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“He travels quite often, doesn’t he?”
“Yes. Often.”
“And tell me, was everything okay in her life? Did your mother mention any fights, any problems?” Connor asked.
Harriet stared at the wall blankly as if grappling with this question.
“No fights. She had moved into a new role at work, she had more reporting to do in her job, but she was enjoying it.”
“Did she get on with everyone at work?”
“Yes!” Harriet sounded agonized. “She got on with everyone just fine. It’s a lovely company. She’d worked there for years.”
“Anything going on in her life that she was the least bit anxious about?”
Cami wondered if Connor had sensed something in Harriet’s body language and was pushing her to think. She thought perhaps he had. And sure enough, Harriet took a sobbing breath.
“Well, the house itself was driving her mad. She thought – this is going to sound stupid.”
Clearly, she was remembering something her mother had said or done, and this prompted a fresh bout of tears. Connor waited patiently.
“She thought what?” he asked.
“She was thinking the house was haunted. That there was, like, a ghost or a spirit. Because of all the things malfunctioning all the time.”
Cami felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up as Connor continued.
“What things?”
“Lights not working. Issues with the front door. All sorts of problems. The television suddenly turning itself on in the night. She had this idea that there might be a spirit in the house, that maybe somebody had died there in the past and was haunting it. And she actually went and got someone who could deal with those things.” Now that she was talking more freely, Harriet seemed to have left her tearfulness behind.
“I guess you don’t mean an electrician? You’re talking about someone different?” Connor asked, and she grimaced.
“My mom tried a few electricians, but everyone was blaming everyone else and nobody seemed to be able to fix it, so she started thinking it was something deeper.”
“Understandable,” Connor said encouragingly.
“I thought it was probably just a bad electrical connection somewhere, but then again, who knows? I do believe in ghosts. I thought, if it sets her mind at rest, and she feels like at least that’s ruled out, then it was all good.”
“Absolutely,” Cami said supportively.
“So, yes, she went and got an exorcist a couple of weeks ago. It was just after my dad left on his business trip. She didn’t want him to know because he would think she was mad, she said.”
“And how did that pan out?” Connor asked.
Cami also felt eager to know. An exorcist? What had he done? Was he the problem?
Lisa’s next words told her that this fleeting thought might be correct.
“He didn’t do a good job, and she wasn’t comfortable with him at all. In fact, she said he’d made things worse and that it might have been a bad decision. And She thought he was a creepy guy. There was some issue with payment, I’ve forgotten what it was.”
Cami saw Connor’s eyes narrow, and knew what he was thinking.
A creepy guy in the house who had left on bad terms, followed by a murder? In calling the wrong person in to solve one problem, Lisa might unwittingly have created a deadlier one.
“Who is this exorcist?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” the daughter said. “But I know she called him recently.” She paused. “You don’t think – you don’t think he could have done this?”
