Dead Write: A Forensic Handwriting Mystery (7 page)

Claudia glanced over at the clock and saw that the hour was getting late. Time always seemed to surge forward when she was immersed in handwriting samples. What felt like ten minutes was in reality an hour.

She knew she should get some rest so she would be ready for her meeting with Grusha tomorrow, but her body was telling her it was three hours earlier than the nightstand clock claimed it was. If she went to bed now, she would be awake by three a.m.

Her eyes went to her cell phone on the nightstand. She wondered how Jovanic and Alex were doing on their stakeout. Would he call? He usually did when there was little action. She gave a small sigh and reached for the next folder.

Over the next half hour Claudia reviewed three files where the clients’ handwriting was not particularly noteworthy or remarkable. She made a few notes, but the samples looked normal and emotionally healthy enough that she didn’t bother to read Andy Nicholson’s reports. She knew instinctively that these were not problem clients.

Another short break. She took a small bottle of white wine from the minibar and poured it into a water glass from the bathroom. It wasn’t up to the standard of Grusha’s Cabernet, but it was drinkable.

The next client was a man named Marcus Bernard. Thirty-six, he’d listed his vitals as six two, two-ten, but Claudia was sure he must have fudged his weight by about ten pounds. In his head shot he wore a red baseball cap. His smile, hidden behind a full, graying beard, seemed open and affable. Something about him reminded her of the actor Sean Connery at a younger age, though Marcus Bernard’s lips tended more to thinness.

In his biographical notes under
Occupation
, he’d entered “real estate developer, hotels.” Several snapshots showed him outdoors in natural settings—hiking with a tall walking stick; standing in front of an open pit at a groundbreaking. In one he wore a tuxedo, a silk scarf draped with studied carelessness around his neck.

Claudia turned to his handwriting sample in the back of the folder. He had scrawled only a couple of lines that said he was looking for a woman who was sexy in the boardroom or the bedroom.
How original.

“Someone who is fun to be with,” he had penned. “Loyal, passionate, adventurous, and flexible.”

The word
flexible
was underlined several times. That kind of heavy underlining often meant that the writer was dogmatic and tended to pontificate. What kind of flexibility did he expect to find? In the context of this handwriting sample, she thought it might be referring to a partner who would be tolerant of indiscretions. Or maybe his desire was for a woman who would participate in exotic activities, such as group sex. That was something his handwriting couldn’t tell her.

The sample displayed many of the hallmarks of a smooth talker: slack rhythm; thready, indefinite letter forms. Some words were illegible. Bernard had left little space between words and lines. The upper loops were too tall, the long lower loops too long and pulling to the left.

In some ways, the handwriting reminded Claudia of another writer—Lyle Menendez, who had been convicted of helping his younger brother murder their wealthy parents back in the mid-1990s.

The capitals in Bernard’s signature were large and tall, which indicated that he thought very well of himself—maybe too well. The final stroke on the capital M in Marcus plunged below the baseline and curved under the a, which was the next letter to the right. A long beginning stroke on the a crossed the downstroke, creating a form that resembled the letter X.

Claudia had researched this “X formation,” and had discovered that in most cases, those who made it had a fatalistic attitude or had been close to death in some way. She wondered whether Bernard had lost someone close to him.

What she saw in the handwriting suggested that he was something of an action junkie who threw his energy around, sticking his fingers into a dozen pies. He needed excitement and stimulation, but small details were unimportant to him. He would need a strong support staff to follow behind and pick up the pieces. Experience told Claudia that he would use diffuse activity to help him avoid dealing with things he would rather not face.

By this time, she figured she knew what she would find in Andy’s report: sex, sex, and more sex. This was one case where she couldn’t disagree with him. With the disproportionately long lower loops as part of the whole picture, Marcus Bernard would constantly be seeking new experiences and possibly new partners, but emotional satisfaction would elude him. The question was, knowing that, would Grusha have taken him on as a client?

