Chapter 40 Rachel
RACHEL
Rachel takes a deep breath and looks down at the phone number she’s been given by the HR rep at Maclean-Hunter.
Emily Radcliffe retired from Chatelaine three years ago, and they don’t have a new phone number for her.
Instead, they’ve provided the contact for the magazine’s former editor-in-chief, Doris Anderson, who’s apparently still friends with Radcliffe.
Her name rings a bell, but Rachel can’t quite place it.
Something to do with politics, she thinks.
She’ll have to look it up later. But for now, she dials.
“Hi, Ms. Anderson,” she begins. “My name is Rachel Mackenzie, I’m a detective with the OPP in Huron County.”
A pause. “How can I help you, Detective?”
“I was given your phone number by someone in the HR department at Maclean-Hunter. I’ve been trying to track down one of your former employees.
The person at Maclean-Hunter said she worked under you at Chatelaine in the early sixties until your departure.
Emily Radcliffe: Do you know how I might be able to reach her? ”
“Is she in some kind of trouble?”
“No,” Rachel says. “But I very much need to speak with her about a current investigation. She may have some detail that’s essential to the case.”
“Well,” Doris Anderson says, her voice age-crackled but strong. “Emily was my protege. One of my best journalists and employees. Yes, I can give you her phone number. We still have lunch once or twice a year.” She gives a little cough.
“And can I confirm her address with you?” Rachel reads off the one in Rosedale.
“Yes, that’s correct. Now, might I inquire as to the nature of your investigation, Detective?”
“It’s regarding the time she spent at the Mercer Women’s Prison in Liberty Village.
We’re investigating the ID of a Jane Doe that was found in a cemetery up here in Huron County recently.
We had five possible IDs, but we’ve been able to rule out three, leaving Emily Radcliffe and another inmate who was there around the same time, an Annie Little.
I’m trying to figure out whether Radcliffe might have known Little while she was there. ”
There’s a long sigh on the other end of the line.
“Ms. Anderson?”
“Yes,” Doris says softly. “Emily knew Annie Little. They were friends. And Annie died in Emily’s arms, right there in the middle of the prison mess hall with the other women looking on. Dreadful thing. Just dreadful.”
Rachel’s gut gives a little lurch of excitement, the same one she gets every time she feels that tug at the end of a good lead.
If Annie Little is dead and Emily Radcliffe is alive, she might finally have the identity of her Jane Doe.
Though how Annie Little ended up in Millgate remains the big question. Except…
“How…how does Radcliffe say Annie Little died?”
Doris clears her throat. “Emily vehemently maintains that Annie Little was murdered by the prison doctor, but it could never be proved. That horrid woman went down for corruption and abuse, but not for the murder. She claimed one of the matrons must have been careless, allowed Annie Little access to an overdose of medication, and that she deliberately took her own life after years of psychosis. But Emily believes to this day that Annie was well in the mind, and was murdered.”
“The coroner’s report deemed it suicide,” Rachel tells her.
“Mm. Is that so?”
“Yes.”
“Mm,” Doris grunts again. “Seems a rather unlikely cause of death for a woman who perished in front of a hundred witnesses, all of whom said the only matron who took any action was the one later accused of recklessly allowing access to the drugs. It seems rather odd, does it not, that that particularly inept matron would be the one to care so much about Annie Little’s fate, and attempt to save her life. That seems rather inconsistent to me.
“But, I suppose, the hundred and twenty witnesses were all criminals,” Doris goes on. “Prostitutes. The mentally ill. And all women. Not populations that are typically given the benefit of the doubt by society, now are they?”
“Ma’am,” Rachel says, “it’s not my place to comment on that. I’m sure you understand.”
“I wonder if coroners are corruptible,” the older woman says, her voice a little louder now.
“Whether they have greater fortitude against bribery or blackmail than, say, politicians? Or judges? Police officers?” Rachel shifts in her seat, and unwittingly, her eyes seek Green, just visible through her glass door in his own office across the hall.
“But I suppose that’s for you to find out. ”
Rachel is eager to bring this interview to an end. She’s used to being able to command a conversation, especially if her interviewee is a woman. But something about Doris Anderson makes her shrink as though she’s being challenged by a stern and intelligent schoolteacher.
“Could I have Emily Radcliffe’s number, please?” Rachel asks pointedly.
