Past Tense Page 13

  “What guy?”

  “I thought they arrested you.”

  “Not me. I didn’t do anything.”

  She shrugged. “Not what I heard.”

  “I guess you’ve got the wrong guy,” I said.

  She narrowed her eyes at me for a moment, then moved away. A couple of minutes later, I saw her down at the other end of the counter talking with a customer and jerking her head in my direction.

  The eggs were perfectly cooked, the hash was crispy, everything was still hot, and the orange juice was freshly squeezed. Only at a truckers’ diner.

  It seemed unlikely that Dr. Paul Romano’s murder was unrelated to Larry Scott’s, although what that relationship was had to be pretty indirect. This second one, I knew, made it look worse for Evie. All the police had to do was come up with some plausible motive for her to cut Romano’s throat and they’d have a terrific case.

  Well, it didn’t look that good for me, either. It’s what happens when you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  Could I come up with something the police couldn’t find? Lieutenant Neil Vanderweigh didn’t miss much. On the other hand, he seemed mainly interested in proving our guilt—Evie’s and mine. My aim was to discover somebody else’s guilt.

  I had agreed to visit Dr. Winston St. Croix at eleven. He had dated Evie, and it was his retirement and the sale of his medical practice that had brought Paul Romano to Cortland. The doctor probably knew everyone in town. Maybe he’d have some insight.

  And I remembered Larry Scott’s mother. Mary was her name. According to Charlotte Matley, Evie and Mrs. Scott had been friends. It would be interesting to know if Mary Scott still considered Evie her friend.

  I sopped up the last of the egg yolk with my last home fry, downed my orange juice, drained my coffee mug, and looked at my watch. Eight-fifteen. I had over two hours to kill before my appointment with Dr. St. Croix.

  I put my newspaper under my arm, slid off the stool, left two dollar bills under my plate, and went down to the cash register at the end of the counter.

  My waitress came over. “Was everything okay?”

  “Perfect,” I said. I gave her a twenty-dollar bill. “Give me two large coffees to go, please.”

  I took the coffees outside and went to the cruiser, which was still parked beside my car. The officer rolled down her window and looked out at me. “For me?” she said. I noticed that her nameplate read V. KERSHAW.

  I handed one of the Styrofoam cups to her. “The least I could do. It looks like you’ve got a pretty boring day ahead of you. I brought cream and sugar, too.”

  She reached out and took the coffee. “Why, thank you. That’s very sweet.”

  “What’s the ‘V.’ for?”

  She frowned. “Huh?”

  “Your name.” I pointed at her nameplate.

  “Oh. Valerie. Val. I don’t think we ought to be on a firstname basis, though. Do you?”

  “Well,” I said, “if you’re going to tail me all day …”

  She smiled.

  “Seems like a waste of valuable person-power,” I said.

  “Nothing much ever happens in this town,” she said. “Give us a homicide and we are mobilized.”

  “If the idea is that I’m going to lead you to Evie Banyon,” I said, “I can assure you that she won’t show her face around me as long as there’s a cruiser up my butt. Maybe you should be more subtle about it.”

  “I appreciate the advice,” she said. “But they told me to stick close to you. They didn’t say anything about subtlety. I got the feeling if I tried to be subtle, you would, too. My job is to keep my eye on you, so that’s what I guess I’ll do. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “The whole damn town has had its eye on me since I got here,” I said. “I’m getting used to it.”

  “You’re a marked man, Mr. Coyne. Driving that fancy BMW makes it easy for people to mark you.”

  I smiled. “Maybe you can do me a favor.”

  She nodded. She’d taken off her cap. It sat on the seat beside her. She had black hair and dark, vivacious eyes. “Fetch me coffee, then ask for a favor,” she said. “There’s always a catch, isn’t there?”

  “Can you tell me how to find Mary Scott’s house?”

  She frowned. “Scott?”

  “She’s Larry Scott’s mother. She—”

  “No,” she said quickly, “I know who she is. I’m just not sure I should be, um, abetting you.”

  “I don’t intend to murder her.”

  “I suppose not.”

