Death's Shadow (9 page)

Greg is a burly-looking guy, big arms, looks like he should be playing football. But he is also soft-spoken; inside he is a lot like Charlisa: artistic in his way, a thinker, a seeker. He studied to be a chef, yearning to travel, discover the world. He chose instead to stay and help his mom raise Eugene. His life is on hold in a sense, has been since Charlisa’s death. The killer did that to him. So for now, short of actually slipping the bonds of his hometown, he reads Jack Kerouac’s
On the Road
, and imagines.

As for Eugene, as he neared his 13th birthday, he seemed like a regular kid. He told only his closest friends about his story. “Sometimes someone will ask me, ‘How’s your mom?’ And I say, ‘I have to tell you something; I call my grandma mom, because my mom passed away, she got murdered when I was three.’ I tell them I was there.”

There are times he thinks about what happened that night, and what he might have seen, but not very often. Sometimes he sees it in his dreams. It does not upset him to talk about it. Perhaps he was young enough that, while the memory exists, it is not strong enough to define him. The distant past is an old skin he has been able to mostly shed — a part of him, but separate at the same time. The fact that he was so young at the time of his mother’s murder is tragic but maybe it also saved him.

At bedtime Eugene does not pray, but he talks to his mom, asks her how she’s doing, what she is up to. He figures she’s having fun somewhere with her grandfather, and Brody, their old dog, who died a while back. Eugene enjoys his video games; there’s one he plays called
Resident Evil
. He is a strong player, working the controls, staring at the screen. His secret, he says, is that he does not blink.

He’s not sure what he wants to be when he grows up. He thought for a while about being a cop. One day Don Forgan took him to the Hamilton Police Association’s private club. Forgan sprung for wings and beer — root beer for the boy. Eugene likes Forgan a lot. That night the boy inhaled a basket of wings, barely touched his fries, and then teamed with Forgan for a game of pool against two others. Forgan went on a run to win it; the boy and the cop slapped high-fives in celebration.

At the family’s house one night, Sue took out a piece of Charlisa’s artwork to show a visitor. It was a painting that had been on exhibit in a show at a Hamilton gallery just days before she was killed. The work depicts two hands cupped over a glowing ball of energy, which represents the spirit. Eugene had seen the piece many times. But this time he stared closer, as though witnessing it for the first time. His nana had told him she could see Char’s own image in the painting. And now, staring at the painting, his eyes widened, Eugene’s voice grew excited, as though opening a gift on Christmas morning. For the first time, he could see her.

“There, oh, I see it now — the head, the body. She must have made it so that she’s in it. There’s her legs, and belly. Probably with me in it.”

Charlisa had given her last work a title. She called it
Life After Death
.

The Jackie McLean homicide remains an open case with Hamilton Police. By law Carl Hall cannot be charged with her murder a second time. As for Eugene, he is now in his mid-teens. He has grown to be tall and thin, is personable, but has also got into trouble, skipping a lot of school, running away. In this Sue Ross laments that she sees some of her daughter, Charlisa, who also rebelled as a teen. Life is tough for Sue. The Zellers she worked at closed. At 60 she knows job prospects are bleak; she has planned to sell her house.

“There’s no happy ending for us,” she says. “That man ruined everything.”

Darkness on Indian Trail

Even in daylight the house seems hidden, set well back from the country road called Indian Trail, cloistered among tall trees on a property next to a small cemetery. It is a long drive down the laneway, between two murky ponds. In the late day sun, it is dead silent by the house but for rustling leaves and the buzz of insects. Flies swarm aggressively, as though protecting their territory.

Her home sits on the outskirts of the hamlet of Lynden, between Ancaster and Brantford, the nearest gas station 15 kilometres away. The A-frame house seems too big and too remote for anyone to live there alone. But Audrey Gleave lived there by herself for 37 years. Audrey and her ex-husband built it 40 years ago on the 45-acre property. Its 17-foot vaulted ceilings allowed for a library balcony, but Audrey hadn’t used the library much. She still enjoyed her books, but spent most of her time in front of one of two big, flat-screen TVs or her computer.

Audrey was 73, a retired high-school teacher, who, many years ago, had been a master’s student in nuclear physics at McMaster University. She had always kept details of her past hidden, even from those close to her. She was an enigmatic, quiet recluse; she enjoyed her peace and privacy, although she also delighted in revving up her shiny white Camaro. She could be sociable too — for years she met for coffee every Wednesday with retired teacher friends from Westdale Secondary School. She never gave away too much of herself, though. In fact, her old colleagues never even knew that Audrey had herself attended Westdale.

