Cut Off His Tale: A Hollis Grant Mystery (28 page)

“And the other two?”

“The third isn't likely to be your man.
Actually
, he's a victim of physical mistreatment.” She corrected herself. “Not mistreatment—neglect. He had a congenital hip defect and didn't receive medical attention. He walks with crutches. If you want, I can relate his story, but he couldn't have run a marathon or even pretended to be a runner.”

“We're down to one. Tell me about him or her?”

“I'll never, never forgive myself if my going to the bathroom set this in motion. This man is in his early forties. He had an absolutely awful childhood—he was the son of fanatical Christian parents. From the reports, I'd judge his mother was mentally ill.
Actually
, I think she was obsessed with visions of hell and damnation and found him a constant reminder of the weakness of the flesh. Anyway, she neglected
him. When he was ten, his mother died giving birth. The baby also died. His father, a stern and punitive man, fell apart. With no relatives in Canada and no support, he failed to cope as a single father. There may be trouble in foster homes now but, in the past, the orphanages run by the churches sometimes were much worse.” She cleared her throat. “One of the caregivers sexually abused the boy. Since he'd been a baby, his fundamentalist parents had drilled into him the absolute necessity of telling the truth and adhering to a strict moral code—he must have believed the rest of the world followed the same rules. After he was sexually attacked, he told the authorities and accused the abuser.”

“It should have been the right thing to do, but from the tone of your voice, I gather it wasn't.”

“Absolutely not.
Actually
, officialdom chose to disbelieve him. He ended up at a juvenile correctional facility, where the staff branded him a liar and troublemaker. He went off the deep end and organized the other boys into a male prostitution ring to obtain favours from the guards. When his actions came to light, we were called in. At that point, his father, who had pulled himself together, rescued him. Because we have nothing else in our records, I presume he stayed out of trouble.”

“He might be our man. For me, it's hard to believe revelations of the details of an event decades ago would affect a man's life today, but I suppose if it's a story he's hidden for that long, he might be irrational about his secret. Can you tell me his name?”

“Unfortunately, not unless you go through channels. The information is confidential. I wish I could. I'm wretchedly sorry if I precipitated this situation.”

“Don't be hard on yourself. Who would have imagined that
if you left a clergyman with confidential files for five minutes, he'd read them?'

“I should have taken the papers with me. I suppose I worried he'd think I distrusted him, and it embarrassed me. It'll
never
happen again, but that's no consolation.”

After she'd spoken to Cardwell, Rhona scratched her ear and considered what she'd heard. She wasn't prepared to relinquish Dr. Uiska as a suspect, but it was time to zero in on the backgrounds of Staynor, Toberman, Eakins and Leach. She reached for the phone.

Monday dragged on as Hollis worked at the tedious mechanics of sorting out her life. She wanted to cancel the tiresome visit to the Porter's musty attic but told herself boredom was better than an attack by the killer. Boredom was good.

In the early evening, after she'd waded through the multitude of tasks and walked MacTee, she considered what she'd wear. No black or navy. She pulled together a bright outfit to remind herself spring had arrived. Then she set out for the Porters'.

On her walk through the neighbourhood, she savoured the May air. The evening light highlighted the colour of the glowing beds of tulips and daffodils like a cibachrome portrait.

The Porters lived four blocks from the manse in a Tudor semidetached house of brick and plaster. The weathered red brick first storey complemented the taupe stucco and wood second storey. Unfortunately, the lavish use of flat, mud-brown paint on the wood trim destroyed the potential charm of the building, which drooped despondently under its depressing paint.

In front of the house, she hesitated—she still hadn't convinced herself a visit was necessary, but since the Porters had spearheaded the refugee project, she would have felt churlish if she'd refused. And, it was true, given Paul's, his mother's and some of her own possessions, she did have a pile of items to donate. This visit would tell her which things to earmark for the refugees and which to donate to the Salvation Army.

There were two front doors—one to the Porters and one
for the third floor apartment. She rang the Porters' bell.

The solid, highly varnished oak door opened before she removed her finger from the black button. Involuntarily, she stepped back. She felt as if Knox had been lying in wait. Fleetingly, she thought of the unwary moth lured into a spider's web.

“Hollis.” Knox's eyes glittered. “Thank you for coming.”

“It was nice to have an excuse to walk and enjoy this beautiful evening. As I said last night at church, I do appreciate the speed with which you've launched this project.”

“Linda had to go out—I'll take you right up.” Knox stepped outside onto the porch and unlocked the door leading up to the apartment on the top floor. He moved inside and held the door open for her.

An urge to turn and run almost overwhelmed her, but she told herself not to be silly. Knox struck her as acting simultaneously furtive and threatening, but it probably wasn't Knox as much as her own reaction to the multitude of shocks she'd suffered in the last few days. After all, Knox, a stalwart of the church, was an innocuous man by anyone's standards.

“I won't keep you long. I'm sure you have more work to do on Paul's papers.”

What did Paul's papers have to do with anything?

“Yes, there's lots to do,” she agreed and followed him up three flights of steep uncarpeted stairs and along a dark hall.

Inside the apartment, the rooms exuded the musty leftover-living smell of furnished apartments everywhere. Old white chenille bedspreads, draped over what she assumed were pieces of upholstered furniture, converted the unseen objects into ghostly threatening presences.

Knox, breathing as if he'd climbed the
CN
Tower instead of three flights of stairs, moved restlessly to and fro or stood in one spot, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “We have
quite a bit of furniture. The last family didn't want it—they both got good jobs and left it for others who might be less fortunate.”

