Cut Off His Tale: A Hollis Grant Mystery (31 page)

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.

Very early in the morning, a doctor breezed inside her curtained sanctuary and examined her. “You're okay. Your pupils are normal. I expect you're pretty sore.” He took out his prescription pad. “This is for Tylenol 3 with codeine. Your shoulder will hurt and be awkward—use the sling to stabilize it until you recover. Take these—the dosage is on the bottle—and see your own doctor next week. You're free to go, but have someone come and pick you up.” He handed her the prescription and displayed his mastery of the physician's backward two-step, an agile move designed to extricate busy doctors from encounters with all but the quickest and most persistent of patients.

Hollis smiled at the performance as she levered myself upright—not an easy move with one arm immobilized, every inch of her body hurting and her head aching. Out of bed, she shuffled her resisting flesh through the encircling beige curtain and glanced at the room's other three occupants. Without her glasses, they were all a little fuzzy, but she saw two were of indeterminate age—lank, untended hair, a patina of illness and no makeup made it impossible to guess whether they were thirty-four of fifty-four. The third, perched alertly against her pillows, wore a bed jacket of fluorescent crocheted circles that would have dimmed the vitality of a bloomingly healthy teenager, let alone its wearer, who would not see eighty again.

Nevertheless, with a snap of bouncing curls and the purposeful
adjustment of gold-rimmed glasses, she managed to overwhelm her coat of many colours. “And what have you been up to, young lady? Last night there was a policeman sitting outside the door. We figured a felon had joined us.” She giggled. “I even peeked to see if you were handcuffed or shackled to the bed.”

A policeman—Simpson hadn't caught Knox and had been afraid he might try to kill her. Was he still there? Hollis creaked across the room and peered into the hall. The chair outside the door was unoccupied.

“You didn't need to do that—I could have told you—he left at ten after five. The duty nurse told him he'd had a message that you weren't in danger any more.” She chuckled, “That's when I felt sure you weren't the criminal. But, young lady, you do realize we had a bad night's sleep because of you—we woke up every hour on the hour when the nurses came to check on you.”

It was a long time since anyone had addressed her as “young lady” and, ironically, on this particular morning, she felt anything but young. “I'm sorry, but it wasn't my idea.” She temporized. “I had an accident. I fell downstairs. You probably heard the doctor say I'm okay.” Copying the physician's two-step, she eased herself to the bathroom.

The battered face in the mirror startled her. Her nose swollen and bruised took up half her face. She touched it gently and wondered if it was broken. She'd ask Tessa.

After pumping harsh pink hospital soap into her hands, she lathered, gingerly washed, and dried with paper towels. It wasn't Elizabeth Arden's Red Door Salon, but she felt better. She vetoed substituting soap for toothpaste and rinsed her mouth with water.

Carefully, creeping like a stroke victim on an icy sidewalk, she moved to the nursing nation, humming with post shift change activity, and phoned Tessa. Even though she hadn't been there for Hollis before, she was the one Hollis wanted.

“Tessa, it's Hollis. I've had an accident, and I'm at the hospital. They've said I'm ‘fit to go home'. I know you don't leave for work until nine, and I wondered if you'd pick me up.” Without waiting for a reply, she continued, “It's an imposition, but I . . .”

“In the hospital. What happened? Which one?”

“The Municipal.”

“I'll leave immediately. Have an orderly bring you down to the west side door. I'll be there inside of fifteen minutes.”

On her return walk to her room, Hollis found she'd limbered up. Watched by the other three occupants, she pulled on her underpants and her yellow skirt but the bra and yellow top stymied her.

The woman in the psychedelic bed jacket took charge. “Forget the bra. Bring me the blouse. I'll undo it and button it on over your sling.”

Hollis obeyed, thanked her benefactor, and wished the women speedy recoveries before she limped to the nurses' nation and arranged for an attendant to wheel her to the side door, where Tessa bundled her into the car.

“What happened?”

“It's a long story, but never mind about me for a minute. I'm the one leaving hospital, but you look like you've been hit by a bus. What's the matter?”

Tessa responded by pulling to the side of the road and killing the engine. She turned to face Hollis. In an agitated voice, she said, “Hollis, I feel awful. I've avoided you when you needed me. I've been a terrible friend, thinking only of Kas and myself.”

Hollis wanted to reach out and pat Tessa, but with her immobilized left arm, she could only wait for Tessa to finish her speech.

“I have to tell you about me and Paul.”

Not Tessa, surely her wonderful self-possessed friend hadn't fallen for Paul's line. But why not—she had.

Tessa ran her fingers through her already dishevelled hair.
“It's ancient history. The beginning . . .” She paused and said, “No. Before I tell the story I have to share something else.”

Hollis didn't think she wanted to hear what Tessa had to say.

“Simpson interviewed me repeatedly. You're aware of how preoccupied I've been. I wanted to tell you why, but I couldn't. It was really bothering me. I felt terrible when I didn't come to the visitation, when I wasn't there for you.” She leaned closer to Hollis. “You remember the
Citizen
had a description of the knife that killed Paul?”

