Cut Off His Tale: A Hollis Grant Mystery

by Boswell Joan

  “We have to match every name on the list of runners with an address.” Featherstone listened. “That’s your problem. You’d better figure out how to solve it because I want names, addresses and phone numbers and I want them yesterday.”

  After the constable banged the phone down and shook her head, she reached for her notebook. “Anything else I should be working on?”

  Rhona crossed her legs and admired the colour and workmanship of her cowboy boots. “You heard someone tried to break in to Robertson’s house last night?”

  The constable nodded and doodled on the pad. From where Rhona sat, it resembled a mustachioed desperado.

  “And someone shot at his wife when she was running this morning and someone left what might have been a letter bomb in the front hall of the manse.”

  “I heard about the shooting but not about the letter.” Featherstone jotted down a few words and enclosed the desperado behind prison bars.

  “I had the bomb squad pick it up, but I feel pretty sure it wasn’t a bomb.”

  “Psychic power?”

  “No, when I saw it, I left it alone ,not only in case it was a letter bomb, but in case we could lift fingerprints or DNA. It would have been in A-1 condition if Ms Grant’s dog hadn’t picked it up. He pranced into the kitchen and dropped the envelope at her feet as if he was bringing her a great treasure. Obviously, since I’m here to tell you about it, it didn’t explode, but it’s dripping with dog saliva.”

  Featherstone rocked in her swivel chair and giggled. “Like the movies. They’ll be shooting a movie titled Simpson and—what’s the dog’s name?”

  Rhona hated being the butt of a joke but recognized the humour in the situation. “MacTee. They should have named him Zamboni—he produces more drool than a rink watering machine.”

  “It doesn’t have the same ring to it as Turner and Hooch, but Simpson and MacTee might go somewhere.”

  Rhona directed what she considered her “dagger to the heart” glare at the constable.

  Featherstone’s smile vanished. “Are you giving Ms Grant extra protection?”

  “Not yet. If whoever shot her had wanted to kill her, it would have been easy. I think he intended to scare her. How are you coming with the list?”

  “Should have it done by the end of the day. The routine stuff’s finished. We’ve run a survey of out-of-towners. The minister from up the valley, Leach, may have had a motive, but Robertson did him dirt a long time ago, and it’s hard to believe he’d nurse a grudge all these years. As far as we’ve been able to figure out, the other out-of-towners had no reason to kill him.” She extracted a paper from one of the tidy piles on her desk. “I have a list of runners you’ve talked to or still plan to interview. Tell me if I’ve missed anyone?”

  She passed the list to Rhona, who skimmed the names. “I’ve talked to each one at least once. I’m assuming the killer didn’t strike out of the blue, that he’d had some contact with Robertson in the last while. Each of those people connected to him, but at the moment I’m following another tack. I have Robertson’s appointment diary, and I’ve written down who he saw in the last couple of weeks.” Her brow wrinkled. “One thing puzzles me. If the killer’s name appeared in the appointment book and he later broke into the office to locate an incriminating document, why wouldn’t he have taken the diary?” She chewed absentmindedly on her lower lip. “Maybe the killer’s name wasn’t there, or maybe it was, but he had a legitimate reason to be there. Therefore, it wasn’t necessary for him to remove the book or, maybe the b and e guy and the killer aren’t one and the same.” She removed her tortoise-shell glasses, raised them to the light and cleaned them on her sleeve.

  “I’ve followed up on Tessa Uiska, she’s a physician, a surgeon actually, a friend of Hollis’s and the wife of the doctor who attended the body at the race site. Her name appeared in the appointment book four times. She produced a cock and bull story about organizing a birthday party—it sounded about as true as an out-of-tune piano. I’m not satisfied. We’re investigating her financial affairs but no bells and whistles.”

  They winked simultaneously. As often as Rhona claimed to be a linear thinker who operated strictly according to the rulebook, both women knew she never discounted intuition.