  “If I do, you’ll be right there to catch me. A feather in your cap.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Good point.” She took the top off her coffee, poured in some cream, dumped in a packet of sugar, and stirred it with the plastic straw I’d given her. “I can’t have you follow me there,” she said. “If you did, then I wouldn’t be following you. I’ve got my orders.”

  “What if I promised not to slip away?”

  “No,” she said. “That’s not good enough. I’m not supposed to trust you.” She sipped her coffee, wrinkled her nose, and added more sugar. “Mrs. Scott’s place isn’t hard to find. Head north out of town and take the first right after the old drive-in movie theater. She lives about a mile down the road on the right. You can’t miss it. Big old falling-down barn out back, a couple of car bodies rusting in the side yard.”

  “If I make a wrong turn or something,” I said, “just flash your lights at me.”

  “Why, of course,” she said. “Protect and serve.”

  I got into my car, pulled out of the parking lot, and turned north on Route 1. Valerie Kershaw’s cruiser pulled out behind me and followed me back through town, past the village green and Charlotte Matley’s office, past the road to Dr. St. Croix’s place, past the garage where I had my valve stem replaced, and past the site of the old drive-in movie theater. Then I slowed down, and a couple hundred yards later I spotted a narrow roadway on the right. I turned onto it. Behind me, the cruiser’s directional was blinking, and Officer Kershaw turned in behind me.

  It was one of those winding two-lane country roads such as you find in rural parts of central Maine, with frost heaves and potholes and narrow sloping sandy shoulders and big old oaks arching overhead. On both sides it was bordered by stone walls and shaded by thick second-growth woods.

  In any Massachusetts community more prosperous than Cortland, house-sized openings would’ve been bulldozed out of those woods, and more or less identical colonial-style houses would’ve been erected. The road would be widened and straightened and repaved, and GO SLOW CHILDREN and SCHOOL BUS STOPPING signs would pop up at every bend. But here in sleepy little Cortland, it was just a paved-over old dirt road, originally some nineteenth-century farmer’s cart path, following the earth’s contours through overgrown pastureland and uncut woodlot, and for nearly a mile there were no dwellings.

  I rounded a bend and started down a long slope, and then I spotted a black mailbox beside the road. At that moment, Officer Kershaw flashed her cruiser’s lights.

  The name Scott was painted sloppily on the side of the mailbox. I pulled to the side of the road and stopped. The house was a nondescript square bungalow with a screened-in porch along the front. It was two stories tall, with a brick chimney on one end and a television antenna on the other. Its white paint was stained and flaking, and there were holes in the screening. The front lawn stood about a foot tall. A rotary lawnmower sat in the middle of it. To the right of the house, a gravel driveway led straight back from the road to a big weathered barn in back. Beside the driveway, knee-deep in weeds and half covered with vines, the skeletons of two ancient automobiles sat up on cinderblocks.

  The red Ford Escort in the driveway appeared to be three or four years old. The pickup truck parked behind it looked much older. Its bed was half full of cordwood.

  I got out of the car. Officer Kershaw had stopped ten or fifteen yards behind me. I waved in her direction, then headed down the driveway to the
house.

  When I got to the pickup truck, I noticed a pair of scuffed workboots sticking out from under it. The boots appeared to be attached to a pair of legs, and the legs were wearing faded blue jeans.

  “Excuse me,” I said.

  “Who’s that?” came a growly voice from under the truck’s chassis.

  “I’m looking for Mrs. Scott. Is she home?”

  The boots moved, and then a body slid out from under the truck.

  His face and arms were streaked with grime, and he wore several days’ worth of thick blond stubble. His squinty blue eyes were set too close together. He had a round, squished-in nose, a small mouth, and not much chin. His greasy straw-colored hair hung over his ears. He was, I guessed, in his early twenties.

  He shaded his eyes with his hand and frowned up at me. He wore a gold hoop in his left ear.

  I remembered Larry Scott from our encounters at the Cape. I wouldn’t soon forget the image of his dead eyes staring up at the sky that morning by our cottage in Brewster. Larry had blue eyes and straw-colored hair and a compact, muscular body. He had been a handsome guy. This one, I guessed, was Larry’s brother.

