Cut Off His Tale: A Hollis Grant Mystery (23 page)

The walk over the lawn from the church to the manse took great effort. Every bone in her body weighed a ton or more. The wound in her thigh throbbed. All she could think about was reaching the manse, letting MacTee out, changing into a track suit, and snuggling her aching feet into fleece-lined moccasins. As she groped in her handbag for her key, she almost felt the soothing warmth of those slippers. Enveloped in anticipation, it took a few seconds for her to register the half-open door.

Elsie would have locked it when she came over to the funeral. Hollis had just spoken to her in the hall—she hadn't had time to come over and unlock it. Someone had—the door was open. Time to be smart. This wasn't
Jane Eyre
and she wasn't blundering inside searching for trouble. Simpson would still be in the hall.

Even as her mind processed the information, her tired feet took her down the steps and back to the hall, where she hovered in the doorway searching for Simpson, who, she soon realized, wasn't there.

In the rapidly emptying room, where the custodian noisily collected and piled the steel and plywood chairs, Jim Brown and Knox Porter, impervious to the end of activities, continued an
animated conversation. The clean-up crew swirled around them while Jim jotted things down in a small notebook as Knox spoke.

When she approached them, both men stopped talking and waited expectantly.

“I'm sorry to interrupt. I think an intruder is in or has been in the manse. Would either or both of you come over with me?”

Jim Brown bent protectively toward her. “Hollis, of course we will. Poor woman. Isn't this the last straw? But, let's not be alarmist. There's probably a perfectly reasonable explanation. Wait a second until I've told Yolanda where I'm going.”

Moments later, he was back. “Yolanda wondered if she should come, but I didn't think you wanted an expedition. She's calling the police.”

At the manse, the door, slightly ajar when she'd left, was wide open. Hearing a noise inside, Hollis tensed apprehensively until the noisemaker, MacTee, stuck his nose around the corner before he trotted out with tail wagging. Relieved, she laughed more than the situation warranted and went inside to tour the house.

Jim, leading their parade, moved to the hall and stopped abruptly. Knox and Hollis, following closely behind, braked and gawked over his shoulder at Paul's downstairs study.

Every desk and file drawer had been emptied and tossed aside. Drifts of paper and debris littered the floor.

Not again. Hollis registered inconsequential details. Amid the wreckage, the paper clips remained tidily secured in the desk's brass inkwell. The sight of the stew of papers and files enraged her. She stamped her foot, a gesture she believed existed exclusively in Victorian novels.

“This is the last straw. I can't believe this mess. Don't touch anything; we're leaving.”

Rhona, driving to the station, received a message telling her there had been another break-in at the manse. Before she screeched into a
U
-turn and floored the accelerator, she ordered the ident team to the scene. Braking sharply in the driveway, she saw Hollis, still dressed in her funeral outfit, slumped on the porch with her arm wrapped around MacTee, who leaned against her navy blue suit. Rhona, thinking of how much brushing she had to do to rid her clothes of all traces of Opie, reflected that Hollis would have quite a job removing the yellow dog hair.

“He jimmied the lock,” Hollis said.

“You didn't have the security system on?”

“No. I left before Elsie, and I haven't told her the code.” Hollis, oblivious to the drool soaking into the navy linen, continued to stroke MacTee's head. “Because there would be masses of people at the church and in the church hall, it never occurred to me to worry.”

Looking at Hollis's face, Rhona knew the woman had not staged this break-in or the other one, had not sent the letter and certainly had not shot herself. This was a victim—a woman who needed protection, but also one who might provide more insight into the minister's life.

“Could you tour the house with me? I'll understand if you'd rather stay here, but if you come, you may be aware if anything's missing,” Rhona said.

“I've already seen Paul's study. Whoever did it trashed the place. Even someone with a photographic memory wouldn't be able to tell you much, and I certainly can't. Paul claimed he didn't store anything related to his writing in the main floor study.” Hollis scratched behind MacTee's ears. “I hope he didn't tear any other rooms apart.” She gave MacTee a final pat.

Hollis's voice sounded odd to Rhona. Not like she was going to cry or have hysterics, but odd.

“You okay?”

“No. You've probably heard this a hundred times from everyone who's ever had it happen, but this break-in and the other one leave me feeling as if I've been raped. I'm angry. Angry at the burglar. Angry at Paul for getting himself killed and leaving me in this situation.”

“Totally understandable.”

Hollis stopped at Paul's downstairs study, and Rhona glanced inside. “We won't go in—we'll wait until the ident team has done their work. Let's go through the rest of the house.” Rhona fished plastic gloves from her shoulder bag. “I'll go first and use this to open the doors—on the off chance the perp left prints, I don't want to blur or destroy them.”

After Rhona, leading the way, had confirmed the living room and upstairs bedrooms were untouched, Hollis's eyes brightened. She felt herself straighten up and realized she'd been hunched over as if to protect her vital organs from attack.

Upstairs, Hollis's bedroom was as she'd left it, but when Rhona opened the door to Hollis's study, she stopped and said over her shoulder, “Prepare yourself.”

Hollis, following close behind, gasped.

Glancing behind her, Rhona saw Hollis's face redden, shoulders lift, arms stiffen at her sides and hands tighten into fists as her eyes fixed on the papers littering the cream kilim rug. “It's too much. Who is this madman? What does he want? For God's sake, why can't you stop him?”

“We're doing everything we can.” Rhona realized how trite and meaningless the words sounded.

“Why don't I post signs on the doors—‘Come in—help yourself'. And, worse still—maybe I interrupted him in mid-search, and he's hidden away somewhere in the house waiting to finish the job and kill me.”

