Past, Present and a Future (Going Back) Read online

  The car swerved as Gil lost momentary control of it. “What? You have that letter with you?”

  “In my purse.”

  “I’m not sure how it fits into the picture but Sheriff Davis will want to see it.”

  He did. Gil forced himself to stay calm while he and Fran rushed through the reason for their visit to a confused Kyle Davis who had no idea that Clare Morgan was supposed to be there.

  “She left a note for me,” Gil explained, “saying that she’d remembered there were two bike riders the day Rina was killed and for some reason she considered that important. I’m not sure why. I assumed she was heading here when she left the hotel—to talk to you about the case.”

  “The Thomas case?”

  Gil glanced at Fran and said, “I guess Ms. Dutton and I should fill you in.”

  Davis nodded. “I guess you’d better. Take a seat.”

  Gil barely perched on the edge of a chair in Davis’s office while he rapidly summarized the events of the last twenty-four hours. Then Fran pulled out the letter which both Gil and Sheriff Davis studied carefully.

  “I’m not sure what to make of this,” said Davis. “Why would Mr. Carelli at the bank have anything to do with the Rina Thomas case file? I worked that investigation and it was brought to a close not long after you were cleared of any possible charges, Gil.”

  Gil saw Fran turn his way, a look of surprise in her face. “Any idea why the investigation came to a halt then?”

  “Sheriff Watson called me in a couple of weeks or so after the murder and said if I had no new leads, to close down the case. He said I could reopen it if anything new turned up, but nothing ever did. I was ticked off, as you can imagine, but he was the boss.” He glanced at the letter once more, his face lost in thought. “There is one thing, but…nah, it’s too crazy.”

  “What is it?”

  Davis pursed his lips as if reluctant to continue. Finally he said, “Just that in those first few days I questioned a bunch of kids who’d been around the school that day. Clare was one of them. She told me that after she saw you and Rina in the field, she left the property via the parking lot and met Vince Carelli, who was looking for Rina.”

  “The Vince Carelli who’s now your deputy?”

  Davis shot Gil a look as if to say, who else?

  “Clare’s never mentioned seeing Carelli to me.”

  Davis shrugged. “Maybe she forgot or thought it wasn’t important. There were at least three or four other kids hanging around the front of the school at the same time, and I interviewed them, too.” He paused, narrowing his eyes at Gil. “But none of them had seen either you or Rina.”

  “Why was Vince looking for Rina? What did he say?”

  “Whoa! Hold on, Harper. I’m thinking.” Davis rubbed his face. “He said something about wanting to talk to Rina about a school assignment. He said he never found her and he went on home. End of story. The interview’s on file, anyway.”

  “I don’t remember seeing that statement in Rina’s file. Maybe that’s the business Sheriff Watson was referring to in that letter to old man Carelli. Maybe he took the interview out of the file.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Davis leaned forward, his expression suggesting Gil was speaking some foreign language.

  Gil bit down on his lower lip, silently apologizing to Beth. “I…uh…I’ve got a copy of the file and there’s nothing in it about your interview with Carelli. And please don’t ask how I got hold of the file because—”

  Davis briefly closed his eyes. “At this point, I don’t want to know, Harper.”

  “I was expecting Clare to be here, because of the note. But now I’m wondering if she might have gone somewhere else—to clarify the mystery of the two bike riders.”

  “I’m not following,” Davis said.

  “Where’s Carelli?” Gil asked, ignoring Davis.

  “He called in sick today.” Davis frowned. “What connection are you making here, Harper?”

  “Look. Vince Carelli was looking for Rina that day, too. What if he followed Rina and me to the footbridge?”

  Davis’s frown deepened. “After Helen Wolochuk?”

  “Yes! He might have seen Helen kill Rina.”

  “That doesn’t explain why his old man would get Sheriff Watson to take Vince’s statement out of the file. Unless, as you suggest, Carelli was lying and did go after Rina.” He paused, then pressed his intercom phone and said, “Beth, will you give Vince a call for me? Let me know as soon as he’s on the line.”

