by Jen Blood
“Okay—fine. Just don’t go far. I’ll give you a call when I’m done here, and we can meet up again later.”
He didn’t look thrilled at the prospect, but nodded his agreement regardless. Once he was gone, Edie brought in tea and cookies, and reclaimed her seat beside me.
“I really can’t get over how much you look like Kat. Except for the hair, of course—the hair’s all Adam. But otherwise, you sure are your mum’s girl.”
I attempted a smile. “People have said that before. I never really saw the resemblance.”
“No, I s’pose not.” She eyed my bruises—the split lip and swollen eye that she had, as yet, not mentioned. “Being Kat’s girl, I don’t guess you had anybody take a look at you. Those are some pretty mean bruises. Your mum’s clinic’s still right where she left it—they do good work there. I’m sure they could fit you in.”
“No need. I know the signs for a concussion. There were no broken bones. Nothing deep enough for stitches. They have better things to do at the clinic, I’m sure.”
She didn’t argue. All the same, I didn’t care for the way she was looking at me—another person from my past who saw me only as the little outcast I’d once been in this town.
“You said you could tell me something about the rosary?” I pressed.
Her eyes lingered on mine, more intelligent than I suspected people gave her credit for. She nodded.
“Of course. The story Noel’s been so keen on.”
This got my attention. “Why?”
“You got me. There are dozens of sad stories that came out of that island. Becca’s wasn’t any better or worse than anybody else’s.”
“Rebecca Westlake, you said?” She nodded. “I didn’t know her on the island—I’ve never even heard that name. It wasn’t in any of the autopsy files.”
“Well…First off, it was Becca Ashmont by the time she joined Isaac’s church. And besides that, she didn’t join up ‘til you were back here with Kat. I don’t know exact dates, but I’m pretty sure she took their boy and left Joe sometime that summer.”
“Joe Ashmont?” The name was coming up too often to be mere coincidence. “She was his wife?”
“They’d been together since they were kids—her and Joe and Matt were joined at the hip from the time they moved here. Never saw the three of ‘em apart in those early years.”
Joe Ashmont had been married. I recalled the story Juarez had told on our trek to Portland the other day.
“Joe and Matt Perkins grew up in an orphanage together, didn’t they?”
“Up in Westbrook, yeah. Becca was there, too. She was a beautiful girl—from one of the tribes up in northern Maine, I think. Or her daddy was, anyway. Something happened, though, and she ended up with the State. In and out of foster homes. She had…” Edie stopped.
I remained silent, waiting. Edie looked at me apologetically.
“Nothing was ever diagnosed, but she had problems. Depression. Maybe something more.”
“And she joined up with the Paysons when?”
“I’m not positive, like I said. Summer, though. Joe came to shore and railed about it for a couple of days—went on one hell of a bender. Things went bad between them a long time before that, though.”
“And you said they had a son?”
“Zion. Joe wouldn’t let them come out to the mainland after a while—they all stayed out to Sheep Island, in that rattletrap shack he’s got. But I went out there a few times when they needed me.”
Yet another piece of the puzzle that made no sense. I tried to remember conversations with my father. Had he ever mentioned any of this? But then, there wouldn’t have been any real reason to say anything. If there were problems, there wasn’t a lot a nine-year-old could have done about them.
“And Hammond…He’s been asking about this?”
“He’s been real keen to hear her story, yeah. I sent him to talk to Reverend Diggins last night, and I think that answered a few of his questions.”
Reverend Diggins. Diggs’ father—the preacher at the town’s Episcopal Church for as far back as I could remember. I had the feeling suddenly that I’d be trailing three steps behind Noel Hammond for this entire investigation.
“Why the Reverend?”
“Becca used to be a member of that church, not too long before she had Zion. She and the Reverend were…” her eyes slipped to the floor. “Close.”
“As in…?” I prompted.
