Free Come Unto These Yellow Sands by Josh Lanyon Page A

Shannon.
    “It’s no secret Corelli used to knock Tad around,” someone else commented.
    “Is that speculation or is that fact?” Swift asked as the waitress set his drink before him.
    “That’s fact.” George reached for his own drink. “Both Nerine Corelli and the kid’s own mother corroborate that. Mario had a mighty nasty temper.”
    “Here’s something I don’t understand,” Swift said. “Corelli was killed out at Wolfe Neck, right? How does that make sense? What was he doing out there?”
    “That’s where the body was found,” George informed him. “Nobody but the police know if that’s where Corelli was actually killed. The body could have been moved.”
    Oh. Duh. Swift picked his glass up and sipped his scotch. Safe to say he was not cut out for the amateur-sleuth business. He never read mysteries if he could help it, and when he did read them, he always got them wrong.
    One of the other students spoke up. “Corelli supposedly had mob connections, didn’t he? That was always one of the rumors.”
    “ Mob connections? If that’s the case, I can’t see why the cops have focused on Tad.” The others were gazing at Swift curiously, and he realized once again that they imagined he had insider knowledge.
    “Probably because he ran,” Shannon said shortly. “It’s not exactly a sign of innocence.”
    “It’s not automatically a sign of guilt.”
    No one responded to that, and Swift knew it was more to do with not arguing with the guy picking up the dinner tab than agreement.
    “Maybe the boy’s on drugs again,” Cory suggested. There was an intensely awkward silence. “That is…” She cleared her throat.
    That’s what happened when your own messy prior drug habit was a matter of public record.
    Swift smiled at her. He liked Cory. She was even one of his neighbors on Orson Island. Among other things, she worked in the tiny library. “Maybe. I never saw a sign of it, but…maybe.”
    After that, the conversation flowed into different channels, and Tad’s problems were forgotten in the face of the more pressing concern of what to order for dessert.
     
     
    There was one Ariel—and only one Ariel—enrolled at CBC. Ariel Rhoem, a sophomore majoring in biochemistry. The poet and the biochemist? It felt unlikely, but Swift took Rhoem’s info down and thanked the clerk in Admissions for her help.
    Unless Tad had left the county, he had to be somewhere close by. Swift was convinced of it. As of Tuesday morning, he had still not been found, and there was talk of bringing in the state police whether Police Chief Prescott wanted them or not.
    Knowing how Max would feel about surrendering his investigation to another agency, Swift winced. If not for his own inadvertent interference, Tad would be safely in Max’s custody.
    Or maybe not. Since Tad had not headed out to Orson Island as planned, there was no guarantee that he’d have been located as easily as Max believed. Swift would have liked to point that out to Max, but regardless of where Tad was, Swift’s silence on the matter was perceived by Max as a betrayal.
    It was hard to argue with that. Even if Max had still been talking to him.
    On his way out of the Admissions office, he left a message on Ariel’s cell phone and another with the RA in charge of her dorm. He didn’t mention why he wished to see her, but he was pretty sure she’d respond. Not many students blithely ignored a summons from an instructor, even if the instructor wasn’t their own.
    On his lunch break, Swift drove over to Nerine Corelli’s campaign headquarters in the community center on Center Street. It was Election Day, and inside the building was a beehive of activities overlooked by giant black-and-white posters of a serenely smiling Nerine Corelli.
    All this for the mayorship of a village that didn’t even show on most maps of Maine?
    Swift said no thanks to a Racing to Excellence button and politely declined invitations to sign up for knocking on doors,