Past Tense

by William G. Tapply

“About what?”

  “Her. Ruth.”

  “Overworked, underpaid, bitter, lonely. Sore feet. Probably got a couple kids at home, an ex-husband behind on his childsupport payments, truckers hitting on her all day.”

  “Not a bad ass.”

  “I didn’t notice.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “Getting old, I guess,” I said.

  “Bet old Ruth there wouldn’t mind a little stimulating company on a Saturday night after she gets off work. What do you think?”

  “I think she’s probably looking forward to a hot bath and a good night’s sleep.”

  “Give her a shot, why don’t you?”

  “Not me,” I said. “Why don’t you?”

  “Oh, I already got something lined up. But Ruth there, she likes you.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t know much about women, do you?”

  “No,” I said. “I really don’t.”

  “Well, I do,” he said. “And I can tell you, that Ruth, she’s got her eye on you. Handsome out-of-town lawyer, lots of money, nice car? She’d be easy. You ought to—” He glanced up.

  Ruth was standing there holding a cup of tea. She placed it beside Romano. If she’d heard what he was saying, her face didn’t reveal it.

  He touched her hand. “Thanks, honey.”

  She slid her hand away from him. “You ready to order?”

  “I’ll start with the escargots,” he said, “then the Bibb lettuce with the vinaigrette dressing. Rack of lamb, mint sauce, roasted new potatoes, fresh green beans al dente.”

  “Very funny,” she said.

  “Would you believe the hot roast-beef sandwich?”

  “Mashed or fries?”

  “Surprise me.”

  Ruth rolled her eyes. “I got a lot of customers, mister. Why don’t you just tell me what you want?”

  He grinned. “Really?”

  She shrugged. “You get mashed, then.” She looked at me. “Want me to hold yours till his is ready?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m in a hurry.”

  When she left, Romano said, “You do have something lined up, huh?”

  I nodded. My motel room had cable, and I figured the Saturday-night movies would start at eight.

  “So,” he said, “you interested in St. Croix’s medical practice?”

  “I’m a lawyer,” I said. “I can’t talk about it.”

  “Oh, right,” he said. “Sorry.” He poked my arm. “Guy comes into a bar, grabs a stool, okay? He’s muttering and sputtering and swearing, and everyone stops and looks at him. Someone says, ‘What’s the matter, pal?’ ‘Fuckin’ lawyers,’ the guys says. ‘Assholes, every damn one of ’em. I hate lawyers.’ And the guy goes on this long rant about lawyers, how they’re out to screw you, how they’ve got no morals, how all they want is money. ‘Assholes,’ the guy says. ‘Lawyers are goddamn assholes.’ Everyone is nodding and murmuring sympathetically. Then the guy notices this older man down at the end of the bar who’s frowning and shaking his head. ‘Hey,’ says the guy to this older man, ‘what’s the matter? Did I insult you? You a lawyer?’ And the older man looks up and says, ‘Yes, you insulted me, and no, I’m not a lawyer. I’m an asshole.’” Romano laughed. “Lawyer joke, huh?”

  I tapped the newspaper that lay on the table beside me. “Want a section?”

  “What’s the matter?” said Romano. “I didn’t hurt your feelings, did I? You offended?”

  I shook my head.

  “I thought it was a pretty funny story.”

  “Sure,” I said. “A good one.”

  “Ah,” he said. “I guess I did offend you.”

  “I’m trying to read my newspaper.”

  “You mean, shut up and leave you alone, huh?”

  “I’ve got the sports,” I said. “You can have the rest of it.”

  “I like to be sociable when I eat.”

  “I like to read the paper when I eat,” I said. I propped it up in front of me and took a sip of my coffee.

  He slapped his hand on the table. “Well, fuck me, then.” He slid out of the booth, put his suit jacket back on, and picked up his tea. “Sorry to bother you.”

  “Enjoy your sandwich,” I said, without looking up from my newspaper.

  Romano went over to the counter and sat on a stool. I resumed my study of the box scores.

