Past Tense (6 page)
“The key was under the doormat,” I said. “Anybody could've gotten in there. Evie and I were gone all afternoon and well into the evening on Friday.”
He shrugged. “A serrated knife is a nasty weapon. The ME figured the victim was standing up when the first thrust was made. It went up under the rib cage and ripped into his heart. Right-handed blow, delivered with enough force to make a bruise where it entered. A mortal wound. He fell on his back and died within a couple of minutes. The killer stabbed him again in the belly for good measure, also up to the hilt, then threw the weapon into the bushes.”
“You're reading a lot of anger in those blows.”
“They weren't halfhearted, that's for sure.”
“What about footprints or tire tracks? Find anything in Scott's pockets? Where was his car? Where was he staying? What about witnesses?”
Vanderweigh laughed. “Don't push it, Mr. Coyne. You don't expect me to tell you everything.”
“Obviously you didn't find any fingerprints on that knife,” I said, “or you'd know for sure that it wasn't Evie or me.”
“Or that it was. You're right. It's too bad.”
“So none of your evidence exonerates either of us, then.”
“No,” he said. “It doesn't. Thing is, I'm pretty convinced it wasn't the both of you, working together, who killed Mr. Scott. If it was, one of you would've confessed it, or at least slipped up, when we questioned you, and surely you would've come up with better alibis for each other.”
“But you
do
think it was one of us.”
do
think it was one of us.”
He started to say something, then shook his head. “I didn't say that. I guess all I'm saying is, I'm still in the market for suspects. As it is, Horowitz says it couldn't possibly be you, and that leaves me with your friend.”
“Evie didn't kill anybody.”
“You don't know that.”
“Yes, I do.”
He arched his eyebrows at me.
“You're the one who's got to make the case,” I said.
“We've got a damn good circumstantial case, Mr. Coyne. Means, opportunity, and more motive than you can imagine.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“How well do you really know Ms. Banyon?”
I looked at him and said nothing. That was the question he'd started our conversation with.
Vanderweigh picked up his iced-tea glass, tilted it up until the half-melted ice cubes clicked against his teeth, drained it, and put it down on the table. “Well,” he said, “I gotta get back to work.” He started to stand up.
“Wait a minute,” I said.
He shook his head. “Go home, Mr. Coyne.”
“What about Evie? What did you mean, âmore motive than I could imagine'?”
“You talked to her lately?”
“No,” I said.
“Me neither.”
I stared at him. “If you needed to have this conversation with me, you certainly wanted to talk with Evie, too.”
“When you see her,” he said, “tell her it makes a bad impression, not responding to a polite request after a police officer specifically tells you it's important to be cooperative.”
“You've tried to reach her?”
He shrugged.
“She's avoiding you?”
“We'd very much like to talk with her,” he said. “The fact that we've tried without success ⦔
I knew what he was thinking. He was thinking that Evie was acting guilty.
I
called Evie after supper that night. When her machine answered, I hung up, hesitated, then dialed her again and left a message. “It's me, honey,” I said. “I retrieved my car today down in Brewster and had lunch with Detective Vanderweigh. You and I have got to talk. Please call me.”
called Evie after supper that night. When her machine answered, I hung up, hesitated, then dialed her again and left a message. “It's me, honey,” I said. “I retrieved my car today down in Brewster and had lunch with Detective Vanderweigh. You and I have got to talk. Please call me.”
I kept my portable phone by my feet on the coffee table while I read the newspaper with one eye and watched the Red Sox beat the Tigers with the other. Evie didn't call. I tried her again after the game, got her machine, and didn't bother leaving another message. I called a third time after I crawled into bed around midnight. This time after her message, I said, “It's me again. I know you're listening. Come on, honey. Please pick up the phone. I guess you're still mad at me. Well, I'm sorry about that, but we've got to talk about what happened last weekend. Detective Vanderweigh wants to talk to you, too, and you can't just ignore him. It makes it look bad for you.”
I waited. But she did not pick up the phone.
When I got to work on Friday morning, the second thing I did after pouring myself a mug of coffee was call Evie's office at Emerson Hospital in Concord. When she didn't answer, I left a message on her voice mail. “We've really got to talk,” I said. “It's important. Call me when you get in.”
I had nonstop meetings with clients scheduled for the morning, so I went out to the reception area and told Julie that if Evie called, she should interrupt me, that I absolutely needed to talk with her.
Julie frowned at me. “What's going on, Brady?”
I had told Julie all about the events of the previous weekend. I always told Julie everything. “I can't get ahold of her,” I said. “It's starting to look like the police think she killed that man, and she's avoiding them, too. It makes her look guilty. Actually, I'm a little worried.”
“You think something's happened to her?”
I shrugged.
