Past Tense (20 page)
“I talked to Evie on the phone a little before three this morning,” I said. “What time did you notice the fire?”
Mel looked up at the sky. “Five? Around then sometime. It was still dark. I tell you, man, seein' them flames in the nighttime right next to our house ⦔
“It must have been scary.”
He nodded. “Especially thinkin' Evie was in there.”
“Well,” I said, “I'm sorry about your workbench and your tools and everything.”
He blew out a breath. “That's another damn thing. Charlotte says the people who gave me stuff to fix might come after me for the cost of it. Hell, I had about twenty things in there to repair.”
I touched his arm. “I'm sorry.”
“Well,” he said, “fuck 'em, you know? They can't get outta me what I haven't got, and I ain't got their machines and I ain't got any money, either.”
“Maybe the insurance will work out.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, maybe.”
As we continued around the barn, I noticed that an old rutted roadway led off into the woods out back. “Where does that go?” I asked Mel.
“It's about a mile down to the pond. Old tote road. The farmer who lived here before us used to cut wood out there. I do that some, too, and haul it out with the tractor. Larry's hunting cabin's down there.”
“Does Evie know about it?”
“I guess so. Larry don't keep anything from her.”
“Maybe she's there.”
“At the cabin?” He shrugged. “Doubt it. She hid her car down that road. There's other ways out besides through here.”
“What do you mean?”
“You haul wood, you gotta have lots of roads. This here's the main one, comes back to the farmyard. But there's others.”
“So there are several roads Evie could've taken out of the woods.”
“Well,” he said, “there's a couple of 'em, at least, good enough to drive that little Volkswagen of hers on.”
“She might've gone to that cabin, though,” I said.
Mel shrugged.
“I'm going to take a look.” I started down the roadway.
Mel held back for a moment, then came along beside me. “I better go with you,” he said. “You take a wrong turn in these woods, you'll be lost for a month.”
As we walked along the rutted old tote road, I was aware of the fact that just two days earlier Mel Scott had tried to throw me down the stairs. Now he was striding along beside me in the middle of the woods, and I was very aware of how big and strong and young and fine-tuned he was.
The midsummer forestâa mixture of mature oak and pine, with a few patches of younger birch and poplarâwas fragrant and overripe, and it pressed in on both sides of us. The big old oaks arched overhead, shading us from the midmorning sun. Tumbledown stone walls ran along both sides of the roadway, and here and there a break in the wall marked another ancient tote road leading off to one side or the other. A couple of those old roadways looked navigable by a non-four-wheel-drive vehicle.
There were several forks in the road, and Mel and I trudged along for ten or fifteen minutes before it began to slope down a steep hillside. Then through the trees I spotted the glitter of sunlight on water.
The road ended at a long, skinny pond. I could see where a little stream fed into it up at the end. I estimated it covered no more than two or three acres. “Beavers?” I said to Mel.
He shook his head. “Farmer dammed it up a hundred years ago. Me and Larry used to catch pickerel out of here when we were kids.”
The cabin was off to the left, half-hidden by a screen of pines. I walked over to it. It was small and square, maybe twenty by twenty, with a tin roof and dark, weathered plank sides. There were two small windows in front and no lock on the door.
I peeked in through one of the windows, and by cupping my hands around my eyes I could make out a rectangular table with five or six wooden chairs around it, a woodstove with an aluminum chimney pipe leading up through the roof, a ratty old sofa, and two sets of bunk beds. An old-fashioned kerosene lantern, a deck of cards, a cribbage board, and four or five beer cans all sat on the table, and a couple of mounted deer heads hung on the wall. It looked dark and musty and unlived-in.
“I didn't think she'd be here,” said Mel.
I went around to the back of the cabin. There was no rear door, no other windows, no outhouse, no electrical wiring, no propane tank.
There was, however, a pile of old beer cans and empty bottles and semi-decomposed cardboard boxes. An old wooden rowboat sat with its bow pulled up on the bank of the pond and its stern sunk in the water.
“Doesn't look like the place gets much use,” I said to Mel.
“Just deer season. Larry and his buddies like to sleep here, drink and play cards and get up early to go hunting.”
Again I noticed Mel's use of the present tense whenever he referred to Larry. “What about you?” I said to him.
He shook his head. “I don't shoot animals. That's Larry's thing. I never use this place.”
Evie wasn't here, and I saw no evidence that sheâor anybody elseâhad been recently.
I nodded to Mel. “Thanks for bringing me here. It's a nice cabin and a beautiful spot. Guess we might as well head back.”
We started walking back up the road.
“You better not tell nobody about our cabin,” Mel said after a few minutes. “Larry will be some pissed at me if he finds out I brought you here.”
He was frowning at me, and I saw that in some dark corner of Mel's muddled brain, Larry Scott was still alive and bossing his baby brother around.
W
hen we got back to the house, Mel said he wanted to poke around in the barn and see if anything was salvageable. He invited me to join him, but I took one look at the soggy, charred, and twisted wreckage of the fire and declined. “I'll just say good-bye to your mother and be on my way,” I said.
hen we got back to the house, Mel said he wanted to poke around in the barn and see if anything was salvageable. He invited me to join him, but I took one look at the soggy, charred, and twisted wreckage of the fire and declined. “I'll just say good-bye to your mother and be on my way,” I said.
