The K Handshape (22 page)

“Gill, I’ll call you back, are you at home?”

“I am but I’m on my way out. Community meeting about the windmills tonight. Let’s talk on Sunday.”

I got off the phone as fast as I could, not wanting to hear goodbyes that I could interpret as cool. The other caller had hung up, whoever it was.

Feeling decidedly off-kilter, I decided after all to have a look at my test case.

Five days after … body was discovered in … hikers stumbled across a set of badly decomposed remains in an isolated forest north of …

I made myself not cheat and riff on the bit of information of isolated forest.

Janice’s voice over the intercom woke me up. Good Lord, I’d put my head on my desk for a minute but the clock said I’d been snoozing for half an hour. Ouch. My neck now had a crick in it.

“
Christine Morris to the boardroom.”

Once again I closed the test case file with nothing accomplished. I grabbed my notebook and hurried out.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“They’re in the boardroom and they’ve already started,” Janice told me as I hurried past her.

“Who’s conducting the interview?”

“Inspector Chaffey and Katherine. Doctor Forgach is in his office. He wanted to be present but Katherine wouldn’t let him. They had quite a row.”

Janice was probably wondering what the hell was going on but she didn’t ask. She never stepped over the line. Not to worry, she had the uncanny ability to winkle out all the news where her “people” were concerned. She’d find out soon enough why Sigmund Forgach was being questioned by the head honchos.

I gulped back some water from the fountain by her desk and headed for the interview. I had to walk past Leo’s office and felt a twinge of relief that his door was closed. Last Christmas, Katherine had given everybody cute signs to hang on our doors to indicate if we were in but not to be disturbed, like they do in hotels. She’d had them custom-made and Leo’s was a lion which was glaring from glow-in-the-dark eyes. The sign said “Just Ate. Digesting. Go Away.” Mine, by the way, was a border collie in crouched position driving a group of bad guys into a pen. The caption underneath read “Too Busy for Fun. Come Back Later.” I liked it.

I tapped on the door of the interview room and waited for permission to enter. I didn’t know if they were taping the session or not. Katherine herself opened the door. She looked a little irritated
that I was late. Punctuality was high up on the list of good character traits as far as she was concerned.

“Chris, come in… Have you met Sigmund?”

I hadn’t. I didn’t even know he existed until yesterday.

“This is Christine Morris, one of our profilers,” said Katherine.

Sigmund Forgach got to his feet and offered his hand. He was dressed in a formal dark grey suit, white shirt, and tie, unlike his casino clothes, but the same feeling of “trying too hard” still came from him. He greeted me in the tone of voice I thought he saved for difficult customers who needed to be soothed and charmed.

“I feel so terrible about what happened to Deidre. So, so sad. Inspector Chaffey was explaining why you all wanted to talk to me and I was just, er, delivering my statement.” He smiled nervously. “It’s so, so odd, isn’t it, that here I am being interrogated in the very building where my own father is employed.”

It was indeed so, so odd as he put it. Ed took over. “I’ve told Mr. Forgach that we’re trying to trace Deidre’s movements after she left the casino and as he was somebody we could immediately identify who was with her that night, we thought we’d start there.”

Sigmund pushed his glasses up on his nose, a gesture he must have used many times when contemplating the soundness of his clients’ loan prospects.

“Right. Well, strange as it may seem, I have had very little to do with my half-sister. In fact, I’d say to be precise, I’ve had
nothing
to do with her. My parents divorced before she was born, and, er, well, my mother was quite deeply hurt by the divorce and didn’t want me to associate with my father’s new family. I believe I may have seen her once when she was about four. Father wanted to bring his two families together, old and new, but it didn’t seem to work. He and his second wife split up when Deidre was no more than five years old.”

“When did you reconnect?” Ed asked.

“Oh, I don’t know exactly. A few months ago I received an email from her. She said something like, she was an only child and so was I so perhaps we could get together and develop more of a family connection. She mentioned she had a daughter who would technically be my niece and she said she’d like me to meet her.”

“And did you?”

Sigmund shook his head, as if regretfully turning down the request for a loan. “Alas I never did. I was quite busy all summer and the right time never arose.”

“Are you saying that yesterday was the first meeting you’ve had with Deidre since she was a child?”

