by Jen Blood
I took a step closer. More people were arriving upstairs—I heard hushed voices, occasional laughter. The Reverend waited for me to finish. For a moment, I thought I saw fear in his eyes.
“Were you planning to go in there to get Rebecca, Reverend? You and Joe Ashmont?”
“You believe that if Isaac thought someone was threatening to take one of his members away, it may have spurred him to take that kind of drastic action?”
I thought of the photo Hammond had shown me that morning: an unidentified figure that may or may not have been Isaac Payson, burned separately from the rest of his congregation. Had he panicked, locking his followers away from the world before anyone could take them from him? I shook my head again. Being perpetually baffled was fast losing its charm.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “It’s possible. Something obviously happened, and I’m getting a funny feeling that Rebecca Ashmont was at the center of it all.”
He came out from behind his desk and leaned back against the edge, not far from me.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked. “Unearthing demons long since buried, in a town that still hasn’t recovered? I fail to see how this investigation could help anyone. Yet, you persist.”
“The story the public was given about that fire was a lie. I can’t let that stand.”
“Now, you can’t let that stand? Where were you twenty-two years ago? As I recall, the alibi you provided for your father played a crucial role in the perpetuation of that lie.”
I looked up sharply. “What do you know about that?”
A door opened and closed somewhere down the hall. The Reverend glanced at an old clock behind him, then back at me.
“I know Adam was not in that hotel room when you said he was.”
“And how do you know that?”
He smiled, his eyes never leaving mine. “Because he called and asked me to meet him here.”
Everything slowed. The Reverend could be lying, of course, but what would be the point?
“Why would he do that?” I asked. “What did he want?”
“I couldn’t tell you—he never arrived. When he called me, it wasn’t quite four a.m. He said he was on his way…I didn’t hear from him again.”
I remembered the phone ringing that night. My father had shouted at whoever was calling—it made an impression because I’d never heard him shout before. He hung up and made a call of his own. I never knew who he was calling, though. Had it been Reverend Diggins?
“Maybe he made the call, then decided he couldn’t leave me alone. You can’t know he wasn’t with me,” I said.
“Perhaps you should talk to your mother about this. You have so many questions—it’s ironic that the people best equipped to address them are your own parents, and yet the answers have continued to elude you all these years. If I didn’t know better, I would say you didn’t actually want to learn the truth at all.”
He stood and gestured to the door. “I can’t tell you anymore, I’m sorry. Now, if you’ll excuse me, there are people expecting me.”
I opened my mouth to ask another question, but it was clear Daddy Diggs was done talking. I went out the back way, then circled around to get back to my car. Rebecca Ashmont was the key. Rebecca and Joe.
And my mother.
I stopped short when I reached the parking lot, looking for the first available escape route.
“You can’t run—I’ve already spotted you,” Diggs said.
He was sitting on my bumper, his hair and shoulders damp from the drizzling rain. He held a cigarette in his left hand, and he didn’t look pleased. When he saw my face, he looked even less so. Juarez was sitting in the driver’s seat of his Civic, parked next to my Jetta. He looked miserable. I shot a glare his way, but Diggs intercepted my gaze.
“Don’t blame him—he didn’t say a thing. Jed called. He said Gracie’d love to have us over Tuesday night, if we’re free. And, oh yeah, did I need any help with the manhunt to find the scum sucker who kicked the crap out of you?”
“I’m fine.”
“Yeah, Solomon, I know—you’re always fine. It’ll be on your tombstone: ‘Here lies Erin Rae Solomon: She was fine.’ Jesus Christ.”
He met me halfway, his eyes softening once he got a glimpse at the damage. He tipped my chin up and tilted my face to get a better look at my bruises.
“You think Ashmont did this?”
“No,” I said, only just realizing it was the truth. “I would have known if it was him.” I nodded toward the cigarette he held. “You’re smoking.”
“Yeah, I know. It was either that or strangle someone.”