The home in the country where Audrey Gleave lived.

Audrey Gleave was a retired teacher who had lived alone for years.
Gary Yokoyama, Hamilton Spectator.

On Monday, December 27, 2010, the morning broke sunny and cold. Audrey had not been feeling well. She sent a couple of emails. One, to Linda, a neighbour across the street, whom Audrey knew but had never welcomed inside the house. She sent the same email to Phil, a 22-year-old McMaster University engineering graduate student who did small jobs around the house and property for her. Audrey always shared jokes, articles, and videos by email. But this one was different. It was a concert rendition of a spiritual hymn. She was not a religious person, though, and never forwarded songs.

Phil had recently erected a new mailbox at the end of Audrey’s driveway. Someone had knocked down the last one. Phil was a rare acquaintance she welcomed inside her home. They would sit on the sofa and chat. He called her “Aud.” No matter how many times he visited, though, Phil never seemed to be accepted by Audrey’s dogs. Two German shepherds, they were so protective they would circle her as though forming a wall, barking and nipping..

Later that day, she sent a new email, to Phil:

Monday, Dec. 27, 2010, 10:46 a.m.

Subject: report

From: [email protected]

By Sunday the weakness was disappearing but still there. And would you believe that this morning I got a secondary infection; runny nose, runny eyes, sneezing. But at least I don’t feel weak so don’t think I’ve a fever. I’m just annoyed with it. Hope it gets better because I intend to have coffee Wed. come hell or high water. I’ve got cabin fever. Lynne is coming over with soup in a few minutes.

Bary

Bary was not her real name. It was short for Baryon, a name she had chosen for herself. It was a name that inevitably aroused curiosity in others. When Audrey had taken computer studies at Mohawk College in her sixties, a fellow mature student in her class, a man named John Hartig, noticed that she signed her assignments with that name.
Unusual
, he thought.

Hartig also noticed that she seemed to keep to herself, immersing herself in her studies. Computers had become Audrey’s latest enthusiasm. She plunged into a new area of interest stoked by a natural curiosity, competitiveness, and a big analytical brain. She often stayed after class to soak up additional wisdom from instructors.

Most of the students were much younger, but she was sharper than all of them. She became a computer whiz, ultimately asking a friend to email her viruses so she could study them, break them down. She received a grade of 99 percent in one computer course. When she asked the instructor what her one mistake had been, the instructor couldn’t point to one specifically, but observed that nobody knows the material perfectly, so there had to be an error somewhere. Audrey knew better. She took the complaint to the head of the department and got her 100 percent.

One day Hartig held a door open for her. It looked as if she was in pain when she walked; perhaps because she was overweight, he thought. Her knees must be hurting. He wondered if his chivalry had endeared him to her, because she spoke to him a bit. That’s when he asked about the code name.

“Do you know what Baryon means?” she asked, quizzing him, no doubt certain he would have no answer.

“It’s a subatomic particle,” he said.

That was correct. He figured she was impressed by that, even though it was not the full definition, which would have been elementary for Audrey. (Baryon: a subatomic particle with a mass greater than or equal to that of the proton, composed of three quarks; from the Greek
barus
, meaning heavy.) Audrey emailed John after that; sent him articles, cartoons from the comic strip
Crabby Road
featuring a character named Maxine, a wisecracking, curmudgeonly elderly woman.

John was a wedding photographer. He asked Audrey for scripting tips when creating his website and credited her on the site when it was complete. He liked and respected her. He also knew that she was rather guarded. He got the impression that, while she had a big heart, she chose her friends judiciously and had little patience for those who were lazy or hypocritical, and that she felt that there was no shortage of such people.

He was one of several people on her email contact list. She emailed each person separately, never as a group. It was a privacy thing. More unusual was Audrey’s insistence that anyone emailing refer to her as Baryon, or Bary, even within the text of a message. She made it clear if anyone wrote her real first name, at any time, they would be cut off.

Not long after Christmas, Hartig came home from a vacation. He saw on the TV news that an elderly woman who lived alone in the country with two dogs had been stabbed, murdered in her home. The victim’s name appeared on the screen.

“My goodness,” John said to his wife, feeling his heart drop. “That’s Baryon.”

“Horrendous,” said the plainclothes staff sergeant. “Savage.”

