Grave Misgivings

by Kristen Houghton

  “My pleasure. I’m Cate Harlow.”

  “Moira Hollis. Are you from Virginia? Your accent says no.”

  “Guilty,” I laugh. “New York City. Here on business,” I say telling the truth and quickly change the subject before she asks what business. “What do you recommend from the menu?”

  “I’ve ordered here so much I no longer need to look at the menu. Do you like prosciutto? Mozzarella?” I nod. “Then I suggest you try the tapas plate with prosciutto, mozzarella, olives, peppers, and crostini. I’m having some myself and another plate of stuffed mushrooms and shrimp. The dishes are tapas, you know, appetizers. Just right for a light meal.”

  “Sounds good, Moira,” I say using her name to make it seem as if we are friends, “I think I’ll follow your lead.” I get up and ask shyly, “Is it all right if we share a table? Truthfully I hate to eat alone.” I know I don’t look threatening; that’s to my advantage. She’ll trust me.

  “Of course. The company will be nice for a change.”

  Over two more glasses of wine and the tapas, we talk about nothing important. We’re just two women having dinner and enjoying the pleasant night. I tell her that I’m from New York City and she tells me that she’s visited twice but doesn’t think she could live there. “It’s too crowded and fast-paced for me.”

  “Well I guess I’m a city girl; I like quickness and even the crowds. But I grew up there so maybe that’s why. Born and bred New Yorker. My parents too. I’ve never lived anywhere else. What about you? You live in this area all your life?”

  Her face darkens just a bit and her jaw sets tightly. It’s as if she’s remembering something or someone unpleasant. My guess is that it’s someone and that someone is the father she had murdered. Then she smiles politely and answers, “Washington, DC for a bit but usually around here.”

  “Always Rosslyn?”

  Her face hardens again. “Falls Church, not far from Rosslyn.”

  “Guess your parents liked it here as much as mine did New York City.”

  “My parents are dead.” She stops and looks out toward the bar. “Listen, let’s order a bottle of that superb merlot you’re drinking, my treat.”

  When the bottle of wine arrives encased in ice, I let Moira pour me a glass but I only sip at it. I need a clear head. When she isn’t watching me I pour half of the glass into the ice bucket. I let her talk about nothing in particular then gradually steer the conversation in the direction I want.

  GRAVE MISGIVINGS 31

  “It’s nice being able to sit and talk. I’m an only child so I generally spent a lot of time making friends. How about you, Moira? Any siblings?”

  The wine has made her more conducive to talking about her life. She shrugs and says, “None of whom I care to speak.” I’ve got to hand it to her; even with all the wine she has consumed, her grammar is prep school perfect. “Maybe you’re lucky that you have no siblings, you ever think about that?”

  “Oh, I guess. I was never really lonely. In fact I liked my solitude and being able to be number one with my parents.”

  Moira closes her eyes. “Yes, number one. Right.”

  I move the conversation around to other things. I want to gain her trust and then maybe zoom in to ask the hard question later on when we’re away from here. The lady likes to drink and the alcohol makes her talkative. We discuss everything from the cars we like to makeup we prefer to men we’ve dated. After about an hour of this, I take a chance and tell her that I have to get going soon. “I have an early morning meeting tomorrow.”

  “Oh, what a shame. We’re just getting to know each other. I guess I should go too. I have to deal with a supplier tomorrow.”

  When the bill comes I quickly grab it and hand the server my credit card. My dinner companion protests but I tell her truthfully enough that I’m charging it as a business expense; she can leave a nice tip, I say.

  “This has been a pleasure, Cate. Since you’re staying overnight allow me to reciprocate with a nice lunch tomorrow. All right? Meet me at the Hollis Bath Boutique around one thirty and we’ll go to a restaurant nearby.” She hands me a card similar to the one she gave to Jennifer Brooks-Warren two years ago, a card that had the number of the hit man. “We’re slow at the shop until around four so you and I can have a nice long lunch and chat.”

  I tell her absolutely, I look forward to it, and agree to meet her at her shop. What she doesn’t know is that there will be no lunch because I’ll be heading back to New York early tomorrow morning. My business with her will be concluded tonight.

  We walk out the door together and say good-bye and I head toward the B & B. Moira heads to her car. I watch her pull away and wait fifteen minutes before following her home. Now that she knows me she’ll open her door readily.

  ๕๕๕

  In the parking area of Barron Court there are several spaces for people visiting the condo owners. The owners themselves park in garages underneath their respective condos. I check the garage under 842-12 Barron Court and see Moira’s Mercedes nestled in the space under where she lives. There’s a light on in what I assume is her living room. Taking a deep breath I climb the stairs and ring her bell.

  The outside light is turned on and a minute later, Moira Hollis opens the door. She’s still dressed in what she had on at the tapas bar but she’s changed her heels for Ugg slippers.

  “Cate?” She smiles a bit uncertainly. “Hi…I…”

  KRISTEN HOUGHTON 32

  I press forward just a bit so that she can’t close the door. “Can I come in, Moira? I really need to talk with you.”

  She looks confused but opens the door wider and gestures me to come in the foyer. Once I’m inside she seems to shake off the confusion.

