Читать книгу Hollis Grant Mysteries 4-Book Bundle - Joan Boswell - Страница 14

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.”

“How awful.”

“Too right. Stan went bananas. He threatened divorce, threatened to take the kids, threatened to kill Paul. It was ugly. Really, really ugly.”

“Didn’t I see Stan’s name in the marathon program?”

“He finished in four and a half hours.”

“Did the police talk to him about Paul?”

Denise tilted her head to one side and regarded Hollis with a quizzical half-smile. “Saying he’d kill Paul and doing it are two different things. He’s verbally abusive, but he’s never done anything physical.” She hunched her shoulders. “He volunteered to talk to a detective interviewing runners after the marathon. I don’t know what he said, but I can’t imagine he talked about the affair. Even to himself, he can barely admit it happened.”

Hollis poured herself another cup.

“He admired Paul’s sermons. I think he told the detective about them. I’m sure he didn’t say anything about me. I don’t think he’d confess to anyone. How am I going to tell him about the will? My God, he’ll have a fit.”

The two women sat silently.

“But never mind me. What about you? It must have been a terrible shock for you when you read Paul’s will. And really hard for you to phone. I’m so grateful that you came to tell me.” Denise said. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“It has been pretty grim. Thanks for the offer, but there’s nothing you or anyone else can do. Paul was a malicious, conniving bastard, pure and simple. I only wish I could promise to keep it a secret and arrange for you to pick up the cheque at the lawyer’s office.” Hollis shook her head. “But I can’t—wills are probated—made a matter of public record. Because of Paul’s notoriety and his murder, it’ll only be a matter of time before the will is read, maybe even reported in the paper. And such bizarre bequests will attract attention.”

Denise covered her face with her hands. “My God, what a price to pay. My kids will disown me.” She dropped her hands, rose and walked around the table where she bent, circled Hollis’s shoulders with her arms and hugged her. “Thank you for warning me.”

Driving home, Hollis wondered about Stan Eakins and his temper.

Chequebooks in her bag, Rhona drove to the Gloucester branch of the Bank of Commerce, where the eager young manager, exuding fumes of Obsession, shepherded her through the thick steel doorway, the door ajar to facilitate business, and into the vault. He scanned the entries in the dog-eared log safety deposit box users signed each time they opened their boxes.

“You’re right.” The manager lifted his eyes from the log. “Paul Robertson’s name is here. Now for the acid test—will this key work?”

The bank’s master key unlocked the first lock, and Rhona’s key unlocked the second. When the chunky little door swung open, the manager slid the long steel container out of its slot and handed it to Rhona before he conducted her out of the vault and into one of three private cell-like rooms where owners emptied or added to the contents of their boxes.

Rhona raised the grey metal lid and peered inside—it was empty. Emerging from the cubicle she handed the box, the chequebook and a search warrant to the manager. “I’d like a print-out of recent activity for this box and for the account that goes with these cheque books.”

The manager trotted off. Simpson chose one of the thinly upholstered chairs in the waiting area and considered the pamphlets shilling the bank’s various services. She’d read through the info on mortgages and sat back to wonder if she and Zack might buy a place if she moved to Toronto when the manager reappeared. Simpson dropped the brochure on the pale wood table and stood up. Being short was bad enough—she hated to have anyone speak to her when she was sitting down.

“I took a quick glance, and it doesn’t appear the box has been opened this year. The chequing account is in Paul Robertson’s name, and there’s been a great deal of activity over the last three years—regular deposits and corresponding withdrawals. The balance never increased above the initial four hundred dollars he deposited to open it—in fact, it’s decreased to cover administrative charges.”

“Would you go over the listings for the past three years as well as the log of the safety deposit box? List every date when Paul Robertson used the box and fax the list to me along with a printout of the activity in the chequing account for the last year.” She handed her card to the manager. The manager promised to assign someone to work on it right away.

Driving downtown, Rhona filled the car with a fug of smoke. Paul Robertson had deviated far from his usual haunts to open this secret account—he must have had a reason. Perhaps he parked cash in the safety deposit box until he needed it for something else. And the chequing account—it appeared he was laundering money. She shook her head. This could be a wild goose chase—she had no concrete reason to think Robertson was a blackmailer. However, on the off chance he was, Rhona would obtain warrants to enable her to scrutinize withdrawals from JJ Staynor’s, Tessa Uiska’s and Marcus Toberman’s accounts to see if any of their withdrawals matched Robertson’s deposits.

At police headquarters on the way to her own office, she stopped to check how Featherstone was making out with the list of runners. Without waiting for an invitation, she sat on the chrome and green plastic visitor’s chair while Featherstone finished an ongoing phone conversation.

“We have to match every name on the list of runners with an address.” Featherstone listened. “That’s your problem. You’d better figure out how to solve it because I want names, addresses and phone numbers and I want them yesterday.”

After the constable banged the phone down and shook her head, she reached for her notebook. “Anything else I should be working on?”

Rhona crossed her legs and admired the colour and workmanship of her cowboy boots. “You heard someone tried to break in to Robertson’s house last night?”

The constable nodded and doodled on the pad. From where Rhona sat, it resembled a mustachioed desperado.

“And someone shot at his wife when she was running this morning and someone left what might have been a letter bomb in the front hall of the manse.”

“I heard about the shooting but not about the letter.” Featherstone jotted down a few words and enclosed the desperado behind prison bars.

“I had the bomb squad pick it up, but I feel pretty sure it wasn’t a bomb.”

“Psychic power?”

“No, when I saw it, I left it alone ,not only in case it was a letter bomb, but in case we could lift fingerprints or DNA. It would have been in A-1 condition if Ms Grant’s dog hadn’t picked it up. He pranced into the kitchen and dropped the envelope at her feet as if he was bringing her a great treasure. Obviously, since I’m here to tell you about it, it didn’t explode, but it’s dripping with dog saliva.”

Featherstone rocked in her swivel chair and giggled. “Like the movies. They’ll be shooting a movie titled Simpson and—what’s the dog’s name?”

Rhona hated being the butt of a joke but recognized the humour in the situation. “MacTee. They should have named him Zamboni—he produces more drool than a rink watering machine.”

“It doesn’t have the same ring to it as Turner and Hooch, but Simpson and MacTee might go somewhere.”

Rhona directed what she considered her “dagger to the heart” glare at the constable.

Featherstone’s smile vanished. “Are you giving Ms Grant extra protection?”

“Not yet. If whoever shot her had wanted to kill her, it would have been easy. I think he intended to scare her. How are you coming with the list?”

“Should have it done by the end of the day. The routine stuff’s finished. We’ve run a survey of out-of-towners. The minister from up the valley, Leach, may have had a motive, but Robertson did him dirt a long time ago, and it’s hard to believe he’d nurse a grudge all these years. As far as we’ve been able to figure out, the other out-of-towners had no reason to kill him.” She extracted a paper from one of the tidy piles on her desk. “I have a list of runners you’ve talked to or still 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.