Come Unto These Yellow Sands (11 page)

She rejoined him in a few minutes, her boots clicking as she marched up the steps to the kitchen. “This is a church, isn’t it?”

“It was, once upon a time.”

“That’s a sin, isn’t it?”

“It’s deconsecrated.”

She looked unconvinced. “It doesn’t seem right. You’ve got an oil painting of St. George.”

“The building is just stone and wood now. Like any old building.” Okay, perhaps that was an exaggeration. Swift did feel there was a special serenity between these walls. Sanctuary. It was a good thing.

Cora shook her head, still dissatisfied.

Swift thought it best to change the subject. “Who do
you
think killed your ex-husband?”

“That bitch Nerine.”

Okay. Some wounds never healed. This one was still wet and gaping.

“Why do you say that?”

“It’s obvious.”

“If it was obvious, wouldn’t the police focus on her rather than Tad?”

“Mario was
shot
. Tad hates guns. Nerine is president of Women on Target.”

“What’s Women on Target?”

“The women’s branch of our local Rod & Gun Club.”

That was interesting, but not something Max was likely to have overlooked. “It’s interesting that you accuse Nerine. She suggested Bill McNeill.”

Cora broke into slightly hysterical laughter. “That’s great. I love it.”

“I guess I don’t get the joke.”

“Her blaming McNeill. Not that he couldn’t have done it. He’s as big a scumbag as Mario was.”

“She said McNeill and your ex-husband had a fight just a few days before Mario was killed.”

“Did she tell you
why
they fought?”

Swift shook his head.

“They fought because McNeill was having an affair with the slut.”

“How do you know that?”

Cora looked at him as though he was simple. “
Everyone
knows that.”

It had been a very long day. Another long day. After Cora finally left, Swift wandered restlessly around the house. It felt tight and confined. Like being in a box. He went out to the backyard, the former church garden, and sat on a stone bench for a few minutes gazing up at the mercilessly bright stars in the black sky. The night air smelled of freshly dug earth, dead leaves, and, more distantly, wood smoke.

He tried to focus on what his senses reported, tried to use the cold and the silence to clear his mind, but that internal itch was crawling through him again. He
wanted
.

He wanted all the things he couldn’t have.

He thought about Cora and Tad and then for the first time in a long time he thought about his own mother. Every so often, usually when he least expected it, he forgot his anger and animosity and just…missed her.

The back of his eyes burned. He blamed it on Bernard and the reminder of those fucking poems. He should have ripped them to pieces.

He couldn’t afford this. Couldn’t afford to start thinking about these things. He would never be strong enough to face these memories. The memory of his mother blaming him for his father’s death, telling him he should be locked up so he could never hurt anyone again.

Just as he’d done his best to fulfill her wish that he become a poet, he had done his best to fulfill her wish that he’d never been born.

And yet it was Marion who had paid for the expensive treatments that had saved his life and his mind. The same Marion who had fought to have him permanently committed to a mental hospital, and when that failed, fought successfully to keep him from gaining control of his inheritance.

Not that he blamed her for the last two. He didn’t really blame her for any of it. But he couldn’t forgive her either.

And thinking about this did no one any good. Least of all him.

Swift went back inside the house, went into his office and pulled out the blue rigid paper box with its melancholy images of clouds and autumn leaves. He stroked the laminated lid absently.

Who had collected his poems after his final spectacular crash and burn? Bernard or someone hired by his mother? Someone had come to that motel where he’d been living and gathered up the few belongings he hadn’t pawned or sold for coke, gathered up these poems scribbled on scrap pieces of paper with the rest of the detritus, saved it all on the off chance he survived.

Or perhaps the belief that he wouldn’t.

Swift’s thumb stroked the lip of the lid.
Were
they any good? Were they coherent? Were they even legible?

Did it matter?

He picked the box up and put it back in the drawer. He slid the drawer closed.

Bernard’s timing was off. A week or so ago Swift might have felt strong enough to face whatever was in this pretty box, but not tonight. Not now. Tonight he felt about as fragile as he had in six years of staying clean and sober.

