by Jen Blood
She considers asking Adam to leave them, but the look on his face changes her mind. Though she knows he would never lay a hand on her physically, he is still the closest person to Isaac. She can’t risk going against a man with the power to turn the Reverend from her. The realization that she is once again caught between warring men, each intent on deciding her future, makes the tiny, hateful stone inside begin to grow.
For his part, Adam seems content with the way the conversation has gone. He straightens, ignoring Matt for a moment to address Rebecca. “When you’re through, Isaac would like to see you in the garden.”
He nods casually at Matt, and finally leaves them. Matt turns to her once he’s out of sight. The mask has vanished, fury and terror mixed in his bloodshot eyes.
“See that? They’re watching you. You’re not safe here—you have to make a choice.”
She shakes her head, turning her back on him in favor of the path toward Isaac. “That’s where you’re wrong. You were always the one with the choices. I had Joe; now God has sent me Isaac. There is no choice for me—there never has been.”
She leaves him behind. As she walks away, she feels each blade of dead grass strike with razor-sharp precision at her bare ankles. She takes one last, deep breath and lets the silence work its magic before she rejoins the church.
Chapter Fourteen
Understandably enough, sleep didn’t come easy after the attack. I dozed on and off, but otherwise stayed up writing for most of the day and a good part of the night. When Diggs knocked softly on my door at a little after one a.m., I chose the coward’s way rather than facing him and pretended I was sleeping.
By the time I actually did fall asleep, night had given way to the soft edges of a gray dawn. I dreamed of masked men and burning buildings, my father at the center of everything, and when I woke two hours later, my nerves were strung tight. Diggs was already gone for the day, and Juarez was likewise not in attendance. My right eye was swollen and purple, my bottom lip looked like a Botox injection gone horribly awry, and my body felt like I’d been run over—twice –and then wrung out bone by bone.
Since ‘pretty’ wasn’t an adjective I expected anyone would be using to describe me anytime soon, I decided to get on with my day with the lofty goal of not scaring the crap out of the neighborhood kids. I put on jeans and t-shirt, and stole an old Nick Cave sweatshirt and a black baseball hat from Diggs’ closet. I pulled my hair into a ponytail and added the requisite sunglasses, made myself coffee and toast, and then paused when I found a note from Diggs on the fridge.
Thought you’d want to know: your buddy Noel Hammond’s back in town. Can we talk? I’ve made time tonight if you will. Love, D
I groaned. While it wasn’t likely I would have been able to hide from Diggs until the swelling had gone down and the bruises had faded, I’d been prepared to give it the old college try. The news about Hammond being back in town was encouraging, though. I decided to lay aside my wounded pride after the disastrous kiss-that-wasn’t the other night, and headed for the door as I hit speed dial on my cell.
Diggs answered on the second ring.
“So you are speaking to me,” he said.
“Looks like. Thanks for the heads up on Hammond—I’m headed over there now.”
“And we can talk tonight?”
Outside Diggs’ front door, the sun shined and the birds sang. I waited while Einstein christened a nearby rosebush.
“We can, but…Diggs, it’s not a big deal.”
“It is a big deal—I just wanted to say I was sorry.”
“For kissing me.”
There was a breath’s length of a pause on the line. “Well… Yeah, for that.”
“Except I was the one who kissed you. So—no harm, no foul. It was just a kiss, Diggs. Don’t tell me all this time in the sticks has turned you into a blushing virgin.”
He laughed, just barely. “No, not yet. Give it a little time, though. I just…” He sighed. “You’re important to me, Sol. And I know how much you have going on right now. Something in your life should be uncomplicated, you know?”
“And you want to be that something,” I said.
“No one else seems to be volunteering.”
He didn’t mention Juarez, but the implication was clear. “Maybe we could go out to dinner tonight?” I asked, since it didn’t appear there was a way around it. “Just you and me. I need to run some things by you.”
That would give me an entire day to figure out how to tell him I’d been beaten to a pulp by a phantom assailant, and had called a virtual stranger instead of him to come save my ass.
“Eight o’clock at the Shanty okay with you?”
The Shanty was a little lobster shack-slash-bar on the water. It was long on history, short on class, and used to make the best chili fries this side of heaven. It seemed a fitting place for Diggs and me to renew our vows of sporadic chastity and enduring friendship.
“I’ll see you then.”
I disconnected first, clipped Einstein’s leash to his collar, and we were off once more.
I stopped at Wallace’s General Store for gas, and cursed the lack of technology that meant I’d have to go inside and face the cruel world rather than revel in the anonymity of a quick-and-dirty debit card swipe. It was ten o’clock on a sunny Saturday morning, which meant the store was packed. I stood in line with my eyes focused on the wooden floorboards, hoping no one would notice that I looked like an embittered battered wife in a Lifetime Movie of the Week.
