Past Tense (16 page)
“No,” he said. “Come up with these stories.”
“Now you've hurt my feelings,” I said. “It's not a story. It's true.”
“Well, I'll pass it along. You got a number there if she needs to reach you?”
I gave Edward the motel number. “If you think she's tempted to call me,” I told him, “you could do me a favor and remind your wife that I'm the lawyer and she's the secretary and her job is to do what I want.”
“She knows better than that, Brady. But I'll do my best for you.”
I thanked Edward, hung up the phone, smoked a cigarette, stared up at the ceiling, then picked it up again and dialed information.
It took awhile to convince the mechanical voice to connect me to an actual person, but finally I got the number for the local weekly newspaper in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and even though it was a Sunday afternoon, when I rang that number, a raspy woman's voice answered.
“Are you the editor?” I said.
“Editor, reporter, sales rep, chief bottle-washer,” she said. “Kate Burrows, at your service. Who's this?”
“My name is Brady Coyne. I'm calling from Cortland, Massachusetts.” I paused, waiting for that to sink in.
She hesistated, then said, “Cortland ⦠Oh. The Owen Ransom murder. Are you with the newspaper there?”
“No. I'm a lawyer. I have some information.”
“I'm all ears, Mr. Coyne.”
“Quid pro quo, Ms. Burrows.”
She chuckled. “Lawyers. Okay. What've you got for me, and what do you want?”
“I want you to tell me about Owen Ransom.”
“Do you know who killed him?”
“I'm afraid not. But I can tell you what he was doing here in Cortland. Fair?”
“Sure,” she said. “I hope you have more to tell me than I have for you.”
“You start,” I said.
She cleared her throat. “Understand, before this morning I'd never even heard of Owen Ransom. He wasn't exactly famous around here. But a local boy gets himself murdered, I ask some questions, dig around in our archives, such as they are. The murder story will be front-page stuff, of course. I'm also trying to put together a sidebar about Mr. Ransom himself. You know, the human-interest piece of it. Mostly
interviews with people who knew him. I haven't gotten very far with that. Owen Ransom was apparently a quiet young man, lived by himself, not many friends. I did talk with the owner of the hardware store where Ransom worked, a Mr. Gallatin. He's lived in Carlisle all his life. Knew Ransom's parents. Told me one interesting thing.”
interviews with people who knew him. I haven't gotten very far with that. Owen Ransom was apparently a quiet young man, lived by himself, not many friends. I did talk with the owner of the hardware store where Ransom worked, a Mr. Gallatin. He's lived in Carlisle all his life. Knew Ransom's parents. Told me one interesting thing.”
“What's that?” I said.
“He told me that Owen Ransom had a lot of money socked away. Inherited it from his parents, who died several years ago. Mr. Gallatin knew the parents. The father was a high-school teacher, the mother a homemaker. When the Ransoms moved to Carlisle, they paid cash for their house. They lived modestly, but they donated extravagantly to charities. Way more than could be accounted for by a teacher's salary, according to Mr. Gallatin. He told me that one time he'd casually asked Mr. RansomâOwen's fatherâhow he'd come by his wealth. Expected him to say it was old family money or something, but Mr. Ransom saidâand I'm looking at my notes now, Mr. Coyne, and this is exactly how Mr. Gallatin remembers it: Mr. Ransom said it had cost him every drop of his soul's blood.”
“What did he mean by that?”
“Mr. Gallatin didn't know. But obviously the phrase stuck with him.”
I thought for a minute. “So Owen Ransom had money,” I said. “Who stands to inherit it?”
“Sorry,” she said. “I don't know. What I've learned so far, he had no living relatives. I suppose the police will be looking into that.”
“What else can you tell me?”
“He attended the local schools. A decent student, never in trouble. Just a quiet, rather anonymous young man.” She paused. “And that's about all I can tell you. Your turn.”
I told Kate Burrows what I knewâthat Owen Ransom had
come to Cortland using the name Paul Romano and posing as a doctor who wanted to buy the practice of a retiring local pediatrician and had been found in his rental car behind a motel with his throat cut. I told her that another young man, a native of Cortland, had been stabbed to death a week earlier down on Cape Cod.
come to Cortland using the name Paul Romano and posing as a doctor who wanted to buy the practice of a retiring local pediatrician and had been found in his rental car behind a motel with his throat cut. I told her that another young man, a native of Cortland, had been stabbed to death a week earlier down on Cape Cod.
She asked several clarifying questions, and I answered them as well as I could.
“And what,” she said when I finished, “is your interest in all of this, Mr. Coyne?”
“I'm a lawyer, Ms. Burrows. I can't tell you.”