What did this have to do with anything?

“The
Citizen
identified it as a boning knife. A week ago Sunday, we invited one of Kas's colleagues for dinner. I decided a stuffed rolled roast of pork would be easy, but when I searched for the boning knife—no knife. I used another knife, but when I saw the picture in the paper . . .” Tessa's voice shook. “Our knife, which is identical to the one in the photo, is still missing. After I read the article, I searched the kitchen again, but to no avail.” She gripped the steering wheel tight enough to whiten her knuckles. “I didn't want to accuse Kas. Something was going on, but I didn't know what and at that point I couldn't do anything. We had to attend a testimonial dinner for the retiring Deputy Minister of Health, and both of us had speeches to give. Sunday I was on call, and Kas was playing golf. Although I worked yesterday, my concentration was shot. I wondered what the connections were and what Kas was hiding. Last night, I couldn't bear it any longer. I woke him up at two thirty, and said we had to talk. Before I lost my nerve, I asked him point blank if he'd killed Paul.”

Tessa had believed Kas was the murderer.

“It was horrible. Kas couldn't accept that I'd suspected him.” She rested her head on the steering wheel.

“He didn't kill Paul—Knox Porter, a member of St. Mark's, did it.”

“You're kidding.” She lifted her head. “You mean the police have solved the case. That's wonderful.” She shook her head. “Suspecting Kas wasn't the only thing bothering me—there's something else to tell you.”

Hollis didn't want to listen. Knox's revelations had been monstrous, but this might be worse.

“Years ago, when I was a medical student, I did a rotation at 999 Queen Street, the psychiatric hospital in Toronto. We had a pregnant fourteen-year old catatonic patient on one of the locked wards. She was detained on a Lieutenant Governor's warrant, because she'd killed her father who'd physically and sexually abused her.” Tessa traveled the tunnel of memory. “I performed an abortion. Of course, I labelled it a D. and C. When my patient came out of the anaesthetic, I told her what I'd done, because I've always believed catatonic patients hear you even when they appear totally unreachable. I proved my point, because from then on she responded. She recovered and later was released and lives an ordinary life. I hear from her at Christmas. I've never regretted the decision. At the time, abortions were illegal. If anyone had blown the whistle, I wouldn't be a doctor today.

“Tessa, it was a long time ago. Things are different, and it sounds as if it was a compassionate act performed at great personal risk.”

“Thanks. Your dear husband didn't agree. Paul Robertson, good Christian, tracked down the story. He threatened to spill the beans and have me struck from the medical register.”

“Did he blackmail you?”

Tessa settled against the car door. “No.”

Before Hollis allowed herself to feel relief, Tessa continued, “That wouldn't have been diabolical enough for Paul. He forced me to donate five hundred dollars a month to the Right to Lifers. I feel terrible not to have told Kas or you. What kind
of a marriage do we have if I didn't confide in him? We should have presented a united front and challenged Paul. Even if it had become public, surely the college of Physicians and Surgeons wouldn't have done more than reprimand me for a humanitarian act performed decades earlier.”

Hollis shut her eyes, opened them and twisted to reach her right hand across her inert left arm. “I'm sorry. It's a terrible thing to admit, but Paul was a stranger to me. I had no idea what he was capable of. And I only found out about some of the terrible things he'd done after he was dead.”

They sat in silence until Tessa leaned forward. Hollis was being assessed as a patient, not a friend. “My God, I'm not much of a doctor. Now that I'm
really
taking in your appearance, I realize you're the one who needs help—not me. What happened?”

“As I said, Knox Porter killed Paul. Last night he tried to kill me.”

“Knox Porter. Isn't he the man you described as wimpy? The one with the wife who always wears brown and repeats everything he says.”

“That's the man. After he killed Paul, Knox broke into the manse, shot at me, sent a threatening letter, murdered Sally and intended to kill me too. He lured me to their third floor apartment, tied me up and dragged me down three flights of stairs to take me away and kill me. The problem is I don't know what happened last night because I was knocked out. I came to in the ambulance. I think Knox escaped because a policeman sat outside my hospital room last night, probably because they were afraid Knox would come after me—he'd told me why and how he'd killed Paul. However, early this morning, the policeman received a message that I was no longer in danger and left. I presume Simpson and the police caught him.”

“Simpson? Where does she fit in the equation?”

“Simpson showed up at the last minute. I was gagged, but
I made as much noise as possible and threw myself down the stairs. The ambulance attendant told me only the police were at the Porters' house when they arrived.”

The women parked at the manse at the exact moment the door flew open, and Hollis had a blurry picture of MacTee galloping across the lawn to attend to nature's needs. Standing in the open doorway, Elsie waited for him to finish.

Tessa helped Hollis out of the car. When Elsie saw them, she hurried down the steps. “What happened? Here, let me give you a hand.”

Inside, Tessa apologized for leaving, but promised to return later. Hollis collected a spare pair of glasses from the junk drawer under the kitchen telephone before she slumped at the table.