  The room filled with silence. Seconds later, Beth’s voice rang out. “He’s not answering, sir. Shall I try again?”

  Gil’s stomach lurched. He stood up. “We’ve got to go looking for Clare. I think she’s with Carelli.”

  “At his place?” Fran asked, getting to her feet, as well.

  Sheriff Davis looked her way. “Ma’am, I’m afraid you’re going home. I’ll have a car take you back to the hotel for your own vehicle. Harper,” he said, “you and I are going for a drive. But no way am I putting out a bulletin on Carelli without carefully checking into this.”

  Gil spun on his heel and led the way out the door. They were almost out of the building when the power went out.

  CLARE WAITED for her eyes to adjust to the sudden dark. She saw Carelli’s shape looming over her. His voice, almost at her ear, hissed, “You have something that doesn’t belong to you. That’s enough to take you in for questioning.”

  “Then shouldn’t we be going to the police station?” she asked. She hoped her voice didn’t sound as anxious as she was feeling. Something in his manner—not to mention his physical state—was triggering major alarm bells.

  “Because first I need to talk to you, Clare. To find out why you’ve got my dad’s old agenda book. Maybe to find out what’s inside it. So we’re going to have a little chat. Okay? Starting with how you got hold of it.”

  “I can’t tell you that,” Clare said. She could feel her heart thudding against her chest.

  He inched closer. “Yeah? Well, you will eventually. Right now I’m more interested in what is in the book.”

  “Nothing really,” she stammered. He seemed more angry than curious about why she had the agenda book, and she sensed that revealing that his father was corrupt wouldn’t improve his mood. “Just some stuff about my mother and something that happened at the bank. That’s why I had it. I…uh …wanted to find out for myself why my mother lost her job there.”

  “Uh-huh. And what did you learn?” His sour breath fanned across her face.

  Clare looked away. “That your father accused my mother of stealing some money,” she said in a low voice, not wanting to sound confrontational.

  “No kidding. So dishonesty must run in the family, eh?” He snorted, weaving slightly.

  She thought about what she’d read in the agenda but bit back the reply she might have made about his father. “Your father forced her to resign.”

  “So my old man was mean to your mother. Is that what you’re saying? Is there supposed to be a link here to Rina Thomas’s murder, or am I missing something?”

  Angrily, Clare blurted, “The amount of money she was supposed to have taken is the same amount as a loan your father forgave. To the former sheriff.” Her voice fell as she added, “It was the same amount that was taken from a trust fund that my mother was responsible for.”

  “I’m not making the connection to Rina yet. You have to spell it out for me.” He pressed against her.

  A waft of alcohol fanned across her face. She took a step back and cleared her throat, trying to hide her revulsion. “I don’t know. As I told you, I only wanted to clear my mother’s name.”

  “Then why the interest in the murder? You and Harper have been asking questions, contacting the Wolochuks and that reporter, Withers. You got a copy of the case file somehow, so I guess you know all the details. Where has this detective work led you, Clare?”

  She refused to answer, guessing he was trying to ass
ess what and how much she knew. The problem was, she couldn’t figure out exactly why he cared so much. Other than the strange business of his father wiping out a loan for Sheriff Watson, what did Vince personally have to do with any of it? Unless…

  “I should go,” she said, inching away from him.

  He lunged out, grabbing her by the forearm. “Aren’t you going to ask me if I went after Rina that day?”

  She flinched, repelled by his breath. “Did you?”

  “The bike rider,” he said, ignoring her question. “See, that’s what started the whole thing. I bought myself a copy of your book to check it out and there it was. The girl in your book told about seeing a friend on a bike, after she left school.” He chuckled. “Kinda funny, isn’t it? That it was right there in your book all along but for some reason you and Harper missed it.”

  Clare tried to swallow past the knot in her throat. Her mind raced ahead of him, guessing what he was about to say.

  “See, you saw someone on a bike that day following Rina and Gil into the ravine and today you found out that person was Helen Wolochuk. That could have been the end of the story—for me, anyway. Even your remembering you saw me on a bike, too, was no big deal. But when I saw that agenda book, I knew you’d put the rest of it together sooner or later.”