“Of course you can't.” She chuckled. “Well, I hope I may call you later for further enlightenment.”
“Sure,” I said. “My number's in the Boston book.”
After I hung up with Kate Burrows, I yawned, turned out the light, slid in between the sheets, and stared up at ceiling, looking for insight.
None appeared, and I was too sleepy to look harder.
I closed my eyes.
The last time I'd been in this bed, Evie had been with me. I'd held her naked body while we slept, and remembering the scent of her hair in my face and the silky, electric feel of her skin against mine and the slow rise and fall of her chest under my arm eased me into a deep, hungry sleep.
The bleating of the telephone woke me up. For a minute I thought I was in my bedroom back in Boston. The phone rang several times before I blinked the disorienting afternoon sleep out of my head and picked it up.
I cleared my throat and grumbled, “Hlo?” I figured it was Julie, calling to bawl me out.
“Mr. Coyne?” A woman's voice. Not Julie's.
“Yes. Who's this?”
“It's Mary Scott, Mr. Coyne.”
I hitched myself into a half-sitting position in the bed. Afternoon sunlight streamed in around the drapes in my little motel room. “What time is it?” I said.
“Beg your pardon?”
“Nothing. It doesn't matter. What's the matter, Mrs. Scott?”
“Oh, nothing,” she said. “Nothing's the matter. I was just wondering if you might be able to drop by again. There's something I want you to see.”
“Sure,” I said. “What is it?”
“Just something of Larry's,” she said. “It wasn't in his room, and I thought ⦔
“You're making this sound a little mysterious, you know.”
She laughed quickly. “I guess I am, aren't I?”
“I can be there in about half an hour,” I said. “Would that be all right?”
“That would be fine.”
“Um, Mrs. Scott? Mary?”
“Yes?”
“How did you know where to find me?”
She hesitated for a moment. “I guess you must've mentioned you were staying at the motel.”
“Right,” I said. “I guess I must have. Well, I'll be right along.”
I hung up the phone. I was pretty sure I had not mentioned that I was staying in a motel room, either to Mary Scott or to Mel.
Small town. Everybody knew everything.
I
took a shower and let the cold water run over my face and chest for as long as I could stand it. It washed away the cobwebby blur of my afternoon nap, and by the time I'd dried myself and gotten dressed, I felt awake and reasonably alert.
took a shower and let the cold water run over my face and chest for as long as I could stand it. It washed away the cobwebby blur of my afternoon nap, and by the time I'd dried myself and gotten dressed, I felt awake and reasonably alert.
I left my room, paid a dollar to the motel machine, and took a can of Coke to my car. I was alert enough to notice that Valerie Kershaw's cruiser was not parked there. I looked around the nearly empty lot in front of the motel and saw no cruisers whatsoever. Nothing that even looked like a plainclothes cop car. No cars at all with anybody sitting in them.
Hmm.
I headed north on Route 1, past the diner, past the medical center, and past the village green, sipping my Coke and welcoming the little jolts of caffeine. I kept an eye on my rearview mirror. No cars of any description pulled in behind me.
I took the right after the old drive-in, followed the winding
country road, and pulled up in front of her house on the edge of the woods.
country road, and pulled up in front of her house on the edge of the woods.
The Ford Escort was still sitting in the driveway. So was Mel's pickup truck. No legs were sticking out from under it.
I went to the house, climbed the steps, rapped on the frame of the screen door, and a moment later Mary Scott came out onto the porch. “Come on in,” she said.
I followed her into the house, through the living room, and into the kitchen. Mel was sitting at the table sipping from a can of Coors. An empty plate and a bottle of catsup sat in front of him. He'd washed his face and arms and slicked back his hair, but he was still wearing the same grimy T-shirt and blue jeans and workboots he'd had on in the morning.
He looked at me, touched his cheekbone with his fingertip, and said, “How you doin'?”
I nodded. “I'm fine. How about you?”
He pinched his nose gently between his thumb and forefinger and grinned. Then he held up his beer can. “Want one?”
“No, thanks.” I turned to Mary. “What's up? What did you want to show me?”
She looked at Mel. He drained his beer, tossed the empty into the wastebasket beside the refrigerator, and stood up. “Come on. I'll show you.”
“Wait,” said Mary. She left the kitchen and headed for the front of the house. She was back a minute later. “It's okay,” she said to Mel.
He led me through a pantry and out the back door. Mel held out his arm, and we stopped on the small wooden porch. A narrow dirt path led straight back to the big old barn. Another path angled off to the side where it met the driveway.
The back lawn needed mowing, and milkweed and goldenrod and brambles grew waist-high against the side of the barn. The rusty skeletons of harrows and reapers and plows,
plus an ancient refrigerator and some old lawn furniture, were piled up against the barn, half-hidden in the weeds.
plus an ancient refrigerator and some old lawn furniture, were piled up against the barn, half-hidden in the weeds.