“Someone meaning me?”
He glanced at Juarez, who sank lower in his seat. “Not necessarily. Or at least you’re not the only candidate. Come on—give me a ride back to the Trib. We’ll get some food, and you can tell me what my old man has to do with this unfolding disaster.”
Sometime between meeting with the Reverend and finding Diggs on the hood of my car, my headache had returned. I was tired—more tired than I could remember being in a very long time, and my fatigue was making it damned near impossible to form a coherent thought.
I nodded my agreement and gave him my keys, then went over to Juarez and waited as he rolled down the window.
“I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have dragged you into this,” I said.
“He’s just worried. I can understand that.” My hand was on his window, fingers curled at the edge of the glass. He put his hand over them, studying me with black, depthless eyes. “You look tired, Erin. Go home. Try to sleep this afternoon. I’ll meet you at the house—we can talk then.”
He squeezed my hand and let go, then waited until I was settled beside Diggs in the Jetta before he drove away.
As soon as I had my seatbelt on, Diggs put the car in gear and peeled out of the parking lot without a word.
Chapter Seventeen
Part of the reason for Diggs’ silence became clear when we arrived at the Trib. The county sheriff’s cruiser was parked out front, a man I assumed was the sheriff seated behind the steering wheel. He smiled at sight of us, got out of the car, and approached Diggs and me.
“I don’t want the police involved, Diggs,” I whispered.
He cast an innocent eye at me, shrugged like he didn’t know what the hell I was talking about, and turned his attention to the cop at his window.
“Hey, Chris. Fancy meeting you here.”
“Just stopped in town for a little lunch,” the man said, smiling. Playing along. He leaned down to peer into the car and tipped his hat at me. “You don’t remember me, I guess—Chris Finnegan. I was a couple years ahead of you in school.”
He was a big man, tall and broad-shouldered, with glasses and a casual way about him that I imagined was supposed to set people at ease. It wasn’t working.
“I heard somebody had a couple pizzas delivered here,” Diggs said. “Hey, here’s an idea just off the top of my head.”
I glared at him, but he ignored me.
“Why don’t you join us, Chris? The more the merrier.”
Indeed.
◊◊◊◊◊
“You don’t have to file a report, of course,” Sheriff Finnegan informed me. We were packed in Diggs’ office, Einstein finally liberated from the car and now poised to attack the first stray piece of pepperoni or hamburg that fell to the floor. The evil trolls drumming inside my head had gotten louder and more unruly, and my mood was not improving.
“I don’t need to file a report, thanks. I told you—I ran into a door.”
Finnegan smiled. He had a slice of Wallace’s loaded, extra cheese pizza in one hand, a can of Coke in the other. He took no notes.
“A door that tagged you in the noggin twice and, based on the way you’re holding yourself, probably got in a couple of serious body blows to boot.” He finished chewing and looked at me thoughtfully. “You don’t mind me saying, that’s one mean son of a bitch of a door.”
I attempted a smile.
I felt bad for lying, and worse because Finnegan was obviously just trying to do Diggs a favor. He looked at Diggs, who looked at me.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?”
I closed my eyes, my head throbbing to some primal rhythm that was fast making my stomach roll to the beat.
“Maybe later.”
He stood, nodding toward the doorway. “Just for a minute.”
As soon as we were out the door and down the hall, he turned on me.
“What the hell are you doing? You’re acting like some fucking battered wife—you got hit by a door? What is that?”
I could feel the blood in my cheeks as a week’s worth of impotent rage reached its boiling point. I advanced on him so fast that he took a step back.
“It’s my story, Diggs—Mine. It’s my book, it’s my family, it’s my fucking body. Back off. If I file a report, cops will be swarming the island. Whatever is going on, whoever it is will get spooked—”
“Or caught—”
I glared at him. “I mean it, Diggs. I’m not filing a report. I’m not making a statement. And if you don’t back the fuck off, I’ll find someplace else to hang my hat until I’m done here.”
