Cut Off His Tale: A Hollis Grant Mystery (2 page)

Across town, the phone's high-pitched demand for attention penetrated Rhona Simpson's sleep. Her cat, Opie, sensitive to the noise, moved off the pillow and none-too-gently batted Rhona's ear.

“Okay, okay. I'm answering.” She pushed the cat to one side, groped for the phone and then for her glasses before she squinted at the clock radio. Nine on Sunday morning. Zack would never call her this early. It had to be the shop.

After her immediate superior, Detective Charlie O'Connor, identified himself he said, “Reverend Paul Robertson, the activist for gay causes, was stabbed and killed at the starting line of the National Capital Marathon. Hard to believe, but apparently it was such a mob scene, no one witnessed the stabbing. The marathon began at Carleton. How soon can you get there?”

“Inside of fifteen minutes.”

Why hadn't she told the chief she was through? She'd spent Saturday afternoon drafting her resignation and had planned to speak with him first thing tomorrow, Monday.

It wasn't the work she hated: being a cop would be great if it weren't for some of the men on the force. My God, they
were dinosaurs, misogynists, racists. When were they going to face reality; women, even ethnic women, had been a police fact for years. And having Zack, the love of her life, in Toronto wasn't helping one little bit. She'd been ready, yesterday, to throw in the towel, to apply to the Toronto Police, forget police work altogether and take up a trade where her coworkers felt like team players, not adversaries, where everyone wasn't waiting for her to screw up.

Why hadn't she said anything before accepting this case? Obviously she wasn't quite ready to make the big decision. Maybe because it would make her feel like a quitter. She'd think about it later. If she succeeded in this high-profile case and applied in Toronto, it would help her and, if she still wanted to give up police work, she'd depart with the satisfaction of leaving in a blaze of glory.

In the bathroom, she zoomed her electric toothbrush over her teeth, splashed water on her face and replaced her oversize tortoise-shell glasses. Perched on her nose, they allowed her to monitor the transformation from wan dishevellment to competent professionalism. She rolled her long dark hair, a gift from her Cree grandmother, into a tidy French twist, deftly applied black eyeliner, brown eyeshadow, rose lipstick and blush. After fastening gold stud earrings in place, she contemplated the clothes hanging in her cupboard. Dressing had been a whole lot easier when she'd worn a uniform.

Ever since she'd read an article in a woman's magazine advising short women to wear one colour to appear taller and a dark colour to seem thinner, she'd followed the advice. She pulled on flat-fronted chocolate brown cords, a deeper brown cotton shirt and reached for her cowboy boots, acknowledging that her love of cowboy boots had a lot to do with the fact that she stood five foot three. If the Ottawa Police hadn't lowered
the height requirement, she wouldn't even be a cop. Peering into her oversize black leather shoulder bag, which doubled as a briefcase, she checked that her notebook, cell phone, disposable latex gloves, plastic bags and wallet along with her card case and keys nestled in their respective pockets.

Dressed, she ran downstairs, opened a can of Meow Tuna Treats for Opie and filled his water bowl. Instead of the waffles and bacon she'd planned for Sunday breakfast, she grabbed two MacIntosh apples, her consumer's bow to nationalism, and hurried out the door. With the stereo blasting an aria from
Madame Butterfly
, and her secondhand red Mazda Miata exceeding the speed limit, she arrived at Carleton at nine twenty. The marathon was less than two hours old. Enough time for a couple of constables to rope off the scene and prevent an ambulance crew from making off with Robertson's body. On past occasions, overzealous ambulance staff, worried they might be accused of negligence, had rushed clearly dead victims to hospital. Only something as discernably fatal as a severed head or advanced rigor mortis deterred them.