  A thought was emerging from the haze in her mind. “Your father’s favor to the sheriff. What was it in exchange for?”

  “You’re getting it, Clare. I knew you would. It was in exchange for the sheriff’s removal of two statements from Rina’s file. Still haven’t got it?” He cupped Clare’s chin and turned her head his way. “The two statements he destroyed were a section of yours and all of mine. ’Cause if someone were to investigate the fact that two bike riders headed into the ravine that day… Well, you can figure out where that might lead. To questions I wouldn’t want to answer.”

  “You killed Rina?”

  The surprise in her voice brought a smirk. “Congratulations, Clare. Rina was stringing me along the way she was Wolochuk. I’d been helping her for weeks, writing essays, doing her homework. I’d taken Wolochuk’s course in the first semester. It was a senior course but science was my thing. And I had a major hard-on for Rina, which she used to full advantage. Teasing me on, leading me to think we’d come out as a couple as soon as the year finished. I didn’t even know about the whole freakin’ thing with Wolochuk until I found her near the bridge that day.

  “Someone on a bike had come flying past me on the curve just before the clearing at the bridge. I didn’t see who the rider was. Then I saw Rina, sitting on the ground, crying. She told me everything—about her and Stanley and being pregnant. I tried to comfort her. Told her that we could run off together—I’d help her with the baby even.” He stopped and the only sound, other than his labored breathing, was the rain outside.

  Clare realized how foolish she’d been to discount seeing Vince Carelli that day as important. But he was a year younger, in another class. She’d assumed he was only curious about Rina, never imagining he’d been connected to her in any real way.

  Assumptions. She had to admit the irony. Her mistake boiled down to simply what the eye saw and what the mind chose to believe. It was exactly what Gil had been trying to tell her that night, seventeen years ago. It wasn’t what you think, he’d cried, when he’d tried to explain why he’d been embracing Rina.

  “She laughed at me.” Carelli went on, his voice oddly detached, as if he were recounting someone else’s story. “Said she’d been using me to help her with school. That I was a creep and she wanted nothing to do with me. I freaked out. I don’t even remember picking up that tree branch. When I realized she was dead, I panicked and rode straight home. My mother called my dad at work and he came right home.”

  “So that was the favor for the sheriff. And what about the mayor?”

  “Dad felt guilty. First, over the thing with your mother. He had to have someone to blame for the money going missing from the trust fund and she was the obvious choice. Later, he felt bad about how things had turned out for Gil and his parents. All the innuendo that was going around town about Gil really being the killer. So he went to the Mayor who had some gambling debt, only this time he got the money from somewhere else.”

  My mother conveniently gone. Bitterness rose in Clare’s throat. “The job for Mr. Harper,” she said.

  “Yeah. After that, once the statements were gone from the file and the sheriff closed down the case, I had nothing to worry about. Even the book wasn’t a threat. When I heard you were asking questions about the case, I knew eventually you’d figure things out. That you’d remember everything. That’s why I stayed home today. To think things out—decide what to do.” A flicker of regret crossed his face.

  “I know what I’ll have to do now, though. I’m sorry for this Clare, but you see, the booze has loosened my tongue just a tad too much. I think you ’n’ me are going to have to take a drive somewhere.”

  Blood rushed into her ears, drowning out the slash of rain against the windows. Clare gulped a single, decisive breath and made her move, raising her knee up and smashing it into Carelli’s crotch. He grunted and doubled over, releasing his hold on her. Clare sprinted for the front door.

  He’d locked it. Her hands were clammy, working clumsily at the lock. She heard him staggering after her, his harsh gasps echoing in the hallway, and she began to hyperventilate. She worked faster, adrenaline firing through her. Unbolted the door and pulled it toward her.

  Suddenly he was there—right behind her—his hand slamming against the door, trying to push it closed while she struggled to keep it open enough for her to slip through. His other hand shot out, grasping her by the shoulder as he tried to pry her away from the door. Clare turned her head toward him and bit down hard on his hand. He screamed, wrenching his hand away, and she squeezed through the gap.