That hope was shot to hell when I heard someone clear their throat behind me. I was next up in line at the cash register, a twenty dollar bill already in hand. When I didn’t respond to the sound, Joe Ashmont chuckled.
“Looks like somebody put you in your place, missy.”
I turned around. He held a whiskey bottle in one hand, already opened and missing the first round. In the other, he clutched a pack of cigarettes and, oddly enough, a bag of tangerines. Cirrhosis or lung cancer might be a valid concern for old Joe, but at least scurvy wasn’t in the cards.
“That happen out on the island?” he asked.
I took a step away from him. “It’s none of your business.”
He nodded amicably. His eyes remained hard, his mouth fixed in a fool’s grin as he continued to appraise me. “Guess you’re right about that. No business of mine when a pretty woman gets her clock cleaned.” He paused. “Not unless I’m the one did the cleanin’, that is.”
My mouth went dry. I met his gaze for the first time, trying to ignore my trembling hands and the sudden clench in my stomach. He nodded toward the cashier.
“Go on ahead—I think they’re ready for you.”
I put my twenty on the counter without speaking, aware that Ashmont’s eyes were still on me.
“It’s the Jetta at pump three,” I managed. I headed for the door before the girl behind the counter could respond. I was still pumping my gas when Ashmont came out and headed straight for me.
Einstein growled at sight of him, his teeth bared, his nose quivering at the window I’d left cracked in the backseat.
“I told you people don’t want you here,” Ashmont said when he was still a few feet away.
“I hadn’t noticed.” I replaced the nozzle in the pump, screwed the gas cap back on, and tried to hide the fact that my knees were knocking together like castanets.
“You must get that spine of yours from your mum—your daddy was a pussy from the word go. Anybody’d think twice before they’d mess with Kat, though. And now, we’re all gonna pay for that—for the way she used people up, got ’em to go her way.”
He stepped closer. Einstein started barking, doing his damnedest to squeeze through the narrow opening I’d left for him.
“I’ll tell you a secret, though.” I could smell him—salt and whiskey, cigarettes and lobster bait. He smiled at me. His eyes were as hard as black jade. “Your mum’s not getting out of this one. You take anybody down, she’ll be first to fall. You remember that,
when you think about whether this story you’re telling is worth it.”
He turned and left before I could ask him what the hell he was talking about. I got back in the car still shaking, thinking once more about the attack the day before. Could it have been Ashmont? Juarez had asked me about size and smell—Ashmont might be the right size, but you could smell him coming from a mile away. I would have known if it was him. Wouldn’t I?
I was feeling a whole lot less confident about that by the time I pulled into Noel Hammond’s driveway a few minutes later.
Hammond opened the door before I had a chance to knock. He took one look at my face and the color drained from his own. He stepped aside and motioned me in.
“I guess Diggs must have mentioned I’d be stopping by,” I said.
“He didn’t mention you’d look like you just went three rounds with Mike Tyson when you did, though.”
“Yeah, well… He wasn’t trying to keep you out of the loop, he just doesn’t know that part yet.”
Hammond’s house was small and tidy, with a potbelly stove in the corner of the living room, one plump cat curled up on the windowsill, and another on the sofa. I could smell homemade bread baking in the next room. The walls were covered with pictures of a younger Hammond and a pretty blonde woman I assumed was his wife, along with framed photos documenting the growth of a cute blonde girl who grew into a cute blonde woman with two cute blonde babies.
I motioned to one of the photos. “Your daughter?”
“Jasmine. Those are her kids—Winnie and Ephraim. Twins.”
“Nice.”
We stood there for a few seconds in silence, our eyes fixed on the same photo.
“How old is she?”
He hesitated. “Twenty-one.”
Born after the fire. And the affair with my mother, one assumed.
“Can I get you anything? Tea, coffee? I think I have a beer in there somewhere.” He motioned to a spot on the sofa.
“I’m fine.” I took a seat, doing my best to avoid disturbing the cat as I did so. Hammond turned a rocking chair by the stove so that it was facing me and sat down.
“Diggs said you had a conversation with Jim Abbott.”
“That I did.”
The cat opened sleepy eyes and gazed at me from half-shut lids. He stretched double paws, arched his back, and flicked his tail at me as he hopped down and headed for Hammond’s lap.
When I didn’t volunteer any further information about my meeting with Abbott, Hammond shook his head.
“You’re as stubborn as your mother.”
I looked at him. His eyes remained level with mine, as though he knew exactly how big a can of worms he’d just opened with the statement.
“Abbott said he thought you two were having an affair, back when he was doing the investigation.”
