but Paul wasn’t shy about using anybody who had information he required. Because he was familiar with Kas’s expertise on deviant behaviour, he was paying him to vet his manuscript.”
“That was a first draft of the manuscript for the new book.”
“No, Paul respected my editorial abilities, and I’d gone through it. He wouldn’t have wanted anyone else to see it until it was nearly perfect.”
“I’ll be talking to you about the book later. Please continue.”
“Roger Workman is the husband of Elsie, the woman downstairs. Roger and Paul got along fine.”
Three more names and they reached the end. Simpson laid the booklet on the table.
Hollis sat back, wondering what else Simpson would ask.
“Would you describe your husband’s personality?”
Where to start? Could she even say he had a single personality? The more she found out, the more she wondered if he had had multiple personalities. Hollis twisted in her chair, tucked her feet under her, clutched her coffee cup and peered into its depths. When she’d seen him lying on the road, she’d felt terrible, but now anger had replaced pity. Her eyes filled with tears of rage.
Simpson dug in her bag and handed Hollis a small package of Kleenex.
Hollis put the cup on the table, pulled a tissue from the pack and blew her nose.
“Let me ask you specific questions. How long had you been married?”
“Three years.”
“How did you meet?”
“I’m a social historian. I teach at a community college.”
“I’m not sure I know what a social historian does, and I certainly don’t know how that explains how you met.”
“I’m getting there,” Hollis said. There was a note of annoyance in her voice. This women was so pushy. She could at least listen without interrupting. “A social historian collects and writes the history of common people, their customs and way of life. When male historians predominated, they wrote of politics and wars, but there’s much more to history. I guess you could say I’m one of the experts. I’ve published three books and many articles.” Hollis heard the enthusiasm in her voice. This was one of her favourite topics.
“I repeat, what does this have to do with meeting your husband?”
“In July and August I do field work in my specialty—folklore and music. Helen Creighton pioneered the work more than fifty years ago when she traveled the Maritimes making notes and later, when portable recording machines appeared on the market, recording songs, superstitions and folk tales. Three summers ago, I followed her trail around the Maritimes. With her information as a base, I drove the back roads talking to old people and recording their generation’s memories. I also took millions of reference slides for my paintings.”
Simpson’s legs were crossed, and one cowboy boot jerked faster and faster.
Time to speed up. “Later in August, after I’d worked for six weeks in Lunenburg County, I drove to Halifax to catch an art exhibit of Linda Climo’s animal paintings.”
Simpson’s toe tapped more quickly.
“I spent the weekend with an old school friend who’s married to a United Church minister. Paul was teaching a course at the Pine Hill Divinity School, and my friends invited him to dinner. The next day, we went sailing on the Arm . . . the rest is history.” And it’s not the sort of history I want to write about, Hollis thought, and realized her teeth were clenched, her shoulders lifted, her whole body expressed her rage.
The tapping toe slowed. “But it didn’t end happily ever after?”
“No.” Should she confess Paul had accused her of presenting a false image, of hoodwinking him into marrying a fictitious woman? Tell her she’d acted impulsively her entire life and married Paul almost as a lark. “Maybe we were too old, too set in our ways. Paul was difficult, complicated.” Could she say he was a deceitful, lying son of a bitch? Maybe if she was a suspect, that wouldn’t be wise.
“Ms Grant, telling me unpleasant truths about your husband does not make you disloyal or show lack of respect for the dead. Familiarizing myself with the good and bad aspects of his character will provide me with clues to uncover the motive for his murder.” Simpson’s sharp tone warned Hollis to get on with her story.
“The sooner the killer is caught . . .” The sound of the closing door in the supposedly empty church echoed in her mind. She’d give this woman all the help she could. “Paul liked power. He was narcissistic and viewed people around him only as they reflected him. His religion came from the Old Testament. He judged sinners harshly.” And he certainly had firsthand knowledge of a variety of sins.
“Probably not an uncommon trait among the clergy.”
“No, I suppose not.” Before she revealed the worst of Paul, she’d at least give him credit for what he had done. “On the other side of the ledger, he did measurable amounts of good. He didn’t support an issue or cause unless he was prepared to give a hundred and ten per cent of his energy. Two examples: his enthusiasm and work for refugee resettlement and his commitment to raising the profile of the Christian homosexual community.”
“I understand he wrote about the gay community and its treatment by society in his most recent book. Are you familiar with the manuscript?”
“Yes. As I said, I edited the most recent draft before he passed the manuscript to Kas.”
“Tell me about your husband’s . . .” The detective paused and didn’t quite look Hollis in the eye as she finished the sentence, “extramarital affairs.”
No quarter from this woman. No sympathy for the newly widowed. However, other than her, who would be more likely to kill Paul than a cuckolded husband? “I think it’s time for me to be frank. Paul was not a good man. Last night Marguerite Day told me,” she paused and looked down at her hands, wishing she didn’t have to share this information. “Paul had sex with one of the women he was counselling.” She raised her eyes and met the detective’s steady gaze. “That is so despicable, but it gets worse—the woman killed herself.”
“I can understand how painful it must have been to hear that. And what about his affairs?”
“Sally Staynor was the current one.”
“Did you know her?”
“No. Marguerite said you were in church yesterday when Sally, who was with her son Dan, had hysterics. Poor Dan.” Hollis fiddled with a strand of wool hanging from the bottom of her sweater and thought how awful his mom’s scene must have been for him. “But you want to hear about Sally. She and Paul worked together on St. Mark’s most recent project—resettling a Salvadorian family.”
Simpson picked up the marathon program and flipped through it. “Would the JJ Staynor, Oneida Drive, Ottawa, be her husband?”
“How did I miss his name?”
“I can’t imagine.”
Hollis thought
