Past Tense Read online

  “She hasn’t showed up for work all week. She didn’t even call her boss. He’s concerned, too.”

  “I see,” she said softly.

  “The state police can’t find her,” I said.

  “Yes, you said that.”

  “Would you say that’s typical of Evie, not showing up for work, and not calling in, and avoiding the police like that?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “In her message to you, she didn’t say what she wanted?”

  “I told you—”

  “Sure,” I said. “Privileged. Fine. But she’s a suspect in a murder case, and she seems to have disappeared, and I, for one, intend to do something about it.”

  “Of course,” she said. “Okay. Why don’t you meet me in my office tomorrow. Say around ten?”

  “Why wait?” I said. “Talk to me now.”

  “No. My kids are hungry, and right now they’re my priority. I’m sorry, but it’ll just have to wait. I don’t usually go to the office on Saturday mornings, Brady. I’ll have to arrange a baby-sitter. So do you want to do this?”

  “Okay. Yes. How do I get there?”

  She gave me directions. Her office was in Cortland, the town where Evie had worked, where she’d been followed and harassed by Larry Scott.

  Evie had told me that Scott had lived his entire life in Cortland. The town was full of people he had known—people who could walk up to him and stab him in the belly before it would occur to him to raise his arms to defend himself.

  It was a good place to start.

  SIX

  I spent Friday night second-guessing myself. I never should have left Evie alone on Saturday without clearing the air. Finding Larry Scott’s body and then being interrogated by the state police had spooked her, and she’d reacted in a perfectly normal way—by taking her frustrations and fears out on me. I should’ve understood that. I shouldn’t have taken it personally. I should have insisted that she let me carry her luggage inside. Then I should have hugged her and held her and told her I loved her. I should have let her be angry with me if she wanted, and I should have waited while she cried or beat on my chest with her fists, or yelled and cursed, if that’s how she felt.

  I should have been there for her, even if she didn’t want me to be.

  Instead I’d shrugged and left her there, alone with her anger, or her fear, or whatever it was she was feeling. So she had gone inside, dumped her duffel bag on the floor, and called her lawyer, and when she didn’t reach her, she … what? What had she done?

  Disturbing scenarios bounced around my brain all night, and I slept poorly.

  Finally, around five o’clock, I gave up trying to sleep. I made coffee, and when it had brewed I took a mug and my road atlas out onto the balcony to watch the sun come up.

  I found Cortland a little southwest of Foxboro about halfway between Boston and Providence, on the old Route 1 where it paralleled Interstate 95. Charlotte Matley had told me her office was on Main Street—which is what they called Route 1 in town—directly across from the village green. I guessed it would take me less than an hour to drive there from my apartment in the light traffic of a summer Saturday morning.

  I forced myself to wait until quarter of nine before I left. I was eager to get there, eager to talk with Charlotte, eager to begin looking for Evie. But there was no reason to get there early. I’d just have to wait.

  I hated waiting.

  It was a straight shot down Interstate 95 to the Cortland exit, and then I found myself heading south on Route 1. I crossed the town line into Cortland a little after nine-thirty A.M. I passed cornfields, now shoulder-high, and motels that looked as if they’d been built in the 1950s, and an old drive-in movie theater with weeds growing out of cracks in the paved parking area. The marquee read, COMMERCIAL PROPERTY FOR SALE.

  Once upon a time, Route 1 was the most-traveled highway in America. It started at the very northern tip of Maine on the New Brunswick border and traced the zigzags of the Atlantic coastline all the way to Key West, Florida. Commerce flourished all along Route 1. Gas stations, souvenir stores, motels, antique shops, ice-cream parlors, taverns, restaurants—all were excellent investments. Any small town lucky enough to be located on Route 1 was guaranteed at least modest prosperity in the early postwar years when all of America owned automobiles, and gas was cheap, and motoring was the national pastime.