  A few minutes later Ruth delivered my shepherd’s pie. “Thought he was a friend of yours,” she said, jerking her chin in Romano’s direction.

  “He thought so, too,” I said.

  “I figured, two strangers …”

  “He’s a doctor, I’m a lawyer. Natural enemies.”

  “I don’t trust lawyers or doctors,” she said. “Lawyers want to screw you out of your money. Doctors just want to screw you.

  “You’re a wise person.”

  She shrugged. “You keep your mouth shut, you can learn a lot in a place like this.” She touched my shoulder. “Enjoy your dinner.”

  I did enjoy it, and I enjoyed the hot apple pie afterwards. When I paid Ruth at the cash register, Dr. Paul Romano, who was still sitting at the counter, glanced up at me, narrowed his eyes, then leaned his head to the guy sitting beside him and said something out of the corner of his mouth. The other guy, who had long stringy hair and a thick neck and wore a baseball cap and overalls, slowly lifted his head and looked at me. Then he turned to Romano and nodded.

  If it hadn’t been for the nasty undercurrent, the two of them sitting at the counter in this small-town diner—Romano in his spiffy New Jersey suit and the other guy in his small-town workclothes—would’ve made a classic Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post cover.

  As I opened the door to leave, Ruth called, “Have a good evening, Mr. Lawyer.”

  When I turned to wave to her, I saw that everybody in the diner was looking at me.

  I lay on my bed with my shoulders propped up against the headboard and the color television playing between my feet. It was not a big night for cable movies, and I’d finally settled on an old Dirty Harry adventure featuring Clint Eastwood. It wasn’t a very demanding story, but still I kept losing track of who was who. I was thinking about Evie, and the fact that for the past several months I’d been spending all my Saturday nights with her, and that without her, a Saturday night in a cheerless motel room in Cortland, Massachusetts, felt about as lonely as it could get.

  It might not have felt so bleak if I’d managed to latch on to a trace of her, or if I’d learned something about the murder of Larry Scott. I was beginning to understand that Evie wouldn’t come back until Scott’s murder was solved.

  All I’d learned was that Evie had stabbed him with a pair of scissors a few years ago, which made her an even better suspect than I’d thought.

  All in all, this had not been the best day of my life.

  In spite of Clint’s best efforts to hold my attention, I guess I dozed off, because when a noise from outside the motel snapped my head up, some stand-up comic was telling dirty jokes on the television.

  I lay there for a moment before I realized that the noise was somebody tapping sharply at my door.

  My first thought was Dr. Paul Romano, looking for company, and I was tempted to ignore it.

  But the tapping became more persistent, so I muted the television, slid off the bed, went to the door, and cracked it open.

  Somebody pushed past me and hissed, “Shut the damn door. Quick.”

  I shut it and turned around.

  Evie was standing in the middle of the room. Her hair was piled under a man’s felt hat that she had pulled low over her forehead. She wore sunglasses and a man’s blue shirt and loose-fitting khaki pants.

  “What are you doing here?” I said.

  “No,” she said. “What are you doing here?” She took off her sunglasses and put them on the bedside table, then pulled off the hat and shook her hair loose.

  “I came looking for you,” I said. “You’re … missing.”


  “I don’t suppose it occurred to you that if I wanted to be found, I would’ve told you.”

  “I was worried.” I went over to where she was standing and put my arms around her. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

  She stood stiffly in my embrace, neither returning it nor pulling away. “Who said I was okay?”

  “You’re alive,” I said. “And that’s a relief.”

  She laughed softly against my chest, and then I felt her relax. She put her arms around my waist and laid her cheek on my shoulder. “How’s about a kiss?” She tilted up her face.

  I gave her a kiss, and she gave one back to me.

  “Now,” she said, “please go home.”

  “I will if you’ll come with me.”

  She shook her head.

  “Honey—”

  “I’ve got to do this,” she said. “It’s my thing, and I’ve got to do it by myself.”

  “What?” I said. “What exactly are you doing?”