“Yes. But Detective.” Doris pauses, and her bristly demeanor suddenly falls away to softness. “Please be…gentle with her. I’m afraid the scars she acquired in the line of duty have never fully healed.”
“Well, she’s not in any trouble,” Rachel assures her. “I think, actually, we might be able to provide her with a bit of closure. There’s just one piece missing from this case that I’m hoping she can help us solve.”
“Which piece?”
“How and why Annie Little’s body got from the Mercer prison dining hall to an unmarked grave in Huron County.”
“Yes, why indeed?” Doris muses.
“And do you know why Radcliffe ended up in the prison?” Rachel asks. “Was that before her time with you at the magazine, or…?”
Doris lets out a low sigh. “Emily was at the Mercer prison because of her time at Chatelaine.”
“I’m sorry?”
“By her own request,” Doris says. “I allowed her to go undercover at the Mercer in 1961, to help uncover the truth of the deplorable conditions of the place.”
Rachel’s brows pop up. “Really. How long was she there?”
“Over six months. Longer than she was meant to, but that’s a whole other story.
At any rate, we published her piece in early ’62, and it led to a grand jury investigation that shut the place down.
There were court cases, lawsuits, all sorts.
Total scandal. And it was all down to Emily and the women who helped her.
Including poor Annie Little, God rest her soul. ”
Rachel scribbles her notes hastily. “There’s a grand jury report?”
“Yes. And I can send you a copy of Emily’s article, too, if you’d care to see it.”
Rachel nods to herself, makes another note. “Yes, please. And Ms. Anderson, what did you mean when you said it’s a ‘whole other story’ why Radcliffe was at the Mercer for so long?”
Another long pause. “That’s Emily’s story,” Doris finally says, her voice softer now. “It’s always been Emily’s story. You shall have to hear it from her.”
TORONTO—JULY, 1996
“Good morning, Detectives.” Emily Radcliffe stands on the porch of her large brown Tudor-style home on Whitehall Road in Rosedale. Rachel and Stevens shut the car doors and walk up the handsome flagstone path.
She’s an average-sized woman with mid-length greying hair pulled back in a low ponytail.
Her lips are painted, but she wears no other makeup, and is dressed in a neat beige sweater-set and slacks.
Her hands are on her hips, giving the strange impression that they’re late, though in actual fact, they’ve arrived six minutes ahead of their promised time.
“I hope you both like coffee,” she says, and turns toward the front door, leading them into a large tiled foyer with a tasteful chandelier overhead.
It’s so clean and tidy that Rachel fights the urge to remove her shoes, and shakes her head at Stevens when he looks as though he’s about to. They’re police. Not guests.
“Come on through into the sitting room,” Emily says, settling herself on a large rose-coloured wing chair and gesturing Rachel and Stevens to the sofa across from her.
Her handshake is strong, especially for a woman her age.
But Rachel recognizes the signs in her ragged fingernails, the sweat around her hairline.
The pristine surroundings are a coping mechanism for what lies beneath.
“Now then,” Emily says. “Doris told me everything you talked to her about.” She clears her throat.
“That this maybe has to do with Annie. That you might have, uh, found her body. I didn’t know she was missing.
Anyway, I’m happy to assist where I can.
” She leans forward, pouring them each a coffee from a French press.
The liquid agitates a little in the carafe as her hands tremble.
Rachel accepts the drink, then gets straight to the point.
“Yes. We’re investigating a woman’s body that was uncovered in an unmarked grave in a cemetery up in Huron County. Through forensics and some cross-referencing, we narrowed it down to five possible women. Including you.”
“Not me,” Emily says, with the ghost of a smile.
“No, ma’am.”
She breathes deeply. “But you think it’s Annie.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Rachel watches Emily’s hands, one balled into a fist as she massages the knuckles with the other. There’s a plain gold band on her ring finger. She blinks several times. “How, uh—” She clears the rasp from her throat. “What happened?”
Rachel glances at Stevens, gestures that he should take the lead on this one. She wants to focus on Emily’s body language. He sits forward on the couch.
“By process of elimination, Annie Little is the only possible ID for this Jane Doe. But we’re still trying to figure out how she ended up there.”
“Huron County, you said?” Emily asks him.
“Yes. Did you know that she was born in Goderich? That’s the city listed on her birth certificate.”