Cut Off His Tale: A Hollis Grant Mystery (20 page)

“It's Hollis. I've been shot.”

Hollis was capable of phoning. Her voice was strong.

“How badly?”

“Superficial. Just a scrape. On my thigh. Kas cleaned it up.” Hollis's voice quivered. “He was trying to kill me.”

He?
Did she mean Kas Yantha? But, if he'd shot her, why would he fix her up?

“Who? Who tried to kill you? Where were you?”

“Running with MacTee on the Experimental Farm.”

“It's a big farm.” The wrong tone. Sarcasm wasn't the right approach. “Sorry,
where
on the farm?”

“South of the big yellow barn in the middle of the farm fields nearest to the university. On the track running south towards the horse barns.” Hollis paused and continued in a firmer voice. “He shot more than once. Four times, I think. I heard the first one without recognizing what it was. The second one grazed my thigh. Two missed.”

“I'm glad to hear that. I'll send police to the farm immediately. If you're up to it, I'd like to take you to the scene and have you show us exactly where you were. By the way,
when did this happen?”

“I left the house about six-thirty.”

Rhona butted her cigarette as she pulled into the drive of the doctors' house and admired the two storey stucco mock Tudor. No doubt about it, two doctors, even with the state paying the freight, did a whole lot better than one detective, also paid by the state. Maybe she should have gone to med school instead of Police College. Very funny. Her high school science marks had ruled out options requiring courses like biochemistry.

Dr. Yantha conducted her through a string of cool, minimalist modern rooms to the kitchen. In contrast to the rest of the house, hand-painted Mexican tiles, a terra cotta floor, oak-trimmed cabinets and a collection of exotic cacti huddled under the skylight, reaching for remembered desert heat. Light made the kitchen warm and inviting. From a wicker basket in the corner, two Siamese cats regarded her with suspicion.

Hollis, in a dry tracksuit, nursed a mug of coffee. She shook her head. “I can't believe it happened. My mind is racing around like a hamster in a wheel. When he broke into the church office and tried to invade the manse, I figured it was because of Paul's work. But—this.” Her eyes reflected her puzzlement. “Unless the killer was the worst marksman in the world, he
could
have killed me. He must be trying to scare me.” Her brow furrowed. “And I don't know why.” She moved her mug in circles on the table. “I'm not going into hiding but I don't
ever, ever
, want another experience like this.”

She wasn't hysterical, but she wasn't her usual controlled self. And who would be? “It certainly was a frightening experience,” Rhona said.

“Frightening ranks as a major understatement when you hear the rest. I also came within an inch of being flattened by a transport truck when I ran across the road to escape the
killer. I misjudged the truck's speed. The backwash tossed me in the ditch. The driver thought he'd killed me, and I was afraid he'd killed the dog.”

“Horrible,” Rhona said. “I don't want to push you but, if you feel okay, finish your coffee, and we'll return to the scene.”

“Thanks for picking me up and fixing me up,” Hollis said to Kas. “I'll be in touch with Tessa later—
we
have to talk.”

“It was nothing. Tessa . . .” Kas stopped. He and Hollis exchanged a meaningful glance.

Rhona felt she was missing something; she determined to burrow away until she reached the truth about Tessa.

“Why don't you stay with us tonight? Don't rattle around in the manse feeling scared about what may happen next,” Kas said.

“It's kind of you, but you have your cats, and I have MacTee. There's a control pad for the security system in my bedroom. I'm due for a good night's sleep, and the best chance is at home in my own bed.”

The dog, hearing his name, woofed briefly to remind them of his existence. Hollis retrieved him from the adjacent laundry room.

Being a cat person, Rhona didn't relish having this large wet dog in her car, but she didn't have an option—Hollis wasn't going anywhere without him. Dr. Yantha must have read Rhona's mind. He collected a threadbare Hudson's Bay blanket from the laundry room. “Throw this over the seat. I don't want it back.”

Maybe he had redeeming features after all.

At the Experimental Farm, a cruiser was parked beside the yellow barn, and two slicker-clad men were examining the track. “Was the marksman behind the barn?” Rhona said when they drew up beside the police car.

“Yes, where the men are. I had a quick glimpse.” She pointed toward the track. “I'd passed those barns when he shot at me.
Then another bullet splashed into a puddle ahead of me.”