“I’d rather not say anymore, if you don’t mind. It was just a rumor—you know these small towns.”
Apparently, not as well as I’d thought I did.
“I just want to make sure I’ve got this,” I pressed. “Rebecca Westlake grew up in an orphanage with Joe Ashmont and Matt Perkins. They all moved to Littlehope, and she married Joe. Somewhere along the lines things went sour, and she joined Daddy Diggs’ congregation…among other things.”
Edie winced at the insinuation, but remained silent. I continued.
“Ashmont pulls her out of that church and kept her and her son locked away on Sheep Island until the summer of 1990, when they escaped?” I looked to Edie for confirmation. She nodded.
“So, she and her boy go into hiding on Payson Isle. And a month or so later, with no apparent warning, the Payson Church and all its members go up in flames.”
“I think you have the gist of it,” Edie said.
I looked in the next room. I could see a glimpse of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire playing on the TV, the same three men from the porch now crowded together on the sofa.
I stood.
“You’re going to see Reverend Diggins now?” Edie asked.
“It’s the most logical step, wouldn’t you say? At least, Noel thought it was.”
“Please don’t tell Diggs what I said, whatever you might find out. He and his daddy never got on too well, and I don’t see how this could help matters.”
Saying Diggs and the Reverend didn’t “get on” was like saying the Yankees and the Red Sox had some minor artistic differences. Still, I promised Edie that I would keep her revelations to myself. I climbed back in the car with Rebecca Westlake’s rosary clutched in my left hand, and prepared myself to take on Daddy Diggs.
Chapter Sixteen
The church Reverend Diggins ran was across the road from Wallace’s General Store. Ironically enough for a woman who’d run off to join a religious commune as a teenager, my mother was possibly the least God-fearing woman on the Maine coast, so growing up I’d had few run-ins with the good Reverend and his congregation. The few I did have, however, were memorable—and not in a good way. I didn’t like the man then, primarily because of the way he treated Diggs, and I sincerely doubted that was about to change.
I got out of the car and lit a cigarette, leaning up against the door while I smoked. The sun had vanished once again and there was a light rain falling. I kept my sunglasses on despite the gloom, but I knew I wasn’t fooling anyone. My back ached and my stomach was queasy and it felt like evil trolls were playing a snare drum inside my head.
And I really didn’t want to talk to the Reverend.
When he was twelve years old, Diggs and his younger brother Josh skipped school to go swimming in the local quarry. Diggs’ idea, of course. He’d been warned against it, and Josh—a blond, blue-eyed Hummel replica of a child who, by all accounts, was the 20th century equivalent to Christ himself—didn’t really want to go. But Diggs needled and cajoled as big brothers will, and eventually Josh—ten years old at the time—agreed.
It was an unusually hot day in June, but that particular afternoon the Diggins boys were the only ones at the quarry. They biked up to the highest ledge. Diggs took the first dive, barely making a ripple as he sliced into the still waters below.
For all his extraordinary qualities, Josh was never the athlete his brother was. He stumbled when he was pushing off the ledge, failing to get the momentum or height he needed to clear the rocks.
At ten years old, Josh Diggins fell head-fir
st into the Calderwood quarry, and hit the rocks below with a crunch of bones and flesh that Diggs wrote, many years later, still echoed in his sleep.
Diggs tried to revive him. When he couldn’t do that, he biked two miles with his dead brother on his handlebars, to the nearest house he could find for help.
It took years before Diggs let me read the story he’d written about that afternoon. I’d known about his brother, of course—no secrets in a small town and all that. But it was an unspoken pact between us, particularly in those tenuous early years when he was the mentor and I his adoring student, that we both shoulder our dark burdens in silence. Somehow, just knowing life had kicked the crap out of both of us early on was enough for me; I didn’t need the details.
