“What did you do?”
Staynor flung his head from side to side like a tormented animal, like a caricature of the bulls ringing the room.
“Do. Why would I do anything?” His voice rose, and he continued to shake his head. “Do! I didn’t do anything.”
“Did your wife want a divorce?”
His head steadied. “No.”
“Where were you in the pack when the race began?”
The change of topic disconcerted him. He peered about the room as if searching for the answer on an imaginary prompt board. “In the middle. Remember the Bible tells us to ‘Run with patience the race that is set before us.’ ”
Rhona couldn’t connect the two things.
As if he’d read her mind, Staynor continued, “You must think I’m strange. I can’t help it. I have a photographic memory. Things I read imprint themselves and pop out at the strangest times. My friends ignore it. It’s like having a twitch or Tourette’s syndrome. Are you familiar with Tourette’s?”
Although she nodded, he continued.
“People who are perfectly sane but swear or shout at inappropriate times. They can’t help it. My quotes drive Sally nuts. I try not to do it, but . . .”
It was a relief having a relatively normal exchange. “You said you weren’t always a butcher. What did you do before?”
“I taught high school English.”
“I would have thought that with your passion for literature, teaching would have been the perfect job for you. Where did you teach? Why did you give it up?”
Staynor’s eyes again roamed the room. Although he didn’t answer immediately, Rhona didn’t repeat the question. Obviously, she’d touched on a sensitive topic.
He stared at the floor. “My uncle left me the shop. It was time for a change, ‘The very whirling wheel of change, which all mortal things doth sway’.”
Quotations again. He hid behind them when he didn’t like a topic.
“Where did you teach, and how long were you there?”
Staynor’s restless twisting stopped. “Windsor. Ten years.”
“And why did you leave?”
The hand washing began again. “A change.” His lips snapped together, and his eyes squeezed shut.
No more information would be forthcoming on this subject—she’d use police resources.
“When did you last see Paul Robertson?”
No shifting, no squirming. Instead, his eyes flew open and fixed on her. “Not for months.”
After a few more questions, which Staynor managed to answer without quotes, Rhona handed him her card. “I’ll be back. If you have anything else to tell me, give me a call.”
At the station, she initiated inquiries about Staynor’s teaching career. And filed away Staynor’s quick response when she’d inquired if he’d seen Paul recently.
Seven
On Tuesday morning, except for walking MacTee, Hollis remained in her room. She hadn’t slept until almost morning. Her mind had torn at and worried about Paul’s infidelity. Who else had he had an affair with? And what of his predatory seductions of vulnerable women? How could she have lived with him and not suspected? Finally, she slept but woke unrefreshed and knowing she needed solitude and quiet to sort herself out.
She had to collect herself and think through the decisions relating to Paul’s death and her own future. She didn’t make much progress; often she sat for endless minutes doing nothing.
At noon she slipped downstairs, collected the ham sandwich Elsie had made, poured herself a glass of milk and carried them, along with the mail, to her studio. She didn’t feel like eating; she felt slightly nauseous. She parked the sandwich on her desk and sorted through the mail, separating the conventional sympathy notes, the printed cards with signatures or the cards with a line or two from the longer letters.
“One bite” she told herself. “Just one bite.” It was hard to swallow, but it had to be done. She managed a second mouthful. To distract herself from mealy tasting bread and slimy ham, she read the letters while slowly working her way through the sandwich. Paul’s network of connections had spread across the country.
A note from Tessa.
Why wouldn’t she have called? And the wording was formal—as if they were mere acquaintances—not as if they’d been friends for years. Something was wrong. Had she done something to upset or alienate her? She glanced at the wall clock. One o’clock. She’d wait until one thirty, phone Tessa’s office and insist on speaking to her.
“I’m sorry, but Dr. Uiska is out of the office for the rest of the day.”
Hollis worked spasmodically through the afternoon, but her thoughts returned repeatedly to Tessa. Finally, at seven, she tapped in Tessa’s home number.
“Thank you for writing.”
“You’re welcome.”
“How are you?”
“Okay, but the question is, how are you?”
This was not the warm, friendly conversation Hollis had been hoping for. She tried again. “I’d love to see you. I’m feeling pretty beleaguered.”
“I’m sorry. We’ll have a long chat as soon as I have a minute.”
No help here. Whatever was wrong was really wrong. Time to bow out graciously. “Thanks again for the note, give me a ring whenever you have a minute.” She’d bet a substantial amount Tessa’s call wouldn’t come any time soon.
The conversation depressed Hollis, and she spent that evening wandering around the bleak mausoleum of a manse thinking random gloomy thoughts. At nine, whistling with bravado, she hurried MacTee through his evening walk. Safely back in the house, she set the security system and considered the switches beside the door. Should she douse the lights and allow the frightening darkness to swallow the house or leave every light blazing like the Titanic on party night? What nonsense. Before she gave in to irrational fear, she flipped off the lights and forced herself to walk sedately upstairs.
In her bedroom, feeling self-conscious, she copied what she’d seen in a thousand movies and wedged a chair under the doorknob. Collapsed on her bed, she distracted herself with TV, but a quick flick through the channels brought her to True Life Crime: America’s Unsolved Murders. She zapped it.
If TV wouldn’t work, she’d read until she felt sleepy. But, no matter what book she opened, her eyes, like errant butterflies, refused to settle. Perhaps a bath might calm her jangled nerves. She ran the water and lay in the tub with her body submerged and her toes manipulating the taps to release a trickle of hot water whenever the bath cooled.
Eventually, sleepy and warm, she emerged, dropped a Mozart tape into the cassette recorder and allowed it to lull her to sleep.
At two thirty, she awoke. With consciousness came the memory of Sunday’s events. She reached for the bedside lamp.
As if she’d triggered an invisible trip wire, a blast of noise jolted her arm.
The alarm.
A fire or a break-in. She sniffed but didn’t smell smoke. She wanted it to be a fire—to hear the crackle, see the flames, watch the hated manse burn to the ground. A fire, it had to be a fire, because if it was a break-in, it wouldn’t be a garden variety one: it would be the murderer, knife in hand, creeping up the stairs to finish her off.
MacTee