Death by Engagement (Caribbean Murder Series, Book 12)

“Oh my,” Margaret murmured, “why?”


“‘Cause he can’t accept that his daughter did it,” Ben interrupted, as if there were no question about it. “Cindy happened to be at the hotel when it happened and she happened to meet the woman who jumped, the night before. Both of them were engaged to be married. The father found out Cindy was here and made Cindy take the case.”

Cindy didn’t appreciate Ben taking over and speaking for her.

“Congratulations.” Margaret smiled warmly at Cindy.

“Thanks very much.” Cindy liked her a great deal.

“You know, I think I heard about you,” Margaret continued. “Don’t you have a partner, Mattheus, and the two of you specialize in crime in the Caribbean?”

“That’s right,” said Cindy, “CM Investigations.”

“Yes, that’s it!” Margaret was impressed. “Well, good for you. It’s a pleasure to meet you, it really is.”

“Okay, enough, enough,” Ben broke in quickly, anxious to get going. “You two can go and have coffee later and exchange notes. Now we need to go over the suicide note.”

Cindy took it out of the envelope and handed it to Margaret.

“Has it been compared with other samples of her writing?” Margaret asked before she even looked at it.

“Yes, it was,” said Ben, “as soon as we received it. Everything matches.”

Cindy wondered who did the comparison and how carefully it had been done, but decided to say nothing.

“What I’ve learned from the case so far,” Cindy spoke directly to Margaret, “was that the young woman, Shari, suffered from depression. Her mother told me she’d been on medication for a long time.”

“That certainly fits with a profile of suicide.” Margaret nodded her head.

“Yes, it can,” Cindy agreed, “and I don’t know anything much about handwriting analysis, but what struck me when I read the note wasn’t so much the content, but the penmanship. It’s beautifully written, the letters are so carefully formed.”

“Indeed they are,” Margaret agreed, holding the paper up to the light and looking at them. Then she placed the note down on the table to analyze it more carefully.

“I couldn’t help wonder if someone who was about to commit suicide would write a note that looked like this,” Cindy continued. “I would imagine the words would be scrawled over the page, show something of the despair the person was feeling.”

Margaret looked at Cindy appreciatively. “That’s a great observation,” she commented. “But for starters, we don’t know exactly when the note was written. She might have written it days before she actually killed herself. She might have been preparing for it, planning it out, or thinking about it. This smooth, even, well-constructed hand could mean a lot of different things.”

“In the note she says she’s in pain and can’t take it! Shouldn’t her handwriting reflect that?” asked Cindy. “If her depression worsened, if she got sicker, wouldn’t her handwriting show it?”

“Smart woman, smart questions,” Margaret replied, “but let me explain a few things. For starters, we really should take the note to a forensic handwriting lab to determine if the sample is valid. We need to know if it’s been affected by the external environment. If it has, it can be too unreliable to use. Then, we compare previous samples of the person’s handwriting to see if any changes in writing have occurred.”

“It’s all checked out,” Ben announced formally.

Margaret lifted her eyebrows a moment, as if wondering who it was checked by.

“What would a change in a person’s handwriting indicate?” Cindy was fascinated.

“A shift in the direction in which the letters are leaning, from right to left, can indicate a shift from a gregarious person to one becoming introverted and less trusting,” said Margaret. “Then there’s a possibility of mental illness there.”

“How many past samples do you have of Shari’s writing?” Cindy asked Ben.

“We have one,” he grumbled.

“Optimally, we could use a few,” Margaret responded.

“Hold on, please,” Ben started to say, wanting to slow things down. “This is not an exact science, anyway, is it?”

“How else do you see a change in what’s going on in a person through their handwriting?” Cindy interrupted, wanting more.

Margaret held the note and scanned it more closely. “It’s perfectly reasonable to believe that handwriting will change according to any mental and physiological changes in a person’s overall state,” Margaret said to Ben, offended. “Changes in handwriting can be analyzed for how psychologically or physiologically stable a person is.”

Cindy wondered then if Shari had become sicker. “Tell me more,” she asked Margaret.