Cut Off His Tale: A Hollis Grant Mystery

by Boswell Joan

  Her horror increased. Knox felt no remorse, only pride. “Knox, forget this. I’m an honourable person. Can’t I trade my life for my silence?”

  “I’m sorry, it’s not possible. It’ll be harder to kill you—I don’t hate you. Actually, I don’t even dislike you, but my life would be over if I was charged with murder or the information Paul uncovered became public.” Knox sounded sincerely sorry. “You do realize it’s really nothing personal. You’re too much of a threat. Now that I’ve gone this far, there’s no stopping.”

  How could she talk to a man who wanted her complicity in accepting the necessity of her own death?

  “Time to go. Get up. I’m keeping you tied, but you can walk downstairs.”

  Once she reached the ground floor, her life would be measured in tiny increments. But if she balked, he’d probably knock her out and drag her down step by step. She needed a plan, needed to buy time to devise a new strategy to save her life.

  Delay—delay was her only hope. In as reasonable a tone as a throat filled with fear allowed, she said, “Knox, please don’t go through with this. I had nothing to do with what Paul did to you. Please give me a chance.” She willed Knox to agree to a reprieve.

  “No way, Hollis. One more death won’t send me deeper into hell. If it would prevent me from serving time in prison, I’d kill ten more people. You chose the wrong guy, Hollis.” He sniggered, “Too bad you had such lousy taste in men. You’re not a lucky woman.” Knox pulled the cords tighter. “Get up.”

  She had to stop him.

  “If you won’t release me, I should hear the whole story. Be fair—I deserve that much. I want to know what happened—why Paul blackmailed you.” She ventured the shakiest of laughs. “Prisoners are given one last request and, since I don’t smoke, I can’t plead for a cigarette. Instead, I want to hear your story. If I’m going to die, I deserve that.”

  “You’re stalling. I think you’re lying. In front of everyone, you looked directly at me and said you’d read Paul’s notes and knew all about everything. That’s why I shot at you and why I sent the letter; I wanted you to tell me you’d stop. Paul told me a hundred times he’d recorded every detail and tucked the file away in a safe place. I broke in to find those files, but now I’m pretty sure he hid them somewhere where no one will find them—they aren’t in the house.” He cocked his head to one side and gave a mirthless chuckle. “And Sally Staynor running around saying she knew everything. I didn’t think she did, but I certainly fixed her.”

  Hollis knew he was totally mad, but she had to keep trying.” I did tell you the truth. I knew nothing about you, because I didn’t find the file cards—I read the manuscript, and in it Paul gave the men and women he wrote about false names.” Hollis tried to instill doubt in Knox’s mind. “Your name and information is probably in the papers the police took to the station.”

  Knox strode back and forth.

  “Damn detective, damn police. Meddlers, do-gooders, the world is full of interfering people. I doubt if he used actual names, and unless he did, Simpson will never connect me with Paul.” He straightened and a complacent smile curled the corners of his mouth. “I’ll have to take the risk. Paul bluffed to obtain money, to keep me uneasy and ready to pay. You’re a mistake. Once you’re dead, no one will connect me to Paul’s death.”

  “Please tell me what Paul found?”

  “Why should I? It’s been a secret for years. I owe you nothing. Don’t give me that last request crap.” He paced for another minute and then moved closer to Hollis. Her body felt exposed, vulnerable to a knife sliding in and splitting her open like a stuffed toy eviscerated and leaking its guts. Hardly daring to breathe, she waited.

  “Since you’ll die anyway—I’ll tell you part of the story—the part I can bear talking about. When I was a kid, I did things it sickens me to remember. If it came out, my life would be over. The church never again would allow me to do anything with young people. Where would I be without my place in the community, without my family or the church? I’d be a pariah.” A long pause. “You must see I have to protect the secret at any cost?” Again the pleading note. “I’ve hidden my story for more than thirty years, and I’ll continue to hide. I’ve remade my life. I’m not the same person. Paul should have been smart enough to see I’d go to any length to stop him from destroying me.”

