Past Tense Read online

  I lit a cigarette. “You okay?” I said to Evie.

  “Yeah, I’m all right.” She found my hand and held on to it, and we stood there in silence, watching the boats and the night birds and the rising moon.

  After a few minutes Evie said, “Did you ever spend the night on a boat?”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t think I ever did.”

  “I’ve always wanted to live on a houseboat,” she said. “Get rocked to sleep every night, hear the slosh of waves on the other side of the hull, inches from your head. If you don’t like where you are, you just start up the engines and move your house and your whole life somewhere else.”

  I flipped my cigarette butt into the water. “It’s a lovely notion. Impractical, maybe, but lovely.”

  She chuckled. “Mr. Practicality.”

  “I fight it constantly.”

  She squeezed my hand. “I’m sorry, Brady.”

  “For what?”

  “For making a scene.”

  I shrugged. “It was your scene.”

  She chuckled. “For being a bitch, then.”

  “You were angry. You’re entitled.”

  She snuggled against me. I put my arm around her shoulder, and she laid her head against my shoulder.

  “I went out with him a few times,” she said quietly. “His name is Larry. Larry Scott. It was three or four years ago. He worked where I worked.”

  “In Cortland?” I said. “The medical center?”

  “Yes. He was the janitor. He’d been a Marine. Served in Desert Storm, where he had some hairy experiences, I guess, and after he got out he tried several jobs. He’s a good-looking man, terrific body, all that. But it didn’t take me long to figure out that he was a little weird, and pretty boring besides. Self-absorbed, narrow-minded, a bit paranoid. So I stopped going out with him.”

  “And he didn’t like it,” I said.

  “No.” She was quiet for a minute. “He started calling me on the phone at odd hours,” she said. “Sometimes he’d wake me up late at night. He had this idea that I’d dumped him because he was just a janitor and lived at home with his mother and didn’t have much money.”

  “How did you handle it?”

  “At first I tried to reason with him. Told him I thought he was a nice man but that we had no chemistry, and that money had nothing to do with it. He’d argue with me, insist that we did have chemistry. He knew it, he said, because he could feel it, and I was a bad person for rejecting him because he was poor. At the time, I was going out with a doctor who was quite a bit older than me, and Larry figured it was all about money. I told him I didn’t give a shit about money, but he never would believe that. After a while, I told him to stop calling me, he was annoying me. He kept calling anyway. I got so I stopped answering my phone. I screened all my calls, and Larry would fill my answering machine with … I don’t know what to call it. Crazy stuff. He loved me, he’d always love me. I loved him, he kept saying, and I should just admit it. We were destined for each other. He’d rant on about how he was going to have money one day, and then we could be together. And sometimes he’d talk about how he couldn’t take it, I was driving him insane, that he was going to kill himself if he couldn’t have me.”

  “Did he ever threaten you?”

  “No, not really. I mean, it all felt threatening. But he never actually threatened to hurt me or anything.”

  Evie put her arm around my waist and burrowed against me. I held her tight against me. She was shivering.

  “Finally I got an unlisted phone number,” she said. “Within a few days, he somehow got ahold of it. Sometimes when I went out, Larry would follow me. Like tonight. I’d be in a restaurant or a store or something, and I’d look up, and there he’d be, watching me. And I’d find him hanging around my office pretending to change a lightbulb or something when I was working. Sometimes at night I’d look out my window and see him parked outside, sitting there in his car. He’d stay there for hours. Just sitting there, watching my window.”

  “You should’ve called the police.”

  “I did,” she said. “They were nice to me, and understanding and all. But the Cortland cops were mostly local guys. They all knew Larry. They grew up together. Old small-town buddies, played football together in high school. So when Larry would be out there in his car, I’d call, and the police would come by in their cruiser, stop, talk with him for a while, and Larry would leave, and a few minutes after the cops left, he’d show up again. One day I went to the police station, told them he was stalking me. They asked me some questions, then told me that what Larry was doing wasn’t stalking. He was surely bothering me, they said, but that was no crime, and there was really nothing they could do about it.”

  “If he didn’t actually threaten you with death or bodily injury,” I said, “it’s not stalking according to Massachusetts law.”

  “Yes,” said Evie. “That’s what they said. I even talked to a lawyer about taking out a restraining order. She asked me a lot of questions and was very sympathetic, but she said no judge would go along with it. Larry and I had never been married or lived together, and he’d never hurt me or threatened to hurt me or anything like that. She said the bottom line was, ours wasn’t a domestic relationship, and besides that, I wasn’t in fear of him. I guess there’s no law against driving somebody crazy.”

  “It sounds like a nightmare,” I said.

  “It got worse,” she said. “He began leaving me gifts.”

  “Gifts?”

  “Jewelry, lingerie, perfume. Stuff like that. Personal, intimate things. I’d come home, and there would be a giftwrapped box on my kitchen table.”

  “He got into your house?”

  “Yes.”

  “How? Did he have a key?”

  “I don’t know how he got in.”

  “Jesus,” I said. “What did you do?”

  “I called him. I pleaded with him to leave me alone. I threatened him. Said I’d get a lawyer, take him to court. He just laughed. See, I was playing into his hands. He’d made me call him. It seemed to convince him that I cared about him.”