  Then the Eisenhower administration launched its interstate highway program, and the old meandering prewar two-lane roadways like Route 1 became byways, and their villages became commercial ghost towns. Now you could hop onto Route 95 in Houlton, Maine, set your cruise control for 70, and in two days of steady driving you’d be in Miami.

  I’d always dreamed of driving the length of Route 1. I’d start in early September in Madawaska, Maine, where the leaves would already be turning, and I’d follow autumn southward, and by the time I arrived in southern Florida, it would be snowing at my starting point. I’d stop at ten thousand stoplights and school crossings. I’d stay in rental cabins and eightunit motels, and I’d eat in coffee shops and diners with the locals, and I’d visit every World War One and Civil War memorial along the way.

  Well, I’d probably never do it. It was a romantic notion, but the older I got, the less inclined I seemed to be to pursue romantic notions.

  I pulled into the tree-shaded parking area in front of the neat white colonial where Charlotte Matley’s office was located around nine forty-five. Several other cars were already parked there.

  A flea market had been set up on the village green across the street, and families were prowling the tables and booths, sipping from paper cups, eating cotton candy, carrying balloons. I crossed the street and bought a cup of coffee and a donut from a pair of elderly women at the Friends of the Library booth, then went back and sat on the front steps of Charlotte’s office building.

  At five minutes of ten, a red Subaru wagon pulled in beside my BMW, and a stocky, thirtyish woman with short blonde hair slid out. She waved at me. “Brady?”

  “Yes, hi,” I said.

  She opened the back door of her Subaru, and two girls came bursting out. They both wore red sneakers and striped overalls and crisp white T-shirts, and they looked four or five years old. Twins.

  Charlotte ushered them to the front of the building where I was sitting on the steps. “Couldn’t get a sitter,” she said. She jerked her head back over her shoulder. “Everyone’s at the fair. Most excitement we’ve had in Cortland since the senior prom.” She held out her hand. “I’m Charlotte Matley.”

  I took her hand. “Brady Coyne.”

  She knelt beside the two girls. “I’m going to be talking with Mr. Coyne,” she said to them, “and I want you to behave yourselves. If you’re good, we’ll go to the fair after I’m done, okay?”

  “Can’t we go now?” said one of the girls.

  “No. You can watch TV in the back room, and you can use the coloring books, and I don’t want to hear a peep out of you.”

  “Can we have cotton candy?”

  “If you behave. End of discussion.” She stood up. “Come on in,” she said to me.

  She unlocked the front door, and I followed her inside. She opened one of the inner doors and said, “Have a seat. Let me get these two settled.” Then she led the girls toward the rear of the building.

  Charlotte Matley’s office appeared to have originally been the library in the old colonial house. It was large and square, with high ceilings and tall windows and floor-to-ceiling bookcases built into three walls, with a bricked-over fireplace in the corner. There was a leather sofa and two matching easy chairs on one side, and a big oak desk against the opposite wall.

  I sat on the sofa, and a minute later Charlotte came in. She was wearing a short-sleeved blouse, a knee-length skirt, and sandals. She sat in one of the easy chairs. “Being a single parent is a full-time job,” she said. “So is being a lawyer.” She blew out a long breath, then smiled at me. “Well, enough about me. You want to
talk about Evie Banyon.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m concerned.”

  “Since I talked to you yesterday, I guess I am, too. I’m not sure I’ll be able to shed much light on it. As I told you, I just got that one message from her a week ago. I called back and left her a message, but I haven’t heard from her.”

  “You said her message sounded urgent,” I said. “What did she say?”

  “Unfortunately, I erased it. There was an urgency in her tone, I remember. She said something like, ‘I need to talk to you.”

  “She used the word ‘need’?” I said.

  Charlotte nodded. “Yes. That was the word that got my attention.”

  “Do you know what time she called?”

  “I can tell you exactly.” She got up, went to her desk, opened a drawer, and came back with a leather-bound notebook. “My machine records the time of my calls, and I log them all in.” She opened the notebook, flipped a couple of pages, then looked up at me. “Evie called at four fifty-two P.M. last Saturday.”

