Come Unto These Yellow Sands (21 page)

And Swift wasn’t the only mourner to notice that almost electrical impulse. He could feel people taking unobtrusive stock around him. Dr. Koltz just couldn’t seem to help those frequent admiring and sympathetic glances. Testifying more cogently than anything else could that he hadn’t a single, solitary clue.

At the foot of the grave Denny grew whiter and whiter.

Cora, Ariel and Tad arrived at last, accompanied by Max.

The priest solemnly intoned the next part of the service.

The news photographers began to snap photos, and with each photo Tad’s face grew grimmer and older. It made Swift’s heart ache.

Even if Max had left Tad uncuffed, either out of kindness or a sign of faith, it wasn’t much protection against that silent censure furrowing, row by row, through the gathering beneath the open green tent.

Tad raised his head and stared defiantly at the crowd.

Swift could feel Dr. Koltz’s disapproval as loudly as if he’d spoken it. He didn’t speak. However, he gave Nerine another one of those solemn, sympathetic looks.

Poor, dear lady to have to put up with this young thug.

Denny’s head jerked up. He glared at Koltz and then he glared at Nerine.

Neither of them took any notice of him.

But Tad did. Tad was staring right at Denny. He was staring at Denny as though he knew…

Swift looked at Max and found that Max was looking right back at him. There was a message in Max’s gaze—a possible warning?

There was nowhere to move. Nowhere to go in this press of people. Not without pushing and shoving his way through, and he couldn’t do that.

Tad had control of himself again, his face about as revealing as a boulder. He gripped Ariel’s hand with a strength that was probably leaving bruises. She grabbed back with equal force.

Swift began to wonder exactly
what
Max had
told the kid.

There was a pause for prayers. Heads bowed obediently. The priest began to speak again, but a harsh voice cut across his lilting Irish accent.

“How could you? How the fuck
could
you?”

There was a shocked second or two as the priest’s voice fell silent, and then everyone seemed to be speaking at once.

“How dare
you
?” Nerine’s outrage was drowned out by Cora’s unintelligible response, but Tad wasn’t talking to either of them. His comments were addressed to Denny who gaped at him. Denny’s mouth moved but no words came out.

Tad roared, “My
dad
? For
her
? For that
bitch
?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Denny shouted at last. “I told you to keep running.”

“Boys! Boys!” Dr. Koltz objected.

Denny turned on him. “Shut the fuck up. Who asked
you
?”

The reporters and photographers were swooping down on them, cameras clicking, voices raised in questions. The priest had recovered his tongue and was making his thoughts on blasphemy known.

Denny began to tug at something in one of the roomy pockets of his coat. Swift watched in fascinated horror. Whatever it was had snagged, and Denny was trying to wrench it free with both hands.

“Dear God,” Dr. Koltz exclaimed.

After that, everything seemed to blur. Swift saw Tad lunge for Denny. Ariel threw her arms around him, trying to restrain him. It was left to her because Max had dived through the line of mourners and was wrestling with Denny, whose hand finally extracted a small pistol.

People began to scream and duck down. Denny tried to dislodge Max’s grip, swinging the pistol to bear on Dr. Koltz.

Swift acted on instinct, tackling Dr. Koltz and knocking him to the ground. There was a shocking bang and the tang of gun smoke.

Swift waited for the flash of pain, the indication that he’d been shot, but there was nothing but Dr. Koltz heaving and cursing beneath him.

He cautiously raised his head.

Max had Denny’s arm yanked up and back at an agonizing angle. The shot had torn through the green canopy, letting in a perfect ray of golden sunlight.

“For future reference,” Max said later that evening, “that look does not mean
throw yourself in the line of fire
.”

“How the hell should I know what that look meant?”

There had not been time for conversation after Max disarmed and cuffed Denny. Max had dragged his prisoner off to jail, and Swift had done what he always did these days when reporters started asking him questions. He’d fled.

“Assume from now on that I don’t want you jumping in front of anything liable to leave indelible marks.” Max hung his coat up and wrapped his arms around Swift. “I hope Koltz appreciated the fact you risked your life for him.”