“Yes, that’s right. Oh we did exchange emails as I said, but yes, it was our first meeting.”

Ed’s eyes met mine. We were both thinking the same thing. There was no way that could be true. Deidre knew him. No introductions had been necessary. None of the usual exclamations of surprise you’d expect. Far from it. Ed let that one ride but let Sig know we’d caught him.

“As you probably know, the casino has closed-circuit cameras everywhere. We have you leaving the casino at about 8:27. Is that correct?”

Again Sig reflected judiciously. “I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to the time but that sounds about right. Deidre wanted to continue playing so I left her to it.”

“What did you do then?”

He shrugged. “Nothing in particular. I collected my car and drove back to Barrie.”

“Did you notice Miss Larsen’s car in the lot?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Did you pay any attention to the time when you arrived back in Barrie?”

“I’m afraid not, sir. But it is usually no more than a forty-minute drive at most so I assume I was home no later than ten o’clock.”

Katherine spoke for the first time. “You share a condominium with your mother, I understand?”

“That’s right.” His pleasant young manager look slipped. “My mother’s health is what might be called fragile. I do hope you don’t see any necessity to involve her.”

Given the circumstances, it was a rather astounding statement. Like hounds sniffing the wind, I could see all three of us twitch. What the hell was this man concealing?

It was my turn to throw in a question. “Mr. Forgach, given this was your first face-to-face meeting with your half-sister, why did you choose such a busy public place as the casino?”

“It was her idea. She said she went there regularly on Tuesday nights.”

“And she informed you of this by email.”

“That’s right. I had an evening off with no plans so I thought I’d drop over there and surprise her.”

What a lie that was.

“Can you describe to us the nature of your meeting with Deidre?” I continued.

He feigned puzzlement. “The nature? I’m not sure what you mean. Our meeting was quite brief. As I said, she was very involved in her game. I said I thought this wasn’t a good time, she agreed, and I told her I would be in touch.”

“Would you describe your meeting as a friendly one?”

“Yes, of course it was. Most cordial.”

“You must have been shocked when Dr. Forgach informed you Deidre had been found murdered.”

Sig shifted in the chair and shoved at his glasses again. Beads of perspiration had formed on his forehead. “Of course I was shocked. Terribly, terribly shocked. I hardly knew her, of course, but I couldn’t pretend she was entirely a stranger, could I?”

Katherine had her head down and Ed took a drink of coffee from his cup. I could feel what was going through their minds but I didn’t know if Sigmund could. Probably, because he jumped in again.

“I hope I don’t sound callous but that’s the truth of it. We share the same father and that’s it. I knew nothing about her life nor she mine.”

I smiled at him. “I quite understand that, Mr. Forgach. There was one thing I was wondering about, however. I understand that when your father informed you of your sister’s death, you didn’t tell him you had in fact met with her the previous night. Why was that?”

This time, he took out a white handkerchief from his pocket, made a show of blowing his nose, and wiped away the sweat at the same time.

“Sorry, I’m just getting over a cold. They’re bad at this time of year, aren’t they?”

None of us answered. We waited him out. He stowed the handkerchief.

“Please go on. You were saying?”

“I asked you why you hadn’t thought to inform your father, Dr. Forgach, that you had met with your sister the same evening that she was killed.”

He pursed his lips, his mind was racing so fast it was leaving smoke on the tracks.

“You know, looking back on it, I wonder that myself. I suppose I was so shocked, everything else left my mind. I apologize for that.”

“One last question,” said Katherine. “While you were at the casino, did you see Deidre with anybody else? Communicating with anybody?”

He shook his head earnestly. “No. Not at all.” He chuckled. “ As I said, she was so, so focused on her game. I think Elvis Presley himself might have appeared at her side and she wouldn’t have noticed.”

Ah, that explained the dyed black hair and the sideburns. He was a devotee of the King.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

That was about it. We had no reason to charge Sigmund with anything at this stage and I know all three of us were hoping we wouldn’t have to. We let him go and with several deferential smiles and soft handshakes, he left.

Ed pushed back his chair. “I’ve got to get back to the station,” he said. “I’m going to leave this in your capable hands. Good luck.”

He left and I got up and helped myself to coffee. It was fresh and hot but starting to churn acid in my empty stomach. My neck felt like it was made of wood.