“You don't think she actually could haveâ”
“No,” I said quickly. “Not Evie. Evie couldn't kill anybody.” I shook my head. “I guess I just don't know. Truthfully, I don't know what to think.”
“She's mad at you,” said Julie. “I don't blame her. You're easy to get mad at.”
“Yeah, well, in this caseâ”
“Brady, for heaven's sake, think about it. She found the body of that man who'd been stalking her. If that's not bad enough, then she gets interrogated by the police for hours. What should she expect from her best friend, her lover, herâher rock?”
“I thought I was quite supportive.”
“Supportive?” Julie rolled her pretty blue eyes. “You've got to do better than
supportive
, Brady Coyne.” She pronounced
the word “supportive” as if it meant a disgusting animal waste product. “I bet you were all lawyerly and rational, eager to discuss the facts of the case, ponder evidence, devise strategies. Am I right?”
supportive
, Brady Coyne.” She pronounced
the word “supportive” as if it meant a disgusting animal waste product. “I bet you were all lawyerly and rational, eager to discuss the facts of the case, ponder evidence, devise strategies. Am I right?”
“I had it in the back of my mind that she might've done it,” I said. “But I didn't say that to her.”
“God!” She shook her head. “If you think she didn't pick up on that, you understand women even less than I thought.”
“Well, whatever,” I said. “At this point, I need to advise her.”
“You,” said Julie, “are the last person she wants advice from. Any half-assed lawyer can give advice. From her lover, all a woman wants is unconditional love and understanding and sympathy.”
“Are you calling me a half-assed lawyer?”
She rolled her eyes.
I sighed. “You're a woman,” I said. “You should know. I guess you're right. So what'm I supposed to do?”
“Keep trying,” she said. “Women appreciate persistence. Shower her with messages. Tell her you love her, you miss her, you're miserable, you can't stand it, not talking with her is driving you crazy.”
“That's all true,” I said.
“Is it so hard to say, then?”
I smiled. “No. I can say it.” I leaned across Julie's desk and kissed her forehead. “Thank you.”
She pointed to my office. “Do it.”
So I went back into my office and left messages of love and misery on both Evie's home answering machine and her office voice mail.
After I ushered my last client of the morning out of my office around one o'clock that afternoon, I arched my eyebrows at Julie.
She shook her head.
“Evie didn't call, huh?”
“No,” she said.
So I went back into my office and called Marcus Bluestein. Bluestein was the administrator at Emerson Hospital, Evie's boss, the man who'd hired her. He was a big, shambling man with jug ears and a hook nose and unruly gray hair and gentle brown eyes. He was Evie's confidant, just as Julie was mine. I figured I could convince Bluestein to intercede for me.
When he picked up the phone, I said, “Marcus, it's Brady. I've been trying to reach Evie.”
“I was thinking of calling you,” he said.
“Me? Why?”
“I've been trying to reach her, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“I expected her back in the office from your long weekend on Tuesday or Wednesday. She left it a little vague, and Lord knows she's accrued plenty of vacation time, butâ”
“You haven't seen her all week?”
“Well, no,” he said.
“And she didn't call you?”
“No.” I heard him clear his throat. “You're worrying me, Brady.”
“I'm worrying myself. So she didn't tell you about our weekend?”
“Why, no. Did something happen between you?”
“I guess you could say that.” I told him as succinctly as I could about our encounter with Larry Scott at the restaurant, and how we found him murdered in our driveway the next morning, and how the state police had questioned us extensively, and how Evie and I had parted uncomfortably when we got home on Saturday.
“That's an awful story,” Bluestein said softly.
“Yes. I know Evie's terribly upset, but still ⦔
“You got home Saturday?” he said.
“Yes.”
“And you haven't seen her or talked to her since then?”
“No. I've left her messages, but she hasn't responded.”
“This isn't at all like her,” he said.
“Maybe she just feels she needs some space,” I said.
“From you, maybe.” Bluestein chuckled softly. “I'm sorry. You know what I mean.”
“I know,” I said. “She would've talked to you. You said you tried calling her?”
“I left her a couple messages. Just said I hope everything's okay, check in with me and let me know what your plans are. Like that. I depend on her, of course, but she knows we can manage for a while when she's gone.” He paused for a moment. “With all those horrible events, she probably just felt she needed to avoid all of us for a while. Evie can be quite headstrong, you know.”
“Believe me, I know,” I said.
“Independent. Willful. Stubborn. She insists on thinking things all the way through before she acts. I value that in her. It prevents her from making mistakes.”
“You're not really comforting me, Marcus,” I said.
He sighed. “I'm not comforting me, either. So what shall we do, Brady?”
“I guess I better try to find her.”
