Come Unto These Yellow Sands (18 page)

Swift nodded too. “From my side too.” He spotted one of Max’s deputies circling around the bungalow. “I want to check inside the house. Make sure nothing—no one is…”

He didn’t have to finish it. Max nodded. His expression was as grim as Swift’s thoughts.

But when they tried the door, it was locked. Swift used his key, they stepped inside.

It took a second for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. Swift scanned the room. To his abject gratitude there was no body sprawled on the rug in front of the fireplace.

“No one’s been inside since I was here a week ago.” He didn’t bother to disguise his relief.

“Doesn’t look like it.” Max looked around curiously at the stone fireplace, the open beams, the comfortable, faded furniture. The deputy investigating the perimeter of the bungalow passed briefly by the window. “So this is where you come when you want to get away?”

“This is it.”

“It’s quiet.”

Neither spoke, and the waves from the beach below filled the silence.

“Am I one of the things you want to get away from?”

Swift stared at Max, not comprehending for a second. “Let me show you something.” He led the way to the bedroom and picked up the copy of
Who Killed Harlowe Thrombey?
from where he’d left it lying his last visit. He removed the postcard bookmark with its quote from
The Tempest
. “Remember this?”

Max was smiling at the book. “I remember these. I used to have a stack of them.” He took the bookmark. His smile grew odd. “Oh yeah. This. I thought when you came back early that things would change.”

“I thought they would too.”

The deputy banged on the front door and they both jumped.

“Timing is everything,” Max said, and Swift wasn’t sure if he meant the postcard or the interruption, but either way the moment was gone.

By the time they finished on the island and made it back to the mainland it was after seven. The Portland police as well as the Coast Guard had joined in the search for the escaped shooter, but the man had vanished completely.

Swift’s wounded Jeep was towed back to the ferry and then to a garage in Portland. Max drove him home.

“I can’t stay. I’ve got a pile of paperwork to fill out.” Max followed him inside. “Reporters to deal with. A city council to calm down.”

And a murder yet to solve.

Swift’s phone began to shrill as they passed through the entryway, the sound spiking off the beams and hardwood floors, and making them both jump.

Swift swore.

“Christ. Let it ring,” Max advised. His voice was raspy from giving orders all evening.

“Like you would?” Swift picked up the phone as Max went to pour himself a drink.

“I’ve been trying and trying to get a hold of you,” a voice cried on the other end of the phone.

Swift’s stomach dropped a flight or two. “
What
?”

“It wasn’t me.” The voice was now recognizably Tad’s though he sounded distraught and exhausted. His voice dragged with fatigue. “I heard on the news. It wasn’t me, Professor Swift. I promise. I have no reason to want to hurt you. I wasn’t anywhere near Orson Island.”

“Where are you, Tad?”

Max’s head turned sharply his way.

The only sound on the other end of the line was heavy breathing that seemed close to tears.

“Enough is enough,” Swift said. “Where the hell are you? I’m coming to get you, and you’re going to give yourself up to the police. Do you understand?”

Max was beside him. He mouthed, “Get him to hang on the line.”

“I’m so tired. I feel like I haven’t stopped running since…since it happened. But if I give myself up, they’ll stop looking for whoever killed my…” Tad’s voice cracked.

Max was on his cell phone requesting a phone trace. Swift said into the phone, “That’s bullshit, Tad. And someone is using that bullshit fear of yours against you. If something had happened to me today, you’d be the number-one suspect. Do you not see that?”

“I heard the news. The police think it was me. It wasn’t me!”

“Where are you?”

Tad continued to breathe heavily into the phone.

“Where. Are. You?” Swift snapped.

“The Seabird Motel on the outskirts of town.”

“What room?”

“One oh nine.”

“Stay put. I’m coming to get you.” Swift put down the phone.

“Anything?” Max asked into his cell. To Swift, he said, “Where is he?”

“Will you let me bring him in?”

“Never mind,” Max said into his phone. He disconnected. To Swift, he said, “No. Where is he?”

“Max—”

“No.” Max was already shrugging back into his coat. “A—your car’s in the shop. B—we tried it your way today and you nearly got your head blown off. Or have you forgotten already?”