Two constables, Gregor and Featherstone, awaited her. She'd worked with George Gregor before when she'd been a rookie. He'd given her a hard time. One of the dinosaurs, he referred frequently to “the good old days” and left her in no doubt that in those days there were no women on the force. She'd also heard him use the word “squaws” but had chosen to pretend she hadn't, since she knew he'd complain that some women were “too damn sensitive” to be cops. A plump, square-faced man of middle years, he lacked imagination but performed his routine tasks competently. Sheila Featherstone, a rookie, had asked Rhona to mentor her. Because she was unsure of her own feelings about the force and about the viability of police work as a long-term career for women,
Rhona had been reluctant to accept the role.

At the murder site, Rhona inspected the body. Covered with a green tarp, it lay isolated from the milling crowd by a cordon of yellow tape.

“We've interviewed some of the spectators,” Constable Featherstone said.

“And?”

“Nothing so far. The victim's wife was also running the race. She's over at the medical tent with the doctor who attended the victim.”

“I'll talk to her next. Both of you remain here. Finish with the spectators. The ident team will arrive soon. I'll arrange for an interview room in the gym.”

“Interviews?” Constable Gregor said.

“For the moment, we'll assume Reverend Robertson was killed by one of the runners. It's our job to sort them out. Many probably knew him. It's an out-and-back race that ends on the other side of the campus. I'll meet with the out-of-towners when they finish. If we talk to them now, it'll save them or us from making a trip later on. When you're finished here, you,” she nodded to Constable Gregor, “move to the finish line, take some of the officers with you, and tell the out-of-towners who knew Robertson to change and be at the gym by one thirty.”

“You organize the interviews,” Rhona said to Constable Featherstone. “I'll do them after the marathon finishes.”

Rhona checked the time. “It amazed me, when I watched the Olympics, to see the top runners finishing in a little over two hours. The first ones whip across the line shortly after eleven. Where's the medical tent?”

“Over by the finish line.”

“I'm off to see the widow.”

A short, stocky woman dressed in brown and wearing cowboy boots strode purposefully toward Kas and Hollis as they sat side by side on a cot in the medical tent.

“Mrs. Robertson, I'm Rhona Simpson, the detective in charge of the case.”

“It's Grant, Hollis Grant.”

“Reverend Robertson's wife?”

“That's right.”

“I'll wait outside,” Kas said.

Simpson lowered herself to a cot facing Hollis and took a long careful look at her.

Hollis thought about her appearance, about how she must seem to someone else. At five-foot-ten, with a big-boned frame, some might catalogue her as “super-sized”. As a large woman and as a curly-haired bottle blonde with wall-to-wall freckles, brown eyes partially hidden behind red-framed prescription spectacles that doubled as sunglasses, she knew her appearance commanded attention. Hollis ignored the detective's scrutiny and gazed into the middle distance.

Finished with her examination, the detective reached inside her oversize handbag and removed a black notebook. “What a terrible shock you've had. I'm truly sorry to bother you at this point, but time is important. Are you able to answer a few questions?” She opened her notebook to a clean page and tested the ballpoint clipped to the front of the book.

“I'll do my best, but I
do
feel as if my neurons are scrambled. I can't tell you much . . .”

“I'll start with the most obvious question. Who wanted Reverend Robertson dead?”

Dead. Such a final word. Were all words beginning and ending with the same letter as abrupt? Abba, bob, Dad . . . Was she losing her mind? Pay attention. What had the detective said? “I'm sorry, would you repeat the question?”

“Who wanted your husband dead?”

Focus. One thought at a time. “A minister deals with a huge variety of people—some of them pretty strange.”

“Any trouble recently?”

Trouble. How did you define trouble? “No more than usual.”

“He wasn't nervous or frightened? Didn't speak about anything worrying him?”

In the three years Hollis had known him, she'd never witnessed a single sign of nervousness or fright. And, given their circumstances, she wouldn't have had a clue if anything was worrying him. She shook her head.

“Anything out of the ordinary in his personal life?”

Never anything ordinary. Her mind did a hamster run. Confession time. “I don't think so, but we weren't doing much talking. We're getting a divorce.”

Simpson studied Hollis's face carefully. Hollis hoped the detective didn't look for the obvious. Anyone who watched
TV
knew the nearest and dearest were the likeliest killers, and what better motive than divorce—kill him before you lost him, lost his money, lost your status.