  “Was Paul threatening to tell?”

  “Tell.” Knox considered. “Eventually, I suppose I realized he would. When tormenting me no longer amused him, he would have marshalled the information and presented it on some occasion when he could have maximized the positive impact for himself. He’d have said something like, ‘I greatly regret having to do this, but I can’t live with myself and the thought of the young and innocent children with whom this man comes in contact.’ Yes, he would have told, but that wasn’t why I killed him—I did it because he demanded more money.”

  Her arms cramped. She twisted to relieve the weight of her body cutting off her circulation. Moving released dust. Breathing shallowly, she tried not to inhale as it settled.

  “Why did Paul demand money?”

  “Not for himself. He didn’t take a cent for himself. Not a cent.”

  “But . . .”

  “He extorted money from me, but it wasn’t for him.” Knox’s jaw locked, and he spoke in a harsh tone. “All right, I’ll tell you this much. My trouble involved homosexuality. I was . . .” He hesitated before he said firmly, “A victim. As a result, I hate gays. I know what they do to innocent boys.” He paced again before he moved closer to her and emphasized his next words with a kick that caught her in the stomach and made her gag. “He forced me to donate two hundred dollars a month to Gay Pride. He insisted I give the cash to him each month.”

  He kicked Hollis again, this time connecting painfully with the flesh wound on her upper thigh. She knew she was substituting for Paul.

  “Of course, I didn’t write a cheque, because I couldn’t risk Linda finding out. Paul labelled it a ‘business transaction’. Each month he provided me with the previous month’s receipt made out to ‘Anonymous donor’.” Knox snarled, “He told me to hang on to the receipts to file with my income tax and claim as a charitable donation. Fat chance—Linda does our taxes.” Bitterly, he added, “You can’t imagine how hard it was for me to squeeze the dollars out month after month without Linda zeroing in—she’s a stickler for accounting. Six months ago, when he warned me that soon, of course he didn’t say how soon, the rate would increase because every organization had to provide for inflation, I decided to kill him.”

  He bent over, and his fingers groped for her elbows.

  “That’s it. Stand up. We’re going downstairs.” His hands gripped her arms, and he grunted when he tried to hoist her to her feet.

  A flashback to her godson, Mike, as a toddler, and her attempts to dress him when he lay limp. Pushing his feet into his boots had been like trying to force cooked spaghetti to stand up. She willed her limbs to become as unresisting as a floppy doll’s.

  Knox’s fingers dug into her arms while he struggled to pull her to her feet. He shook and then dropped her. “What are you doing? Get up. When I say get up, you get up.”

  The lifting and shaking had released more of the chenille’s dust. She choked, breathed dust, and a single cough evolved into a spasm of gasping. Bile filled her mouth. She breathed through her nose, pretending to be a jellyfish stranded above the high tide mark and unable to move.

  Again Knox tried to stand her up.

  A newsreel image of Gandhi speaking about passive resistance played itself on her mind screen. She willed herself to remain as unresponsive as a bundle of laundry.

  “Hollis, if you don’t stand up, I’m going to haul you down those stairs like a sack of potatoes.”

  Remaining silent, she sensed Knox’s indecision. He wanted her to cooperate.

  She directed her thoughts first to the big toe on her right foot and visualized it relaxing. One by one she considered each toe then
moved on, draining the tension from her right foot. Knox broke her concentration by stomping across the room.

  To find out what he was doing, she raised her head, but he was out of her line of vision. A squeak, an unidentifiable sound, a rattle, which sounded like hangers moving together, was followed by a thump like a door shutting.

  Knox moved toward her head. What was he going to do? Maybe he had a knife: he’d boasted about his expertise with knives. Her resolve to be brave faltered, and her body tensed as she anticipated pain.

  He squatted, bent over, hooked both hands under her body and turned her towards him. When he had her rolled on her side, he stuffed something under her, flipped her the other way onto what must be a quilt or a rug. He let her flop, lifted the sides of her wrap and tied it around her. Then he walked to her feet, grabbed the quilt with both hands and hauled her across the room.