“Nothing bigger than a mouse will escape my x-ray vision.” Rhona tried to strike the right combination of levity and reassurance on the walk along the uncarpeted second floor hall to Paul's bedroom and office. For Hollis's sake, she hoped nothing else had been touched and realized she was holding her breath when she opened Paul's bedroom door. Both the austere bedroom and the inner sanctum appeared undisturbed.

“Whoever broke in either wasn't privy to the fact Paul filed his private papers here, or they didn't have time to search the whole house,” Rhona said.

The women considered the bare gray rooms. Rhona was familiar with a victim's aversion to touching anything an anonymous person had pawed through. “After the ident team leaves, you'll need help cleaning up.”

“I hate to burden them, but Elsie and Roger Alcott will do it. You've met Elsie. Roger's as kind as she is. And the best part is, when he does something for you, he doesn't make you feel like it's a big deal.”

“I have some questions. After you've noted, first, if anything's missing and, secondly, which files interested the intruder, why don't we go somewhere later and get some dinner.”

The invitation clearly startled Hollis.

“Nothing fancy, but I'd guess it would do you good to escape for a couple of hours—I want to pick your brain and we both have to eat.”

“Yes, that would be okay.” Hollis tried a smile, but didn't quite manage it. “And after what I have to do, it'll be nice to leave.” A spark of her usual enthusiasm enlivened her voice. “
Quid pro quo
, if you can pose questions so can I. After all, I'm a social historian, and since I've never had dinner with a detective, I'll have questions too.”

They'd finished looking in Paul's bedroom when they heard the distant ring of the doorbell. Simpson trotted off to deal with the ident team.

The stress of coping with the break-in had diverted Hollis from thinking about her feet. Now sharp insistent pain clamoured for her attention. She should have expected this—but she always managed to forget past experience. No matter what she did, size ten regular would pinch the wide size ten-and-a-half feet bequeathed to her by peasant ancestors. Every time she put on those shoes, she vaguely remembered the discomfort they caused, but she loved the shoes fanatically and was willing to suffer.

But no longer. She wanted comfort—she craved her fur-lined moccasins. Hollis grinned. In her mind, she'd heard herself whine like a baby whose soother had dropped on the floor.

Later, after the police had finished with her study and left the house, she crept in and allowed herself to survey the mess. A bad taste in her mouth. How could she touch anything after he'd pawed through her papers? She hated the idea of the intruder touching her belongings—hated it, hated it, hated it.

Flopped in her armchair, she tipped the papers at her feet with the toe of her moccasin, bent forward and looked at the nearest piece of paper, a letter from the editor of her last book suggesting she write a more illuminating preface. She supposed the ident team had dusted for fingerprints, but she didn't expect
they'd found any. With the volume of television programs devoted to murder and mayhem, the intruder would have to be an idiot not to have worn gloves.

What did he want? Obviously, an incriminating document related to him, but why would he think she had it? Because she'd been a fool. In her mind, she recalled the number of times in the last few days she'd told people she was editing Paul's book and wouldn't have any difficulty because she knew the manuscript. She'd meant she was familiar with the text because she'd done a first draft edit, but the killer must have concluded she'd uncovered the details, the names of the people Paul had written about. She cursed herself for broadcasting her involvement and putting herself in danger, but how could she have known?

Time to identify which files he'd removed.

Being a Virgo, she'd long since sorted and organized her papers in a useful personalized filing system. She'd allocated the three bottom drawers of the white, five-drawer filing cabinet to research material for her articles and books on folklore and regional customs in red, purple and blue file folders.

Several blue folders lay on the floor, but no red or purple ones. She picked up the blues and ran her eyes over the tabs identifying the contents: “the role of deviants in rural communities”; “outcasts”; and “standards of behaviour”. If she'd ever had any doubts Paul's murder was connected to his book, they disappeared.

Files of clippings on research subjects as well as painting and quilting, two of her passions, filled the fourth drawer. No disorder here.

She'd reserved the top drawer for correspondence. The contents of several files lay on the floor. Collecting the letters, she smoothed the paper and made a futile attempt to tidy
them up, to square the corners, but she didn't re-sort them into categories: grant applications; letters from and to colleagues; letters from rural correspondents; exchanges with publishers and editors; and, personal notes. She wouldn't be able to tell if anything was missing until she sat down and reconstructed the chronology of series of letters. A time consuming process, and it would wait until another day. She set the untidy stack on the desk.

Downstairs, watched by MacTee, holder of a new title—the world's worst watchdog—she waited for Simpson and the Alcotts. When the detective arrived, she said, “He went through two or three of my academic files, the ones devoted to deviant behaviour and its ramifications in rural communities. He also went through my correspondence files.” She frowned, “I haven't any idea if he took anything, but I can't imagine he found anything useful.”

At this point, the Alcotts arrived. Elsie, dressed in a potpourri of blue, radiated concern. “Hollis dear, how dreadful.” Roger, nodding along behind her with his brow furrowed, echoed her words. “Dreadful, perfectly dreadful.”

“The intruder tossed Paul's downstairs office and my upstairs one. I feel guilty even suggesting this, but it would be wonderful if you cleaned up Paul's. I have to do mine because I'm the only one who can sort and file my papers, and I know I can't cope with doing both.” She shrugged apologetically. “It's stupid, but it gives me the creeps to think of this guy touching my things. I'd be eternally grateful if you'd tidy Paul's.”

“Of course we will, dear—we'll start immediately.” Elsie peered at her large watch, “Later, can we cook you a bite of supper?”