And whatever was in this box might be the final straw, might be just enough to tip those delicately balanced scales the wrong way.

In which case he might as well take the ferry to Orson Island this very night. That was the promise he’d made himself. That if he ever started using again, he’d spare himself and everyone else the party and just take a long walk into the ocean.

He rose, turned out the lights and left the office.

Exhaustion that was partly lack of sleep and partly the strain of fighting the longing for things that were bad for him had Swift in bed and reading by nine thirty.

He fell asleep somewhere between images of birds breathed into the sky and banging cymbals of sunlight. In his dream he was writing and the words came quickly, one at a time, in flashing, fierce scissor snips…

Swift jolted awake what felt like mere minutes later. His eyes flew open. The loft lights were still on and someone was downstairs banging hard on the front door. He sat up, knocking aside the book lying open on his chest, shoving the blankets aside, grabbing for a sweatshirt and pulling it on as he stumbled barefoot downstairs.

He turned on the porch light, looked blearily through the spyhole, jumping back as the door shook once more beneath an impatient fist.

Max.

Swift slid the bolt back and wrenched the door open.

Max wore jeans and his usual off-duty sheepskin jacket. He regarded Swift for a long moment. His breath silvered in the night air as he said, “Can I come in?”

“Yeah. Of course.” Swift raked the hair out of his face, stepping back.

Max didn’t move. “You should know this is official business.”

Swift’s heart sank. “Okay.”

“Are you still giving me permission to enter?”

Swift drew a sharp breath. Shit. This was bad. He’d heard Max talk about this enough to know that Max wanted in to search but didn’t have a warrant. Did Max really think he was so far gone he’d hide Tad in his own home? Nerves made his voice raw. “Yeah, I’m giving you permission to enter. Knock yourself out.”

Max’s nod was grim. “Okay.” He stepped inside and shut the door. He stared at Swift. Swift stared back.

When Max didn’t move, Swift said, “Well?”

“We received an anonymous tip this evening that you’ve got a stash of cocaine here.”

Chapter Nine

You are a former poet, former drug addict, former…

You are…

You’re totally fucked.

And he hadn’t seen it
coming. Swift reached out to steady himself and nearly knocked the small painting of a whitewashed barn off the wall. “
What
?”

Max continued that cold, unblinking appraisal.

“You’re telling me this is a…a drug bust?”

“I’m telling you—” Max stopped. Maybe it was harder for him than it looked.

“What?”

“I’m telling you that I’m going to search this place because I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t.”

“There’s nothing here. You
know
there’s nothing here.” Swift’s teeth started to chatter. That was partly cold—he had no resistance to it—and partly nerves. Either way it was mortifying. He gritted his jaw to try and conceal it.

“If you want someone else to do it, I can get a cruiser over here in three minutes. I won’t be able to keep this under wraps,” Max added, “but if there’s anything here, I won’t be keeping it under wraps anyway.”

Swift’s legs gave out and he sat down on the carved pew beneath the still-swaying painting. Max watched him, waiting for an answer—and what the hell answer was there to this?

He found words at last, croaking out, “Do what you want.”

Max nodded once, curtly, and walked away toward the kitchen area. Did he think Swift was keeping coke in a special canister next to the sugar and flour? He heard the squeak of the first cupboard door and rested his face in his hands.

He didn’t watch. He couldn’t watch. It was like seeing Max dismantle his dreams, one cupboard, one drawer at a time. Clearly Max had a lot of practice at this. He moved briskly, knowledgably. He searched the fridge, the freezer, the pantry. He finished with the kitchen and moved on to the main room, ignoring Swift who still sat unmoving, head in his hands.

Max searched the backs of shelves and beneath cushions, he searched potted plants and even behind stacks of CDs. He moved on to the downstairs bath.

Swift pressed the heels of his hands hard against his eyes and listened to the ceramic scrape of the toilet-tank lid being lifted. What was the big deal? He’d been through lots of things worse than this. Lots of things a lot more humiliating than having a cop, even an ex-boyfriend cop, search his home for drugs.

