hated woman in Orillia. It was not out of the question that somebody still harboured that hatred and had finally acted on it.
Tory had wandered away from her breakfast and was heading for the litter box. I waited a minute to make sure she went in it. She occasionally misjudged and did her business on the kitchen floor.
“I’ll see you in the office in about twenty minutes…” Leo stopped, and when he spoke again, his voice was husky. “Christine, I can’t thank you enough for your help this morning. I appreciate it.”
Before I could answer, he hung up. I replaced my phone and went to get my coat. The wind flung rain pellets at the window and I glanced out at the deserted street below. I had intentionally purchased a house that was within walking distance of the Centre. I certainly didn’t get much exercise during the workday, so walking to and from kept me reasonably fit and staved off the inevitable fortyish rear-end spread. However, physically and emotionally I wasn’t up to battling the elements today. The car it was.