Diggs shook his head. I’d never seen him angrier.
“Fine. Screw it—you want to kill yourself, go ahead. But if you go out there alone again—”
“I’m not going to.”
He caught the front of my shirt in his hand and pulled me closer. My heart was beating too fast. Diggs chest rose and fell and his breath came hard. Five seconds came and went while he tried to get himself back under control.
“I’m serious, Solomon,” he said, quieter now. “You see this face? This is the face of a terrified man. And doubly so because you aren’t taking this shit seriously.”
The rage left as quickly as it had come, leaving exhaustion in its place. I leaned into him, resting the top of my head against his chest—a move that was half embrace, half defense tackle.
“I’m taking it seriously,” I mumbled.
He smoothed back my hair. “If you go out to the island again, you’ll take me or Juarez? I don’t know how much help I’d be, but Juarez has a gun and James Bond hair, so I’m pretty sure he could do some damage. And when push comes to shove, I can scream like a banshee.”
I’d seen Diggs do a hell of a lot more than scream when we were in trouble before, but I let it go. “I won’t go out to the island alone again.”
He wrapped his arms around me and held me close. “You’re really okay?”
My eyes stung. If I could have stayed that way—Diggs’ voice in my ear, my body enveloped in his—for another five years, I would have been seriously tempted to do so.
“I’m fine, Diggs.”
He laughed. Shook his head. “Liar,” he whispered.
Once Sheriff Finnegan realized I wouldn’t be making any revelations about the attack, he excused himself to hit the mean streets of midcoast Maine once more. I bowed out shortly thereafter, intent on only one thing:
Bed.
I drove past the town landing on my way back to Diggs’ place and noted that Hammond’s boat wasn’t at its mooring. I tried his cell phone, but it went straight to voicemail. The bastard was ignoring me—probably out solving the case, for all I knew. I was so tired I honestly couldn’t work up the energy to care. It was only four in the afternoon, but I’d been running on fumes for so long I was about twenty-four hours past empty.
Back at Diggs’ place, Einstein settled on the bathmat while I soaked in the tub with half a dozen scented candles and a bottle of wine at my fingertips. I’d closed the curtains, popped two pain pills Edie Woolrich had given me, and was just beginning to feel the tension start to ease.
The conversations I’d had over the past week replayed in my head. I did a cast call of the major players in my unfolding drama:
Joe Ashmont, Matt Perkins, Noel Hammond. My mother and father. Rebecca Ashmont. Reverend Diggins. Isaac Payson.
Christ. Had the whole town been involved in this?
I now knew that Matt, Joe, and Rebecca grew up together. Rebecca married Joe, then apparently had an affair with Reverend Diggins when she was still part of his congregation, if the stories were to be believed. Joe moved her out to his island, where she had a son.
Somewhere during those years alone on the island with her boy, Isaac Payson made contact with her. I went over what I knew about the founder of the Payson Church and realized it was precious little, gleaned mostly from articles I’d read by others even less informed than myself. Raised in Maine by a good, God-fearing family before he slipped the draft by disappearing to parts unknown during Vietnam; started a church in Mexico sometime in the early-‘70s; returned to Maine in 1976 with a small troupe of followers who settled with him on Payson Isle. As far as I could tell, he’d never been in trouble with the law, and the work he did out on the island and up and down the Midcoast kept him in good standing with the community.
I could remember other women from abusive situations taking refuge with the Paysons; it would hardly have been unprecedented for Isaac to help Rebecca and Zion escape Ashmont’s iron rule.
That brought me to the summer of 1990, and whatever events might have led to the fire.
My father got a phone call early that morning. He in turn called Reverend Diggins for some ungodly reason, and told him he was on his way to the church. He left me at the hotel but for some reason, he never followed through on that meeting with the Reverend.