  THE STORM RAGED outside the cruiser but Gil, his eyes focused on the steady sweep of the wipers, saw only Clare’s face. “She’s in trouble. I know it! Can’t you go any faster?” he asked Davis who was hunched over the steering wheel.

  The sheriff glanced sharply at him. “Relax, Harper. You’re already in enough trouble. Don’t add to my aggravation.”

  Still, he increased the speed. Unnerved by the wild look in my eyes, Gil wondered? The trip to Carelli’s house seemed to take forever as they drove through rain-slicked streets eerily dark due to the power outage. Then suddenly it was there—Carelli’s house, squat and foreboding, backlit by sporadic flashes of lightning.

  As soon as Davis killed the engine he held up a warning hand to Gil. “Let me handle this. You stay in the car.” He opened his door and stepped out into the blinding rain.

  Yeah, right. Gil yanked open the passenger door and leaped out. He heard Davis shouting but ignored him, dashing toward the front door. It opened just as he reached the porch and Clare was falling into his arms, sobbing. The rain beat down on them while Gil pressed her to him, silently vowing never to let her go again.

  He lowered his head to hers as if to shield her from the drenching rain, though his efforts had little effect. He doubted she was even aware that both of them were getting soaked. Sheriff Davis had cautiously entered the front door as soon as Clare has burst out onto the porch and beneath the roll of thunder Gil thought he heard shouting from inside the house. He had no idea what was happening there. All he wanted to do was to get Clare away as quickly as possible. So he guided her toward the still-opened passenger door of the cruiser and helped her inside.

  When he was behind the wheel, he took his first real look at her and grinned. “Do I look as bedraggled as you do?”

  Her smile was a bit wobbly. She swiped a long strand of hair stuck against her cheek and tried to speak and gasp for air at the same time.

  “Put your head between your knees for a sec, Clare, and take slow deep breaths.”

  As she struggled to regain control of herself, it was all he could do not to dash back into the house and help Davi
s deal with Carelli.

  Finally, after several moments, Gil ventured the question he’d been afraid to ask.

  “Did Carelli hurt you?”

  When Clare shook her head, he felt relief oozing through him. “Thank God,” he said hoarsely. “I was so damn scared, Clare. On the way over here I was still trying to figure out his connection with everything but all I could really focus on was that the guy might have killed Rina and could have…would have…”

  “He did kill Rina,” she said.

  If Gil wasn’t looking at her he’d have had trouble identifying that voice. He had trouble even accepting that the sodden creature across from him—so oddly frail, with eyes still dilated in fear was the Clare Morgan he’d once loved so passionately. And loved still, he realized.

  He knew there were hours of questions and answers ahead of them—at the police station, at the Kingsway home and probably much later, with friends back in New York. He didn’t want to hear or talk about Rina Thomas and that whole tragic business anymore. From now on, all thoughts, actions and words were going to be centered on Clare Morgan.

  “I love you, Clare,” he whispered. He reached out to clasp her long cold fingers in his. “I’ve always loved you. Ever since that day in English class when the teacher caught you daydreaming. I’ll never forget that moment—it was like seeing you for the very first time. And in a way, I guess I was. At least, seeing the sensuous, beautiful young woman you were going to become. If I’d been mature and confident enough to deal with everything that happened, these past seventeen years would have been spent with you instead of apart from you. No, don’t speak yet,” he said, squeezing her hand gently. “I need to get all of this out and then I’m going to start living out my longtime fantasy of holding you in my arms all night. I…I,” he paused to clear his throat, overcome by the sudden bloom of color in her face and the moistness in her eyes. “I’ve always loved you. All these years, I’ve been torturing myself for all the things I could have said and never did. For not looking back the night we broke up in the park. For refusing to return your phone calls after you moved to New Jersey. So much wasted time.” He stopped to catch his breath, his pulse drumming against his chest and rushing into his ears.