Steve Hrab had recently turned 59, and was nearing the end of a high-profile and sometimes controversial career with Hamilton Police. Hrab had helped send cold-blooded killers to jail. Sometimes his investigative techniques and aggressive approach had also landed him in hot water with supervisors, judges, and defence lawyers. He had seen it all, investigating homicide cases for 25 years, longer than any active Hamilton police officer. Yet he spoke to the media with pronounced gravity about the murder of the 73-year-old woman on Indian Trail. He said it was the worst thing he had ever seen. The attack had had a “sexual component,” he added.

Homicide investigators typically speak to the media about an open case in the interest of public safety — he urged residents in the area to “be vigilant,” since a killer was at large — and in the hopes of encouraging tips, and, on occasion, to spark a reaction from the perpetrator.

Audrey Gleave’s body was found mid-morning on Thursday, December 30. Hrab said they suspected a random attack by a stranger. Police did not reveal the exact time of death, if they were aware of it. The last time she was known to be alive was the early evening of December 27. Her body was found in her garage, which was attached to the house. Audrey’s two German shepherds had been inside the house, apparently unable to save her.

Hrab did not reveal additional pieces of the picture, details only the killer would know, what investigators call “holdback evidence.” He spoke of a vicious stabbing but did not talk about other weapons (at least one other had been used), or the nature of the “sexual component” — it had included a perverse act that went beyond a conventional assault; the killer had taken something from the victim, as though making off with a souvenir.

Hrab stood in a topcoat against a cold wind, addressing reporters on Indian Trail, yellow crime scene tape hanging from Audrey Gleave’s new mailbox.

“Have you been in contact with a man neighbours say has been doing odd jobs for Ms. Gleave?” asked a reporter from the local television station. The reporter was talking about Audrey’s friend, Phil Kinsman. He lived in west Hamilton, about a 20-minute drive away. Neighbours called him her handyman.

“Yes, we have spoken with that individual,” Hrab said. “He is actually the individual that discovered her. He has been ruled out as a suspect in this, absolutely.”

“Neighbours say they have seen a homeless man in an abandoned barn down the road,” the reporter continued, “sometimes with his shirt off, carrying an axe, and that he’s been arrested and is in Brantford. What can you confirm about those reports?”

“I am aware of a homeless man that has taken residence up there,” Hrab said. “We are aware he has been arrested in Brantford on a totally unrelated matter. On a weapons charge, I believe.”

Hamilton police officers executed search warrants on Audrey’s home and the barn six kilometres away. They did not report finding any items stolen from the house.

The sexual assault and murder of an older woman in her home was a story in the media across the country. Soon after the news broke, the phone rang at the home of David Gleave in British Columbia. It was his brother, Allan, on the line. Allan Gleave was Audrey’s ex-husband. To David, Allan did not sound upset; the voice was matter-of-fact. But then Allan had not been in touch with her for many years.

“Did you hear the news about Audrey?” Allan asked.

Allan had not been contacted by Hamilton detectives about the murder. Police would not call Audrey’s ex-husband for five months. Instead, he had heard the news when a
Hamilton Spectator
reporter had called him. Unlike his brother, David had been in touch with Audrey in recent years. He remembered something she had once told him. Audrey had said she feared that she would one day be raped and murdered in her home.

When her life began, she was Otte Wilma Doveika, born in Hamilton on February 6, 1937. Her parents were from the Baltics, Latvia and Lithuania; their anglicized names in Canada became Antanas (Tony) and Marie Doveika. Tony Doveika worked in Hamilton as an engineer for Greening Wire Company. He married Marie and they moved to 179 Locke Street North, and then to 19 Mulberry Street, downtown. Otte changed her name to Audrey as a teenager. She did not get along with her mother; they barely talked.

By 1960 Tony had moved the family to 11 Beulah Avenue, off Aberdeen Avenue, near Dundurn Street. By the time she was 23, Audrey was working as a clerk at Bell, and in 1964 was enrolled in science at McMaster University. In first year at McMaster, she met Allan Gleave, who was six years her junior and studying engineering. Allan had attended Hill Park Secondary School; his father was a purchasing agent for Firestone, and his uncle, also named Allan, was a Hamilton police officer.

Allan found Audrey attractive. She was full-figured and in good shape, with long hair she usually coloured red. Most appealingly, she had a sharp wit fuelled by her intelligence.

“She read only two magazines,” quipped Allan. “One was
Scientific American
and the other
MAD
magazine.”

She was also a private woman, who volunteered little about her past. Maybe that was because she was older than her peers, or perhaps something had happened to her as a young woman that inspired such caution. Whatever it was that led Audrey to form a protective shell, it would remain for the rest of her life.