  “Cate, I’m a little bewildered. How did you know where I live?”

  She looks defensive; for all she knows I could be a criminal who chatted her up at the tapas bar with the intention of committing a crime. To put her at ease I lie smoothly and say, “You mentioned it during dinner tonight.”

  She shakes her head trying to remember if she did indeed tell me where she lives. “I did? Well, I guess I may have said something…” I’m in luck because the wine she consumed may have made her forget everything she said to me.

  “Can we talk, Moira? This is really important.”

  “I guess so. I mean, I thought you had an early morning meeting tomorrow. What’s this about?”

  I ask her if we can sit down. Once we’re on the couch, I pull out my PI license and tell her who I am and why I’m here. “Moira, I’m a private investigator from NYC. I came here to get information about a case.”

  “A private investigator?” I see a crack in her ladylike façade and her hand begins to play nervously with a bracelet on her wrist. “Are you telling me you’re here to find some criminal?”

  “No,” I say calmly, “I’m here to see you. You’re the person I came to find.”

  “Me? You came to find me? I have absolutely no idea what you could possibly want with me. I haven’t been to New York in over ten years.”

  “I’m here because of something that happened two years ago in this area. I need a name from you.”

  “I know nothing of anything that happened two years ago that would involve a private investigator from New York.”

  “This is about your father.” I hit a homerun with that one.

  She visibly tenses and a mask comes down on her face. But she quickly covers and says, “Really, Cate, this is unbelievable. I have no idea what you are talking about; I think you should leave here.” I notice that she doesn’t say, “or I will call the police.” She wants no police snooping around. That’s a dead giveaway that she has something to hide.

  “Moira, listen to me. You have nothing to fear from me. All I need is a name or at the very least some information.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know what name or information you want.”

  She gets up and walks toward the door.

&nb
sp; “Yes, you do. You hired someone to kill your father.” She gasps when I say that and begins to protest, calling me a liar. I get up and move closer to her. “Truthfully, I don’t give a damn if you did. As a PI I know I should; it’s a murder rap after all, but that’s not what I’m interested in right now. I need the name and information about the person you hired. A client of mine is in danger from this man. Someone has hired the same hit man you hired to kill your father, to kill my client. I need your help in trying to find him.”

  GRAVE MISGIVINGS 33

  “Who sent you here?”

  “No one sent me, Moira. I found you through a card, a business card you gave to my client. A card exactly like this one you gave to me this afternoon.”

  I see terror and recognition in her eyes as she stares at the card I’m holding.

  “Two years ago in April you were at a bar called the K & K in Virginia, about 80 miles from Washington, DC. You were meeting a man there whom you had hired to get rid of your father.”

  “No, no, that’s not true.” She is backing away from me.

  “Yes, it is true. He gave you proof that he had killed your father. He showed you a severed finger with a special ring on it. It was your father’s ring. You got drunk that night and spoke to a young woman, a server at K & K; she was the one who was waitressing your table.”

  “Oh my God!” Moira Hollis starts shaking. “Get out, now!”

  But I am relentless. “You felt sorry for this young woman at the bar, you thought she was having problems with some man and you gave her a phone number to call. You referred to the hit man as an ‘eliminator.’ You said that if she ever wanted to get rid of someone all she had to do was call the number on your card. You scratched your business name off the front of the card but I was still able to make out the letters. After that it was a simple task to check the phone directories online and make some calls to be able to locate you.”

  “No!” Moira suddenly falls on her knees, turns to the side and vomits on what looks to be an expensive oriental carpet. Her whole body is shaking. I walk over to her and hand her the travel pack of tissues from my jacket pocket. “How do you know all this? How can you possibly know any of what happened that night?”

  “Moira, let’s sit down again.” As I say this I gently help her up from the carpet. She doesn’t resist as I walk her over to the couch and help her sit down. “I promise you that I’m not here to get you arrested. I don’t know why you did what you did but that’s not my concern. I want to know how you got the name of the man you hired and if you can help me find him.” I briefly explain the story of Jennifer Brooks-Warren as Moira stares at me in wide-eyed terror.

  “Oh my God! That stupid child! He will kill her. No one will be able to stop him.”

  “I agree she was stupid but we all have done incredibly dumb things in our lives. Please Moira, you don’t want to be responsible for someone else getting murdered. You don’t want that on your conscience.” As I talk I reach into my back pocket and press the bottom button of my cell phone to record.

  She takes a shuddering breath and leans against the back of the couch. “I was so careful, so careful. Oh God! How did this happen? Please, you don’t know what it was like, my father… oh God!”

  I grab her shoulder and shake her just a little to get her to pay attention to me.

  “Tell me about this eliminator. How did you find him?”

  For the next twenty minutes Moira Hollis talks and relives her life leading up to her father’s murder. She seems as if she’s in a daze.

  “He was a cruel man, my father. Really, his cruelty knew no bounds. Every aspect of my life was controlled by him. Tonight you asked about siblings. Yes, I have siblings, but I haven’t

  KRISTEN HOUGHTON 34

  seen them in years. My brother and sister were older than me by ten and twelve years. They both

  left home after college and never came back.” She takes a shaky breath.