“I admit I did sort of enjoy shoving him.” Swift kissed him briskly because he was a little irritated and had had plenty of time to brood on it. “So was that supposed to be your version of ye old wrapping the mystery up in a drawing room? Because I have to say that was a little crude.”

“I’m not a drawing room kind of guy. What are you feeding me?”

“Food? Soup. Creamy pumpkin.” And at the face Max made, “It’s nice. It’s made with potatoes and vegetable stock. Anyway, I didn’t think I’d see you until a lot later if at all after that stunt today.”

“Stunt?” Max followed Swift into the kitchen. “Do I critique your job performance?”

“You know, you could have got your own head blown off. I wouldn’t have enjoyed that.”

“Me neither.”

Swift’s glance was unamused. “You repeated to Tad everything I’d said to you, didn’t you? You shared my theory.”

“After I verified his alibi, yeah, I did. I told him your theory and I watched his reaction, and you know what? He bought it. Hook, line and sinker. I couldn’t have asked for better confirmation than to watch him connect the dots. The subconscious is a great tool for getting at the truth.”

“You don’t think it was maybe a little irresponsible sharing that possibility with Tad right before the funeral? You used Nerine for bait.”

“And I’m all broken up over it. Look, I thought it was the fastest way to cut through the bullshit.” Max wiped a weary hand across his bristly jaw. Meeting Swift’s narrowed gaze, his mouth turned wry. “Okay. And, just between you and me, I did slightly miscalculate. We found the murder weapon in Tad’s gym locker, so I underestimated the likelihood of Denny rearming.”

“In
Tad’s
gym locker?”

“Yeah.” Max snorted. “Only problem. It turned up after we’d already searched the locker once.”

Swift dumped soup in the saucepan, turned the heat on low and sat down at the table across from Max. “So Denny was having an affair with Nerine Corelli?”

“Not according to Nerine Corelli. According to Nerine she was nice to the kid as she is nice to all her stepson’s friends.”

“And you believe that?”

Max was silent. “I believe that it’ll be all but impossible to prove otherwise. Our mayor is a very canny lady. If she did lead that kid on, there won’t be a paper trail or phone records to give her away. Not that we won’t look and look hard.”

Swift half-closed his eyes, picturing it. “No. She’d plant the suggestion and let Denny come up with the idea all on his own. And then she’d discourage it while letting him think it was actually what she truly wanted.”

Max was nodding. “That’s the way I see it.”

The soup made scorching noises. Swift shoved his chair back and went to stir it. “What does Denny say?”

“That the decision to kill Corelli was his own. That Nerine knew nothing about it.”

“Did you ever hear anyone suggest Mario Corelli knocked Nerine around?”

“No. I never did. And I asked plenty.”

“I wonder.”

“What do you wonder?”

“Maybe she didn’t realize how it would end.”

Max raised his brows. “Hey, this was
your
theory, remember?”

“I know, but didn’t she have basically everything she wanted? Corelli financed her political ambitions. It seems like he would have done almost anything she wanted.”

“What she wanted—still wants, I think—is to move up the next rung on the social ladder. That’s been her modus operandi all along. From way back when she was Frank Curry’s head cashier at Curry’s Market.”

Swift regarded Max inquiringly.

“Before your time. Frank Curry divorced his wife of twenty years to get engaged to nineteen-year-old Nerine Thompson. But Nerine Thompson jilted him and took a job as hostess at what was then Corelli’s Ristorante Familia.”

Swift must have still looked blank because Max said, “Who’s the biggest of all the big shots in this little college town?”

The light dawned. “Dr. Koltz.”

“Dr. Koltz thinks so anyway.”

“It hit me during the service that Dr. Koltz and Nerine were having an affair.”

Max’s smile was sardonic. “Not yet, but today ought to kick start it.”

Swift considered this as he poured the piping-hot soup into a black-and-white-striped earthenware bowl.

He carried the bowl to the table and set it in front of Max.

Max watched him, his expression serious. “Nerine is very good at finessing people, but finessing someone like Mario Corelli would be tiring. It’s a lot easier to finesse someone like Dr. Koltz.”

“I’m still not following. She
was
or she wasn’t having an affair with Koltz?”

“Dr. Koltz doesn’t have affairs. Not with married women, that’s for sure.”