  In her own office, Rhona picked up her pen, a white ballpoint advertising Richardson’s Towing Service, and phoned the lab about the brown envelope. The technician informed her the envelope held a single sheet of paper with the message, “Tell me you’ll shut up or I’ll kill you.” No subtlety there. Other than the obvious, what could she surmise from the message? Probably the killer wasn’t a hundred per cent sure of Hollis’s ability to identify him or her or he would have confronted her directly. He was fishing. If Hollis knew who he was, she’d contact him: if she didn’t, he’d relax. Rhona suspected the message would be meaningless to Hollis, whose repeated assertion that she didn’t have a clue about the killer’s identity, or about the information he thought she had, rang true with Rhona.

  Attending to the items in her in-basket came next. The top document referred to Staynor. Eleven years earlier, a court in Waterloo County had convicted Staynor of assault and sentenced him to community service. Because it had happened before computerization, there would be a delay while court officials retrieved the dead file.

  A man expertly knifed, and she had two prime suspects with motive, means and expertise. All she had to do was prove her case.

  Thirteen

  Friday morning, when the first twittering birds woke Hollis at five thirty, she felt compelled to say a private goodbye to Paul. Despite what she’d found out about him, he had been part of her life for three years, and it was time to close the chapter, no matter how painful it had been. The strength of this compulsion shocked her, but she accepted it and realized she had to follow form to banish future regrets. She searched through the writings of the disciples of the Buddha until she located the perfect passages, marked them and prepared for the ceremony.

  She ignored the aches and pains, the reminders of her brush with the gunman and the tractor-trailer. Instead, she removed her jewellery, clipped her nails and scrubbed herself clean before she considered her closet.

  Depending on your culture, either black or white represented mourning. To please his gods and hers, she chose black silk pants, a black lace camisole and a Nehru-style cream jacquard silk jacket.

  Properly prepared, she lit incense and candles and settled in the lotus position on a purple silk cushion in the corner of her bedroom she’d set aside for meditation. She concentrated on her breathing, centred herself and allowed her mind to quiet. Thinking of how life might have been, she mourned for Paul and for herself. She confronted her pity, her rage at him for forcing the killer to believe murder was his only option, and her fear for her own life.

  After reading several passages relating to death and to life, she ended her ceremony with a reading from the Tibetan Book of the Dead: “Remember the clear light, the pure clear white light from which everything in the universe comes, to which everything in the universe returns . . . Let go into the clear light, trust it, merge with it. It is your own true nature, it is home.”

  When she’d finished, she quietly extinguished the incense and candles. A feeling of peace flowed through her body.

  The ring of the doorbell startled her and set her heart thumping; however, almost immediately, she realized Elsie, reliable, coffee-loving Elsie, had arrived.

  Hollis joined her in the kitchen, where Elsie had just given MacTee a biscuit. “Isn’t it a beautiful morning, dear? There’s going to be a big crowd at the funeral. They’ll require extra chairs. Maybe even a speaker outside. Paul was popular and that was some nice write-up he got in the Citizen. Have you read it?”

  “I only buy the Citizen on Saturday. I wonder why no one mentioned it last night at the visitation.”

  “They couldn’t have. It’s in today’s paper. Roger bought it when he went jogging this morning.” Elsie puffed out her ample chest li
ke a pigeon preening in the sun. “I cut it out. I thought you wouldn’t have it, and I knew you’d want it.” She rummaged around in the flowery pink carpetbag that did triple duty as purse, knitting and shopping bag, until she located the article and flourished it with such gusto, Hollis almost heard the trumpets. “Here it is, dear. Keep it. We’ll pick up another copy.” She extended her arm and viewed her sensible watch, a relic from her nursing days. “I’d better get busy.”

  “Elsie, thanks for bringing it and for everything you’ve done. You’ve been wonderful. I couldn’t have coped without you.” Hollis waved at the stacks of cookie tins ranged along the kitchen counter. “Help yourself to anything you fancy—there’s enough for the army. If you have a spare moment, I thought we’d freeze packages for the church coffee hour.”

