Past Tense by William G. Tapply Read Free Book Online Page A

respected her distance.

    She didn’t call that night, or all day Sunday or Monday, either, and finally, when I was ready for bed on Monday night, I took a deep breath and dialed her number.
    Her machine answered. “It’s Evie. I can’t come to the phone right now, but your call is important to me, so please leave a message and I’ll get back to you, I promise.”
    I did not leave a message. I had a feeling that if I did, she’d break her promise.
    On Tuesday I called my old friend Roger Horowitz, who was a state police homicide detective. When he picked up the phone, the first thing he said to me was, “I can’t talk to you.”
    â€œThere was a homicide in Brewster,” I said.
    â€œWhy do you think I can’t talk to you?”
    â€œAm I a suspect?”
    â€œRead my lips, Coyne.”
    â€œRoger,” I said, “you know me. I didn’t kill anybody. You know Evie, too. Are your colleagues making any progress on this thing?”
    â€œIf you don’t want to chat about the Red Sox or something,” he said, “then I’m hanging up.”
    â€œOkay,” I said. “’Bye.”
    State police detective Neil Vanderweigh called me at the office on Wednesday afternoon. “We’re done with your car,” he said. “You can come get it whenever you want.”
    â€œThat was quick,” I said. “I expected to be driving this clunky Taurus for a month.”
    â€œWe aim to please,” he said.
    Another midsummer trek to the Cape, I was thinking. But I wanted my BMW back. And I definitely wanted to talk with Vanderweigh. I checked my calendar, saw nothing that couldn’t be moved around, and said, “How’s tomorrow?”

    â€œGood. The sooner the better. Tell me what time you’ll be here, and I’ll bring your car, meet you at that Ford place where you got your rental.”
    â€œThat’s awfully nice of you,” I said.
    â€œNot really. We’ve got to talk.”
    â€œYes, we do,” I said. “You’re required to tell me if I’m an official suspect, you know.”
    â€œI’m aware of my obligations,” he said. He cleared his throat. “You have killed two men. Shot ’em both at pointblank range with that thirty-eight you keep in your office safe. That’s a lot of dead guys for a mild-mannered lawyer who devotes his life to helping rich people guard their money.”
    â€œThat’s my job, not my life,” I said. “Anyway, both of those guys were—”
    â€œI know,” he said quickly. “They were bad guys.” He hesitated. “You were protecting a woman in jeopardy both times.”
    He let that thought linger there. I didn’t know if Larry Scott was really a bad guy, but Evie certainly had seemed to be a woman in jeopardy.
    I said nothing.
    After a minute, Vanderweigh chuckled. “Look, Mr. Coyne. I’m just trying to solve a murder here, and I could use some help, okay?”
    â€œOkay,” I said. “Good. I’d like to get this murder solved too. I’ll be there around noontime.”
    My rented Taurus had no sunroof, no CD player, no leather seats, no clutch, no stick shift. It was no fun, and I couldn’t wait to get rid of it.
    And so a week to the day after Evie and I had driven to the Cape for our fateful encounter with Larry Scott— fatal, for him—I found myself driving down there again. This time
I was alone on Route 3 with only my thoughts for company, and instead of dwelling on how much I hated Cape Cod in the summer, I thought about Evie.
    We had not spoken since I’d dropped her off at her door on Saturday afternoon, and I missed her. This was a long silence, even for her, and it caused me again to wonder what had really happened that morning when she was out jogging.
    I tried to think: If Evie really had knifed Larry Scott that morning, would she have told me? We’d been