Come Unto These Yellow Sands (15 page)

You couldn’t stay sober or drug free for someone else—that was an unfair burden to put on anyone—but having someone else to stay drug free and sober for did make a difference. It did for Swift.

He stared at the phone and then he dialed Max.

It was late. Murder investigation or no, Hannah was gone for the day and the automated answering system was on. Swift pressed Max’s extension and prayed silently that Max was in the office.

Please. God. Please be there.

“Prescott.” Max sounded preoccupied.

The relief left him weak. “Hi. It’s me.”

“Hi.” Max’s voice warmed, and Swift’s tension eased another fraction.

“Are you going to be able to get over here tonight?”

“Tonight?” Max was regretful. “Tonight’s not looking good.”

Swift closed his eyes. You’d think that someone who had needed as much help as he had in his life would be good at asking for it. Not this time. He didn’t want Max to think of him as anything but strong and whole and together.

But he wasn’t. Not right now. And as much as he didn’t want Max to think of him as weak, there was no one else he would trust with this terrible need. He took a deep breath. “I…even if it was late. I’d rather…not be on my own tonight.”

Heat washed through him at the silence on the other end of the phone.

“Okay, I’ll come by. I’ll try to get away sooner, but it’s liable to be late.”

Max’s voice was so calm, so ordinary, that Swift’s precarious control wavered. He managed a gruff, “Thanks.”

“Are you okay till I get there?”

“Yeah.”

“See you then.”

Swift was grateful that Max didn’t press him for details, didn’t make a bigger thing of it. That he simply hung up.

And knowing that Max was coming by steadied Swift. Just a few hours to get through and then he’d have company. He’d have Max. And even though Max would not be pleased with everything Swift had to tell him, he knew Max well enough to know Max would see him through the night.

One night at a time. That’s how he’d done it the first time, and there had been no Max to rely on. There had been nothing and no one but his determination to never fail again. It had worked then. It would work now.

In the meantime he would keep busy.

Swift got out a clipboard and began to jot down the notes of Tad’s predicament in an effort to get matters straight in his own mind.

What did he know for sure? Not much.

He knew that Mario Corelli had been shot to death, and he knew his body had been left on a state beach.

There was a lot more he didn’t know—and had no idea how to find out, even if he’d wanted to. He didn’t know if the weapon had been found or who the weapon had belonged to, and he didn’t know if Corelli had been killed at the beach or if he had been killed elsewhere and his body moved.

Looking at the list of question marks, Swift remembered why he hated reading murder mysteries. Only the police could know the answer to these questions. It was obvious from his own unsuccessful attempts at talking to people that it simply wasn’t that easy to get information out of people unless you had the authority of the police behind you.

Facts were what you needed in this kind of situation.

Swift was someone who generally relied on his instincts. His intuition about people. It worked well in figuring out how to teach them, but it was unlikely to be effective in crime solving. At least he’d never heard Max talk about intuition. He did talk about hunches from time to time, but Max probably considered a hunch as something separate from intuition. Either way, you couldn’t take a hunch to court.

Swift shook his head and made a list of possible suspects and their motives as he understood them.

Tad Corelli had a troubled relationship with his father and had threatened to kill him. He had been beaten up the day of Corelli’s murder, and he had disappeared shortly after. And pretty much everyone, including his friends—no matter how much they denied it—thought he’d killed his old man.

In Swift’s opinion parents were more likely to kill their children than children kill their parents, but he didn’t know that for a fact. What he did know for a fact was that no one had supplied a very compelling motive for why Tad would kill his father. Sure Corelli had knocked Tad around, but since he’d apparently been doing it for years, why should Tad suddenly kill him now? What had changed?

The mob. Maybe the mob was somehow involved in Corelli’s murder, but would the mob try and make it look like anything other than a mob hit? Wasn’t that kind of the point? When the mob killed people they generally wanted it known they were unhappy. So as to send a message.

Anyway, Swift wasn’t about to get anywhere near that. So next suspect?