He shrugged and headed into the barn.
I went up the back steps, tapped on the door, and when Mary Scott called, “Come on in,” I went inside.
She was sitting at the kitchen table staring down into the empty coffee mug she was cradling in both hands. When she looked up at me, I saw that her eyes were red and her cheeks were damp.
“Did Charlotte leave?” I said.
Mary nodded.
I sat down across from her, reached over, and took both of her hands in mine. “It could have been worse,” I said.
She tried to smile. “I know. That's what Charlotte was saying. I don't care about that old barn. I feel bad for Mel, though. He don't have much going for him, but he does love those tools and machines of his.” She shook her head. “It was scary, thinking Evie was in there ⦔
“She got out.”
She nodded. “I forget my manners. The coffee's still hot.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I'd like some.”
She got up and poured a mugful from the electric pot on the counter. She put it in front of me, then sat down again.
“I been feeling awful bad,” she said softly, “lying to you about Evie the way I did.”
I waved that thought away with the back of my hand.
“It's how she wanted it,” she said. “She said just don't let on to anybody. I don't guess she expected you to show up, but I figured I better play it the way she wanted, even with you.”
“Where do you think she went?” I said. “Anybody she might go to?”
“Lord, I don't know. Evie's awfully sweet, but she doesn't have a lot of real friends, if you know what I mean. You and I are about it. Evie doesn't trust many people. I guess she's got good reasons.”
“Nobody you can think of here in Cortland?”
She shook her head. “I've been thinking about that all morning.”
“What about Thomas Soderstrom? Or Charlotte Matley?”
“They weren't Evie's friends, Brady. Not like you and me. Not so she could trust them to hide her away.”
“Dr. St. Croix, maybe?”
She smiled. “Maybe if he wasn't sick and if that nurse of his wasn't around all the time.”
“Evie doesn't like Claudia Wells?”
“Oh, I think she likes her okay. It's just, Claudia's kind of possessive about the doctor.”
“Was Claudia jealous of Evie when she was going out with the doctor?”
“Evie thought she might've been, a little.” Mary glanced down into her coffee mug, then looked up at me. “My bet is that she's miles and miles from this town, Brady, and she isn't coming back. She was set on figuring out who killed my Larry, clearing her own name, but now, that other murder, then the fire ⦔
“Did they tell you what caused it?”
“The fire?” She shrugged. “Johnny Dwyer said he guessed it could've been the wires. Larry and Mel hooked 'em up. Those boys were pretty good at things like that, but ⦔
I wanted to ask her if she could think of anybody who might have torched her barn. But if the idea of arson hadn't occurred to her, I figured it would be better not to mention it. No reason to upset her any more than she already was.
“What makes you think Evie's miles from here?” I said.
Mary looked up at me and smiled. “We did a lot of talking these past several days, Evie and me.”
“What did she say?”
She looked down at the table and shrugged.
“Did she give a hint where she might have gone?”
“If Evie wants you to find her,” she said, “she'll let you know. It's not up to me.”
“You're right, of course,” I said.
I finished my coffee, stood up, thanked Mary, and then gave her one of my business cards. “If you ever need anything, or if you think of anything, give me a call,” I said. “Anything at all. I know you've got Charlotte. But I'm a lawyer, too.”
“You're heading home, then?”
I smiled. “Soon.”
She stood up, came over to me, hesitated, then put her arms around me and gave me a hug. “I can see why Evie loves you,” she murmured against my shoulder.
“Sometimes I'm not sure I do,” I said.
She laughed and stepped away from me. “You be sure to say good-bye before you head back to Boston,” she said.
“I will.”
“I hope you and Evie find each other again.”
“I hope so, too.” I turned for the back door. “I'm going to say good-bye to Mel.”
“He'll appreciate that, I know,” she said.
I went outside and looked in through the entrance to the barn. Mel had a rake, and he was using it to scrape around in the rubble near what was left of his workbench. I called to him, and he looked up.
“Come here for a minute,” I said.
He shrugged and came over.
“Have you been in Larry's little room downstairs where Evie was hiding?” I said.
He shook his head. “That's Larry's room. He don't let me go in there.”
“Mel,” I said, “Larry's dead.”
He turned away from me and looked up at the sky.
I touched his shoulder. “Listen to me for a minute.”
He shrugged my hand away. “I gotta get back in there, find my stuff.”
“You've never been in that room?”
He looked down at his feet. “Maybe I peeked in a couple times.”
“You went in there this morning looking for Evie, didn't you?”
“That was different.”
“I want you do to me a favor, okay?”
He shrugged.
“I want you to go into Larry's room. Look under the cot. There's a loose floorboard. Lift it up and see if there's anything there.”
“Something of Larry's?”
“I don't know. It might not belong to Larry.”
“What if I find something?”
“Leave it there, at least for the time being. Maybe it was Larry's, and maybe it wasn't. I just want to be sure you know about it.”
“Under the cot, huh?”
“Yes.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “How do you know about it?”
