Past Tense Read Online Free PDF Page B

I said, “thanks. Black.”
    He shut the door behind him, and I didn’t need to check to know it was locked from the outside.
    A few minutes later he was back. He put a heavy ceramic mug in front of me and left without saying anything.
    It wasn’t bad for police-station coffee. I sipped it and smoked and sat there in the uncomfortable wooden chair. I assumed Evie was getting the same treatment in an adjacent room.
    I didn’t need my lawyer training to realize that we were both prime suspects. Dozens of people had witnessed Evie’s confrontation with Larry Scott at the restaurant. Several others had seen him beat me up in the parking lot. The police wouldn’t have much trouble learning that Larry had harassed Evie back when she was living in Cortland and that he’d tracked us down here to the Cape.
    Means, motive, and opportunity. Either or both of us had plenty of all three. I didn’t know anybody else who’d want Larry dead, but I didn’t know anything about him. I hoped Evie could come up with somebody.
    I waited nearly an hour before the door opened and two men came in. The bulky, bald-headed one introduced himself as state police homicide detective Neil Vanderweigh. He wore a gray summer-weight suit with a solid-blue necktie that he’d pulled loose. His collar button was undone. The younger blond guy was Sergeant Lipton. He wore a green sports jacket, gray slacks, pale blue shirt, no necktie.
    They both shook hands with me. Then Vanderweigh took off his suit jacket, draped it over a chair, and sat across from me. Lipton put a portable tape recorder on the table between us, then went over, leaned against the wall, and crossed his arms.
    â€œAny objection if we record this?” said Vanderweigh.
    I shook my head.

    He clicked the machine on, recited the date, time, place, and our names into it, then looked up at me. “Why don’t you just tell us what happened this morning, Mr. Coyne.”
    I told him about hearing Evie scream, running out of the cottage, and seeing her there with Larry’s body.
    He asked if either of us had touched the body. I told him I’d touched his bloody shirt with my fingertip, that was all.
    He asked what we’d done at the crime scene. I told him we’d each smoked a cigarette and ground out the butts on the dirt road.
    He asked several clarifying questions. They mostly had to do with time—what time Evie had left to go jogging, how long she’d been gone before I heard her scream, how long we’d waited before calling the police. I answered the questions as best as I could.
    He led me through the events at the restaurant the previous night, and it was clear he already knew all about it.
    â€œDid you threaten him?” said Vanderweigh.
    â€œI don’t recall threatening him,” I said.
    â€œYou didn’t tell him to leave the woman alone—or else?”
    I shook my head. “I don’t think I said ‘or else,’ no.”
    â€œYou don’t know what you said?”
    I shrugged. “I was angry. He was upsetting Evie. He shoved me and I went after him, and he punched me.”
    â€œYou know that Ms. Banyon had a relationship with Mr. Scott in Cortland a few years ago.”
    â€œI only learned that last night.”
    â€œThat he harassed her for almost a year?”
    â€œThat’s what she told me.”
    â€œDid you kill Larry Scott, Mr. Coyne?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œDid Evelyn Banyon kill Larry Scott?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œYou’re a lawyer,” said Vanderweigh. “Be precise, please.”

    I nodded. “To the best of my knowledge, Evelyn Banyon did not kill Larry Scott.”
    He smiled at my lawyerly precision. “When Ms. Banyon left to go jogging, did she bring a knife with her?”
    â€œNo. She had some pepper spray.”
    â€œWhy did she bring pepper spray?”
    â€œWe were both concerned that she might encounter