After that day, the Reverend and Mama Diggins never got over the loss of their youngest son, and they never let Diggs forget the part he’d played in that loss. Though he graduated at the top of his class and set records in every sport Littlehope had to offer, he was always a wild child—bedding the towns’ fairest daughters, drinking every keg dry, and smoking whatever happened to be available.
All the same, when Diggs got the call from his mother ten years later saying that she was dying and would he please come home, he dropped out of Columbia three months shy of a Master’s in Journalism, and returned to his hometown.
That was when we met. He stayed while his mother fought a two-year battle with cancer that she ultimately lost and then, despite the undeniable tension between father and son, he stuck around town reporting for the Trib for another year after that. He left three days after I did, confirming my suspicion that he’d only remained in Littlehope to make sure I survived those last, lonely days of high school and was safely settled at Wellesley before he got on with his own life.
A shout from across the street jolted me back to the present. I looked up to find Jed Colby, the man I’d interviewed earlier in the week, smiling at me. He waved as he climbed into his pickup, then drove across the intersection and pulled up beside me.
“You look like you’re thinking some pretty deep thoughts there,” he said.
“Just pondering the little mysteries,” I said. “Why are we here; where do we go when we die; am I really the only one who believes the Kardashians are a clear sign of the end times?”
He chuckled, but his face had darkened once he’d gotten close enough to see my bruises. “Well, when you find the answers, will you clue me in? Though you’re definitely not alone on that last one. I just wanted to stop by to let you know Gracie wants you and Diggs to come over for dinner some night. It’d be nice to get a chance to visit. And to be honest, I’d like to talk to you some more, if you don’t mind. After you left the other day, I thought of a half-dozen questions I never thought I’d get the chance to ask.”
The invitation caught me off guard, but I nodded gamely. “That would be nice, actually. I’ll tell Diggs. You guys pick the night, and I’ll drag him out of his office if I need to.”
“Good. Gracie’ll be glad to hear it.” He hesitated. “I don’t want to pry, but…Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I am. I just…” Rather than downplaying what had happened, I had a sudden inspiration. “I know me being back here isn’t the most popular thing in the world, but somebody got the best of me out on the island yesterday.” I took off my sunglasses to give him the full effect. “You wouldn’t happen to know who that might have been, would you?”
His jaw tensed a little while he took in the sight, but he shook his head. “If I did, they’d be walking funny about now. If they got up at all. We might talk tough, but any man who raises his hand to a woman isn’t looked at too fondly around here.”
“Even Joe Ashmont?”
“Especially Joe. Why? You think it could have been him?”
The look in his eye suggested vigilante justice wasn’t out of the question and, if called upon, would be swift. I shook my head quickly.
“I don’t think so, I was just asking. It’s all right—it looks worse than it is. I just wanted to see if you might have any ideas.”
“Sorry, no. But let me know if you find out who it was, though. I’d love to be there about the time old Diggs gets hold of him.”
I laughed. Replaced my sunglasses as Jed drove away, tossed my cigarette butt in a trash can just outside the church’s front door, took a deep breath, and went inside.
The Reverend was in his office when I arrived, downstairs in a dim and very chilly carpeted basement. His door was slightly ajar, so I knocked but didn’t wait for him to invite me in.
He’d aged since I had seen him last. For some reason, Ethan Diggins’ thinning hair and glacial smile seemed timeless all those years ago. Of all the people I’d encountered in my re-immersion in the old hometown, Daddy Diggs was the only one I had expected to find unchanged.
But, of course, everything changes.
His once-blond hair had faded to white, and was sparse around his mostly bald head, his shoulders hunched and his body smaller than I remembered it. He sat behind a massive oak desk that only served to emphasize his deterioration.
“Erin Solomon,” he said, when I stepped into his office.
“Reverend Diggins,” I said.
The office belonged to a scholar, not a zealot. One wall was filled with shelves of volumes on theology and philosophy, art, music, literature. It was a big space, and I suspected it had been his personal refuge for a long while now.