Mel put his hand on my arm. “I'm gonna look, make sure the coast is clear, okay? You stay here. When I give you the signal, you run into the barn. Go into the third stall on your left. You'll find a door. Go in there and take them steps down into the cellar.”
“Then what?”
“You'll see,” he said.
I shrugged. “Okay.”
He moved to the driveway and peeked around the corner of the house to the front. Then he looked back at me, waved his hand, and pointed at the barn.
I took a deep breath, then sprinted down the path and through the big opening into the barn. I stood there in the middle of the wood-plank floor and looked around. It was dim and dank inside the barn, and it took a minute for my eyes to adjust.
A tractor and a flatbed truck were parked in the back. Along the entire length of the wall on the right was a workbench piled with power tools and hand tools and engine parts. Several bare, unlit lightbulbs hung down over the bench, dangling from long electrical cords attached to the beam overhead. An open stairway at the end of the bench near the front of the barn led up to the hayloft.
Horse stalls lined the entire wall on the left. I went into the third stall and looked for the door Mel had mentioned. In the dim light, it took me a minute to locate it. It looked like it had been cut out of the original wall. Its vertical sides matched up with the edges of the weathered wallboards. Only the thin horizontal saw-cut, about head-high, gave it away.
A hole the size of a quarter had been drilled into the door. A short length of thin rope hung out of the hole.
I pulled on the rope and felt a latch lift on the other side of the door. It swung open silently. I stepped through the doorway and found myself on a small landing at the top of a narrow, steep flight of wooden steps that descended into the darkness.
I pulled the rope back through the hole, and the door shut behind me. The latch snapped into place, and everything went completely black.
I stood there, hoping my eyes would make one more adjustment. But there was no light whatsoever in there. I felt around on the walls for a light switch but found none. Instead, my ears began to pick up faint soundsâthe creak of old wooden beams and rafters, the chirp of crickets, the coo of pigeons, the scurry of mice in dry hay. After a minute, I thought I detected a faint, mechanical, clicking sound. I listened harder, and then I couldn't hear it anymore.
Standing there in the absolute darkness, I was more aware of the odors, too. Decomposed manure, axle grease, old leather ⦠and something sweeter and fresher and cleaner that I couldn't identify.
I wished Mel had thought to give me a flashlight.
Take the steps down into the cellar, he had said.
He had not said what I'd find down there.
Was this stupid? Did I have any reason to trust Mel and Mary Scott? Mel had tried to kill me the last time I was here. I had no idea what Mary's agenda was.
For all I knew, both of them thought I'd killed Larry.
The rough walls were so close beside me that I could touch them by sticking out my elbows. There was no railing to hold on to. I put my hands out to guide myself and began slowly to descend the steps. I took them one at a time, pressing my hands against the walls for balance and feeling for the next step with my foot before shifting my weight onto it.
I counted fourteen steps, and then my forward foot felt a
dirt floor. I stepped down onto it, reached out my hand, and touched a rough wooden wall in front of me.
dirt floor. I stepped down onto it, reached out my hand, and touched a rough wooden wall in front of me.
I groped on the wall until my hand brushed against a latch. I lifted it with the crook of my forefinger, pushed the door open, and stepped through the doorway.
I had to squeeze my eyes shut against the sudden glare of light. Before I could open them, something hard jabbed into my ribs.
“Put your hands behind your neck and take two steps forward,” growled a voice from behind me. “Try something stupid and I'll blow a hole in you.”
I did as I was told, then slowly turned my head.
Evie stood there, holding a double-barreled shotgun at her hip. She was wearing shorts and a man-sized T-shirt. She'd ditched the felt hat. Her auburn hair hung in a long braid down the middle of her back.
“Well, here we are again,” she said.
I let out the breath I didn't realize I'd been holding. “So this is where you've been holing up.”
She lowered the barrel of the shotgun so that it was pointing at the plywood floor. “Be it ever so humble.”
I looked around. A couple of fluorescent bulbs on the ceiling filled the room with harsh white light. A door laid across a pair of file cabinets made a worktable. On the table were a computer with an external modem and a printer and a scanner, along with a telephone, a fax machine, a twelve-inch television set, a portable CD player, and an electric fan.
On one wall was a small dirty window with no curtains. A door beside it stood ajar. It opened to the outdoors, where the dark woods loomed close. This room, I realized, was at ground level on the rear wall of the barn.
A narrow cot with an unrolled sleeping bag on it sat along one wall. Shelves hanging on another held paperback books and stacks of magazines and newspapers and reams of paper.
