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 like 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,