  “You should’ve told your lawyer. I mean, he was trespassing.”

  “Oh, I did,” she said. “Problem was, I couldn’t prove it was him leaving those gifts.” She blew out a long breath. “It got so I was convinced that I was the crazy person, that it was all my fault. I even started feeling sorry for him, guilty about the way I was treating him. I was going nuts. Fortunately, I knew I was going nuts, and I knew why. So finally I found the job at Emerson, and I left Cortland, and I didn’t tell anybody where I was going. That was over three years ago, and until tonight, I thought I’d left Larry Scott behind forever.”

  “You haven’t seen him since you moved?”

  She shook her head. “Tonight was the first time. It’s way spooky.”

  “Maybe it was a coincidence,” I said. “He just happened to be here and spotted you.”

  “No. He followed us. I’m sure of it.”

  “Well,” I said, “we’ll have to put an end to it.”

  “How?”

  “When we get back I’ll talk to some people. I know some state troopers who’ll put a scare into him.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t mind if you did that.” Evie hugged me, then tilted up her head and kissed me. “I’m getting chilly.”

  “Hot tub, glass of brandy,” I said. “I’ll fire up the woodstove.”

  “Mmm,” she said. “Then a warm bed.”

  “Mmm, indeed,” I said.

  We held hands and walked back to the car in the moonlight. The restaurant parking lot was still jammed with cars, and Friday-night laughter and loud voices filtered out from the screened windows. We’d parked in the far corner of the lot, and when we came to my car, we both stopped short.

  Larry Scott was leaning against the fender.

  I squeezed Evie’s hand. “Stay right here,” I said. I walked up to Scott. “Get away from my car.”

  He didn’t move. �
��I need to speak to the lady.”

  “The lady doesn’t want to speak to you.”

  He looked over my shoulder. “Come on, honey,” he said. “You gotta listen to me.”

  “She’s not your honey,” I said. “Now move.”

  “This is none of your business, Mr. Lawyer,” he said. “This is between Evie and me.” He looked at her. “I gotta tell you about your saint. And I got money now. So—”

  “I said get away from my car.” I grabbed his arm.

  He shook it loose. “You don’t wanna mess with me, pal.” He started toward Evie.

  I stepped in front of him and put my hand on his chest. “Stay away from her.”

  He hesitated for a moment, then gave me a shove with both hands.

  I staggered backwards, got my balance, and went after him. I was several inches taller than him, but he was stronger and younger and quicker, and I didn’t see his fist coming at me. He caught me on the side of the head and followed it with a punch to the middle of my chest, and I went down.

  Lights flashed in my head, and Evie was yelling, and my brain was whirling, and then there were people around us, and loud, angry voices.

  Evie knelt down beside me. “I’m sorry, baby,” she said. “Are you okay?”

  I took a couple of deep breaths. My chest and my head both hurt. “Sure,” I said. “Aside from my masculine pride, I’m fine.” I sat up, rubbed my head, and looked around. “Where is he? Where’d he go?”

  “Some people from the restaurant took him away,” she said. “He’s gone.”

  A couple of men were hovering near us. “You gonna be all right?” one of them said.

  I waved my hand in the air. “I’m okay.”

  “Want me to call the cops or something?”

  I glanced at Evie. She shook her head. “No,” I said. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I’m the manager here,” he said. “I apologize for this.”

  “It’s not your fault,” said Evie.

  “Come back,” he said. “Please. Be my guest. Lobster dinner on the house. I’ll be sure that fellow leaves you alone.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Maybe we’ll take you up on it.” I got my feet under me, and Evie helped me to stand up. I leaned on her until a wave of dizziness passed.

  “Sure you’re okay?” said the manager. “I can call an ambulance.”

  I shook my head. “Forget it. Really.”

  He looked at me for a minute, then nodded. “Come back, okay?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Thanks.”

  We got into the car and sat there for a minute. I lit a cigarette.

  “You okay to drive?” said Evie.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “A little embarrassed, that’s all.”

  “I’m the one who should be embarrassed.”

  “You nailed him with a good shot,” I said. “Me, I got my ass kicked.”

  “You think you should be able to beat up a man fifteen years younger than you, an ex-Marine?”

  “Hey,” I said. “I’m a guy. No guy likes to get whipped. Especially in front of his woman.”

  She reached over and put her hand on the back of my neck. “We girls go all melty when a white knight comes riding up to defend our honor. And when he gets knocked off his steed, our maternal instincts kick in.”

  “You gonna nurse my wounds?”

  “Umm,” she said. “Not just your wounds.”

  “We better get going, then.” I started up the car, pulled out of the lot, and aimed for our cottage in Brewster.

  We rode in comfortable silence for several minutes. Then Evie said, “I just figured something out.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You didn’t include a note with those flowers that you had delivered to my office.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “I thought that was a truly romantic notion,” she said. “No note, but no note needed, of course. Who else could possibly send them but my very own sweetie? Flowers say everything all by themselves.”

  “Honey,” I said, “actually—”

  “You didn’t send those flowers, did you?”