It was a lazy midsummer Friday afternoon, so we closed down the office early, around four-thirty. Julie packed my briefcase with weekend paperwork, as she always did, and I dutifully lugged it home. Both of us knew that I'd probably drop it in the hallway of my apartment and leave it right there until Monday morning, when I'd lug it back to the office. Julie
believed that a lawyer's work was never done, that it was a seven-day-a-week job. I believed that philosophy worked well for young, ambitious lawyers. I was neither young nor ambitious.
believed that a lawyer's work was never done, that it was a seven-day-a-week job. I believed that philosophy worked well for young, ambitious lawyers. I was neither young nor ambitious.
But I liked to humor Julie, and confessing on Monday morning that I'd been too busy, or too scatterbrained, or too lazy to do my weekend homework gave her something to tease me about, and that made her happy. I believed in keeping my employees happy.
So when I got home, I dropped the briefcase in its appointed spot beside the door and went directly to my bedroom to check my answering machine.
No messages, from Evie or anybody else.
Marcus Bluestein had disturbed me. I could understand Evie refusing to talk to me. But she hadn't contacted him all week, either. That meant something was wrong.
So I changed out of my office pinstripe, took the elevator down to the parking garage, climbed into my car, and headed for Concord.
Evie's townhouse sits in a development near the Assabet River on the south side of Route 2 just a couple of miles from Emerson Hospital where she worked. The buildings were designed and arranged for maximum privacy, and they'd left plenty of big oak and pine trees standing to enhance the illusion. A tributary to the Assabet meandered through the property. They'd dammed it here and there to form little ponds, which attracted mallards and Canada geese. The management company fed them. I once explained to Evie that the cost of duck and goose food unquestionably came out of her monthly condo fee. She insisted it was money well spent. Both of us liked birds. I liked the wild kind. She said her tame ducks and geese were more fun than the seagulls that liked to perch on the railing of my balcony.
The birds, recognizing a good thing when they saw it, hung
around all year. They didn't migrate, and they didn't burst into wild flight at the sight of a human. Duck and goose turds littered the grass and the flower gardens and the parking areas, and the management company spent still more of the tenants' money cleaning up after the birds. They'd become tame and stupid, and big bunches of them followed people around, quacking and honking for handouts.
around all year. They didn't migrate, and they didn't burst into wild flight at the sight of a human. Duck and goose turds littered the grass and the flower gardens and the parking areas, and the management company spent still more of the tenants' money cleaning up after the birds. They'd become tame and stupid, and big bunches of them followed people around, quacking and honking for handouts.
So when I parked in the visitors' lot and walked to Evie's townhouse, I quickly attracted a gabbling crowd. I turned around and stomped my foot at the birds. They stopped and cocked their heads at me, and when I continued along my way, they continued to follow me.
Goofy birds.
I rang Evie's doorbell, waited, rang it again.
After a minute, I banged on the door with my fist and called, “Evie. It's me. Come on, honey. Open up.”
There came no response from inside.
The blinds were drawn across all of her downstairs windows, so I couldn't peek inside.
Evie and I had exchanged house keys back in the winter when our relationship had evolved to that logical point. I hesitated to use the key. I doubted that she was inside, but if she was, the last thing she'd appreciate would be me barging in on her.
Terrible scenarios had begun to ricochet through my brain. Evie could be stubbornly and unpredictably uncommunicative for a day or two. I'd learned to understand and respect those silences. But now it had been nearly a week.
I took a deep breath, unlocked her door, and poked my head inside.
With the blinds shut and the drapes pulled, the place was dim and shadowy. The motor of her refrigerator hummed softly from the kitchen. Somewhere a clock ticked.
“Evie?” I said quietly. “It's me. Are you here?”
No answer.
I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. I blinked and waited for my eyes to adjust to the gray half-light. For some reason, I was reluctant to turn on the lights.
It smelled musty and unlived-in, but I figured that was my imagination.
I stepped into her living room ⦠then stopped. In the middle of the floor sat her blue duffel bag, the same one she'd taken on our trip to the Cape. The last time I'd seen her, she'd been carrying it inside.
It was as if this was as far as she'd gotten back on Saturday afternoon, as if something had happened to cause her to drop her bag, as if she'd been frightened or startled, as if she'd panicked.
I didn't like it.
I went directly upstairs to her two bedrooms.
Now I was hoping I
wouldn't
find her.
wouldn't
find her.
The big king-sized bed in her master bedroom, the bed Evie had shared with me on many Saturday nights, was neatly made. The other bedroom, her guest room, looked the way it always didâspartan and comfortable. Clean, neatly folded towels hung on the racks in her bathroom. Nothing out of place there, either.
I peeked into the closets. By now I'd admitted to myself that I might be looking for a dead body. But all I saw in the closets were Evie's clothes, carefully arranged on their hangers.
Back downstairs, I turned on some lights, then opened the door to her little office off the living room. The answering machine on her desk was blinking rapidly. Between me and Marcus Bluestein, I knew, she had several messages waiting for her that she'd apparently not listened to.
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