A few seconds later Max appeared before Swift. He held out a clear plastic baggie. It was about a quarter full of white powder.

Swift opened his mouth. Closed it. He stared at Max. He stared at the bag of white powder. Licked his lips.

Was he dreaming? It felt like a dream. A nightmare. It felt far away and absolutely impossible. The horror of it prickled across his scalp and down his spine.

Part of the horror was certainly the discovery of an illegal substance in his home. A greater part of the horror was the instinctive and fierce desire that shuddered through his nervous system at the sight of that bag of white powder hanging right there within his reach. It had been there all the time, all evening while he was wanting it, needing it, aching for it. And it had been right there. His for the taking.

And he
would
have taken it. The realization terrified him.

Max said with no inflection in his deep voice, “Anything to say?”

Swift tore his gaze from the bag of powder. He said desperately, through the click of his teeth, “I’m not using, Max. I’m clean. I swear to God. I
swear
it.” Riiiight. How many times had Max heard that one? Swift no doubt even looked like someone crashing down hard. Even his nose was starting to run. He wiped at it surreptitiously.

“Yeah? A drug test will prove it one way or the other.”

It took a couple of seconds for the words to filter through the panic. A drug test.
Of course
. Swift slumped back in relief, unconsciously hugging himself. “That’s right. Jesus, that’s right.”

Max gave a short, harsh laugh. He shoved the bag into his jacket pocket. Swift watched it vanish, couldn’t tear his gaze from it. He could feel Max staring at him.

Swift made himself meet Max’s eyes.

“Hell,” Max muttered.

Unexpectedly, he lowered himself to the pew beside Swift, and it said something for Max’s effect on him that Swift actually forgot about the bag of coke for a few seconds.

Max expelled a long, weary breath and leaned back, his shoulder brushing Swift’s. He regarded the dark open beams overhead. “You, my friend, are in one hell of a mess.”

“Someone planted that coke.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” Max turned his head. His hazel eyes met Swift’s. “Forget everything else, you’d have to be a moron to stash this in your guest bathroom.”

As compliments went, it wasn’t much, but Swift would take it. “Someone’s trying to frame me.” There was a lot of that going around.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“You better start thinking.”

“It doesn’t make sense. There’s no reason—”

“Who’ve you pissed off lately?”

Swift shook his head.

“Flunk anyone? Drop anyone? Reject any poetry submissions?” Max wasn’t kidding. There was no smile in his eyes, his tone was even.

Swift considered the day he’d had, from his brief meeting with Nerine Corelli—a meeting she’d apparently taken serious offense to—to his visit from Cora Corelli. All things considered, not one of his most productive days, but this…this was just out there.

“I don’t know, but I know who had to have planted the blow.”

“Yeah? Who?”

“Cora Corelli was here this evening. She used the bathroom.”

“Cora Corelli?” Max was doubtful. “The first wife?”

“Yes. It has to be her. No one else has been here.”

Max said nothing for a long time, seeming to think it over. “The anonymous caller was female. Why would Cora Corelli want you arrested?”

Swift shook his head. “I don’t know. She came by this evening because—she said—she was sure that I must know where Tad is.”

Max’s face hardened. “If you
do
know—”

“I don’t. Max. I don’t know. Do you honestly think after what’s happened—?”

“All right.”

It cut Swift off but only for a second or two. He admitted, “I did try asking around today.”

Max’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean you tried asking around?”

“Just that. I was thinking. Tad can’t have gone far, and if I could talk to him, I could persuade him to give himself up before anyone else gets hurt.”

Max was shaking his head. “Stay out of it, Swift. I realize you’re trying to help, but tonight should have made it clear you’re out of your depth.”

Yeah, no kidding. Swift darkly considered the bitter truth of that. “But it’s not like I’m…I’m trying to play detective. I’m not trying to solve a murder. I don’t give a damn who killed Mario Corelli. I just care about Tad. And all I’ve done to that end is ask a couple of people if they knew where Tad was. Next thing I know, Nerine Corelli is lodging a complaint with that bastard Koltz—”