great. I think Mary Beth Cardwell, the psychiatric social worker at Brockville, will have information to narrow the field. She’s phoning later.”
At four minutes to eleven, Mary Beth Cardwell phoned. “I’m sorry I’ve taken a long time getting back to you. Actually, I’m sending you a fax, but I thought you’d like to hear the stories in case you have questions. Interrupt at any point. I had four files on my desk. The top one was a case history of a woman with multiple personalities. I suppose you’ve read how childhood abuse splinters personalities—they sometimes coexist uneasily for years. Then some incident triggers a conflict and anything can happen.”
“I’ve seen The Three Faces of Eve and read a fair amount about the disorder.”
“In this case, a woman with several personalities flipped out in her teens. Actually, she killed her uncle, who was her guardian and her abuser. Her dominant personality, the nice obedient conforming child, knew nothing about the murder. The judge ruled she wasn’t responsible and sent her to us for treatment. She received extensive psychiatric help, and, eventually, the dominant personality amalgamated the others.”
“Can you tell me her age and where she lives?’
“Actually, we haven’t had an update on her whereabouts for years. When last we heard, she lived in western Canada—Alberta I think. She’d be, let me see, she’d be thirty-five.”
“What about the other three.”
“I can say with absolute certainty the man whose case is in the second file didn’t commit your murder. He’s in Kingston Pen, and he’ll be there for a long time.”
“How do you know?”
“About six months ago, he gave the prison psychiatrist permission to obtain his file from us because he hoped to receive better treatment if the authorities realized he’d been abused as a child. In the correspondence with the psychiatrist, I learned he’d killed a policeman in an armed robbery and had ten years to serve before he was eligible for parole.”
“And the other two?”
“The third isn’t likely to be your man. Actually, he’s a victim of physical mistreatment.” She corrected herself. “Not mistreatment—neglect. He had a congenital hip defect and didn’t receive medical attention. He walks with crutches. If you want, I can relate his story, but he couldn’t have run a marathon or even pretended to be a runner.”
“We’re down to one. Tell me about him or her?”
“I’ll never, never forgive myself if my going to the bathroom set this in motion. This man is in his early forties. He had an absolutely awful childhood—he was the son of fanatical Christian parents. From the reports, I’d judge his mother was mentally ill. Actually, I think she was obsessed with visions of hell and damnation and found him a constant reminder of the weakness of the flesh. Anyway, she neglected him. When he was ten, his mother died giving birth. The baby also died. His father, a stern and punitive man, fell apart. With no relatives in Canada and no support, he failed to cope as a single father. There may be trouble in foster homes now but, in the past, the orphanages run by the churches sometimes were much worse.” She cleared her throat. “One of the caregivers sexually abused the boy. Since he’d been a baby, his fundamentalist parents had drilled into him the absolute necessity of telling the truth and adhering to a strict moral code—he must have believed the rest of the world followed the same rules. After he was sexually attacked, he told the authorities and accused the abuser.”
“It should have been the right thing to do, but from the tone of your voice, I gather it wasn’t.”
“Absolutely not. Actually, officialdom chose to disbelieve him. He ended up at a juvenile correctional facility, where the staff branded him a liar and troublemaker. He went off the deep end and organized the other boys into a male prostitution ring to obtain favours from the guards. When his actions came to light, we were called in. At that point, his father, who had pulled himself together, rescued him. Because we have nothing else in our records, I presume he stayed out of trouble.”
“He might be our man. For me, it’s hard to believe revelations of the details of an event decades ago would affect a man’s life today, but I suppose if it’s a story he’s hidden for that long, he might be irrational about his secret. Can you tell me his name?”
“Unfortunately, not unless you go through channels. The information is confidential. I wish I could. I’m wretchedly sorry if I precipitated this situation.”
“Don’t be hard on yourself. Who would have imagined that if you left a clergyman with confidential files for five minutes, he’d read them?’
“I should have taken the papers with me. I suppose I worried he’d think I distrusted him, and it embarrassed me. It’ll never happen again, but that’s no consolation.”
After she’d spoken to Cardwell, Rhona scratched her ear and considered what she’d heard. She wasn’t prepared to relinquish Dr. Uiska as a suspect, but it was time to zero in on the backgrounds of Staynor, Toberman, Eakins and Leach. She reached for the phone.
Eighteen
Monday dragged on as Hollis worked at the tedious mechanics of sorting out her life. She wanted to cancel the tiresome visit to the Porter’s musty attic but told herself boredom was better than an attack by the killer. Boredom was good.
In the early evening, after she’d waded through the multitude of tasks and walked MacTee, she considered what she’d wear. No black or navy. She pulled together a bright outfit to remind herself spring had arrived. Then she set out for the Porters’.
On her walk through the neighbourhood, she savoured the May air. The evening light highlighted the colour of the glowing beds of tulips and daffodils like a cibachrome portrait.
The Porters lived four blocks from the manse in a Tudor semidetached house of brick and plaster. The weathered red brick first storey complemented the taupe stucco and wood second storey. Unfortunately, the lavish use of flat, mud-brown paint on the wood trim destroyed the potential charm of the building, which drooped despondently under its depressing paint.
In front of the house, she hesitated—she still hadn’t convinced herself a visit was necessary, but since the Porters had spearheaded the refugee project, she would have felt churlish if she’d refused. And, it was true, given Paul’s, his mother’s and some of her own possessions, she did have a pile of items to donate. This visit would tell her which things to earmark for the refugees and which to donate to the Salvation Army.
There were two front doors—one to the Porters and one for the third floor apartment. She rang the Porters’ bell.
The solid, highly varnished oak door opened before she removed her finger from the black button. Involuntarily, she stepped back. She felt as if Knox had been lying in wait. Fleetingly, she thought of the unwary moth lured into a spider’s web.
“Hollis.” Knox’s eyes glittered. “Thank you for coming.”
“It was nice to have an excuse to walk and enjoy this beautiful evening. As I said last night at church, I do appreciate the speed with which you’ve launched this project.”
“Linda had to go out—I’ll take you right up.” Knox stepped outside onto the porch and unlocked the door leading up to the apartment on the top floor. He moved inside and held the door open for her.
An urge to turn and run almost overwhelmed her, but she told herself not to be silly. Knox struck her as acting simultaneously furtive and threatening, but it probably wasn’t Knox as much as her own reaction to the multitude of shocks she’d suffered in the last few days. After all, Knox, a stalwart of the church, was an innocuous man by anyone’s standards.
“I won’t keep you long. I’m sure you have more work to do on Paul’s papers.”
What did Paul’s papers have to do with anything?
“Yes,