The wine and the fatigue from the long day were kicking in. Claudia yawned as she scribbled more notes, then moved on to folders number seven and eight. Seven was a rather boring sample; nothing stood out. Ron Gibson, twenty-nine, an advertising executive. The writing meandered along without a lot of energy. Claudia thought he was a little depressed, but he would be okay once Grusha hooked him up with the woman of his dreams.

Number eight was an elfin woman with massively large, artistic handwriting. Her bio notes described her as Penelope Mendes, a twenty-seven-year-old writer from L.A. The handwriting was block printed but the letters touched, which suggested that while she wanted to be independent, Penelope really needed closeness.

The last folder in the pile belonged to John Shaw, award-winning professional photographer and world traveler. At thirty-nine, he was a little older than the other clients she had viewed. He had a clean-cut, wholesome look, with springy ginger hair and blue eyes—unusual for a redhead, she thought. When she came to his handwriting sample, the news was not so good.

The writing style was a conventional school type, except for a serious problem with the upper loops. Some of the l’s were twisted, while others were shaped like a candle flame with bulging sides and soft angles at the apex.

While twisted lower loops like the ones in Heather Lloyd’s handwriting pointed to sexual issues, in the upper loops the twists could indicate serious medical or psychological problems. Claudia couldn’t diagnose a specific illness without a medical license, but she knew that physiological problems could sometimes be seen in handwriting.

If a physical illness was not the source of the flame-shaped loops, then John Shaw had an idiosyncratic view of life; he was not on the same wavelength as the rest of the world. The baselines also pointed down, a sign of depression, illness, or fatigue.

Claudia stacked the folders on the desk and went into the bathroom. She began her evening rituals to prepare for bed, thinking about what she had learned. So far, several of the male population of Grusha’s matchmaking club had monumentally failed to impress her. She had observed enough red flags in the handwritings of three of the male clients to believe that any of them could have engaged in behavior that might come back to haunt the matchmaker. And Heather Lloyd was a self-involved egotist, so she could be a problem, too. She guessed that the other clients had been thrown in as ringers, to test her.

She got into bed and was switching off the light when her cell phone rang.

Chapter 5

“Claudia? Hey, how ya doing? It’s Susan Rowan—sorry to call so late, but I figured you’d be up. I know you—you’re always working.”

The Long Island accent on the other end of the line was one that was hard to mistake. Susan Rowan was a colleague who lived in Manhattan. Claudia didn’t know Susan well enough to view her as a close friend, but they had crossed paths several times over the years and shared meals at a couple of handwriting analysis conventions.

“Susan. Good to hear from you.”

“I just heard you were in the city, so I was hoping we could get together while you’re here.”

“Where in the world did you hear that?”

“Oh, you know. A little bird told me.”

“What little bird might that be?”

“I’ll tell you about that later. How long are you gonna be here? Do you have time to meet?”

“Of course, Suze, I’d love to see you. What’s your schedule like?”

“How about breakfast tomorrow? There’s a good bagel shop up a block from your hotel. Go out the front door, turn left and start walking. You can’t miss it.”

Claudia pressed the end button and crawled back under the covers, wondering where Susan had obtained the information on her whereabouts. Besides Jovanic, she hadn’t told anyone except her close friend, Kelly Brennan, that she was going to be away.

Susan Rowan had commandeered a table in a secluded spot at the back of the noisy café. A stylish redhead, she wore a tweed jacket over a turtleneck sweater that attempted to cover loose folds of skin on her neck. Her Levi’s bagged a little at the seat on a body that was all angles and planes.

She smiled with genuine warmth and brushed Claudia’s cheek with her own. “They’ll kill you as soon as look at you to get a table,” she said, slipping out of her jacket and draping it over the back of the chair. “I’ll order for us if you’ll stand guard.”

Noticing her sallow complexion, Claudia remembered hearing that Susan had been receiving cancer treatment. She could see that her friend had lost considerable weight since their last encounter at a seminar a couple of years earlier.

Claudia watched Susan elbow her way to the counter, ignoring the grumbles of other customers. The humidity from the bagel kettle, the warmth of the oven, the steam from pots of fresh coffee had all conspired to fog up the windows, creating a sense of cozy seclusion that was more imagined than real. Savory aromas perfumed the air, making her stomach gurgle. It all felt very
New Yawk.