  Larry had been the good-looking, quick one. This guy was the big, strong one. He had cut the arms off his T-shirt to show off his biceps. They were as big around as my thighs.

  He sat up, pulled a rumpled pack of Marlboro reds from the pocket of his jeans, jammed one into the corner of his mouth, and lit it with a wooden match. He exhaled a big plume of smoke, then tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “So whaddaya want with Mrs. Scott, anyway?” he said.

  “I want to talk to her about her son.”

  “I’m her son.”

  “I mean Larry.”

  He turned his head and spit on the ground. “Larry ain’t here.”

  “I know,” I said. “That’s what I want to talk to her about.”

  “There’s been a million people talking to my mother. She’s pretty sick of talking to people. I wish everybody would just leave her alone.”

  “What about you?” I said. “Have people been talking to you about what happened to Larry?”

  He shrugged. “Me? What do I know?” He scratched his cheek. “Who are you, anyway?”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t introduce myself. My name is Brady Coyne. I’m a lawyer.” I held my hand down to him.

  He looked at it for a moment, then wiped his hand on his T-shirt, reached up and gave mine a limp shake. “Lawyer, huh? So you gonna sue somebody, get my mother some money?”

  I smiled. “No, I’m afraid not.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  “Well, I’m a friend of Evie Banyon. You know Evie?”

  “Sure I know her. She’s Larry’s friend.”

  “Have you see her lately?”

  He took a long drag on his cigarette, then snapped the butt into the weeds. “Nope,” he said. “Not for years.”

  “You think she killed Larry?”

  “I don’t know nothing about that.” He jerked his head in the direction of the house. “My mother’s in there. I gotta get this fixed.” Then he lay on his back and pushed himself under the truck.

  I turned and headed for the house. As I neared the front steps, I saw that a woman was standing behind the screen door. I wondered how long she had been there.

  “Mrs. Scott?” I said.

  “That’s right.” Her voice was soft and hesitant.

  “My name is Brady Coyne,” I said. “I’m a friend of Evie Banyon. I wonder if I could talk with you.”

  “Was Mel rude to you?”

  “Not at all,” I said.

  She pulled the screen door open and held it for me. “Please come in.”

  I went up the three steps and into the porch. It was crammed with old patio furniture, cardboard boxes, rusted bicycles, and aluminum trash cans. Mary Scott was wearing a pair of baggy blue jeans and a man’s white shirt with the tails hanging loose and the cuffs rolled to her elbows. She appeared to be in her mid-forties. She had the same straw-colored hair and blue eyes as Larry and Mel, although there were streaks of gray in her hair and creases at the corners of her eyes.

  She had once been a pretty young woman, and now she was a handsome middle-aged woman.

  She held out her hand. “I apologize for Mel. He hasn’t been himself since …”

  I took her hand. “I had no problem with Mel.”

  “Come in, please,” she said.

  I followed her into the living room. It was small and dark, but unlike the outside of the house, the inside appeared neat and clean. A big-screen television sat on a low table in the corner. A dozen or so framed photographs were lined up on top of it.

  Mary Scott gestured to the sofa. I sat down.

  “Can I get you something?” she said. “Coffee?”

  “I don’t want to bother you, Mrs. Scott.”

  “It’s Mary,” she said. “I just perked a fresh pot. How do you like it?”

  “Black,” I said. “Thank you.”

  She smiled quickly and left the room.

  I stood up and went over to the television. Most of the photos were Kmart portraits of the two boys at various ages. In the earliest one, Larry looked six or seven and Mel was a toddler. Even then you could see that Larry was the quick, bright, handsome one.

  I picked up a wedding photo. Mary Scott looked like the high-school homecoming queen in her prom dress, although her smile struck me as hesitant and forced. The groom was barely an inch taller than her. He looked young and bewildered and awkward in his formal white jacket.

  “That was Lee,” said Mary Scott.

  I put the photo back and turned around. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to snoop.”