  While her body slid along the floor, the tension on her left arm and shoulder, caught behind her when he first enveloped her in the bedspread, increased each time he yanked on the wrap. Pain seared with every jolt and jounce.

  Although she bit her lower lip until her mouth filled with blood, she couldn’t stifle her screams.

  Knox grabbed a handful of her hair, jerked her head forward and retied the gag.

  Her screams became moans.

  Knox grunted and mumbled. The prospect of hurtling down three flights of stairs horrified her.

  Following the interview with Staynor, Rhona drove faster than she should have and hurried through the police building to her office where, before she even sat down, she punched in Mary Beth Cardwell’s phone number.

  “Ms Cardwell?”

  “Hang on. She just left. I’ll try to catch her.”

  Rhona crossed her fingers even as she laughed at herself for performing this childish guarantee of good luck.

  “Mary Beth Cardwell here.”

  “It’s Detective Simpson. I won’t keep you a minute—I’m aware you’re not allowed to tell me the name of the person in the file we discussed, and I am obtaining a warrant to have the info released, but the situation here has become critical—the killer may strike again. If I mention a name, could you tell me whether or not to keep searching?”

  “My God—another murder. I want to help. I feel guilty. But, actually I’d have to run it past my boss and she’s left for the day.”

  “It’s very important.”

  Silence. “I’m sorry.” Ms Cardwell’s voice was faint and apologetic. “Unless you send a warrant compelling me to tell you, I have to clear it with my boss. Could you call first thing in the morning, or would you rather I phoned you?”

  “I’ll have the warrant. Call me.” Rhona heard the anger in her voice and told herself to chill out—the poor woman was obeying orders.

  Rhona debated whether she should obtain the okay right away, but, if it was Staynor, she didn’t think he’d act tonight. She’d leave it until tomorrow. She was glad she’d ordered overnight surveillance on Hollis Grant’s house. She opened another file.

  At seven-fifteen, well down in the mound of paper, she unearthed Featherstone’s memo with a breakdown of statistics on the runners: names, addresses, times, and probable positions at the starting line. Featherstone had attached a memo: “We confirmed the last address and name today. Number 1457 was listed as Merrick Rideau, and the address was 922 Roxborough Avenue. That’s a vacant apartment owned by Linda Porter, who said no person by that name lived there, but suggested it might have been one of the university students who rented the place during the school year. It’s a fishy name—Merrick is the name of a town on the Rideau river.”

  The name “Porter” jolted Rhona. Linda Porter was the wife of Knox Porter, the organizer of the St Mark’s memorial refugee fund and a man who, according to Hollis Grant, had disliked Paul Robertson. Her alarm level rose. It must be the same apartment where Hollis had gone to meet Knox Porter.

  Seven fifteen—Hollis was there now.

  Last night, someone had murdered Sally Staynor. If Knox Porter had killed Sally, did he intend to silence Hollis as well?

  Rhona reached into her drawer for her service revolver and buckled her holster on her hip. She called the duty officer and requested backup. “No sirens, It may be a false alarm. If it isn’t, I don’t want him to realize we’re on to him. Have two police cars wait down the street.”

  She regretted it had taken her so long to unearth Featherstone’s report. She berated himself for assuming that because Porter had attended church the Sunday morning of the murder, he hadn’t been at the marathon. God, she hoped she was wrong—hoped this was a false lead, hoped her failure to investigate Porter hadn’t placed Hollis in mortal danger.

  Twenty

  Knox, grunting and swearing, dragged Hollis across the room. He stopped at the top of the stairs. Teetering on the brink with the prospect of a fall, she tensed. The thought of the pummelling her body would endure made her feel like a helpless terrified boater swept along in the Niagara River, aware that the increasing roar of Niagara Falls heralded the awesome plunge of water and a cataclysmic death.

  Knox dropped her winding sheet, walked to her head, placed both hands on her shoulders and shoved.