  MacTee, whose longing gaze alternated between them, rose as Hollis prepared to leave the kitchen. However, the possibility of treats won out over his devotion to Hollis. He settled down to contemplate the possibility that Elsie might drop or give him a tasty morsel.

  Upstairs, she unfolded and read the clipping detailing Paul’s contributions to the community. How sad that his demons had changed him into a Jekyll and Hyde. Whatever his sins, she and Marguerite had planned a baroque spectacle to send him off in style.

  The service would open with a bagpipe rendition of “Amazing Grace”. After introductory remarks, a trumpet would accompany “Rock of Ages” sung by a massed choir. Eulogies and prayers would be interspersed with the best and most rousing hymns. The opera society’s leading soprano, backed by the choir would break everyone’s heart with the twenty-third psalm. The King James version resonated in her head, and tears threatened. Remembering her earlier advice to herself, she took a deep, steadying breath and willed herself to cry. Once again, the tactic worked. The service would conclude with a trumpet rendition of “Lord of the Dance”.

  Shortly after ten, Hollis walked to St. Mark’s, where she established herself in the narthex, the entrance hall of the church. Black and white photographs of past leaders dominated the dark-panelled hall, lit by tall stained glass windows and a single hanging lamp. The dark maroon-patterned carpet muffled the soft organ music and the voices of the scores of mourners whose numbers stretched out the door and down the steps to the street.

  Simpson, accompanied by the same constable who’d been with her the night before, joined the line. Her chocolate brown pantsuit suited her, but Hollis wondered if there was any occasion on which she’d forego her cowboy boots.

  Moments before the service began, Hollis left the narthex and moved to the front pew. On her walk up the aisle, she saw that mourners had filled the church to overflowing.

  The service proceeded. At the more difficult moments, she maintained her composure by sliding butterscotch mints surreptitiously into her mouth.

  The last silent prayer. The church hummed with the silence of several hundred people concentrating on quiet.

  Silence shattered by shock waves.

  Even with her back to the congregation, Hollis sensed something had happened. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw others swivelling in their seats. When the suspense became too much, she too turned.

  Sally Staynor stood in the centre aisle.

  Without saying anything, Sally tacked toward the front.

  Sally had tried to dress appropriately, but the combination of black strappy sandals, a long black skirt with a side slit, a clinging black sweater and an oversize black patent shoulder bag gave entirely the opposite impression.

  With her purse clutched in one hand and her other hand propelling her from the end of one pew to the next, Sally forged up the aisle and lurched to a stop at Paul’s closed coffin. She placed one hand on the coffin and pivoted to face the congregation.

  There was a sense of the crowd holding its collective breath.

  Sally hugged her purse to her chest and surveyed the churchgoers. Finally, after an audible intake of breath, her voice, rich with venom, resounded through the church.

  “It’s wrong,” she shouted, pointing to Hollis, sitting alone in the front row. “She’s sitting there. Ms Smugness. You notice she’s not crying.” Her lips quivered. “Of course, she’s not crying.” Her finger jabbed at Hollis. “Of course not. Why would she cry? She killed him.”

  Like a Spanish priest during the inquisition, she rang the changes of bitter accusation. When she finished reciting her charges, she straightened and, like a woman in a trance, moved away from the coffin and toward Hollis.

  At the rear of the church, where they’d stationed themselves to survey the crowd, Constable Featherstone and Simpson had been mesmerized by Sally’s attack.

  “Shouldn’t we do something?” the constable whispered.

  Rhona was wondering the same thing. Although Sally had not threatened Hollis, she was clearly out of control. Rhona pictured her chief’s face as he said, “you sat there and did nothing while a mad woman attacked the victim’s widow”. She stood. Followed by Featherstone, she moved up the centre aisle.

  Sally stopped, hung heavily on Hollis’s pew, waved her free arm at her audience and demanded, “What are the police doing?”

  No one answered.