Susan reappeared five minutes later, bearing a tray laden with bagels in a plastic basket. Claudia reached for a cinnamon raisin and a single container of cream cheese. “These smell wonderful. I’m glad you phoned me. And not just because of the bagels.”

Susan cracked a smile as she began layering lox and cream cheese on a water bagel. “Oh, sure, I know where I stand.”

“I heard you’d been ill. I hope that’s all behind you now.”

“It’s been a long haul,” Susan said, grimacing. “But I’m great now, really great. I’m done with chemo, got my hair back, and the docs have given me a clean bill of health. I’ve been planning what I want to do with the rest of my life.”

“And have you got it all figured out?”

“As a matter of fact, I have. I finally got divorced—it’s the damn marriage that made me sick. Never marry a doctor, Claudia, I’m telling you, they’re only good for the alimony.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“You got a boyfriend?”

Claudia nodded, but she didn’t feel as sure of herself on that count as she used to. Jovanic had not called back the night before. She had to wonder how late he and Alex had stayed out on their stakeout. “He’s a detective,” she said. “LAPD.”

Susan laughed. “Just as bad, I’m sure. I think it’s the male persuasion that’s the problem, not the career.”

“I like the male persuasion myself. Not ready to give up on them just yet.”

“Me, I’m ready to travel the world. Maybe I’ll find my soul mate out there somewhere.”

“Wouldn’t it be more fun to find the soul mate first and travel the world
together
?”

“True, Claudia, so true. And I’ve got some ideas about that.” They chatted on for a few minutes about men and relationships; then Susan set her coffee cup in its saucer and showed her hand. “So, you wanna know who the little bird was? The one who told me you were in Manhattan?”

“Hell, yeah. Spill the beans.”

“Grusha told me.”

“You didn’t know? I used to work for her before I got sick. I was the one who told her you were on that show last week—the interview show.”

“
That’s news to me. She never told me.”

“Typical. She plays her cards close to her vest.”

Claudia was busy trying to figure Susan into the equation, but wasn’t immediately able to see where she fit. “What was she like to work for?”

Susan flapped her hands. “She’s a hoot if you don’t take her too seriously.” Claudia raised a questioning eyebrow, and she added, “Well, you’ve met her; she’s a big drama queen, not to mention paranoid. Everyone’s out to get her—know what I mean?”

Claudia knew
exactly
what she meant. “What’s her handwriting like?”

“She doesn’t let anyone see it. Claims she’s functionally illiterate, but I don’t believe that for a minute. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” She put her finger to her lips. “Shhh, don’t tell anyone, but I have seen it. I’ll dig out the sample for you.”

“I heard she’d been using another graphologist.” Claudia made an effort to sound casual, but she needn’t have worried about giving away confidential information.

Susan’s face scrunched into a grimace that made no bones about what she thought of her successor. “Andy Nicholson. That awful, awful man. I warned her. Told her he’s a first-class fraud, but she still hired him. He tells the most outrageous lies and he gets away with it, too.”

“I worked with an attorney who’s thinking of filing perjury charges against him for lying about his credentials,” Claudia said.

“Never stick. You know how experts get all kinds of immunity when they testify. Grusha was crazy to use him and I do believe she’s lived to regret it.”

“Then why didn’t she come back to you? Why call me, when I live on the other side of the country?”

“She knows I have no intention of going back to work,” Susan said. “I can afford to enjoy life. It’s about time I had some fun.” She reached for her purse and dug through it, getting out a compact and lipstick. Holding the tiny mirror with one hand, she squinted into it, applying coral pink gloss and blotting her lips on her paper napkin. “Nothing good can come of getting involved with the Andy Nicholsons of the world. Grusha should have listened to me.”

“Maybe she thought what you told her was out of professional jealousy,” Claudia said, remembering Grusha’s warning not to allow her own animosity toward Andy to interfere with her judgment. “She couldn’t have checked out his creds very well. Most people are willing to accept what’s on a Web site at face value without doing any research.”