Past Tense Read online

  “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, but—”

  “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.

  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.

  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.

  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 did—spartan 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.

  Aside from her duffel bag sitting in the middle of the floor, everything was as I remembered it in the living room. I went over and looked at Evie’s collection of hand-carved birds in the glass-fronted cabinet in the corner. I had given her the little ruby-throated hummingbird for Christmas and the wood thrush for Valentine’s Day. I was lucky, always knowing what I could give Evie for gifts, knowing that they would delight her, knowing I’d never run out of good ideas. I was eager to return her bobwhite quail to her so she could add it to her collection.

  I moved into the kitchen. Everything was neat and orderly there, too. I opened the refrigerator and checked the dates on the milk and orange-juice cartons. They had both expired earlier in the week. Both cartons were about half full. I figured she’d bought them sometime before we went to the Cape.

  I judged orange juice by its taste, but Evie, I knew, threw away everything the moment it became outdated, whether it tasted all right or not.

  It was obvious that she hadn’t been here for a while. In fact, it seemed as if she’d turned around and left as soon as I’d dropped her off back on Saturday.

  That duffel bag sitting there in the middle of her living room was ominous. It suggested she’d left in a hurry.

  Or that she’d left against her will.

  I looked out the living-room window to the slot under the trees in front where she parked her black Volkswagen Jetta. It wasn’t there.

  I went back into the living room, sat on the sofa, and lit a cigarette. I tried to think. Larry Scott was following Evie. Then someone murdered Larry Scott—someone, apparently, that he’d known. Evie had been questioned hard by the state police. Scott knew Evie. She was a good suspect.

  Then she’d disappeared.

  I was just stubbing out my cigarette when the phone rang. I jumped up and went into her office. I debated answering it versus letting her machine take it and listening to the message, then grabbed it while it was still ringing.

  “Yes?” I said. “Hello?”

  There was no response. I sensed rather than heard a person breathing on the other end of the line.

  “This is Brady Coyne,” I said quickly. “Who is this? Evie? Is that you?”

  There was a perceptible hesitation, then whoever it was hung up.

  I sat at Evie’s desk. The answering machine kept winking at me.

  I felt like a snooper. But I pressed the PLAY button.

  The machine whirred for a minute, clicked, beeped, and then a woman’s voice said, “Evie? This is Charlotte Matley, returning your call. It’s, um, Sunday evening. I’m sorry I couldn’t get back to you sooner, but I’ve been away from the office for the weekend. You sounded like you had something urgent. I hope everything’s okay. You can call me here at home tonight, or catch me in the office in the morning.” She left two phone numbers, then hung up.

  The machine beeped again, and then came a message from Sergeant Lipton, Vanderweigh’s partner, politely asking her to call him. Then there was another message from Lipton. This time he was less polite. “Ms. Banyon,” he said, “you must call us immediately.”

  Then I heard my voice asking Evie to call me. Then me again, sounding both annoyed and concerned. Then came Marcus Bluestein, then me again, telling her I loved her and missed her.

  After the last message, I pressed the SAVE button and the machine rewound itself.

  Who was Charlotte Matley? I didn’t remember ever hearing Evie mention anybody named Charlotte. On the other hand, I was realizing that there were a lot of things about Evie I didn’t know.

  I replayed the messages and jotted down the two numbers Charlotte Matley had left. Then I picked up Evie’s phone and pressed the redial button.

  It rang five times. Then a recorded message said, “You have reached the offices of Hagan and Matley, attorneys-at-law. Our regular hours are eight-thirty to five, Monday through Friday. To speak to Attorney Michael Hagan, please press one. To speak to Attorney Charlotte Matley, press two.”

  I pressed two. “This is Charlotte Matley,” said the same, rather throaty voice that had left Evie a message. “Please leave your name and number along with a brief message and I’ll be sure to return your call.”

  I hit the OFF button on Evie’s phone without leaving a message.

  Hmm. Evie had mentioned consulting a lawyer back when she lived in Cortland and Larry Scott was driving her crazy. I thought I remembered that Evie had referred to the lawyer as “she.” An inspired leap of deductive analysis suggested to me that Charlotte Matley might be that same lawyer.

  I dialed the home number that Attorney Matley had left on Evie’s machine, and after a couple of rings, a woman’s voice said, “Yes?” It was the same voice I’d been listening to on Evie’s answering machine.

  “Hi,” I said. “I’m sorry to bother you at home. My name is Brady Coyne. I’m an attorney and a friend of Evie Banyon, and—”

  “How did you get this number, Mr. Coyne?”

  “Well, to tell you the truth, I’m at Evie’s house and I got it off her answering machine.”

  “Really.” Her voice dripped with disapproval.

  “Well, yes,” I said. “You see, she and I are, um, good friends, and we’ve been out of touch, and I’ve been worried about her. I haven’t spoken to her for a week, and she hasn’t been returning my calls, and so finally—”

  “You broke into her house?”

  “No,” I said. “I have a key.”

  “May I make a suggestion, Mr. Coyne?”

  “Sure, but—”

  “Evie doesn’t appreciate being hounded.”

  “Hounded? I’m worried about her, Ms. Matley. She’s been through a very traumatic experience.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Ms. Matley?” I said. “Are you there?”

  “Yes.” She cleared her throat. “You might as well call me Charlotte. So you haven’t heard from her in what, a week?”

  “Right. I dropped her off here last Saturday. Her duffel bag is still sitting on the living-room floor. She has a week’s worth of messages on her answering machine. The state police are trying to reach her. I know she tried to call you. Did you speak with her?”

  “Mr. Coyne,” she said, “you know better.”

  “I’m not asking what you talked about, Charlotte. I’m just asking if you spoke with her. I just want to know that she’s all right. And yo
u should call me Brady.”

  “Right,” she said. “Brady it shall be, then.” She hesitated. “Well, no, I didn’t actually speak with her. She left me a message, and I returned her call. But she didn’t answer, and she didn’t get back to me, and I haven’t seen her. I wish I could assure you that she’s all right.”

  “What was her message?”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Look,” I said. “Client privilege and all that. But I heard your return message to her. You said her call sounded urgent. Well, I’m sure it was. Last Saturday Evie found the dead body of a man who’d been following her and harassing her. Did you know that? His name was Larry Scott. He’d been knifed twice in the stomach, and the state police think she killed him. So she called you, her lawyer, and when she couldn’t reach you, it looks to me like she left here in a hurry.” I paused. “Or else something happened to her.”

  Charlotte Matley said nothing. In the background, I heard what sounded like television laughter.

  “Charlotte?” I said.

  “Yes,” she said. “I haven’t gone anywhere. To tell you the truth, I’ve got my two children here with me, and we were just putting supper together when you called. They’re hungry. This is not a good time.”

  “What is a good time?”

  She laughed quickly. “It’s my weekend with the kids. It’s precious to me. There is no good time. Why don’t we talk on Monday?”

  “Doesn’t it concern you that Evie called you, and it sounded urgent, and you haven’t heard back from her in a week?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I just figured whatever it was, it wasn’t that urgent after all, or it got resolved.”

  “How well do you know Evie?” I said.

  “Quite well, actually.”

  “Would you say Evie panics easily?”

  “No. Evie Banyon does not overreact. She’s a calm, confident, very self-contained person.”

  “Well,” I said, “she’s gone. She called you, and she didn’t get you, and now she’s gone.”

  “Are you trying to make me feel responsible?”

  “No. I’m just telling you what happened.”

  “Just because she’s not there, it doesn’t mean—”