“This was a mutual decision?”

When did two people ever agree to divorce? What had Paul said? The words were engraved on her heart. “This was a mistake. The sooner it's over the sooner we can move on.”
Before he'd confronted her, he'd been withdrawn, but she'd attributed it to the pressure of his work. She hadn't seen the blow coming and felt as if she'd been in a head-on collision. But she didn't need to confess her pain and shock. “More or less.”

“Were you still living together?”

Co-existing. It certainly wasn't living. “In the same house.”

Simpson digested this but didn't pursue the topic. “You hadn't observed a change in his routine. No strange calls, hang-ups, threats?”

“No.”

“Tell me about this morning?”

“Paul wasn't home last night. I walked the dog at six this morning. When we came back, he was eating cereal in the kitchen. We didn't talk. He left ten minutes later.”

“Where was he last night?”

Paul's last night on earth. Poor Paul. “I don't know.”

“Can you think of parishioners or others who'd had a run-in with him? If you can, I'd like their names.”

Hollis shivered and reached for the rough gray blanket folded at the end of the cot. “I'm sorry, I'm having difficulty concentrating. Paul met hundreds of people . . . He loved controversy. Paul is . . .” She stopped. “Paul
was
an advocate for the ordination of homosexual ministers. You noticed his
T
-shirt?”

“Yes, and I've seen him on television. What else might have made someone want to kill him?”

“Hard to say. You know how it is with religion. Even a middle-of-the-road one like the United Church. Lots of passion. Always a debate about something. But it's one thing to disagree with him and another to kill him.” She pulled the blanket tighter. “I can't tell you much about his life at St. Mark's. Paul didn't encourage my involvement. He
said
it was because I'm a Buddhist, although one can be both Christian and Buddhist.”

“Had you been a Buddhist for long?”

“Years. I took a course in comparative religion and Buddhism seemed so sensible, straightforward—a religion for one or for millions.” She smiled thinking about the Buddha. “He was such a good man and . . .”

The detective nodded encouragingly.

“Most Sundays I attended church, but I didn't join the United Church Women or teach Sunday school. Not because I objected. It was Paul. He insisted the church was his bailiwick and told me to stay out.” She heard herself running on like a car with a weight on the gas pedal. She didn't admit how much his rejection had hurt her.

“St. Mark's?”

“Yes.”

“You only went to the church services.”

“Mostly. But three weeks ago, after the eleven o'clock service, because I was curious, I stayed for the meeting where the congregation voted on ordaining homosexuals. It was awful. People had strong opinions and said rotten things.”

“Strong enough to make one of them kill your husband?”

How could anyone but the killer know the answer? “I have no idea.”

“Tell me who said what.” Simpson's pen hovered over the page.

The blanket slid off Hollis's shoulders. “They perched in a group like vultures.” She tapped her left index finger with her right one. “Reverend Martin Cross was vicious. He's a non-practicing minister who rants of sin, hell and doom and spends his time plotting against ‘The Devil's Agents'.” She shook her head. “He doesn't run. And neither of the two Ritter sisters could have done it. Malvena said homosexuality
might
have existed when she was young, but it
certainly
never became a topic at congregational meetings.”

Hollis realized the detective wanted her to speed up the
narration. But it was impossible. Unless she reran the event, scene by scene like a video, she wouldn't remember exactly who had spoken and what position each had taken and it might be important, might provide a lead to Paul's killer.

“There was a crowd of those, well, I call them the Proponents of Family, capital P, capital F. They believe the acknowledgment and acceptance of gays undermines the foundation of Christian family life.”

Detective Simpson shifted and glanced at her watch.

Hollis justified herself. “A number of them do jog. Part of the credo of the healthy mind and body dictates that they keep fit. Frank Youville, Knox Porter and Jim Brown are in good enough shape to run a marathon.”

“Were any of them running in this one?”

“No, not as far as I know.”

“Before the race began, did you stand beside or talk to anyone who could identify you?”