“I haven’t forgotten. But we knew that was a trap. This
is
Tad.”

“We don’t know that this afternoon wasn’t Tad too.”

“He’s got no reason to want to kill me.”

“We don’t know that. What we do know is
someone
thinks they’ve got a good reason to kill you.”

“I don’t believe this is personal.”

“What kind of comment is that?”

That was the question, wasn’t it? Swift wasn’t sure what kind of comment it was. If someone had shot at him out of the blue, Swift would have figured the list of suspects might reasonably include everyone he’d ever flunked to his English Department archenemy Dottie. One was no more ludicrous than the other.

But it was too big a coincidence that at the same time Tad was in such desperate trouble, someone’s dislike of Swift soared to homicidal on the crazy thermostat. Of course there was a connection.

“I think if someone wants me dead, it’s only because it’ll help build the case against Tad.”

Max wasn’t listening anyway. He cracked open his pistol and checked the cylinder. He holstered it.

“Jesus. You don’t need a gun. He’s not dangerous.” Swift stepped in front of Max. “At least let me go with you. He’s liable to panic if he sees you show up with a bunch of deputies.”

“Butt out, Swift.” It wasn’t unkind, but it
was
adamant. “This time we’re doing it my way. I’ll do my best to bring the kid in without hurting a hair on his head, okay? But that’s partly up to him. Now where is he?”

When Swift hesitated, Max said, “
Swift
, I made bad choices on that island this afternoon because I was worried about your safety. I can’t do my job if my mind’s on you. Do you understand?”

Swift understood. He wasn’t sure if he was shocked or flattered or both. What mistakes had Max made?

“The Seabird Motel. Room one oh nine. Max, he’s scared to death. He’s liable to panic.”

Max grabbed Swift’s shoulder in a hard, fleeting squeeze. “I know. I’ve done this before. Trust me. Okay? Like I’ve been trusting you.”

Swift was still blinking over that when the door closed behind Max.

He spent a tense seventy minutes pacing up and down the length of the old church before the phone rang again.

He snatched the phone up on the first ring.

“The Corelli kid’s fine,” Max said before Swift got the breath to speak. “Not so much as a split lip on either side. We’ve got him booked, and he’s all snuggled up in his cell for the night.”

“Can I see him?”

The sigh was audible. “He’s not asking for you, but…I guess. Tomorrow.”

Swift sagged against the wall. “Did he say anything?”

“Besides
I didn’t do it
? No. He’s waiting for his lawyer.”

“Do you believe him?”

“I’d be more likely to believe him if he’d say what did happen that afternoon. Demanding a lawyer isn’t exactly a mark of innocence.”

“But you can’t blame him at this point.”

“I didn’t say I blamed him, but I’ve yet to hear anything that justifies your faith in him.”

“It’s his father’s funeral tomorrow.”

“I know that.”

“Are you going to let him attend?”

“I guess I’ll figure something out.”

Swift cleared his throat. “Are you coming by tonight?”

“Between the snafu on the island and arresting your protégé, that mountain of paperwork just keeps getting higher. If you’re okay, I need to stay here and catch up.”

“I’m fine.” Swift realized he’d managed to get through the entire day without more than the occasional twinge of need. Things were back to normal. Nothing like nearly getting your head blown off to focus your priorities. “I’ll miss you, though.”

There was an underlying smile in Max’s “Yeah? Well, it’s mutual, Teach.”

Swift hung up and went into the kitchen. He fixed himself tea and sat down at the table, absently studying the recently mopped and gleaming floor.

Nerine owned a rifle. She probably owned a couple of rifles. She said she believed in Tad’s innocence, and yet a huge part of the case against Tad came from Nerine’s casual remarks. And if she hadn’t lied, she certainly had some gaps in her knowledge of her stepson. She’d indicated Tad had a serious drug problem, but it turned out to be no more than a couple of joints. She’d said Hodge Williams was Tad’s only close friend, but everyone else Swift talked to always mentioned Denny Jensen and Hodge in the same breath.

Why? Why the exaggerations and misdirection?

Here and there where the lamplight touched the blue-green granite it seemed to glint like starlight off the sea, like the short, sparkling stretch of ocean between the mainland and Orson Island.