One day Allan spotted an old elementary school science textbook of Audrey’s. He opened the front cover. There it was, handwritten: Otte Wilma. She had never told him her original name. He made a mental note about that textbook. It had been an old book, all right — had to be, he reflected, because the element tungsten was still referred to by its old name: wolfram.

Young Audrey Doveika before she was Audrey Gleave.
Hamilton Spectator.

They seemed a good match, Allan and Audrey. They decided to get married, but Allan was Anglican and his church would not perform the service. The reason? His fiancée had been married before. Twice. Audrey confirmed the two previous marriages, but would tell Allan little about them. Allan never asked her much about it. He knew better than to try; she was too private. She did not tell him she had been just 16 when she first married. That one had not lasted long. The second, which took place when she was in her twenties, was to Larry Blake, who worked at Stelco.

Even with the secrecy, Allan loved being with Audrey; she was fun and smart. They were married in 1969 in the Salvation Army chapel on James Street North. Only a couple of people attended; Allan’s mom, Marjorie, threw a party for them afterward. They lived for a time with Allan’s parents. Marjorie got along well with Audrey, although she dreaded family gatherings with Audrey’s parents. Tony Doveika liked his booze, especially when socializing, and insisted on getting Marjorie’s husband drunk every time they got together.

Before getting married Audrey had been on track for a career in nuclear physics — an uncommon vocation for a woman in the 1960s. She graduated with a bachelor of science in 1966 from McMaster and began work on a master’s degree in physics. She worked two summers for Atomic Energy of Canada at the nuclear laboratories in Chalk River, 180 kilometres west of Ottawa. A densely academic article published in 1967 lists “A. Doveika” as one of the authors. The title: “Compendium of Thermal Neutron Capture Ray Measurements.”

In August 1967 she was featured in a
Hamilton Spectator
article headlined
COLOUR TV SET EASY TO BUILD
. It was in the early days of colour television, when a new one cost a small fortune — $1,200, or about $8,000 in today’s dollars. Audrey had sent away for parts and put it together over the course of a month, following a manual. She was described in the article as a “cheerful blonde brandishing her soldering iron … glibly reeling off technical terms” as her Siamese cat, Ming, watched. She was quoted as saying that anyone could put a TV together: “Anyone who has the courage to pick up a screwdriver. That’s the beauty of it. Just read the instructions.”

She added that she had a practical reason for building her own TV: “Now I can make my own repairs.” A photo with the story showed Audrey working on her invention in a striped dress, a ring on her wedding finger. She used to wear one, even though she was single at the time. Sometimes she wore a gold snake ring. Why she did that, Allan was never sure.

Her career as a nuclear physicist did not pan out, either by choice or necessity. One family member said she was denied a permanent job at Chalk River because of management’s concerns about the consequences of her working in a nuclear energy environment if she were to become pregnant. She did not complete her master’s program. Instead, she announced to Allan one day she would teach high-school science. There was no discussion about her reasons. Her first school was Hill Park; later she moved to Barton Secondary, and then Westdale.

Her parents moved to 93 South Oval in Westdale. Audrey continued to be estranged from her mother, even as she worked just around the corner from her parents’ house. Early in their marriage, Allan and Audrey lived on Alma Lane in Ancaster, then built a big home on Indian Trail, which Allan designed.

There were good times. Allan’s brother, David, was a pilot, and flew the two of them up north into the bush to camp for a week. They travelled to Europe for three weeks. She talked about having kids. In 1974, when Allan was 31 and Audrey 38, the marriage started to fall apart. Allan had met a younger woman at his karate class. Allan’s mother, Marjorie, who is now 95 and lives in a Hamilton nursing home, lamented the end of the marriage: “Men don’t like women who are smarter than they are.”

Allan left Audrey, but on occasion he still dropped by Indian Trail to help with things. Despite the fact that they seemed to have maintained a friendship, Audrey started referring to him in conversation as Fartface, a nickname that would have resonated with Maxine, the crusty cartoon character she had come to admire. Allan moved 400 kilometres away with the woman he had met in karate class and would marry. He settled up north, taking a chemical engineering job for a paper company in Sturgeon Falls. He never had kids and retired in 2001.

In the divorce settlement, Allan signed the house over to Audrey. The house was important to both of them, and he didn’t want anyone else to live there. “I’ll never sell it,” she told him.

Audrey remained on Indian Trail, alone. Allan made trips back to Hamilton each year to visit his parents. When his father died in 1976, Audrey attended the funeral and chatted briefly with Allan. It was the last time they ever spoke.