  She plunged over the edge. Her body, which she tried to keep limp, and her head, which she attempted to protect from the worst of the skull crushing thuds, registered everything.

  Stair followed stair. The arm twisted behind her wrenched farther back with each jarring crash.

  Hollis tasted bile, blood and the dryness of fear. She lost count of the number of steps she thudded down before the flight ended.

  Knox, the model Christian, swore steadily as he hauled her along the second floor hall to the next set of stairs. After a brief respite, he pushed and she crashed step by pain wracked step until she stopped halfway down, wedged crosswise in the stairwell. Knox pushed from above and, when that didn’t work, climbed over her and tugged from below.

  The doorbell rang.

  Hollis’s spirits soared and immediately plummeted. What if Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormons waited at the door? They’d ring and go away when no one answered. But it might be Simpson. She clutched at the possibility like a drowning swimmer.

  Knox swore.

  Hollis didn’t breathe. Hapless boaters swept away in the Niagara River must feel like this when a rock outcrop on the brink of the hereafter miraculously saved their lives. She prayed Knox would answer the door.

  Knox walked downstairs. Hollis remained wedged across the stairs with her head on a lower step, her body sprawled over two upper stairs. The sound of his footsteps clumping downward receded. Distantly, she heard him open the door.

  Blood pounded in her ears. She feared it would drown out the voices at the door. If Simpson had arrived, she had to attract her attention. She felt like a “Wheel of Fortune” player with one last roll and Bankrupt coming up.

  “Sorry to bother you, Mr. Porter. I have a couple of questions for you. May I come in?”

  Simpson.

  “I’m busy. Could it wait until tomorrow?”

  “It’ll only take a few minutes of your time.”

  “Very well. It’s chilly—we’ll go in my house. I was itemizing the stuff up in the apartment we’re using for the refugees, but I’ve finished.” His voice was amazingly calm considering what he’d been doing seconds before.

  “Ms Grant told me. I understood she was coming here tonight?”

  “Quite right, quite right. She came but didn’t stay long.”

  Knox would manoeuvre Simpson out of earshot. Time to act.

  Gagged, it was impossible to scream, but she made as much noise as she could. Simultaneously she thrust her body forward into the void, catapulted through the air and crashed headlong down the stairs. When she caromed off the landing’s corner post, the elbow twisted behind her caught and the force of the fall tore her shoulder outwards from her body.

  The keening of a siren penetrated a confused dream of an endless face-up fall with
a crowd of grimacing, bodiless faces raining stones down on her. The frightening scene faded, and she opened her eyes to a face inches from her own.

  What had happened? Carefully, she moved her eyes. When that went okay, she lifted her head. A wave of dizziness followed by nausea forced her down. Where was she?

  A flashback of herself hurtling downstairs. Knox had been going to kill her.

  Where was Knox? What had happened to Simpson? She ran her tongue over her dry lips and whispered to the face looming over her.

  “What happened?”

  “I’m glad you’ve come around. You had a bad fall and were unconscious when we reached you. You’ve banged your head pretty bad, and your shoulder’s dislocated.”

  “What about the other man?”

  “You were the only one injured. When we arrived, you and the police were there. No one else.”

  After the attendants gently decanted her in the emergency ward of the Municipal hospital, she endured increasingly painful pokes and prods from the emergency room staff. When the resident was ready to set the dislocated shoulder, she pleaded for a painkiller, but the young man refused.

  “I can’t give you any. You have a concussion. I’m sorry—I’m aware of how much this hurts, but we have to pull it back in place and patch you up before we send you upstairs, where we can keep an eye on you for the night. We’ll wake you every hour until we’re sure you’re okay.”

  Her polite, civilized, middle-class mask in place, she said she understood and thanked the resident even as he pulled and pain surged through her. An orderly wheeled her to the elevator and deposited her on an upper floor. He rolled her into a bed in a four-bed room. Before she did more than glance at the other occupants, the curtain around the bed was pulled, whirring in its track, to enclose her in a tiny world where the hourly arrival of the nurse rescued her from confused and frightening dreams.