Evie propped the shotgun in the corner, sat on the cot, and looked at me without smiling. “I understand you were in Larry's room this morning,” she said.
I nodded. She was thinking of the photo display.
She shrugged. “What can I say?”
“You don't have to say anything, honey,” I said. “You didn't even know me then.” I waved my hand around the room. “What is this place?”
“Larry's hideaway,” she said. “He practically lived here. Him and his beloved computer.”
“And this is where you came, after ⦔
She nodded. “After we got back from the Cape.”
“Why?”
She shrugged.
“I know you tried to call Charlotte Matley,” I said. “How come?”
“After finding Larry, and then those policemen, accusing me ⦔ She took a deep breath and blew it out quickly. “I needed advice. Advice from someone ⦠objective. Someone I could trust.”
I started to speak, to tell her she could've trusted me, but she held up her hand. “Charlotte wasn't there,” she said, “and I guess I panicked. I just had to get the hell away from there. So I grabbed my backpack and came here. I knew Mary would take care of me.”
I went over, sat beside her on the cot, and put my arm around her shoulders. “So now what are you doing, honey?”
She leaned against me. “What do you mean?”
“You can't live forever in thisâthis hole.”
“I sneak out,” she said. “Mary and Mel are watching out for me. Anyway, it's not forever. Just until they catch whoever's killing people.”
“As near as I can tell,” I said, “their only suspects are you
and me. I think the only reason they haven't arrested me is because they think I'll lead them to you.”
and me. I think the only reason they haven't arrested me is because they think I'll lead them to you.”
She was quiet for a minute. Then she pressed her cheek against my shoulder and said, “I do love you, you know.”
I turned and kissed her neck. “I wasn't sure,” I said. “I love you, too.”
“There's a âbut' coming at you,” she said.
I smiled. “Isn't there always?”
“Here's the âbut,'” she said. “ButâI don't think we should see each other anymore.”
“Meeting like this?” I said. “Sneaking into motel rooms? Clandestine rendezvous in hidden rooms under barns? It's actually kind of romantic, if you ask me.”
“I'm not kidding,” she said.
“No, I didn't think you were. Things'll be different after this is over with.”
“They'll be different, all right,” she said. “They'll never be the same.”
“If it's those photosâ”
“I told you I wanted you to go home, stay away from me.”
I shrugged.
She nodded. “I mean it. I wish you hadn't come to this town.”
“You think I'm bad for you,” I said.
“No,” she said, “I think I'm bad for you.”
“Well, you're stuck with me.”
She looked at me for a minute, then rolled her eyes and stood up. “Well, I want to show you something.”
She went over to the table with the computer on it. “I've been sleeping down here for a week,” she said. “This morning I started poking around Larry's stuff. I found this.” She picked up a piece of paper.
I went over and she handed it to me. It was a page that had
been torn from the “Living” section of the Boston Globe dated June 12, about two months earlier. The headline read, “End of an Era in Cortland.” The subhead read, “Illness Forces Small-Town Children's Doctor to Announce Retirement.” It took me a moment to recognize Dr. Winston St. Croix's photo. It had obviously been taken before he became ill. He had a rugged face, a head of thick, silvery hair, a dark, neatly trimmed mustache, twinkling, humorous eyes. He wore a white jacket over a light-colored shirt with a polka-dotted bowtie. In the photo he was holding a tongue depressor in the mouth of a boy who looked about eight years old. They were looking at each other with wide eyes and arched eyebrows. The doctor's mouth was open, too, and you could almost hear both of them saying “Ahh” at the same time.
been torn from the “Living” section of the Boston Globe dated June 12, about two months earlier. The headline read, “End of an Era in Cortland.” The subhead read, “Illness Forces Small-Town Children's Doctor to Announce Retirement.” It took me a moment to recognize Dr. Winston St. Croix's photo. It had obviously been taken before he became ill. He had a rugged face, a head of thick, silvery hair, a dark, neatly trimmed mustache, twinkling, humorous eyes. He wore a white jacket over a light-colored shirt with a polka-dotted bowtie. In the photo he was holding a tongue depressor in the mouth of a boy who looked about eight years old. They were looking at each other with wide eyes and arched eyebrows. The doctor's mouth was open, too, and you could almost hear both of them saying “Ahh” at the same time.
I looked at Evie. “What's the significance of this?”
“I don't know,” she said. “I found it stashed under some old maps.” She pointed her thumb at the bookshelves. “I assume Larry tore it out of the paper.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Well, of course, I used to go out with Winston St. Croix. This”âshe tapped the newspaper photographâ“is how he looked before he got sick.”
“A good-looking man. Probably too old for you.”
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