“Fairly Machiavellian, isn’t it?” Swift was thinking aloud. “She persuades her boy lover to take out her husband so she can then pursue the most eligible bachelor in town.”

“Machiavellian. Or
People
magazine. That’s why motive is misleading. On the surface, Denny Jensen had nothing to gain by Corelli’s death. The truth was, he was willing to do just about anything for Nerine. Including commit murder and frame his best friend for it.”

“I guess that explains why Nerine couldn’t wait to go to Koltz about my supposedly helping Tad evade justice.”

“Yep. You gave her a wonderful opportunity to cry on his shoulder.”

“So was Nerine having an affair with Bill McNeill as well?”

“No.”

“Then why did everyone think she was?”

“Because she went around hinting to everyone that she was. Bill McNeill told me that, and I believed him because it clearly puzzled the hell out of him.”

Swift said thoughtfully, “She wanted people to think she was having an affair with McNeill so they wouldn’t notice…”

“Where her real intentions lay.”

Swift grimaced. “
Not
with Denny Jensen.”

“No. Which even Denny Jensen was bound to notice sooner or later. Which is why he turned up at the funeral with a gun. For him it was love. For Nerine…” Max shook his head and picked up his spoon.

Swift laughed shortly.

“What?”

“Just trying to wrap my mind around the idea of Dr. Koltz inspiring a fatal passion in anyone.”

Max choked on his soup and began to cough.

Later when they were upstairs and in bed Swift asked idly, “When you got that anonymous phone call, did it ever go through your mind that maybe I
was
using again?”

Max shook his head.

“Never?”

“The only effort you’ve made to hide anything from me is that stash of Martha Stewart magazines in the back of your closet. Frankly, if anything was going to scare me off, it would be those magazines.”

Swift grinned, but it had been touch and go for a few days there. They both knew that. It made this all the more valuable.

“Who
did
place that anonymous call?”

“Denny isn’t saying. I’m guessing Ariel. She wasn’t thrilled with you threatening her with the police.”

Swift shrugged that off. “Have you ever heard anything about people wanting me fired?”

Max’s brows drew into a dark line. “Seriously?”

“Yes.”

“Hell yeah. From the day you were hired.”

“Is that true?”

Max nodded.

“I had no idea.”

Max shrugged. “Does it matter?”

“Well. It’s kind of a weird feeling to know I’m not wanted.”

“You’re wanted.” Max flicked his cheek with the lightest of touches. “
I
want you.”

Swift acknowledged it absently, nipping Max’s fingertip.

“Why do you think they don’t like me? They hired me for God’s sake. It’s not like there was any mystery about my history.”

“I heard you used iambic pentameter once when you should have used a catalexis.”

“Huh?”

“Believe me, whatever the reason is, it will make as much sense.”

Swift thought this over. Max was probably right, but it was still a weird, unhappy feeling. His mouth curved. “Do you really know what catalexis is?”

“Not a clue. I heard you mention it once. It stuck in my memory because it sounds like a cross between a Cadillac and a Lexus.”

Swift chuckled. “You know, you never asked me if I loved you. Did you just take it for granted?”

Max smiled faintly. “No, I wouldn’t take that for granted. I do know you well enough to know that if you weren’t pretty damned fond of me, I’d have been long gone years ago.”

Swift tilted his face to Max’s. “I love you. I have for a long time. I’d have mentioned it, but you’ve always said you weren’t into commitment.” He added, “Not that love has to mean a commitment.”

“Sure it does.” Max traced the wing of Swift’s eyebrow. “You know what I thought the first time I saw you?”

Swift arched his eyebrow.

“I thought…where did this beautiful, strange guy come from? I thought, no way is he staying in Stone Coast for long.”

Swift’s mouth quirked. “But that wasn’t your only concern.”

“No.”

Swift acknowledged it without resentment. The fact that they didn’t lie to each other was still one of the things he liked best. “But you’re not worried anymore?”

“Only in the way everyone worries when you realize someone else’s well-being is necessary to your own.”

Swift looked into Max’s face, the craggy handsomeness that always made his heart skip a beat, the strength admixed by humor and kindness. Funny how he’d only recently come to recognize—and trust—that kindness. He reached up and touched Max’s scarred eyebrow as Max had traced his.