“With this rain, there'll be footprints. I'll tell them where to search for the bullets.” Rhona left the car and slogged through the mud to speak to the two policemen stringing yellow police tape and cordoning off the area close to the barn. After a brief conversation, she squished to the car and smiled at Hollis. “You deserve a few perks with seniority. I did my years out in the field plodding around in the rain. Did you run here from your house, or do you have a car somewhere?”

Hollis directed her to the parking lot, where Rhona stopped some distance from Hollis's truck. “Give me your keys. Remain here until I've done a thorough examination.” Hollis watched Rhona give the truck a careful visual once-over before she started it, switched it off and returned.

“Did you think it might be booby-trapped?” Hollis asked, clearly wanting Rhona to deny it.

“Always better to make sure. I'll follow you to the manse.”

At the house, Hollis disarmed the alarm and opened the door. Rhona checked the house. And found it—a padded brown envelope with no stamps and an address composed of cutout newspaper letters lying on the floor in front of the front door's brass mail flap. Rhona backed away and tiptoed to the kitchen.

Hollis, who'd poured herself a glass of milk, sat at the kitchen table. “Oh no, what is it? What's wrong?”

Rhona placed her finger on her lips. “We have to leave. Very, very quietly. Slide off the chair.”

“Why?” Hollis set the glass gently on the table and eased to her feet.

“There's an envelope on the floor in the front hall that didn't come through the post office. It may be a hand-delivered sympathy letter, but I doubt it.”

MacTee bounded into the kitchen, his exuberantly wagging tail signalling his pride in his retrieving abilities. A brown envelope sagged from his mouth. The dog sashayed over to Hollis, gave the envelope a saliva-laden munch and dropped it at her feet.

“Out.” Rhona grabbed Hollis's arm and yanked her toward the door.

“What . . .”

MacTee took a tentative step toward Hollis, stopped and considered the letter.

“If he picks it up again, he could trigger an explosive device.”

“No,” Hollis commanded.

MacTee frowned and turned his full attention to the envelope.

“No,” Hollis deepened her voice as she repeated the order while Rhona pulled her arm to hurry her out of the room.

MacTee cast one more longing look at the envelope before he wagged his tail and followed them out of the house.

“Don't stop here. Flying glass could kill us,” Rhona said and hauled Hollis around the corner of the house to the driveway. “It might be a letter bomb,” she said tersely.

“A—letter—bomb?” Hollis said each word as if it came from Urdu or Hungarian and had no meaning for her. “You did say—letter bomb?”

“I did. Fat padded brown envelope. No postmark. Cut out letters.” She removed her cell phone from her giant handbag, called the station and ordered the bomb squad to the manse.

Outside, Hollis frowned. “I had something crucial to tell you, but I can't remember what it was.” She shook her head and pursed her lips. “Being a target cleared my mind like the delete button on a computer.” She attempted a smile. “To continue the simile, I hope I can retrieve it from the trash bin.”

The detective smiled faintly.

“Whatever it was, I didn't contact you last night because you couldn't do anything about it until morning.”

“Anything to do with the safety deposit key?”

“Of course. That's it. When sleep evaded me last night, I decided to write thank-you letters. All I had in my office were note cards with flowers or puppies; I needed plain stationery. I tried the desk in Paul's study—not his inner sanctum desk—the one on the main floor. In his top drawer, in plain sight, I found a bundle of chequebooks. Isn't that what
they
, whoever
they
are, tell you to do—hide things in plain sight, and no one will spot them.”

“What bank?”

“A branch of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce in Gloucester. And the interesting thing about them—as you know chequebooks normally have your name and address printed in the upper left hand corner—these books have no identifying information. As far as I ever knew, Paul dealt with the Bank of Nova Scotia at the corner of Fourth and Bank.”

At this point the bomb squad, dressed in futuristic gear,
arrived, and, after preliminary preparation, sent their robotic machine in to retrieve the letter.

“Do you have someone coming in, or can I take you somewhere?”

“I'm okay. Not great, but okay.”

“If you're sure, I'll collect the cheque book and move along.”

Following Simpson's departure, Hollis brewed coffee, filled a thermos and took it to her bedroom.