  “Well, no. Not exactly.”

  “It was Larry.”

  “I thought it—”

  “You lied to me,” she said.

  “Well, I never said—”

  “All along, I’m thinking … I’m so touched that my adorable curmudgeon would do something so out of character. So old-fashioned. So romantic. And it wasn’t you at all.”

  “I thought it was Julie,” I said. “Sending them on my behalf.”

  “You could’ve told me.”

  “I was going to,” I said. “But I liked how it made you happy.”

  “If you’d told me it was Julie, I would’ve laughed,” she said. “I know you. You don’t think of things like sending flowers.”

  “You’re right. I don’t. I wish I did, but I don’t.”

  “So you lied to me.”

  “Well, technically—”

  “Brady, goddamn it, don’t you even think about playing lawyer with me.”

  “Sorry.”

  Evie sighed. I recognized that particular sigh. Exasperation and disappointment, mingled with anger. She hitched herself as far away from me as she could in the seat beside me and turned her face to the side window.

  After a minute, I said, “Larry called me ‘Mr. Lawyer.’ And he knew which one was my car. How’s he know about me?”

  “I don’t know how Larry knows things. He knows where I work. He knows we’re down here on the Cape.”

  “But—”

  “You’re not listening to me,” she said. “I told you. I do not want to talk about it.”

  When we got back to the cottage, I poured us each a snifter of brandy. I handed one to Evie and said, “How about that hot tub?”

  She shook her head. “I’m not in the mood anymore.”

  “We can’t let Larry spoil our time.”

  “It’s not Larry,” she said. “It’s you.”

  I took my brandy out onto the deck, and after a few minutes Evie came out. We leaned our elbows on the rail and looked out over the marsh. The fog had evaporated, and the moon reflected off the glassy water.

  “Pretty, huh?” I said.

  “Yes,” said Evie softly. “It’s pretty.”

  “You going to be mad for a while?”

  “I think so.”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “Nothing.”

  I put my arm around her. She stiffened for a moment, then allowed me to hug her against me.

  “I’m sorry for deceiving you,” I said. “It’ll never happen again.”

  She hesitated, then chuckled. “It probably will. Don’t worry about it. It’s no big deal, and it’s stupid of me to hold it against you. Compared to every other man I’ve known, you are positively saintly.”

  I snapped my fingers. “Saintly. Something Larry said. He said he had something to tell you about your ‘saint.’ What was that all about?”

  “Can we please forget about Larry?”

  “None of my business, you mean.”

  “I mean exactly what I said. I don’t want to talk about Larry. I don’t want to think about Larry. Okay?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Okay.”

  Before we went to bed, I retrieved the key from under the doormat and locked the doors and the glass sliders.

  Evie was at the sink putting together the coffee for the morning. “What are you doing?” she said.

  “Locking up.”

  She shook her head. “Goddamn him. I refuse to let him ruin our weekend.”

  “No harm in locking the doors.”

  “And what?” she said. “No more wandering around the house naked? No playing footsie in the hot tub? The hell with that. Larry is harmless, and I’m going to pretend he doesn’t exist.”

  “Good,” I said. “Me too.” But I didn’t mean it.

  When I woke up the next morning, the light was gray
through the windows. Somewhere out there a pair of bobwhites were whistling to each other.

  Evie was sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “What time is it?” I said.

  “Little after five. Go back to sleep.”

  “What’re you doing?”

  “I can’t sleep. I’m going running.” She came around to my side of the bed, bent over, kissed my forehead, then turned for the door. Evie was tall and slim and curvy, and she had long auburn hair. This morning she’d pulled it back into a ponytail, and it hung halfway down her back. She was wearing a white T-shirt and pink running shorts cut high on her hips. She looked trim and athletic and incredibly sexy.

  I gave her a bobwhite whistle.

  She paused in the doorway, put one hand on her hip and the other behind her head, thrust out her pelvis, licked her lips, and flashed a parody of a half-lidded Marilyn Monroe smile. “I’ll be back,” she said. “Don’t you move, big guy.”

  “Wait,” I said. “What about …?”

  She held up her hand. It held a cylinder about the size of a shotgun shell. “Pepper spray,” she said. “I carry it for dogs. All species of dogs. Don’t you worry about me. Go back to sleep.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I bunched a pillow under my head, listened to the bobwhites for a few minutes, and eventually I drifted back to sleep.

  Sometime later I woke up from a disturbing dream in which people were screaming, and it took me a moment to realize I was awake and I was still hearing the screaming. It came from somewhere outside the cottage, and it was Evie and she was yelling for help.

  THREE

  I scrambled out of bed, pulled on my pants, and ran barefoot out of the house.

  Evie was still screaming. “Help! Brady, help! Oh, please, somebody help me!”

  I followed the sound of her voice up the driveway, and around the bend about a hundred yards from the cottage I saw her kneeling at the side of the dirt road.

  I ran up to her. A man was lying in the weeds. He was sprawled on his back. It was Larry Scott. He was wearing khaki pants and a blue polo shirt. His pale eyes were staring blankly up at the sky. The front of his shirt was shiny with dark, wet blood.

  He looked thoroughly dead.