He stared at those pinpoints of light, so bright they seemed to dazzle his eyes.

Slowly he rose and walked to the phone.

“It’s me,” he said when Max answered at last.

“What’s up?”

“My housekeeper. Can you find out who she was before she was Mrs. Ord?”

Chapter Fourteen

You are hiking through Serpent Valley when you stumble upon the mysterious Caverns of Eternity. As you journey farther into the great cavern you discover it branches off into two passageways. One curves downward to the left; the other leads upward to the right. Is it possible that the one leading down is a channel to the past and the one leading up is a path to future? Which way will you choose?

In the old days Swift had always chosen the future. Now…he’d have taken the past—and the opportunity to change things—in a second.

But that’s not the way life worked. There were no do-overs. If you screwed up, there was no magical way to go back and put it right. You had to fix it the best you could—and sometimes there was no fixing it.

He was thinking of that as he listened to Tad’s halting explanation in the police station the next morning.

“My dad and I fought, yeah, and I said some things I regret and I know he did things he regretted too. He had a temper. Italian, you know? But I know he loved me. And I
loved
him. He was my dad. I didn’t kill him, Professor Swift.”

“What did you fight about?”

“When?”

“Before this happened.”

“We-we didn’t.”

One of the deputies looked into the cell and glanced meaningfully at his watch. Tad’s mouth tightened. Swift nodded acknowledgment and the deputy withdrew.

“What did you usually fight about?”

“I don’t know. He wasn’t happy when I quit football. That was the big thing. I lost my scholarship when I quit playing, so it was expensive. For my dad. My schooling and having to pay back the scholarship and all that. He kind of had a point, I guess.”

“You couldn’t play football and still—”

“No.”

That was pretty definite. “If you didn’t fight with your dad, how did you get battered?”

The worst of the bruising had faded, but there were still shadow splotches of yellow and purple on Tad’s drawn face. He’d lost weight during his days on the run.

Tad stared down at his hands. “I got into it with some of the guys from the football team.”

“Got into it over what?”

Tad’s eyes rose briefly to Swift’s and then fell again. “They were pissed about my quitting the team.”

“What? But you quit the team over a year ago.”

Nothing from Tad.

“That’s kind of a delayed reaction.”

Nothing.

“You’re saying your old teammates beat you up because you don’t want to play football anymore?”

Tad shrugged, staring down at his clasped hands.

“That doesn’t make sense.”

Tad’s jaw took on a mulish jut, but he still didn’t speak.

“Were Hodge and Denny part of that?”

“No.”

They seemed to be getting nowhere fast. Swift wracked his brain. He remembered Cora’s comments about Hodge and Tad being former best friends. He remembered Hodge saying Tad’s troubles were all Swift’s fault.

Swift said slowly, “But this all has something to do with being in the Lighthouse program?”

Tad’s hands clenched and unclenched. Big hands. A man’s hands. But Tad was a boy. His fingernails were bitten down to the quick. Swift stared at the ragged nails. He considered the way Tad kept avoiding his eyes.

Swift remembered Dr. Koltz’s strange comments.

Slowly it began to dawn on Swift what was making Tad so awkward. “Did they—these guys from the football team—do they think you’re gay?”

He could tell by the color flooding Tad’s face that he’d nailed it. Tad went scarlet and then white. He nodded.

“They bashed you for being gay, but…you’re not gay.”

Tad finally looked up. “Try telling those dickheads that. They think anyone who wants to write poetry has to be a—” He flushed red again.

“Faggot?”

Tad’s lips pressed so tight they looked bloodless.

Swift assimilated this. “Why didn’t you report it? Why didn’t you just come out and tell me what had happened when you came to my office? I could have done something.”

Tad burst out, “That would have made it worse!”

“How?”

Tad was looking at Swift as though Swift just didn’t get it—and that was perfectly correct because Swift
didn’t
get it.

Drawing a rough breath, Tad said, “Professor Swift, you don’t care what people say about you. If I went public with what happened to me, it would just spread the rumor wider. It wouldn’t matter what I said. People are gonna believe what they want.”