Cora Corelli clearly had bitter feelings for her ex-husband. She loved her son and would obviously want to protect him from his father, but that resurrected the problem of
why kill Corelli now
? Was it simply a matter of the straw that broke the camel’s back?

Cora had tried to frame Swift with that cocaine—Swift didn’t care what Max said, he was certain Cora had concealed the coke in his bathroom—and she wouldn’t do that unless she was trying to protect Tad or herself, right?

Although it was kind of weird because Cora had seemed to believe Swift was trying to help Tad. And Swift
was
trying to help Tad.

So forget Cora for now. She seemed like too obvious of a suspect anyway. Surely if she
had
killed her ex, she wouldn’t continue to go around bad-mouthing him and saying he’d got what he deserved?

But then Nerine Corelli was even more obvious of a suspect. The wife or husband was
always
the first to come under suspicion. And Nerine apparently knew how to shoot well enough to be president of her gun club. Although if she’d used one of her own guns, the police would know, right?

She had two motives that Swift could see. She’d been having an affair—well, according to some rumors—and she would inherit whatever estate her husband left. Plus Nerine was still living with Corelli, so if there was a time factor, an issue of
I can’t take one minute more of this,
it would most likely apply to Nerine, right?

Max would have already checked all this stuff out, and if he’d cleared Nerine—and it seemed like he had—that was pretty much that. Max would have done things like check Nerine’s gun registration and her alibi.

And he’d have done the same thing for Bill McNeill, the former mayor of Stone Coast.

Which was just as well because Swift was not about to try questioning Bill McNeill. For one thing, McNeill would have no idea where Tad was, and for another, bad things happened to Swift every time he spoke to anyone about Corelli’s murder.

It was weird Tad was so sure Nerine was having an affair with McNeill, and Ariel was so sure she wasn’t. Maybe Tad had got the idea from Cora. Cora would have precedent for thinking that.

The idea of having an affair was peculiar to Swift. His parents had been soul mates, the concept of infidelity had been something that had no meaning or relevance to them. Swift himself had no interest in anyone but Max. But he was worldly enough to know that for most people having an affair didn’t automatically mean you didn’t love your spouse. Besides, cynical though it was, not everyone married for life. It
did
seem like an odd thing to have an affair with your political rival. Both Nerine and Cora agreed on one point: McNeill and Mario Corelli had nearly come to blows over
something
.

But Nerine had accused Bill McNeill of her husband’s murder, so it seemed unlikely they were lovers.

Come to think of it, on paper Bill McNeill looked pretty suspicious.

Swift frowned down at his notes. Unfortunately it wasn’t as simple as a mathematical equation.

One thing that haunted him with this new disappearance of Tad’s was the fear that Tad might have taken his own life.

No. He wasn’t going to think about that. More likely Tad had spooked and was on the run again.

So. Final suspect? The waiter. Tony Lascola had been fired by Corelli. But apparently he had an alibi.

Swift absently chewed the end of his pen. He was glad it was Max’s job to hunt down the truth and cage it. The fact was, he truly didn’t care who had killed Mario Corelli. Corelli was dead and nothing could change that. All Swift cared about was Tad. If Tad had killed his father, that in itself would be the punishment. That would be all the punishment any one man could bear…

He woke to a stiff neck and the sound of Max’s key in the lock. Swift tossed back the afghan, and the forgotten clipboard with all his notes clattered to the floor as he jumped from the sofa.

He met Max in the arched entryway.

“I didn’t think you’d still be awake.” Max held him hard for a long minute, the prolonged hug the only sign that maybe this wasn’t a normal evening.

“I fell asleep on the couch.” Swift drew back. “Do you want something to eat? I made those lambchops you like.”

“I grabbed a burger earlier. I wouldn’t mind a drink.”

Max let him go, and Swift moved away and poured them each a drink from the frosted-glass cabinet.

“Cheers.” They touched their glasses in a friendly chime.

He could see the question in Max’s eyes, and he wasn’t ready to face it. He’d always believed that part of the success of their relationship was that they never really asked anything of each other. He was about to ask something it might not be in Max’s nature to give.

