Cut Off His Tale: A Hollis Grant Mystery

by Boswell Joan

  Kas again. Why was the detective interested in Kas and Tessa? She debated whether to tell Simpson anything but didn’t have any reason to be difficult. Kas’s life wasn’t a secret.

  “I didn’t meet Kas until he was in medical school. I’ve heard him say the human mind fascinates him.”

  “He attended the University of Toronto. Where did he do his residency?”

  Hollis thought about the question. “As far as I can remember, and I could be wrong—a private hospital near London, Ontario, a hospital for the criminally insane in Penetanguishene, and the Queen Street psychiatric hospital in Toronto.”

  The satay and beer arrived, and they ate silently for several minutes. Time to distract Simpson. “This is terrific. Didn’t you love the wonderful food you bought on the street in Thailand? Did you ever eat hot peanut brittle or the fried coconut milk concoction sprinkled with green onions and wrapped in banana leaves?”

  “At first, I was afraid to eat things prepared by the street vendors, but I changed my mind when I realized no one had a proper kitchen, so everyone bought meals on the street, and the whole nation expected to buy clean, safe food.” Simpson smiled. “I figured the ingredients came right from the farms, and those street braziers threw off enough heat to kill even the toughest germs. I ate everything except the chunks of papaya and pineapple on ice, because the ice made me nervous.”

  “Did you ever visit the market at dawn to see the Buddhist monks in their orange robes circulate through the vendors and the buyers, extending their begging bowls for food and alms? It amazed me to learn they depended entirely on the money or food donated to them.”

  “It must have been interesting for you to visit a country where Buddhism is the dominant religion.”

  “It was and it wasn’t. Here, I always feel like a bit of a pretender. Having grown up in a Christian community, with all the cultural references it makes, you feel phony talking about Buddhism, particularly since the terms are so foreign. Despite my beliefs, I’ve never gone to Buddhist services in Ottawa. And when I was in Thailand, I felt like even more of a pretender—this was their religion—what business did I have to say I was a Buddhist? It’s confusing. I find it comforts and supports me, but I keep my beliefs private.”

  “But you loved the country?”

  “Except for the pollution in Bangkok—it gave me a headache.”

  “I loved Chang Mai, but I though Chang Rai was spooky—probably because I’m a cop, and I know about the evil white guys who go there to prey on young girls, to get involved in drug smuggling—some really bad men. But, to return to business—where did Kas meet his wife?”

  Kas again. What did she expect to learn? “In medical school. They married while she was doing her surgical residency.”

  The satay had vanished. Pleased with their obvious enjoyment, the smiling waitress replaced their plates with steaming bowls of soup. The tender chicken pieces, ginger, lemon grass, lime leaves and mint mingled in a satisfying way, and the little flecks of innocent looking green peppers, whose heat seared their mouths, noses and sinuses, offset the blandness of the coconut milk.

  “Did Kas or Tessa know your husband before you married him?”

  ‘Have you ever been or are you now a member of . . .’ Kas and Tessa, Tessa and Kas. “I can’t imagine why you’re hung up on Kas and Tessa. Why you think two respectable doctors, one a close friend of mine for more than twenty years, would have anything to do with Paul’s murder. And I can’t in my wildest imaginings think of either of them shooting at me or trashing the house. Next thing, you’ll want to know if they were part of a larger conspiracy, a cabal plotting to do God knows what. You must have more likely suspects.”

  “Take it easy. I’m sorting out where particular individuals fitted in the jig-saw of your husband’s life. You told me how he compartmentalized everything and everybody.”

  “Point made. To answer your question, Paul studied theology at the U of T. I doubt their paths ever crossed, but I can’t swear to it.”

  By this time, plates of curry and rice awaited their attention. Once again, they ate in silence for several minutes before Hollis spoke. “My turn for questions. How did your family react when you told them you planned to be a police officer?”

  “Sociological research, eh? Does the officer come from a lower socioeconomic background where police work offered an out or from a religious right background, where the establishment and enforcement of the law etc etc? My reason—pretty prosaic. I chose police work because I didn’t want to pursue any of the traditional avenues—social work, teaching etc. Why did you become a professor?”