She'd changed and washed her face at Kas's, but it hadn't been enough; she wanted a shower. She stripped and looked at the bandage high on her thigh. She wanted to remove it and examine the scrape. But, if she did, she'd have to replace it, or she wouldn't be able to shower.

Hollis grabbed her dressing gown from its hook on the bathroom door, retraced her steps to the kitchen, unearthed the plastic wrap and swathed her bandaged thigh. After a soothing shower, she dressed in comfortable buckskin pants and a cable knit black turtleneck. In the bathroom, she trained the hair dryer on her hair and watched in the mirror as a halo of blonde curls emerged.

Not too bad for a nearly killed, nearly run-over, nearly blown-up survivor.

Something niggled at her mind. With a second cup of coffee clutched in her hand she paced the room. Denise Nielsen—the will.

The first morning she'd attended St. Mark's, Denise had hurried over to her at coffee hour and said, “Welcome to St. Mark's. I want to thank you on behalf of our family. Because my niece enrolled in your course at the college and heard you emphasize the importance of oral history, she rushed out and tape-recorded my parents' stories of their childhood and early days. My dad died shortly after she finished, and we have you to thank for the wonderful tapes. You must feel good knowing
what an impact you've had.”

Hollis smiled as she remembered the conversation. Denise had chosen the exact moment when Hollis, uncertain in her new role as minister's wife and upset by Paul's reaction to her pink suit, had longed for positive reinforcement. How would Denise react when the terms of Paul's will became public? How would anyone feel if they'd had an affair and the man left them money for ‘the pleasure they have given me'?

Denise's husband, Stan Eakins, also attended church. He reminded Hollis of an Aberdeen Angus bull: range-fed, dominant and totally lacking in subtlety. A man who would hate the role of cuckolded husband.

Had he known about his wife's affair? Did Hollis have a responsibility? The Buddha, like Jesus, encouraged his followers to “do unto others”. If she hadn't thought so before, the surprises she'd received since Paul's murder told her Denise would want to be told
before
there was any chance of the terms becoming public. Without giving herself time to reconsider, she found their number, pushed the buttons and nurtured a tiny hope that Denise, an emergency room nurse, might be at work.

Denise answered.

Hollis blurted her message like a kid asking for a first date. “It's Hollis Grant, and I have something I must talk to you about. If you're going to be home in the next hour and if you're alone, may I come over?”

“Hollis, how mysterious. I can't imagine what you can't talk about over the phone,” Denise said in a tone of voice indicating she was indulging a woman who'd suffered a little too much stress. “I'm working the four to eleven. I'll make coffee.”

Hollis didn't have the will—Simpson had taken it to photocopy. But Denise wouldn't need to see it in black and white.

Denise, comfortable in blue jeans and a denim shirt, ushered
Hollis into the kitchen. A plate of brownies and two mugs with “I love my mommy” and “I love my daddy” sat on the highly polished pine kitchen table. They chatted while Denise filled the cups and offered cream, sugar and cookies.

“Well, what is this mysterious meeting about?”

Hollis couldn't meet her eyes. “Paul's will provided five thousand dollars for you, the same amount for six other women, and said it was ‘for the pleasure they have given me'. If he'd made a provision like that for me, I'd want to hear about it before the terms of the will became common knowledge, so I came to tell you. I wouldn't have if Stan had been home.”

Silence.

Hollis risked a glance and saw Denise, eyes downcast, twisting her wedding ring round and round.

“He knows.”

“Since when?” Hollis said before her inner monitor told her it was none of her business.

“A month ago. It ended before you married Paul, but when it was going on . . .” She released a long breathy sigh. “Paul was a sexy man and very persuasive. I went to him for counselling, and one thing led . . . Anyway, I cat-sit for a friend of mine who travels on business, and I had access to her house and Paul and I did, no, I'd better take the blame. I set up a new camera—the kind you can arrange the setting and run from behind the camera, and it takes a delayed shot. I got carried away and wondered if with a run and a leap it would look as if we'd been at it for hours.” She gave Hollis a sheepish grin. “It worked. I was proud of my photographic skill, and I didn't destroy the print, because I didn't expect Stan to go through my things. He never has, but he was searching for a photo of his mother to give to a local historical society and . . .” She shrugged. “You get the picture.” She giggled. “It's not funny, but it
was
Stan
who got the picture.”