  Her voice dropped, and she leaned forward, jerkily rotating her head. “She’s fooled them like she fooled you. She’s hypnotized the police.” She pointed at Hollis and a half-smile curled her lip. “She’s so nice.” Her finger thumped her breast and she repeatedly shook her head. “Not—like—me. No one ever said I was nice, but I was the one Paul loved.” Her chin rose, and her tone became belligerent. “He was going to leave her and marry me.”

  Her head and eyes lifted, and she peered upward, as if reading an invisible teleprompter. “You people who think he was good were wrong. I know all about him and all his secrets.” Again the half-smile. “Just—you—wait. One of these days, I’ll spill the beans about some of you who pretend you’re holy and better than me.” Her eyes roamed the church, lingering here and there on particular faces.

  Dropping the belligerent tone, she spoke conversationally. “Paul and I aren’t the same as you ordinary people. We’re special. But you wouldn’t understand. Hollis did. And Hollis Grant couldn’t tolerate the fact he’d found someone like himself, someone to match him, to challenge him.”

  She stopped, raised her chin to expose her white throat and thrust one arm heavenward. “I call on all of you to be my witnesses. She did it. Justice must be done.” She seemed to be imploring God to instantly deliver a lightning bolt of retribution from heaven.

  Charged silence filled the church.

  Sally swung back to the coffin. “Jesus, why have you done this?” She took three steps, wobbled on her high heels, lost her balance and reached out. Her shiny purse flew from her hand, bounced off the side of the coffin and ricocheted to the floor where it snapped open and emptied. A crash followed by the tinkling of glass and the smell of alcohol.

  The two police officers hurried to the front of the church, where Rhona murmured, “Sally, we’re going to give you a hand. You can’t stay here.” The two women positioned themselves on either side, prepared to frog-march her out. Sally shrugged off their hands and supported herself on the front pew.

  Hollis straightened, pulled her arms close to her sides, curled her hands into fists and concentrated on the pain of her nails pressing into her palms. This would not be the last straw; she would not allow Sally’s behaviour to send her over the edge. She took a deep breath and forced herself to relax to watch the scene as if it was happening in a movie, happening to someone else.

  Featherstone, ignoring the shards of glass and pools of alcohol, scooped up the purse’s scattered contents.

  “It would be better if you left,” Rhona said in a low voice, tucking her elbow through Sally’s and propelling her to the back of the church.

  “No. I have to see it through. Watch her. Watch them. I know things about them. This isn’t the end,” Sally said in a loud voice.

  The two officers st
ayed with her at the rear of the church until the service finished. When the coffin was wheeled down the aisle, Sally struggled to free herself from their grip, but was no match for two determined police officers.

  “You can’t detain me, or I’ll charge you.” Her voice rose. As they passed, the parishioners leaving the church goggled at her.

  “Oppressors. Fascist pigs. It’s against the law. I haven’t done anything.”

  “Be quiet. You’re creating a disturbance and we can charge you if we have to,” Rhona whispered and gripped Sally’s arm.

  Finally, the church was empty. “Look at me,” Rhona commanded.

  Sally glared at Rhona.

  “You have to stop throwing these threats around. It’s dangerous.”

  “You think she’s going to kill me too?”

  Rhona resisted the urge to slap Sally, but she didn’t need a citation for unlawfully attacking a civilian. “No. But talking about how much you know is going to make trouble if you don’t stop.”

  “Good. I want to make trouble. Lots and lots of trouble. Let me go. I’m off to the reception.”

  “That’s not a good idea.”

  “I think it is. And you can’t stop me.”

  Rhona released Sally’s arm. It was true. Sally was breaking no laws. They’d accompany her and try to head off any confrontations.

  Outside the church, Sally, her high heels sinking in the sod, traced a zigzag path across the lawn, tearing out chunks of the soft spring grass in her advance on the hall.

  Fourteen

  With her head high, Hollis concentrated on her breathing while the pallbearers removed Paul’s casket. He was to be cremated after the service and his ashes interred later.

  Accompanied by quiet organ music, she marched down the long aisle. Sally, her arms pinioned by the two police officers, hissed at her as she passed. In the church hall, Marguerite hurried to her side. Together they wove their way through the throng who’d followed them.