  Evie sat on the bed. She clasped her hands between her knees and looked down into her lap. “They think I murdered Larry. I didn’t, but everybody thinks I did.” She glanced up at me. “Even you.”

  I started to speak, but she glanced sharply at me and held up her hand. “You do,” she said. “Or at least, you’ve got some doubts. You don’t have to deny it. It’s understandable. The point is, I’ve got a problem, and I’ve got to deal with it.”

  “You’re innocent,” I said. “You don’t have a problem.”

  She shook her head. “You know better than that.”

  “We should go to Detective Vanderweigh. He’s a reasonable man. He thinks you’re avoiding him. Hiding out—it makes you look guilty, you know. Charlotte Matley can come with us. She can—”

  “How do you know Charlotte?”

  I sat beside Evie on the bed. “I, um, I heard her message on your answering machine. So I called her. I saw her this morning in her office. That’s when my valve stem—”

  “You what?”

  “My valve stem. It—”

  “You listened to my messages?”

  I nodded. “I talked with Marcus, and he said he hadn’t heard from you, and you were supposed to be at work, and I had terrible thoughts, so I went to your condo and used my key.”

  Evie shook her head. “I know I’m supposed to be flattered,” she said softly, “you caring so much …”

  “Loving you so much,” I said.

  “Sure,” she said. “Whatever. But I don’t feel flattered. Or loved. Mainly, I feel crowded. Jesus. Going into my home when I’m not there, listening to my messages? I suppose you pawed through my underwear, too.”

  “I didn’t know you weren’t there. I actually thought you might be there. I thought something might have happened to you.”

  “Yeah, you said that. Well, now you know I’m okay, so you can go back to Boston and let me finish what I started, okay?”

  “Let me help you, at least.”

  “No, damn it. You can’t help. You can only get in the way. Please.”

  I let out a long breath. “Whenever I have a problem,” I said, “I want to solve it right away. I am not patient. I don’t do well, waiting for things to work themselves out. I’m never comfortable leaving them in the hands of somebody else.”

  “So you understand how I feel,” said Evie. “I’m the same way. Maybe it’s selfish of me, not caring if you’re uncomfortable. But I’ve got to figure this out for myself. I know you love me. I know you’re worried, and I understand it makes you feel better, ramming around Cortland, feeling like you’re doing something. But you’re not helping, Brady. You’re only making it more complicated than it already is.”

  I sighed. “I understand how you feel.”

  “Do you?”

  “Sure. If I were in your place, I guess I’d feel the same way.

  “So will you go home?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t see how I can just turn around and forget this, forget you. You’re a murder suspect. The cops are looking for you. Actually, we’re both suspects. But we didn’t do it. I’m willing to bet that somebody from Cortland did. That’s what you think, too, right?”

  She shrugged.

  “Two brains are better than one,” I said.

  “But,” she said, “this is my problem.”

  “No,” I said. “It’s our problem. Your problems are my problems. We share good times, we share problems. That’s what it’s all about.”

  Evie was quiet for a long moment. Then she hitched herself close to me and took my hand in both of hers. “That’s very sweet,” she said.

  “Have you forgiven me about those flowers?”

  She chuckled. “Never.”

  “I’m glad I found you.”

  “You didn’t find me,” she said. “I found you.”

  We stood there in the middle of the little motel room and undressed each other in the flickering light of the muted television. We went slowly, taking turns, a button here, a zipper there, a tug on a sleeve, with many pauses for touching and kissing.

  When we were both naked, Evie took my hand and led me to the bathroom. She turned on the shower and let it run until the room filled with steam. Then we stepped under the water. We took turns soaping each other, running our slippery hands over each other’s slick skin, and pretty soon we couldn’t wait any longer, so she wrapped her arms around my neck and I held her butt and she clamped her thighs around my hips, and I braced her back against the glass shower door, and she bit my shoulder and held on tight. We moved together, finding our rhythm, feeling it build, and I don’t remember ever sensing such desperate hunger from her. And then her fingernails dug into my back, and she said, “Oh!” and we shuddered and spasmed together under the water, and for the first time in more than a week there was no empty place in me.

