Chen smiled warmly. “Hello, Sandra. What can I do for you?”
“I’m calling about the death a couple of days ago of one Roderick Churchill.”
“The gym teacher who combed his hair over? Sure, what about him?”
“You recorded the cause of death as an aneurysm.”
“Uh-huh.”
“But you put a question mark after it. Aneurysm, question mark.”
“Oh, yes.” Chen shrugged. “Well, you can never be completely sure. When God wants you, sometimes he just flicks the old switch in your head. Click! Aneurysm. You check out, just like that. That seemed to be what happened there. The guy was already on heart medication.”
“Was there anything unusual about the case?” Chen made the clucking sound that passed for his chuckle.
“I’m afraid not, Sandra. There’s nothing nefarious about a sixty-something-year-old man dropping dead — especially a gym teacher. They think they’re in good shape, but they spend most of their day just watching other people exercise. The guy had been scarfing fast food when he died.”
“Did you do an autopsy?”
The medical examiner clucked again; somebody had once suggested that Chen’s name was a contraction of chicken hen. “Autopsies are expensive, Sandra. You know that. No, I did a couple of quick tests at the scene, then signed the certificate. The widow — it’s coming back to me now, her name was Bunny; can you believe that? Anyway, she’d found the body. Her daughter and son-in-law were with her when I got there around, oh, one-thirty, quarter to two, in the morning.” He paused. “Why the interest?”
“It’s probably nothing,” said Sandra. “Just that the man who died, Rod Churchill, was the father of one of the coworkers in that castration case.”
“Oh, yes,” said Chen, his voice full of relish. “Now there’s an interesting one. Carracci was M.E. on that; she gets all the weird cases these days. But, Sandra, it seems a pretty tenuous connection, no? I mean it just sounds like this woman — what’s her name?”
“Cathy Hobson.”
“It just sounds like it’s not Cathy Hobson’s year, that’s all. Run of bad luck.”
Sandra nodded. “I’m sure you’re right. Still, do you mind if I come down and look at your notes?”
Chen clucked again. “Of course not, Sandra. It’s always a pleasure to see you.”
Peter hated funerals. Not because he disliked being around dead people; one couldn’t spend as much time in hospitals as he did without running into a few of those. No, it was the live ones he couldn’t stand.
First, there were the hypocrites: the ones who hadn’t seen the dear departed in years, but came out of the woodwork after it was too late to do the deceased any good.
Second, the wailers, the people who became so flamboyantly emotional that they, instead of the deceased, became the center of attention. Peter’s heart did go out to close relatives who were having trouble dealing with the loss of someone they truly loved, but he had no patience for the distant cousins or five-blocks-away neighbors who went to pieces at funerals, until they were surrounded by a crowd of people trying to comfort them, loving every minute.
For his own part, as in all things, Peter tried for a certain stoicism — the stiff upper lip of his British ancestors.
Rod Churchill, vain man that he had been, wanted an open casket. Peter disapproved of those. As a child of seven, he’d gone to the funeral of his mother’s father. Granddad had been known for his large nose. Peter remembered entering the chapel and seeing the coffin at the far end, the upper part open, the only thing visible from that angle being his grandfather’s nose sticking up above the line made by the side of the casket. To this day, whenever he thought of his grandfather, the picture that came to mind first was of the dead man’s proboscis, a lone peak rising into the air.
Peter looked around. The chapel he was in today was paneled in dark wood. The coffin looked expensive. Despite the request for donations to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario in lieu of flowers, there were many bouquets, and a large horseshoe-shaped affair sent by the teachers Rod had worked with. Must have been from the Phys. Ed. Department — only those guys could be daft enough not to know that horseshoe arrangements meant “good luck,” hardly the appropriate thing to send to a dead man.
Bunny was holding up bravely, and Cathy’s sister, Marissa, although crying intermittently, seemed to be doing okay, too. Peter didn’t know what to make of Cathy’s reaction, though. Her face was impassive as she greeted people coming to pay their respects. Cathy, who cried when she watched sad movies and who cried when she read sad books, seemed to have no tears at all for her dead father.
It wasn’t much to go on, thought Sandra Philo. Two deaths. One clearly a murder; the other of indeterminate cause.
But they both had Cathy Hobson in common.
Cathy Hobson, who had slept with the murdered man, Hans Larsen.
Cathy Hobson, daughter of Rod Churchill.
True, Larsen had been involved with many women. True, Churchill had been in his sixties.
Still…
After Sandra had finished her work for the day, she drove to the Churchill house, at Bayview just south of Steeles. It was only five kilometers from 32 Division headquarters — not much of a waste if this turned out to be a wild-goose chase. She parked and went up to the front door. The Churchill family had a FILE scanner — Fingerprint Index Lock Electronics. Common these days. Above the scanning plate was a doorbell button. Sandra pushed it. A minute later, a woman with gray hair appeared at the door. “Yes?”
“Hello,” said Sandra. “Are you Bunny Churchill?”
“Yes.”
Sandra held up her ID. “I’m Alexandria Philo, Metro Police. Can I ask you a few questions.”
“What about?”
“The, ah, death of your husband.”
“Goodness,” said Bunny. Then: “Yes, of course. Come in.”
“Thank you — but, before I forget, can I ask whose fingerprints the FILE scanner accepts?” Sandra pointed at the blue glass plate.
“Mine and my husband’s,” said Bunny.
“Anybody else?”
“My daughters. My son-in-law.”
“Cathy Hobson, and — ” Sandra had to think for a moment — “Peter Hobson, is that right?”
“Yes, and my other daughter, Marissa.”
They went inside.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” said Sandra, smiling sympathetically. “I know this must be a very difficult time for you. But there are a few little questions I’d like to clear up, so we can close the file on your husband.”
“I thought the file was closed,” said Bunny.
“Almost,” said Sandra. “The medical examiner wasn’t a hundred-percent sure of the cause of death, I’m afraid. He’d marked it down as probably an aneurysm.”
“So I’d been told.” Bunny shook her head. “It doesn’t seem fair.”
“Can you tell me if he had any health problems?”
“Rod? Oh, nothing serious. A little arthritis in one hand. Sometimes a little pain in his left leg. Oh, and he’d had a small heart attack three years ago — he took medication for that.”
Probably insignificant. And yet … “Do you still have his heart pills?”
“I suppose they’d still be in the medicine cabinet upstairs.”
“Would you mind showing them to me?” asked Sandra.
Bunny nodded. They went up to the bathroom together and Bunny opened the medicine cabinet. Inside, there was Tylenol, a container of dental floss, Listerine, some of those little shampoos they have at hotels, and two prescription bottles from Shoppers Drug Mart.
“Which one is his heart pills?” asked Sandra, pointing.