  “That was no more than ten or fifteen minutes after I dropped her off,” I said.

  “Is that significant?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. She’d just been through a long interrogation with the state police. Maybe she decided she needed to consult a lawyer. I’d mentioned that to her.” I shook my head.

  “You don’t seem convinced,” said Charlotte.

  “Well,” I said, “it’s unlike Evie to leave her duffel bag in the middle of the living room. It’s as if she panicked when she walked into her place.”

  “Why would she panic?”

  “Maybe she had a message on her answering machine, though if she did, she deleted it. I guess I was hoping you might have an idea.”

  She shook her head.

  “Evie told me she’d consulted a lawyer about Scott back when she lived in Cortland,” I said. “That was you, huh?”

  “Yes. She wanted to take out a 209A.”

  “The way she explained her situation to me,” I said, “she didn’t have grounds for a restraining order.”

  Charlotte looked at me and smiled quickly. “Right. But now I’m feeling maybe I should’ve tried harder to do something for her.”

  “She did talk with the local police, though?”

  She nodded. “That was before she came to me. Our police are mostly local boys. Cortland is a small town. For better or worse, if you know what I mean. Everybody in town knows—knew—Larry Scott. He was sort of a war hero after Desert Storm. Evie lived here for three or four years, but Scott was born here. Compared to him, she was an outsider.”

  “So she didn’t get any satisfaction.”

  “Scott was following her and watching her and harassing her on the phone and parking outside her house at night. Evie felt the police weren’t taking her seriously. I told her they couldn’t do much without a restraining order, and she didn’t have legal grounds to get one, and I explained that what Scott was doing wasn’t technically stalking. I think the police did everything they could, but Evie was very angry and frustrated by the whole thing. Finally she got a new job and moved away.”

  “So advising her about the restraining order was the only business you had with Evie?” I said.

  Charlotte looked out the window. “Now you’re asking me questions I can’t answer.”

  “There was something else, then?”

  She shook her head. “She’s my client.”

  “Look, Charlotte,” I said. “I’m here as Evie’s friend, not as a lawyer. If there’s something—”

  “The way I look at it,” she said, “whatever she wanted you to know, she would’ve told you. It’s not up to me.”

  “Except she’s missing.”

  She shrugged. “We don’t really know that. Just because you can’t find her …”

  “Sure,” I said. “You’re right.” I smiled. “Evie didn’t tell me much.”

  “I guess everybody has their secrets.” Charlotte stood up and smoothed her skirt against her legs. “I’m afraid I haven’t been much help, but I think I’ve told you everything I can. You should probably just let Evie work out whatever it is she’s doing in her own way.”

  I stood up, too. “If you knew where she was, would you tell me?”

  “Not if she asked me not to.”

  “But you didn’t talk to her.”

  “No,” she said. “I might refuse to tell you something, but I wouldn’t lie to you. Hey, I’m a lawyer.”

  I arched my eyebrows, and she laughed.

  “Who were her friends here in Cortland?” I said.

  “Friends?” She frowned. “I don’t know. We never talked about her friends. She worked at the new medical center and she rented an apartment in a big old Victorian down near the lake. That’s about all I know. I was her lawyer, not her confidante.”

  “Can you tell me how to find the medical center and that apartment building?”

  Charlotte smiled. “You are persistent, aren’t you?”

  “I’m worried about Evie.”

  She nodded. “Of course you are.” She gave me directions. The medical center was on Main Street—Route 1—outside of town a few miles south of the village green. Evie’s old apartment building was down toward the end of a side street I’d passed on my way. They both sounded easy to find.

  We walked out of her office. She locked the door, then turned and held out her hand. “I’ve got to round up the kids,” she said. “You can find your way out.”

  I took her hand. “Thanks for seeing me on a Saturday morning. I know it was an inconvenience.”

  “I’m afraid I haven’t been much help.”

  “It’s a start,” I said.