  “All of us, you see, had to live at home while attending college. That was his rule.” She cries into the tissue. “My brother and sister hated our father. I can’t blame them for that but I do blame them for not taking me out of the prison created by him. You’d think that after either one of them had found another place to live and gotten a job, that they would come and get me. They didn’t. I don’t even know where they are to this day.”

  “What about your mother?”

  “My mother drank to escape her surroundings and left when I was two years old. I wasn’t a planned baby, you see. She wanted out of her marriage and because my father said he would destroy her in a divorce, she left him and me. I have no idea where she is, Europe maybe. I don’t even know if she’s alive.” She sits up and coughs into the crumpled tissues I gave her. “People think that if you have money, life is good. I had money but my life was hell. From the time I was a child, my father ran my life. I was all alone with the monster who was my father; terrified of him. I became an obedient little girl who grew up to be an obedient woman.”

  “Why not just leave, Moira? Your brother and sister left. Why not you? What made you hire someone to get rid of your father?”

  “I was afraid to leave for so many years, until...”

  “Until what?”

  She laughs mirthlessly and murmurs so low that I have to ask her to repeat what she said.

  “Until... Anthony. I did try to leave…with him.”

  I ask her who Anthony is.

  “He, Anthony, Anthony Cole, was my savior, he loved me, and my father got rid of him. I only met him four years ago. He worked for my father. We fell in love and Anthony knew what hell my life was. We decided to run away to Aruba and get married. I had to leave here and Anthony knew it. But my father found out and he had a…talk with Anthony. He offered him money to leave me but Anthony told him he didn’t want his money, that he loved me and wanted to marry me. When my father found that he couldn’t buy Anthony, he threatened him with all kinds of horrible things if he didn’t leave. Anthony told him that he wasn’t afraid of him. My sweet brave Anthony! He had no idea who he was dealing with! We were going to leave here and never, never come back! But, that didn’t happen. All of a sudden Anthony disappeared and I know my father had something to do with it. I know, I truly believe that he had Anthony killed.”

  I watch tears stream down Moira’s face. “And when I believed that he could kill the man I loved, I decided that I wanted my father dead at all costs. I wanted him to suffer before he died and I knew that there were people who could do that. I, I had heard stories about some of my father’s criminal clients, you see. My father talked freely in front of me; I guess he thought I was either too stupid or too afraid to ever repeat anything I heard.”

  “Tell me about the hit man. How did you find him?”

  “This man who calls himself the Eliminator was a god-send. My father was a lawyer for a great many nefarious men, real mob-type businessmen. I found out about this hit man through one of my father’s associates, a man who used my father’s legal services frequently. It was easy

  GRAVE MISGIVINGS 35

  enough to get the hit man’s number.” A sad laugh escapes her and she puts her head in her

  hands.

  “I went to see this client of my father’s, this criminal with whom my father had done dirty business many times, and I begged him for help. He thought I was a sweet, innocent kid. To his credit, he was always very nice to me and I trusted him. He also was respectful toward women if you can believe that.”

  I nod. I have known men who had no problem committing violent crimes, even murder, but who were kind and gentle to women and children. It’s a strange code of conduct; a lot of old mob men, wise guys, are like that. Women and children are untouchable in their code.

  “First I begged him, on my knees, not to tell my father I had come to him. He promised me he wouldn’t say a word then he asked how he could help me. I said that my best friend was suffering horrible abuse at the hands of her vicious husband. I coul
d see that bothered him; he had no respect for men who beat women; his mother had been an abuse victim. I asked him if he had a person who could make her husband disappear. I elaborated the lie and said she was terrified that her husband was going to kill her when he came home from a business trip. Oh how I lied!” She hiccups from all the crying she’s doing. “But oh did it work! He bought my lie, took a card from a desk drawer, and wrote down the number of someone he said was the best in the field, someone discreet and thorough. The rest, well, you already know. I called the number, made the transaction, and said I wanted proof of my father’s death, that I wanted him to suffer, and I wanted the death covered up. It cost extra but I didn’t care. I had to know the bastard was really dead and that it couldn’t be traced back to me.”

  “Moira, there are no police reports of any dead body being found with a finger missing. I checked the police files from two years ago. How did you make that bit of information go away?”

  She gets up and goes to a cabinet. Opening it she takes out what appears to be a newspaper clipping. Handing it to me she sits down again and watches me read it.

  “‘Damian Hollis, of Hollis and Fields Law Firm, died yesterday in what police are calling an accidental explosion outside of town. Mr. Hollis was inspecting a piece of property he was about to sell, the Whalen Gas Supply Warehouse, when the accident took place. The explosion, which occurred around eight thirty in the evening, was thought to have been the cause of a faulty gas line and a carelessly discarded cigarette. There were no reports of anyone else on the premises.’” It goes on about his life and testimonials from friends and colleagues but I’ve read enough.

  Moira Hollis sits up straight and stares at me. This woman, dominated by a cruel father, deserted by her mother and siblings, and by all accounts not exactly a woman who fit the archetype of a murderer, had figured out how to finally leave her father’s suffocating presence.