“That was nice of them.”

To take her mind off her uneasiness, Hollis suggested they get to work. She removed a green notebook and ballpoint pen from her handbag. “I'll prepare two columns. In one, I'll jot down everything you need at the moment. In the other, I'll list everything you can store or use to set up future refugee families.”

Knox continued to move restlessly, but he fixed a disconcerting, unblinking stare at her face. Her apprehension increased, but she resolved to try for an attitude of “business as usual”.

“Do you have a place here or at the church to store extras for other families?”

“Yes, we do.”

“Do you want me to make a second list of extra things I have?”

After a lengthy pause, her question penetrated Knox's agitation. “Yes. But we'll organize for this family before we worry about the next one.” He jerked himself over to a massive chest of drawers on the opposite side of the room, bent over, and pulled the bottom drawer halfway out. “Here are the bed linens. Why don't you make an inventory.”

He left the drawer gaping open and took four robot-like steps to the window, where he turned away from her and peered outside.

Alarmed by his twitchy movements and rigidly hunched shoulders, Hollis wondered if he was having a neurological attack, and if there was something she should do. The best thing would be to rush through the job and escape the claustrophobic apartment.

Edging over to the chest, she kept an eye on Knox, who remained at the window, shifting from one foot to the other. She hated to have her back to him, but unless she swung around, she couldn't examine the drawer's contents. She squatted down and
drew out a yellowed pillowcase, dropped it on the floor and, using both hands, fished a heavy linen sheet from the drawer. She lifted it and sensed Knox's sudden movement.

By five o'clock on Monday, Rhona sat at a desk piled high with paper and worried she wouldn't plough through the urgent items in time to meet Hollis at eight. Late in the day, the work she classified as urgent had tripled when the autopsy results and lab reports confirmed Sally Staynor's murder—the killer had spiked her vodka with digitalis. A large amount of residue remained in the bottle.

Sally and only Sally had left prints on the vodka bottle and everything else in the mourning basket. Rhona visualized her lovingly removing each item, examining it closely and finally proposing a toast to the sender.

The basket itself and its contents offered few clues. The killer might have owned the basket for years or bought it new, and he could have purchased each item in the basket without raising any sales clerk's suspicion. And, finally, since the bereavement card's envelope had not been sealed, the lab had no saliva for
DNA
testing. Poor Sally.

Rhona reread Mary Beth Cardwell's fax. If the killer fit the childhood Cardwell had described, Dr. Tessa Uiska did not match the profile. She wouldn't eliminate her—Cardwell's lead could be a wild goose chase. Rhona still considered Dr. Uiska a primary suspect and blackmail a possible motive.

She had a number of voice mail messages dealing with bank accounts. The bank manager of the Gloucester branch promised a detailed printout of the activity in Robertson's account by Tuesday. Calls from the various banks where Uiska, Staynor and
Toberman had accounts also promised complete printouts by Tuesday evening at the latest. Why did everything have to happen so slowly—she needed answers immediately.

Her frustration increased when she read a fax from Masterman—he'd been unable to add any information about the subjects of Robertson's books.

Everything hinged on Cardwell's suspect. Yantha, Staynor, Eakins and Toberman headed the list. She'd begin with Yantha. Since Hollis had met Yantha after his engagement to Uiska, she hadn't professed any familiarity about his early years. Time to talk. She contacted the hospital and told Yantha's secretary to have the doctor phone at the first opportunity.

The thought of the second call troubled her. Throughout her career, she'd worked to retain her humanity, and phoning the husband of a murdered woman seemed an act of extreme insensitivity. In her gut, she believed Staynor had not killed his wife and had enough to contend with without fending off probing questions about his past. Nevertheless, she mustn't overlook such an obvious suspect.

A woman, who didn't give her name, answered Staynor's phone and informed Rhona he wasn't accepting calls. Rhona politely identified herself and insisted on speaking to him. After a long pause, during which Rhona heard snatches of conversation about the impossibility of contacting Sally's brother, who apparently worked as a field geologist in the North West Territories, Staynor came on the line.

“Mr. Staynor? Detective Simpson speaking. I'm sorry to intrude, but I have one or two questions. If you'll bear with me, they won't appear to be relevant to your wife's murder, but they are.”

“What else can I do? Shoot.”

“Where did you grow up, and are your parents alive?”

“Are you crazy? A killer's running around, and you're
interested in my mother and father?”

“I am—it
is
relevant.”

Rhona was talking to a dead phone. She punched “redial” several times and was rewarded with repeated busy signals—the phone must be off the hook. She'd drop in later in the day.

Two down and no information. She tried Marcus Toberman.

“This is detective Simpson. I have a couple of questions.”

“What kind of questions?”

“About your childhood and your parents.”

“What for?”

“The investigation of Paul Robertson's death.”

“Should I call a lawyer before I say anything?”

“Your hesitancy makes me wonder.”

“Ask me your questions, and I'll decide.”

“Where did you grow up? Are your parents alive? Do you have siblings, and what position do you occupy in the family birth order?”

“I can't imagine why you want the information. I have one mother and one father, both alive, one older and one younger brother. I've lived in Ottawa since I was twelve. Before that we lived in Montreal. Is that it?”

“It is. Thank you for your help.”

Two question marks to be dealt with later. Toberman did not slot into Cardwell's profile. She wouldn't write him off yet but, if Cardwell was leading her down the right path, he was an unlikely suspect. She'd move on to the second string of suspects. She called them in alphabetical order and, one by one, each man answered her questions without hesitation. No one fit the pattern.