He stood behind the desk, gesturing me into an overstuffed leather chair.
“I’ve been expecting you,” he said.
He wore glasses perched at the tip of his nose, and he didn’t look nearly as forbidding as I’d once thought him to be.
“Have you?”
“Detective Hammond suggested I might see you soon.”
“Did he tell you why I’d be coming?”
“Of course. Rebecca Ashmont, I presume. He seemed to think she might have been the key to some of the mysteries you are pursuing on Payson Isle.”
I found myself at a disadvantage—apparently Daddy Diggs had been waiting for me, while I’d only found out I was headed this way twenty minutes ago. My gaze fell to an oversized crucifix mounted behind the Reverend’s desk, complete with crown of thorns and a bloodied and very realistic looking Christ.
I looked away.
“Rebecca was part of this congregation?” I asked.
“She was.”
“I heard that you two were close,” I said, choosing the word Edie had used.
The Reverend smiled. He met my eye. “Is that pertinent to this investigation?”
“It could be—especially if she confided in you before she moved in with the Paysons. If you have an idea what happened when Isaac helped her escape from her husband…At this point, anything you could tell me about Rebecca and her son might be pertinent.”
He leaned back in his chair, removed his glasses, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. The gesture reminded me of something, but it took a minute before I could place it. He replaced his glasses, tented his fingertips, and peered at me with a sour expression. That’s when it hit me: Mr. Burns. Diggs’ dad was straight out of the Simpsons. I forced back a bubble of hysterical laughter and wondered if I’d had some kind of psychotic break.
I struggled to refocus on what the Reverend was saying.
“I’m sorry, but as I told Detective Hammond,” he said, “I don’t recall that much. She was a devout member of the congregation, and even taught Sunday School here for a time. But her attendance became sporadic, and we were unable to keep her on. She left the church shortly thereafter. There was a long interim before she joined Isaac, during which I don’t believe she left the island very often. Isaac used to visit the more isolated residents to minister to those who might otherwise be excluded from organized religion; I suspect he met Rebecca that way.”
“Do you know when she actually joined the Payson Church? I haven’t been able to get an exact date yet.”
“She was there barely a m
onth—that’s what was so tragic about it, why I remember the details so well. We’d just realized she was out there. We were taking steps to bring her back when we received word of the fire.”
This got my attention. “Who was taking steps to bring her back? You? Joe? Did Isaac know you were coming for her?”
Too late, I realized that I was pressing too hard. The Reverend stood and nodded toward the door. “I’m sorry—I told Mr. Hammond, there are aspects of this case that I’m not comfortable discussing. The investigation has been closed for many years.” He stared pointedly at my battered face. “Perhaps it would be better—safer—if you simply let the matter lie. Rebecca Ashmont was a troubled woman, with a painful history and an unpleasant home life. She sought refuge wherever she could; Isaac Payson happened to be the last port in her storm, but I assure you he was not the first.”
“Something I’ve heard you can attest to firsthand, Reverend. Were you her port in the storm when she was a member of this church?”
His shoulders stiffened. “You and my son may have a relationship that eschews the boundaries of etiquette and good taste, but I won’t tolerate that kind of implication in a house of the Lord.”
I stood, but made no move for the door. “Do you know why the Payson fire never made sense to me, Reverend?”
He shook his head, glancing down at the desk in a failed attempt to regain his composure. “Why is that, Ms. Solomon?”
“Because I could never find a motive. No trigger. In Waco, the pressure from the government was the final straw; a visit from Senate investigators set Jonestown into motion. The Solar Temple had been preaching the same dogma since their inception—everyone knew what to expect. It’s the law of cause and effect, Reverend Diggins: nothing just happens. And I’m not the first one to notice this. Read any articles written on the Paysons, and you’ll find more questions than answers. No one could ever give any reason for why this fire would have been set, out of the blue, when Isaac Payson never preached a message involving the kind of violent end his congregation met.”