  “It wasn’t my first choice—I dreamed of being a painter—but I didn’t think I could earn a living. Since grade school, social history has fascinated me.” Hollis climbed on her soapbox. “For generations, social history was largely untold because historians were men, and they thought history was politics, war and business. But men absorb their attitudes and their mindsets from their parents, their lives and their culture—these are women’s areas of expertise and power. Teaching provides me with an income, a forum,” she grinned, “for my feminist propaganda and gives me summers free for an equal measure of research and painting.”

  “Interesting. Now for a little give and take. I visited the Bank of Commerce in Gloucester. The safety deposit box key opened a box there, but the box was empty, and although we don’t have a total record of activity, I don’t think your husband used it very often. On the other hand, his account there had a large number of deposits and withdrawals. You don’t remember your husband mentioning banking there?”

  “No. We dealt with the local Bank of Nova Scotia.” Hollis scraped the last grains of curry and rice from her plate. “Subconsciously, I still have a niggling feeling I know something. I’ve racked my brains.” Fork in hand, she paused. “What an odd expression. English is a strange language. Anyway, I puzzle over the fact the killer obviously wants to hear me say I won’t spill whatever information he thinks I have. If I know something, I don’t know what it is, and I certainly don’t know whom to contact. I am convinced it has something to do with Paul’s book.”

  Simpson tilted her head and considered Hollis’s words. “Maybe . . .”

  “They say your subconscious works on problems while you sleep. Maybe tomorrow I’ll have an answer,” Hollis said.

  Opie woke Rhona early on Saturday morning. In the bathroom, she applied makeup and skinned her hair into a ponytail instead of its usual chignon. Maybe it was time to have it cropped, have the whole mess sheared, maybe have a buzz cut. She tried to visualize herself with inch-long hair and failed. Because she’d been home infrequently, she decided Opie merited a tuna fish treat. When the electric can opener sliced through the aluminum and released the delectable aroma of fish, Opie twined around her legs, vocalizing his anticipation. She upended the can into the cat’s yellow ceramic bowl with the word “cat” in bas relief on the side and wondered, as she had many times, if this was to enable the cat to recognize his bowl or prevent people from eating from the cat dish. Rhona left Opie crouched over his bowl smacking and chomping his way through his breakfast.

  At the station, the team investigating Robertson’s murder met first thing in the morning. Once she’d brought them up to speed, Rhona closeted herself in her office, where she spent her morning on the phone and completing the paper work necessitated by the demands of the courts. Later, the six-sided, oak-framed wall clock reminded her she’d have to eat at a restaurant near the station to be on time for her one o’clock appointment with JJ Staynor.

  She regretted she cared so much about what and where she ate. That morning when she’d left home, she’d planned to leave time to drive across town and treat herself to a chopped liver sandwich on rye with a side order of Kosher dills at Nate’s Deli. She definitely had not intended to eat near the station, where most of the restaurants catered to the grouping instincts of thirty-year-olds and emphasized conviviality rather than food.

  Resigned
to a tasteless lunch, she dropped coins in a newspaper box and withdrew the hefty bulk of the Saturday Citizen. Even if the meal was a disappointment, she’d catch up on local news.

  With little to distinguish one from another—neither had a smoking area or decent food—she hurried the two blocks to the nearest restaurant. At the Daily Bistro, she perched uncomfortably on a rickety bentwood chair at a wobbly marble-topped table so small it made reading anything bigger than a postcard impossible. With a sigh, she folded the paper and tucked it under the chair. A waiter who introduced himself as “Jim” handed her a large plasticized menu printed in mulberry ink.

  Rhona shuddered. Deep fried zucchini, stuffed potato skins, Greek salad, and burgers with cute names—it was totally predictable. She chose the Greek salad. When Jim presented a large glass bowl overflowing with dark greens, Rhona dared to hope; a closer examination revealed one solitary piece of feta cheese, two black olives and a mass of tough Romaine lettuce. All self-respecting Greeks would deny any association with the imposter and protest the defamation of the good name of Greece. Dejectedly, she chewed her way through the tasteless salad.