  She headed for the back of the building, and I went out the front door. I paused on the porch to light a cigarette. It was one of those still, hazy summer mornings that felt like it would evolve into thunderstorms in the afternoon. The crowds on the village green across the street appeared to have grown larger, and now the parking area in front of the lawyer’s building was packed with vehicles.

  I headed for my car, where I’d left it under the sweeping branches of a big old oak tree. Charlotte Matley hadn’t been much help, and this quest was starting to feel quixotic and futile. Evie could be anywhere, and I didn’t know where to look, or even whether I should be looking. Maybe Charlotte was right. Maybe I should trust Evie to work out her own problems by herself. She certainly hadn’t asked for my help.

  But since I was already here in Cortland, I figured I should try to talk to some people. Maybe somebody where Evie used to live or at the medical center where she’d worked had been her friend. An old friend might have an idea where she’d go if she wanted to get away from things.

  It also occurred to me that Cortland was populated with people who’d known Larry Scott. The police figured he and his killer had known each other. If Scott had lived his entire life in this town, then about the only people he did know were here.

  It was a good place to start snooping.

  When I got to my car, I stopped, let out a long breath, and mumbled, “Shit.” The left front tire had gone flat.

  I squatted down beside it. I figured God, or the Fates—not that I believed in any of them—were trying to tell me something. Mind your own business, Coyne. Go home, or go fishing, or catch up on your paperwork, and forget about Evie.

  Except I couldn’t forget about Evie after what had happened, and I couldn’t go anywhere on a flat tire.

  “I hate it when that happens,” said a voice behind me.

  I turned around. Charlotte was standing there with her two girls. She was shaking her head sympathetically.

  “Oh, well,” I said. “I’ve changed plenty of flats in my day.”

  She fished in her purse and came out with a cell phone. “Let me make a call for you. You don’t want to get all sweaty and greasy.”

  I stood up. “You’re right. I really don’t.”

  She pecked out a number on her cell phone, l
ooked up at the sky, then shifted her eyes and said, “Raymond, it’s Charlotte Matley. I’ve got a flat tire here in my parking lot … Yes, at my office. Will you send one of your boys down to rescue me?” She paused, smiled, and nodded. “Thank you. You’re a dear man.” Then she snapped her phone shut and smiled at me. “Someone’ll be here in fifteen minutes.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “If you’d called, it would probably take them two hours to get here. If they didn’t forget it completely.”

  “Me being a stranger here in town.”

  “Exactly.”

  She said she should stay with my car because the tire-fixer would be looking for her, so I went across the street, wandered through the crowd until I found the cotton-candy booth, and bought two for Charlotte’s girls.

  I returned to the parking lot just as a tow truck pulled in. I gave the cotton candies to the twins. They curtsied and thanked me, and Charlotte went over to talk with the young guy who was climbing out of the truck. Then they both came over.

  He looked to be in his early twenties. He had brown hair cut in an old-fashioned crew cut, with splotches of grease on his face and arms. He was wearing workboots and overalls with no shirt underneath.

  “Mr. Coyne,” said Charlotte, “this is Carl. He’s one of Raymond’s sons.”

  I held out my hand to Carl. He looked at it, then looked at his own hand, which was black with grease, and smiled at me. “You don’t wanna shake this hand, sir.” He pointed his chin at my tire. “Looks like you picked up a nail.”

  I shrugged. “I guess so.”

  He waved at my car. “Beemer, huh? You like it?”

  I nodded.

  “Nice car.” He glanced down at my flat tire. “Well, we’ll throw on your spare, and if you want, we can go back to the garage and I’ll patch this one up for you. Shouldn’t drive around without a good spare. Where you headed?”

  “I’m from Boston.”

  “Come down for the fair?”

  “No,” I said. “I had an appointment with Ms. Matley.”

  He looked at me and grinned. “I was joking,” he said. “Nobody comes to Cortland for anything, never mind our dumb fair. Pop that trunk for me, willya?”