  I lay on my back staring up into the darkness. Evie had one leg hooked over mine. Her arm lay across my chest, and her cheek rested on my shoulder, and her breathing was slow and soft.

  After a minute, she whispered, “You awake?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know I love you,” she said.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “If you love me, you’ll do what I want.”

  “What do you want?”

  She kissed my throat. “I want you to go home.”

  “No,” I said. “I can’t do that.”

  “It’s not safe in this town.”

  “That’s why I’m staying,” I said.

  “You’re a stubborn man,” she said. It almost sounded complimentary, the way she said it.

  A few minutes later, I said, “So are you making any progress?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Do you know who killed Larry Scott?”

  “I haven’t gotten that far.”

  “Want to share?”

  “No,” she said. “Not yet.”

  “But if—”

  She put her fingers on my lips. “Shh,” she said. “Go to sleep.”

  After a while, I did.

  I was awakened by a disturbing dream that slipped away instantly, leaving only a sense of dread that lingered like a cold stone in my chest. Gray light was seeping in around the edges of the curtain across the front window, and it took me a moment to realize that someone was banging on my door and calling my name.

  “Mr. Coyne.” It was a man’s voice. “Open up.” He banged on the door again. “It’s the police.”

  I slipped away from Evie, sat on the edge of the bed, and pulled on my pants.

  “What is it?” mumbled Evie.

  “There’s a cop at the door.”

  “Shit.” She scrambled out of the bed, grabbed her clothes off the floor, slipped into the bathroom, and shut the door behind her.

  I went to the outside door and pulled it open. The same cop who I’d met at the garage in the morning when my tire was being fixed—Sergeant J. Dwyer, of the Cortland PD—stood there.

  “Sir,” he said, “I want you to please come with me.�
��

  TEN

  “What’s going on?” I said to Dwyer. I yawned. “What time is it, anyway?”

  “It’s ten after five,” he said, “and what’s going on is, I need you to come with me.”

  “I’ve got to get dressed.” When I turned back into the room, he followed me in and turned on the light.

  I noticed that Evie’s sunglasses were on the bedside table and her felt hat was sitting on the bureau. As I bent over to pick up my shirt, I saw her panties crumpled on the floor next to my socks. I quickly shoved them under the bed with the side of my foot.

  When I glanced up at Dwyer, he was looking around the room. To me, it was obvious that two people had been sleeping in the bed, and I was aware of Evie’s scent lingering there.

  If Dwyer noticed anything, he didn’t mention it.

  After I’d buttoned my shirt and slipped on my shoes, I said, “Okay. Where to?”

  He led me out of the room. I checked my pocket to make sure my key was there, pulled the door shut, then followed him around the corner to the back side of the motel.

  Down at the far end were two or three Cortland PD cruisers and several other vehicles parked at random angles in the middle of the lot. A couple of uniformed cops were keeping a small gathering of people away from a vehicle parked in front of one of the units. That car seemed to be the center of attention.

  As we got closer, I saw that the vehicle in question was a new-looking silver Oldsmobile. I’d seen that car—or its twin—parked in Dr. Winston St. Croix’s driveway the previous afternoon.

  Dwyer put his hand on my elbow. “Wait here, sir.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I said.

  He shouldered his way through the crowd, and a minute later state police detective Neil Vanderweigh appeared.

  He smiled and held out his hand. “Mr. Coyne,” he said. “We meet again.”

  “Yes.” I shook his hand. “What a swell surprise.”

  “Come on. I want to show you something.”

  I followed him over to the silver Oldsmobile. The driver’s door was hanging open, and somebody was slumped behind the wheel.

  “Recognize him?” said Vanderweigh.

  He had curly black hair, and his chin rested on his chest. His formerly white shirt and light-green glen plaid jacket were now dark with dry blood. He was surely dead.