Instead, Swift swallowed a mouthful of scotch and said, “Remember when I said I thought Tad had a girlfriend?”

Max nodded, his gaze alert.

“Her name is Ariel Rhoem. She’s majoring in biochemistry.”

The scar on Max’s forehead crinkled. “You found this out how?”

“From a poem Tad wrote. It was called ‘Ariel’ and there’s only one Ariel enrolled at CBC.” He could see Max prepare to point out that there might be a dozen other possible Ariels or that this might not be the same Ariel. “It turned out that she
is
seeing Tad. Or was.”

“You’ve already talked to her?” It took effort for Max to control the instant leap of anger. Swift appreciated that effort.

“I know. I shouldn’t have.”

“How the hell many times are we going to go through this, Swift?”

Good question. “This is it. I promise. I thought it was worth having one last shot at getting Tad to give himself up.”

“So this Ariel knows where the Corelli kid is?”

“She said no. She was lying, but…”

“This is
why—
” Max cut himself off. He said in a voice kept level by sheer discipline, “Swift, I’m doing my best to keep you clear of the fallout from this, but you seem determined to run back into that burning barn. I can’t protect you from the consequences of your actions. Do you see that?”

“I don’t need you to
protect
me.”

“The hell you don’t. You don’t understand—” Max stopped.

Maybe he didn’t. Swift went doggedly on. “The temptation is to keep my mouth shut about all this, but you need to find Tad and maybe there’s something useful here. I don’t know. If there is, I don’t see it.” Swift fished under the sofa for the clipboard and handed it to Max.

Max took it, glowering down at Swift’s spidery handwriting. “What’s this supposed to be?”

“I’ve written down everything I can think of, everything anyone said to me that might be useful.”

Max tossed the clipboard aside. His head dropped against the back of the sofa. He stared up at the blackened beams of the ascending rafters and let out a long—very long—breath. Finally, he turned and stared at Swift. “Swift. This is what
I
do. You’re supposed to teach kids to write and appreciate literature, remember? I don’t tell you how to teach.
Why
are you involving yourself in my case?”

“Because I
am
involved whether I want to be or not. Tad involved me when he—”

“Goddamn it.”

Swift shut up.

“I’m doing my best not to lose it with you.” Max stopped. A muscle twitched in his jaw. He leaned forward, took a long swallow of his drink, sat back, cradling the glass between his big hands. “You’re not making this easy for me. You’re not making it easy for either of us.”

“I know you’re angry. I’m telling you this because I don’t want there to be any lies between us. Never again. Now that I’ve told you everything, I’m out of it.”

“That’s what you said before.” That twitch jumped again in Max’s jaw. He took another long swallow and put his drink down on the table. “When you called and said you didn’t want to be alone tonight, is this why? You wanted to get this off your chest?”

Swift shook his head. “No.” His throat felt parched, his mouth bone dry. It hurt to swallow. “No. That’s something different. But if you’re too pissed off to stay, I understand.”

Max’s eyes were hard, his face tense. Swift could see the muscles of his thighs bunch as he moved to rise, but…instead Max relaxed back against the sofa cushions. He studied Swift. He rubbed his chin.

“One of the things I always liked about you, Swift, was you were low maintenance. You’ve been more trouble in the last week than in all the years I’ve known you.”

Swift’s laugh was humorless.

“Oh fuck,” Max said wearily. “Let’s go to bed.”

Swift nodded. Rose.

Max rose too. He glanced dismissingly at the clipboard. “And for the record, Corelli was
not
killed by the mob.”

Chapter Twelve

You are a famous archeologist. You…

Hell, you’re anything but what you actually are, which is a crack-brained—

“Come here.” Max’s voice floated into the darkness between them.

Swift scooted across the flannel distance, and Max wrapped his arm around him, pulling him still closer. Swift shifted so that he could rest his head on Max’s broad shoulder. It was a good shoulder for that. He could feel the hard, steady pound of Max’s heart beneath his ear.

“My parents have been together over sixty years.” The tone was level, the words neutral.