  Outside the restaurant, she lit a cigarette. It was bad for her, bad for everyone, but why was she and every other addicted soul made to feel guilty? Didn’t people realize most smokers would quit in a minute if it wasn’t so damn hard?

  Back in her office, feeling disgruntled and undernourished, she’d just had time to sit down when the desk downstairs buzzed to say Staynor was on his way up. Rhona locked her fingers behind her head and stretched. She recalled their first interview, when the butcher’s quotation laden speech had thrown her off balance. A diffident knock interrupted her musings.

  Staynor pushed the door open and peered at her. “ ‘Here I am, ready willing and able, standing on the burning deck where all but I have fled.’ ” He stepped inside. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m trying not to do it.” He shambled forward and dropped onto the armless visitor’s chair. Once seated, he twisted, shifted, clasped and unclasped his hands and fixed sad eyes on Rhona. During the first interview, Staynor had spoken in erratic bursts and spewed quotations like confetti at a wedding. Today, he writhed and turned his torso like a man with swimmer’s itch.

  Rhona felt uneasy. He was much more agitated than he’d been the last time she’d spoken to him. What had happened to pump up his anxiety level? “We’ve tracked down your information. You said you left teaching because a business opportunity arose, but we learned you were charged with assaulting a student and required to resign.”

  Staynor’s restless movements persisted. Ceaselessly, he went through the motions of washing his hands.

  “I’d like to hear about it,” Rhona said.

  “That’s it.” Staynor washed and rewashed.

  “What did the student do or say, and what did you do?”

  Staynor stared mutinously at his relentlessly moving hands. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything, but I suppose, ‘There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat.’ ” The tempo of his restless movements lessened slightly. “We were reading Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and talking about the cuckolded husband. An over-grown lout said right out loud he guessed the best example stood right in front of them.” Staynor froze in mid-wash. His eyes rolled back in his head.

  The sudden change startled Rhona. She wondered if whatever had happened to his eyes preceded a seizure. She ran the text of the first aid manual through her mind and prepared to intervene.

  Before she could act, he shook himself, and his eyes returned to normal. “I picked him up, slammed him against the wall and walked out. Apparently, he had a concussion. I never set foot in the school again. I offered no defence when I was charged.” His tone was flat, the words spoken in a monotone, and for the first time he remained motionless. “In retrospect, it wasn’t worth it. I wish I hadn’t done it. The kid was right. The court gave me a suspended sentence dependent on my doing community service and getting psychiatric help. George Bernard Shaw said, ‘A life spent making mistakes is not only more honourable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.’ If that’s the measure—I’ve had an honourable life.” With elbows glued to his sides, he raised his hands to cover his lowered face. His fingertips pressed into his forehead with enough force to turn them white. Staynor, hunched and bowed, remained locked in position.

  “You’re a different man today. What’s happened?”

  Staynor’s head came up and he dropped his hands. “Different? Humiliated, finished, done, kaput.” His eyebrows lifted, and he snorted. “You have to ask? My wife howls in church, falls on Paul’s body and acts like Dreyfus, ‘j’accuse’, when she confronts Hollis Grant.”

  “You said you were aware of your wife’s infidelities?”

  “That’s right, I did.” Staynor glared at Rhona. “And it’s true, my wife has run around for years, but she’s never done anything really blatant.” His lips twisted into a bitter imitation of a smile. “It won’t surprise you to learn I have a toast to sum up my philosophy. ‘If Life’s a lie, and Love’s a cheat, As I have heard men say, Then here’s a health to fond deceit.’ ” He shook his head like a bull irritated by clouds of black flies. “Sure I knew; but I felt guilty.”

  “Guilty?”

  “Yes, guilty, capital G.” Staynor became aware of his hands independently resuming their washing. He crossed his arms and pulled his hands tightly against his body, as if trying to hold himself together. “Did your hotshot detectives unearth the fact I stayed in the long-term hospital for the mentally ill, the loony bin, for quite a few months after the court case?”

