Free Come Unto These Yellow Sands by Josh Lanyon Page B

phoning voters, putting up signs or monitoring polls. Wasn’t it too late for all that anyway?
    No, no! Every vote counted. Right up to the minute the polls closed.
    Eventually he found his way to the candidate herself. Nerine sat at a long table covered with pamphlets and handouts. She was typing at a laptop.
    Nerine greeted Swift politely, though her enthusiasm waned when she realized he was neither reporter nor voter. She was strikingly attractive, probably mid-forties though no one would have openly challenged her if she claimed younger. She wore her dark hair in a stylish updo vaguely reminiscent of Sarah Palin. Her eyes were a dramatic shade of blue behind trendy glasses.
    “Coffee?” she invited, leading Swift to another table with tall urns for coffee and tea, and baskets full of bagels.
    “Thanks.” Swift accepted a paper cup of what looked like tar and dosed it liberally with sugar and Cremora.
    “I’m brain dead without at least three cups.” Nerine leaned against the wall of a cubicle plastered with her photos and blew on her scalding coffee. “What exactly can I do for you, Professor?”
    Swift started to speak, but was interrupted by a chirpy young woman who hurried up to ask Nerine about balloons.
    Balloons? That sounded as though victory was being anticipated.
    Nerine approved the balloons, and the young woman bustled away. Nerine fastened her blue-gray gaze on Swift once more. “I’m sorry. Where were we?”
    It occurred to Swift that he was handling this all wrong. Not that he could be expected to know the right way to question someone, but he was probably worse at it than most people. “I don’t think I offered you my condolences.”
    Nerine gave a weary laugh. “That’s all right. This will sound terrible, but I can’t let myself deal with it. Not until after the election. Mario and I both sacrificed so that I could get this far. As cold-blooded as I’m sure it seems, I’m not about to give up now. Especially when—” She stopped.
    Especially when what? When she was so close to winning?
    “I don’t know whether the police mentioned to you that Tad came to see me Thursday afternoon.”
    Her immaculately shaped eyebrows rose. “When?”
    When? There was that word again. A pragmatic soul, the Widow Corelli. She sliced right through the usual questions.
    “Around four o’clock. He stopped by to ask me not to drop him from the Lighthouse program, but I think now, looking back, he was asking for more. I think he was asking for my help.”
    “Your…help? Your help with what?”
    “I don’t know, but I feel guilty that I wasn’t able to do more.”
    Her gaze seemed to challenge him. “Did Tad tell you he’d killed Mario?”
    “No. Definitely not. If he had—”
    “Tad didn’t kill Mario,” Nerine cut in brusquely. “At least, I’d be flabbergasted to learn otherwise. I don’t care what the police say. Tad’s a screwup, but he’s no killer.”
    “Did you tell the police that?”
    “Of course!”
    “What did they say?”
    “They said it was natural that I would feel that way.” Nerine’s expression was disgusted as she sipped her coffee.
    “Do you think it’s possible Tad’s staying with friends?”
    “Friends?” Nerine sounded like it was an unfamiliar concept.
    “It seems like what a kid would do.”
    “Do you have children?”
    “No.”
    “I didn’t think so.”
    That didn’t seem quite fair. Swift figured after six years of teaching he was probably as much an expert on young adults as Nerine Corelli. He said only, “Do you know who Tad’s close to?”
    She shook her head briskly. “Tad and Hodge Williams have been buddies since grade school.”
    “Can you think of anyone else?”
    “No.”
    They were interrupted by another volunteer, this one round and matronly, wanting to know about sandwiches.
    Nerine made short work of the sandwich issue. Corelli’s Ristorante would be supplying foot-long spicy Italian sandwiches, coffee and tea. And, if victory