Then there was my mother, and the story Hammond had given me about her: stacking all the bodies, destroying the evidence, seducing Hammond to ensure his silence. All of this done with the knowledge of Joe Ashmont and Matt Perkins.
I got out of the tub and toweled myself off. The drizzle outside hadn’t gotten any worse, but it hadn’t gotten any better, either. The sky was boiled gray outside my bedroom window, heavy clouds hanging low overhead. It felt much later than early evening.
The Reverend’s words were bothering me: If I didn’t know better, I would say you didn’t actually want to learn the truth at all.
I could concede that that may have been true at one time. Hell, most of my teen years I’d been terrified of what my father might have been doing while he wasn’t with me the morning of the fire. Even then, I’d known that whether or not my father actually started the fire, he clearly knew more than he was saying. The question was, how much more? Maybe I hadn’t wanted the truth then, but I didn’t want to live this way anymore—plagued by guilt over what my father may or may not have done, the lies that he told and the lives that were lost. I wanted the truth.
“So, why haven’t I called my mother?” I asked Einstein.
I sat at the edge of the bed, Einstein at my feet. He perked up when he realized I was talking to him. What had the Reverend said? The people best equipped to answer my questions were my own parents.
He hadn’t said the person best equipped, I realized.
The people. My parents. Plural.
I still hadn’t been to the cabin where my father lived out his final days. There was no good reason for that—I just didn’t want to go. Didn’t want to see what his life had been, how the man I’d worshipped had unraveled over the years. After his death, my mother had asked if I wanted any keepsakes to remember him by. I’d said no. As far as I knew, she hadn’t gone through his belongings. And if she hadn’t, chances were good that no one had.
After all these years, did my father still have the answers I needed?
I put on jeans and a sweatshirt and powered through the heady combo of muscle relaxants, wine, and fatigue. I grabbed my cell phone and hit speed dial.
“I thought you were napping,” Diggs said.
“I got my second wind. You’re probably not free tonight, are you?”
“Seriously, woman? Don’t you ever rest?”
“I did rest,” I said. “I thought of something I want to check out. Do you have plans?”
He hesitated—wrestling, I knew, with d
eadlines he couldn’t miss.
“Don’t worry about it,” I interrupted before he tied himself in a knot. “What about your Cuban comrade in arms. Is he around?”
“Yeah,” Diggs said. “He just swung by, actually. I think he’s headed your way. You’re going out to the island?”
“I just want to check something out,” I said before he could lecture me on all the sleep I wasn’t getting and the ways it was bound to kill me. “I’ll make sure he brings his gun and his Bond ‘do, don’t worry. I’ll be okay.”
“So I’m guessing our late dinner at the Shanty is out, then.”
“Shit. I forgot.” My ill-advised lip lock with Diggs seemed like a lifetime ago, the big talk we’d had planned downright silly compared with everything else going on. “I’m sorry. Raincheck?”
“Yeah, of course. Don’t worry about it. Give Juarez my regards—and, Solomon?”
“I know, Diggs—be careful.”
“Very careful. Careful to the power of ten. Squared.”
Though the math was a little beyond me, I made the promise all the same. After I hung up, I tried Hammond’s cell phone again. It went straight to voicemail. Again. He wasn’t picking up at home, either—avoiding me, or was he still out on his boat?
I took Einstein out for a quick pee and left him to keep the home fires burning at Diggs’ place. Juarez was just driving in when I intercepted him.
“Do you have any plans for the afternoon?”
“As far as I know, all my plans involve tailing you, unless I want Diggs to castrate me by nightfall.” He tried for a smile, but he didn’t look that amused. I knew the feeling.
“You don’t need to tail me—I think I popped one pain pill too many. You mind driving?”
“Where to?”
“Noel Hammond’s place first. Then, how about a nice evening jaunt across the bay?”
I braced myself for a lecture that, refreshingly enough, didn’t come.
“You’re the boss. I’m just here to make sure you get home in one piece.”