  With a flash of his old belligerence, he lifted his head and frowned at Rhona. “The great gurus decided I was nuts, crackers, weird: call it what you will. They claimed my mood swings made me dangerous and prescribed a little pink pill. The shrinks have a handle on their pharmacology—I’ll give them that. It worked—a little too well. As Francis Bacon said, ‘There are some remedies worse than the disease.’ It’s a conundrum. If I don’t take the pill, I’m dangerous. If I take it, I’m impotent. What can I expect a beautiful woman like my wife to do? Her affairs have been relatively discreet. Years ago, I offered her a divorce, but she didn’t want one because it would be bad for our son. He needed both of us at home.”

  “Did you kill Reverend Robertson?”

  “No. You may not believe me, but it never crossed my mind. I hated him, but not enough to kill him.” He sagged on the chair and lowered his head.

  Rhona leaned forward, “I have an appointment with your wife for later this afternoon.”

  “What for? You’ll rile her up. She’ll do something else stupid and embarrassing.”

  “I’m warning her to be careful.”

  “Careful? Sally? You must be kidding. Sally thinks ‘Prudence is a rich, old maid courted by incapacity.’ That’s Blake and Sally too.” His forehead furrowed as he appreciated the impact of Rhona’s warning. “Careful about what?”

  Rhona debated. If Staynor was the perp, what effect would her explanation have? It wouldn’t do any harm to give a heads up, to say they were closing in.

  “At the funeral yesterday, Mrs. Staynor accused Hollis Grant of killing Paul Robertson and claimed she knew Paul’s secrets. We believe the killer murdered Reverend Robertson because of those secrets. Knowing, or claiming to know, what they are could be dangerous. I told Mrs. Staynor to be careful. If you are on speaking terms with your wife, will you impress upon her to take my warning very seriously.”

  “Son-of-a-gun!”

  Staynor said nothing, and Rhona identified fear in his eyes. She wished intuition would tell her if Staynor feared for Sally or for himself. A man with an assault conviction, a spell of madness, and an obsession with his wife had reason to fear.

  At three, she rang the bell at the Staynor’s house. No one responded. She pushed the brass button again and listened to the three-tone chime. After waiting
several minutes, she decided she’d wasted her time: Sally had either gone out or passed out. She’d taken three steps toward her car when she heard the door open. A voice mocked her.

  “Well, if it isn’t Canada’s answer to Robo-cop.”

  Rhona pivoted to face the door. “Hello, Mrs. Staynor—Sally.”

  “Hello yourself. Why the hell are you here?” With her arms akimbo and her left shoulder and jaw thrust forward, she resembled a small dog trying to decide which stance would scare away a much larger dog.

  Rhona considered Sally. Without make-up, she appeared older but more vulnerable. Her black stretch pants, baggy at the knees, worn with a faded black Grateful Dead T-shirt and black cloth slippers, did nothing to improve her image.

  “May I come in?”

  “Why should you? I have nothing to say to you.”

  “Mrs. Staynor,” Rhona spoke quietly, “I’m here to warn you—you may be in danger.”

  “Danger. From who—Hollis Grant? Did she send you?”

  “Mrs. Staynor, this is serious.”

  “She did it. Goddam it, she sent you. You go right the hell back and tell her I’m not afraid of her or anyone else.”

  Rhona, who had pushed her hands deep in the pockets of her brown tweed pants, rocked on the heels of her cowboy boots and regarded Sally without moving or saying anything. Under Rhona’s unblinking gaze, Sally’s belligerence drained away.

  “You’re serious?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why am I in danger?”

  “Because at the memorial service, you claimed you were privy to Paul Robertson’s secrets. We think he was killed to prevent him from telling or using secret information.”

  “But, I was bluffing—I don’t really know anything.” Sally’s arms dropped to her sides, and her body sagged against the doorframe.

  “The killer doesn’t realize that. Be careful. Don’t go anywhere where you’re away from other people. Lock your doors.” Rhona examined the door. The presence of both a deadbolt and an ordinary lock reassured her. “Do you have a security system?”