“Evie told me.”
He nodded. “I guess if there's something there, it won't go nowhere. Maybe I'll look. Right now, I gotta go back and find my stuff.” Mel gave me a nod, then turned and trudged into the old barn's charred corpse and resumed raking around in the rubble.
I watched him for a minute, then went out to my car.
Les Katz, a private investigator I used to know, once described his job to me as “thrashing around in the underbrush until you scare something up.”
As I drove away from Mary Scott's place, I thought about what I should do next, and I remembered Les's words. I'd come to Cortland hoping to track down Evie, and I'd done some thrashing around, and eventually I'd found herâor rather, she'd found me. But now she was gone again, and this time I had no idea what underbrush I should resume thrashing around in.
Les also used to say, “Detecting is pretty good work, provided you've got a high tolerance for boredom and you're getting paid by the hour.”
Les was good at his job, and when he thrashed around, it
was always with a purpose. His specialty was confronting people, sometimes to antagonize them and sometimes to charm them, just to see how they'd react. Every once in a while, somebody would give away something that Les hadn't known was there.
was always with a purpose. His specialty was confronting people, sometimes to antagonize them and sometimes to charm them, just to see how they'd react. Every once in a while, somebody would give away something that Les hadn't known was there.
The other thing about Les Katz was that the last time he thrashed around, somebody ran him down with a truck and killed him.
Les Katz was a good guy, but he was a poor role model. I didn't have a very high tolerance for boredom, and the only people who paid me by the hour were my clients back in Bostonâwho were paying me nothing as long as I was thrashing around in Cortland.
Anyway, I didn't care for the way Les's thrashing around had ended up.
Evie was gone, and solving Larry Scott's murder seemed less important than it had. It was time for me to go home. First I figured I'd better tell Detective Vanderweigh what I knew about the Ransom family history, not that I understood its significance.
At the end of the dirt road, I turned south on Route 1, heading for the police station in the center of town. If Vanderweigh wasn't there, they'd be able to find him.
I'd have to try to tell him what I knew without dragging Mary Scott into it. She was Evie's friend, and she had enough problems. She had been harboring a suspected murderer, and I assumed that at some point or other she had lied to the police about it, and even if it was out of love and loyalty, they probably wouldn't be sympathetic.
I'd just driven past the old drive-in movie theater when a police cruiser passed me heading in the opposite direction. I watched in my rearview mirror as it made a U-turn behind me. Then its blue flashers went on, then its siren, and it closed the distance between us quickly.
I flipped on my directional signal and pulled to the side of the road. The cruiser stopped behind me, and Valerie Kershaw got out and came to my window.
“I was just thinking,” I said to her, “there's never a cop around when you want one, and here you are.”
“Here I am,” she said. “Will you follow me, please?”
“Sure. Where to?”
“Just follow me.”
She went back to her cruiser and pulled out in front of me, and I followed her. Five minutes later, we ended up at Dr. St. Croix's place. Half a dozen vehicles, including another Cortland PD cruiser, were parked in the gravel turnaround and along the side of the road.
Valerie pulled off the road and got out of her cruiser. I stopped behind her and slid out of my car.
“What's going on?” I said to her.
She shook her head. “They want to talk to you inside.”
We went up the path to the doctor's office. Sergeant Dwyer was standing guard outside the door. He nodded to us, stepped aside, and we went in.
There were half a dozen people in the waiting room. Sergeant Lipton was in the corner by the window talking quietly with a small Asian woman who had two cameras around her neck. An overstuffed middle-aged man in a dark suit stood with them, listening. Claudia Wells and Charlotte Matley were sitting close to each other on the sofa. Claudia was staring down at her hands, which were tugging at a handkerchief. Charlotte was leaning toward her, whispering intently. If they noticed me, they chose to ignore me.
Thomas Soderstrom was sitting stiffly in a chair on the other side of the room. He looked up when I walked in, blinked at me through his thick glasses, and nodded without smiling.
In fact, nobody was smiling.
The one person who was conspicuously absent from the room was Dr. St. Croix.
I thought I got the picture.
“What's going on?” I whispered to Valerie.
She shook her head.
“It's the doctor, right?”
She didn't answer me.
A moment later, Sergeant Lipton looked up, nodded to me, said something to the Asian woman, and came over. He held out his hand. “Mr. Coyne,” he said. “Thanks for coming.”
I shook his hand. “I wasn't given much choice.”
“Detective Vanderweigh wants to talk with you. You can sit down if you want to. It might be a few minutes.”
“Is anybody going to tell me what's going on?”
“Detective Vanderweigh will fill you in.”
Lipton went back to the Asian woman and the overstuffed man. I started for the sofa, where there was room to sit beside Charlotte Matley, but Valerie held my arm. “They don't want you talking to anybody until Detective Vanderweigh sees you.”
“The doctor died, didn't he?”
She looked away.
“If he had died of natural causes,” I persisted, “there wouldn't be a bunch of cops here.”
“Please, Mr. Coyne,” she said.
“Well,” I said, “do you think it would be all right if I went outside, had a cigarette? Sergeant Dwyer can keep an eye on me out there. I promise not to flee.”
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