It was a long time before the two women were ready to answer my questions. Jessica spoke in the flat guttural tones of the hard of hearing. She kept repeating “Who? Who killed her?” and all I could say was, “We don’t know yet.” She essentially took over the job of interpreting to Hannah, who was making odd panting noises and weeping into the scrap of tissue she had used for her glasses. I went over the details of finding Deidre, where she was, time of day, and so on. At this point there weren’t any particular trenchant facts I needed to hold back. The autopsy wasn’t done yet, so I couldn’t say if she’d been sexually assaulted, which was a question Jessica asked. I also didn’t say she had been strangled with her own scarf. Even though the possibility that either of these women had killed Deidre was remote, you never told interviewee’s everything about the crime scene. Many a suspect has been nailed because he or she knew something no one else but the murderer would know.
The two friends huddled together, hands and fingers flying, communicating I knew not what to each other.
“Can I get you something to drink?” asked Mrs. Scott. “I can offer juice, water, or soft drink?”
I accepted the juice but the girls ignored her. There was a small cooler tucked in the corner of the room underneath a bookcase and Mrs. Scott took out a bottle of apple juice and handed it to me. Suddenly, she was crying. “It’s such a funny little thing but Deidre liked apple juice best. I always kept some especially for her. Oh dear, dear me, what a tragedy.”
Neither Jessica nor Hannah paid attention to her, didn’t even seem to notice that she was weeping. Mrs. Scott finally wiped her eyes.
“You said you had some questions you wanted to ask the girls.”
“Yes, I do.”
She stamped hard on the floor to get their attention and they stopped and looked up at her.
“Ms. Morris wants to ask you some questions.” She nodded at me. “Go ahead. Speak slowly, please.”
“We found a note near Deidre’s car that suggests she may have been meeting somebody in the park. Was she seeing anybody? Did she have a boyfriend?”
Mrs. Scott signed that for me. The girls glanced at each other quickly then shook their heads.
“Nobody,” said Jessica. “She wasn’t seeing anybody.”
“How long have you known her?”
Jessica passed that on to Hannah, who held up six fingers, clenched her fists, and rotated them around each other.
“Six years,” said Jessica. “Me the same.”
Hannah made a sweeping sign, one hand on top of the other, then held up the first two fingers of her right hand rather like a girl scout’s pledge.
“We were at university together,” said Jessica.
“Do you know anybody who might want to harm her?”
“No. None at all. It must have been a stranger.”
Hannah was gesticulating and making signs vigorously. This time, Mrs. Scott, who had been sitting quietly watching the goings-on, was the one who interpreted.
“Hannah is very concerned about Deidre’s daughter. Who is going to tell her and who is looking after her?”
“At the moment, she is staying with the woman who sometimes babysits. I don’t know who is going to tell her. Nora the live-in nanny, I presume.”
“No.” The sound came from Hannah. So she could read lips. Awkwardly, she said slowly. “She bad woman. Not her tell Joy.”
She brought her hand high up on her chest and her face lit up and went back to normal with disconcerting suddenness and I realized that was the sign for Joy.
“Why is Nora a bad woman?”
“Not deaf.”
That made a large percentage of the population on the sin side.
Jessica tapped me on the arm to get my attention. “Hannah means that Nora is not suitable. Joy understands sign language, but Nora hardly does. She is also prone to take drugs. She is not suitable to tell our dear friend’s daughter what has happened. We will do it.”
Having met all three women, I must say my sympathies were with Hannah and Jessica, but I supposed technically Leo had the right to make that decision.
“I will pass this onto Deidre’s father. How can I reach you?”
“I will be here until four,” said Jessica.
Mrs. Scott jumped in. “Absolutely not. We can manage. You should take the rest of the day off and be with Hannah.”
“Thank you. In that case, Ms. Morris, I can give you my cellphone number. You can text me.”
I wrote it down. So far I hadn’t got much further in the investigation, but then I wasn’t supposed to be doing the serious interviewing. That was going to be up to the local squad. Nevertheless I wasn’t going to pass up this opportunity.
“I would like to get the names any other friends in your circle that you think I can talk to. Phone numbers and or emails would be great, too.”
Mrs. Scott fussed a little in her desk, finding paper and pens. I watched them as they wrote down the names. They both looked so young to me. Jessica in particular was a head turner. Even on this chilly day, she was flashing some smooth flesh between the top of her jeans and her T-shirt. Hannah wasn’t quite as pretty but she too was dressed up-to the-minute in layered clothing and designer small-framed glasses.
The intercom on Mrs. Scott’s desk flashed and she picked up the phone.
“Yes. Wait there, I’ll be right out.”
She hung up the receiver. “There are two staff members outside. They are supposed to run classes this afternoon. Do you want to talk to them as well?”
I hesitated. I was within the bounds of legitimacy by talking to Jessica and Hannah on Leo’s behalf but further questioning should be done by Ed Chaffey’s team. Also I was frankly a bit bummed out by being the bearer of such bad news.
“I don’t think I will at this time, Mrs. Scott. There will be police officers coming later today to talk to everybody.”
I reached for my purse and picked up my coat, which I had draped over the back of the chair. The two young women were both watching me intently, presumably to understand what I was saying. Hannah signed something to her friend and whatever she said back seemed to cause her great distress and she let out another wail. I raised my eyebrows questioningly at Mrs. Scott, who tapped Jessica on the arm and made some rapid signs to her.
“Has something upset Hannah?”
Jessica herself was visibly distressed. “She thinks that Ms. Morris should see the letters that Deidre received. They are in her locker.”
Good, that could mean only one thing.
“She received many letters when the newspaper reported the story of Joy’s conception … most of them are very nasty. I wanted her to throw them away but she wouldn’t. She kept all of them.”
Hannah had been watching her friend’s lips as she spoke and she interjected loudly. “Hearing people don’t unnerstan. We have no need of them.”
She made a gesture with her right hand, finger bent and stabbing in the air. I was getting to know what the sign for no was.
“Did you know about this?” I asked Mrs. Scott.
She shook her head. “I was aware Deidre had stirred up a lot of people. We were deluged with calls when the news broke about her and Joy, but I didn’t know she’d been receiving hate letters.” She pushed her fingers against her mouth as if she was trying to hold back a cry. “I suppose they’re going to be all over us again now.”
There was no comfort I could give her on that one because I didn’t think such a story would go unnoticed. As I said, Orillia wasn’t exactly a hot bed of crime.
“She kept the letters in her locker,” said Jessica. “You should probably have a look at them. Whoever sent them was sick, if you ask me.”
I took my cellphone out of my bag. “Will you excuse me just a minute?”
I stepped out into the hall, punching in Ed’s number. A man and a woman were standing by the desk and they both regarded me anxiously. I held up my hand to stop their questions and turned my back, huddling into the cellphone like a lovesick teenager. Ed answered right away and I told him what had gone down so far.
“Sure, get the letters. I’m not going to have anybody free to come out there until much later anyway. We’re doing a house-to-house around the park. Call me.”
I clicked off and with a quick smile at the couple who were watching me, I went back into Mrs. Scott’s office. She had a key ring in her hand. “I have the locker key here if you need it.” She sorted through the bunch and held up one. All were numbered. “I’ll show you where it is.”
“We do it,” said Hannah. She looked fierce and Mrs. Scott meekly handed over the key ring.
Deidre’s friends were certainly protective.