leftover-living smell of furnished apartments everywhere. Old white chenille bedspreads, draped over what she assumed were pieces of upholstered furniture, converted the unseen objects into ghostly threatening presences.
Knox, breathing as if he’d climbed the CN Tower instead of three flights of stairs, moved restlessly to and fro or stood in one spot, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “We have quite a bit of furniture. The last family didn’t want it—they both got good jobs and left it for others who might be less fortunate.”
“That was nice of them.”
To take her mind off her uneasiness, Hollis suggested they get to work. She removed a green notebook and ballpoint pen from her handbag. “I’ll prepare two columns. In one, I’ll jot down everything you need at the moment. In the other, I’ll list everything you can store or use to set up future refugee families.”
Knox continued to move restlessly, but he fixed a disconcerting, unblinking stare at her face. Her apprehension increased, but she resolved to try for an attitude of “business as usual”.
“Do you have a place here or at the church to store extras for other families?”
“Yes, we do.”
“Do you want me to make a second list of extra things I have?”
After a lengthy pause, her question penetrated Knox’s agitation. “Yes. But we’ll organize for this family before we worry about the next one.” He jerked himself over to a massive chest of drawers on the opposite side of the room, bent over, and pulled the bottom drawer halfway out. “Here are the bed linens. Why don’t you make an inventory.”
He left the drawer gaping open and took four robot-like steps to the window, where he turned away from her and peered outside.
Alarmed by his twitchy movements and rigidly hunched shoulders, Hollis wondered if he was having a neurological attack, and if there was something she should do. The best thing would be to rush through the job and escape the claustrophobic apartment.
Edging over to the chest, she kept an eye on Knox, who remained at the window, shifting from one foot to the other. She hated to have her back to him, but unless she swung around, she couldn’t examine the drawer’s contents. She squatted down and drew out a yellowed pillowcase, dropped it on the floor and, using both hands, fished a heavy linen sheet from the drawer. She lifted it and sensed Knox’s sudden movement.
By five o’clock on Monday, Rhona sat at a desk piled high with paper and worried she wouldn’t plough through the urgent items in time to meet Hollis at eight. Late in the day, the work she classified as urgent had tripled when the autopsy results and lab reports confirmed Sally Staynor’s murder—the killer had spiked her vodka with digitalis. A large amount of residue remained in the bottle.
Sally and only Sally had left prints on the vodka bottle and everything else in the mourning basket. Rhona visualized her lovingly removing each item, examining it closely and finally proposing a toast to the sender.
The basket itself and its contents offered few clues. The killer might have owned the basket for years or bought it new, and he could have purchased each item in the basket without raising any sales clerk’s suspicion. And, finally, since the bereavement card’s envelope had not been sealed, the lab had no saliva for DNA testing. Poor Sally.
Rhona reread Mary Beth Cardwell’s fax. If the killer fit the childhood Cardwell had described, Dr. Tessa Uiska did not match the profile. She wouldn’t eliminate her—Cardwell’s lead could be a wild goose chase. Rhona still considered Dr. Uiska a primary suspect and blackmail a possible motive.
She had a number of voice mail messages dealing with bank accounts. The bank manager of the Gloucester branch promised a detailed printout of the activity in Robertson’s account by Tuesday. Calls from the various banks where Uiska, Staynor and Toberman had accounts also promised complete printouts by Tuesday evening at the latest. Why did everything have to happen so slowly—she needed answers immediately.
Her frustration increased when she read a fax from Masterman—he’d been unable to add any information about the subjects of Robertson’s books.
Everything hinged on Cardwell’s suspect. Yantha, Staynor, Eakins and Toberman headed the list. She’d begin with Yantha. Since Hollis had met Yantha after his engagement to Uiska, she hadn’t professed any familiarity about his early years. Time to talk. She contacted the hospital and told Yantha’s secretary to have the doctor phone at the first opportunity.
The thought of the second call troubled her. Throughout her career, she’d worked to retain her humanity, and phoning the husband of a murdered woman seemed an act of extreme insensitivity. In her gut, she believed Staynor had not killed his wife and had enough to contend with without fending off probing questions about his past. Nevertheless, she mustn’t overlook such an obvious suspect.
A woman, who didn’t give her name, answered Staynor’s phone and informed Rhona he wasn’t accepting calls. Rhona politely identified herself and insisted on speaking to him. After a long pause, during which Rhona heard snatches of conversation about the impossibility of contacting Sally’s brother, who apparently worked as a field geologist in the North West Territories, Staynor came on the line.
“Mr. Staynor? Detective Simpson speaking. I’m sorry to intrude, but I have one or two questions. If you’ll bear with me, they won’t appear to be relevant to your wife’s murder, but they are.”
“What else can I do? Shoot.”
“Where did you grow up, and are your parents alive?”
“Are you crazy? A killer’s running around, and you’re interested in my mother and father?”
“I am—it is relevant.”
Rhona was talking to a dead phone. She punched “redial” several times and was rewarded with repeated busy signals—the phone must be off the hook. She’d drop in later in the day.
Two down and no information. She tried Marcus Toberman.
“This is detective Simpson. I have a couple of questions.”
“What kind of questions?”
“About your childhood and your parents.”
“What for?”
“The investigation of Paul Robertson’s death.”
“Should I call a lawyer before I say anything?”
“Your hesitancy makes me wonder.”
“Ask me your questions, and I’ll decide.”
“Where did you grow up? Are your parents alive? Do you have siblings, and what position do you occupy in the family birth order?”
“I can’t imagine why you want the information. I have one mother and one father, both alive, one older and one younger brother. I’ve lived in Ottawa since I was twelve. Before that we lived in Montreal. Is that it?”
“It is. Thank you for your help.”
Two question marks to be dealt with later. Toberman did not slot into Cardwell’s profile. She wouldn’t write him off yet but, if Cardwell was leading her down the right path, he was an unlikely suspect. She’d move on to the second string of suspects. She called them in alphabetical order and, one by one, each man answered her questions without hesitation. No one fit the pattern.
Rhona finished at two o’clock and left the station to grab a quick chili dog, heavy on the onions, from George’s mobile cart before she drove over to the Staynors.
Three cars in the driveway and another on the street told her a support group had gathered. When she rang the bell, she felt no surprise when one of the women she’d last seen bustling around the church hall after Robertson’s funeral opened the door and said, “It’s Detective Simpson, isn’t it? Come