  “You leave photos out like that,” she said, “it’s because you want folks to look at ’em.” She handed me a mug of coffee. “Lee ran off on me. Left me with two wild boys, and I haven’t seen hide nor hair of the man in seventeen years.” She smiled quickly. “Well, you didn’t want to talk about my no-good husband, I guess.” She sat on the end of the sofa, leaned forward so she could prop her elbows on her thighs, and held her mug in both hands.

  I sat on the other end of the sofa. “I’m sorry about Larry,” I said.

  She nodded.

  “I was there when it happened.”

  She turned and frowned at me. “You’re Evie’s friend, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Everyone thinks you two did it, you know.”

  “I know that,” I said. “We didn’t, of course. I’d like to figure out who did. That’s why I’m here in Cortland. That’s why I wanted to talk to you.”

  “I don’t know you,” she said, “but I know Evie. She didn’t like Larry very much, and I don’t blame her one single bit for that, the way my boy treated her. I would’ve felt like killing him myself. But Evie never …” She shut her eyes and shook her head. When she opened her eyes, they were wet. She wiped them with the back of her wrist. “I got to stop this,” she mumbled.

  “You and Evie are friends,” I said.

  She smiled quickly. “Oh my, yes. I work in the cafeteria at the medical center, you see, and Evie worked there, too. Not in the cafeteria. She worked for Mr. Soderstrom. Evie’s a very smart girl, and she had an important job. Anyway, we got to talking, you know, the way you do with folks you run into every day. Evie would time her coffee breaks with mine, and we’d sit together chatting just about every morning. She didn’t mind hanging out with a lowly cafeteria worker. We hit it off, Evie and I. Folks’re expecting me to be mad at her now, thinking she murdered my Larry. But I’m not mad, because I know Evie couldn’t do anything like that.”

  “Have you and Evie kept in touch since she moved?”

  “Oh, sure. We talk on the phone a lot, and we go out once in a while. I’ve been up to Boston a few times, and Evie takes me to the museum and we eat out. Sometimes she comes down from Concord to visit, and we drive to Providence the way we used to when she lived here. We like to go eat
in a fancy restaurant. No fancy restaurants in Cortland, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  I smiled. “You do have a good diner.”

  “Two bachelor ladies who like to dress up and eat out don’t go to a diner, no matter how good the food is.”

  “Mrs. Scott,” I said, “have you talked to Evie since Larry was killed?”

  She turned away from me and said nothing.

  “I know she’s here in Cortland,” I said. “The police are looking for her. I bet you know where she is.”

  “Maybe I do, maybe I don’t” she said. “But I’m going to tell you what I keep telling the police. I don’t know where Evie is or what she’s doing, but I do know that she didn’t murder my son.”

  “Have you been lying to the police?”

  She looked at me and smiled. “Part of it’s a lie, yes, sir.”

  “I’ve tried lying to them, too,” I said. “They’re pretty good at figuring out what’s a lie.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe I’m better at it than you.”

  I sipped my coffee. “This must be upsetting you,” I said. “Talking about it.”

  She shook her head. “I’m plenty upset,” she said. “But talking about it doesn’t make it any worse. I wish they’d figure out who did it, that’s all.”

  “I think they’re pretty convinced it was Evie,” I said. “Another man was killed here in Cortland last night, you know.”

  She nodded. “I must’ve got ten phone calls this morning, all my friends and neighbors spreading their gossip. Everyone thinks Evie did that, too.”

  “I guess they do, though nobody seems to have come up with any reason for it.” I hesitated. “Mrs. Scott—”

  “Mary, please,” she said.

  I nodded. “If it wasn’t Evie, then who could have killed Larry?”

  She gazed at the photos on the television for a minute, then turned to me. “I’ll tell you the truth,” she said. “When the police ask me that question, I tell them I have no idea. Larry was a good boy, I tell them. Not an enemy in the world. It’s what I think a mother ought to be saying. But you know what, Mr. Coyne?”

  “Brady,” I said automatically.

  She smiled. “The truth is, Brady, since Larry got home from that war, he was not a very nice person. He drank too much, and he bragged too much, and he lied too much, and except for Mel, who always worshiped his big brother, nobody much liked him anymore. Even me, God help me. I didn’t like him much, either. So I guess there’s lots of folks who might not’ve wanted him around.”