Katherine leaned her elbows on the table. “I’m not looking forward to passing this on to Leo. He’s…”

She didn’t have to finish her sentence because the man himself came into the room.

“He’s what? Don’t worry, I’m not going to have hysterics. Tell me what happened.”

Katherine hesitated but Leo mowed right on. “Sigmund is one of the last people we know was talking to her before she died. What did he have to say? Just forget he’s my son.”

Katherine sighed. “Leo, don’t be ridiculous. None of us here is a robot and that includes you. How can we ignore the reality that these are your children?”

“Try,” he snapped. “I agreed not to sit in on the interview but you owe me the courtesy of telling me what Sig had to say.”

Katherine studied her nails for a moment. “Very well. Chris, you take good notes. Why don’t you read them back?”

He waved his hand dismissively. “Don’t! A summary will be fine.”

“He said he hadn’t really had any encounters with Deidre since she was a child but in the past few months, they had reconnected by way of emails, initiated by her. She mentioned she always went to the casino on Tuesday night so he thought he’d surprise her and drop in and say hello…”

“Hold on. He said this was their first meeting?”

I nodded.

“That’s bullshit,” Leo spat out. “You saw the tapes. Were they acting like two people who were meeting face to face for the first time in twenty years?”

“No. Not at all.”

“Why is he lying then?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re sure that’s what he said? He hadn’t seen her face to face before yesterday?”

Katherine interjected. “That’s what he claims, Leo.”

“I suggest we bring in Jessica Manolo, Deidre’s friend,” I said. “She reads lips. We could ask her to look at the tape.”

“Good idea,” said Katherine. “Let’s do that as soon as possible.”

There was no window to stare out of so Leo had to make do with an empty notice board with fire drill instructions on it.

Katherine continued. “Sigmund seemed upset about the prospect of our questioning his mother, which we may have to do if we’re going to verify his statement. Anything you can tell us about that?”

“Do you have a couple of days?” Leo said, his voice full of bitterness. There was a corridor of space between the table and the wall and he started to pace. Katherine stopped him.

“Please sit down, Leo. Walking up and down like a caged tiger might help you but frankly I find it unsettling.”

He gave her a curt nod and took a chair across from us. “Trudy and I met when we were young and stupid. Frankly I was thinking with my dick and not my head. She was a bosomy blonde.” He made the universal gesture for well-endowed. “I was a nineteen-year-old
horny virgin, she was … well, I fitted some fantasy Trudy was carrying from her hundreds of hours watching TV shows. Up-and-coming medical student, who would eventually be laying healing hands on the attractively sick, accolades, not to mention money, raining down on said doctor and his lovely wife.” He stopped but didn’t look at either of us. “No bets on what happened,” he continued, his voice maintaining a rather flat dispassionate tone. The shrink being objective. “We had an affair, she got pregnant, we got married. One, two, three. Frankly I wanted to leave her a few months after we’d done the deed but I thought for the boy’s sake I should stick it out. In hindsight, I’m sure that didn’t help him at all. Trudy resented the long hours I put into my studies. She was, is, not what we’d call an intellectual or interested in a thought that hasn’t first been vetted by Oprah or whatever guru it was back then. We argued constantly regardless whether Sig heard us or not. She turned all her attention and need onto the boy. I … I just buried myself more and more in my courses. Early on I knew I wanted to be a psychiatrist but she hated that. It wasn’t sexy enough … I suppose I am allowed to get some coffee?”

The trip to the coffee urn gave him an excuse to move around and Katherine didn’t stop him this time.

“I hung on until I finished my internship then I left her. Sigmund was eight.” He turned around and looked at both Katherine and me. “You’ve heard stories like this before; I’ve heard them dozens of times. She started, or more accurately continued, drinking, a habit I’d ignored when I was in the throes of lust. When I left we loathed each other. She couldn’t bear to see Sig liking anybody else,
especially
me. Any visits I tried to make were blocked. I didn’t try that hard. I found him an unattractive, whiny kid, a mother’s boy if ever I saw one. We had nothing in common. Over the years I have met him only sporadically. The last time was about six months ago. I met him for dinner and neither or us could wait until it was time to leave… You’ve met him. He’s a phoney. He wants to come across as cool and with it but he just looks rather pathetic.”