“We weren’t.”
I looked at him doubtfully. For the first time, his cool demeanor wavered.
“It wasn’t an affair.” He scratched his chin and stared at the floor. “It was an indiscretion, no more. Alice—my late wife—and I were having a hard time. I came here to get away for a while; she stayed in the city. I got the call to come out and help with the fire that day.”
“Were you and Kat already together at that point?”
“I never met her before that day. I was one of the first firefighters out there—when I got there, Kat was having a knock-down, drag-out with Joe Ashmont and Matt Perkins.”
“The fire chief and the constable,” I said.
“Yeah. I wasn’t clear on why your mother was even there—there obviously weren’t any survivors. There wasn’t anything she could have done.”
“What were they fighting about?”
Hammond ran his knuckles along the cat’s spine; I could hear purring from my seat across the room. The other cat—a long-haired, marmalade butterball—got up from his spot at the window and threaded itself between his legs.
“You should talk to your mother,” Hammond finally said.
“I don’t want to talk to my mother. I’m here—just tell me. I know her. Nothing you say could shock me, trust me.”
He smiled at that, like I was a kid who’d said something cute.
“She’s a good woman. A hard person to know, it’s true—but she loves you. And she loved your father. She was just doing what she could to protect you both.”
“By sleeping with you.”
He sat up straighter. He looked more tired than he had when we first met, though it had only been a few days ago. I seemed to have that effect on people lately.
“Yeah.” He smiled faintly. “You look like her, you know. Your eyes.” Another second of silence passed before he made up his mind. “I never found out exactly what the fight was about. It was early afternoon. The Fire Marshal and his team, along with the investigators and the ME, didn’t get out there till the next day. We were supposed to keep watch over the place until everybody got there. Preserve the scene.”
I nodded, recalling Sergeant Flint’s account of the story. “So, this was after my father and I got there.”
“Yeah. Long after. I don’t know where Adam was by then. You were there, though.” He looked at me with pity, like he was seeing the child I’d been instead of the woman I’d become. Or maybe seeing both.
“Ashmont looked like he’d had the snot kicked out of him, and Perkins just looked like…a beaten man. Like everything worth living for had just gone up with that church. Kat was the only one in control.”
“That sounds like my mother.”
“The fire died down, and most of the crew left. It was early evening by this time. The second they were gone, Kat started moving the bodies. She told Ashmont and Perkins to shovel the remains into a pile, everything together. I don’t think she even realized I was still there.”
“And so the padlock…”
He nodded. “Everything. Anything that made it look like what it was—the position of the bodies, the locked door… It all got shoveled away. It was all a mess anyway, of course—soaked and destroyed. But she wasn’t doing it to be helpful.”
“And Ashmont and Perkins just went along with this?”
“I told you—they’d already checked out. You ask me, they were as invested in covering things up as she was. When they realized I’d gotten some photos of the scene, Ashmont threatened me. I managed to back him down, though.”
I thought of the man who had accosted me at the general store—his sour breath and cruel smile, the violence he wore like a badge. “How’d you do that?”
“I think a couple of swings might have been exchanged.”
“But Kat was more persuasive.”
He stopped again. Looked at the floor. “It was the next night. I had a cabin out on West Shore Road for the summer. Your mother showed up with a bottle of tequila and two shot glasses. She’d been crying.”
This was the least plausible thing Noel had said so far. He saw the doubt on my face and shook his head.
“She’s not as hard as you think. It wasn’t an act—trust me, nobody’s that good. She might have come there to seduce me, but the tears were real. The fear.”
“She thought Dad did it,” I said suddenly. It shouldn’t have been surprising, but it was—I’d just assumed somehow that I was the only one with doubts about my father. “Did he?” I prompted, when he didn’t say anything.
He continued to stare at the floor. My eyes watered. When I wiped the tears away, I forgot about the bruises; the physical pain pushed the emotional crap away, and I was back in control.
“I didn’t think so at the time,” he said. “I don’t know what I think anymore. But your mother believed he did. We… Everything just kind of happened from there. Two days later, Alice called and told me she was pregnant.”
“And Kat told you to keep your mouth shut or she’d call your wife and tell her all about your little…indiscretion. And you agreed. Said nothing, leaving the murders of thirty-four people unsolved.”
“I didn’t s
ee it that way.”
I tried to read him, figure out what it was he thought had happened out there. Then, suddenly, it hit me.
“The man who was out there—did you see him?”
He looked up, unable to hide his surprise. “What man?”
“There was a man—my father told me he wasn’t real, that I imagined him. Kat told me the same thing. Made me promise never to mention him. But there was a man who chased my father and me once we got on the island.”
“You’re sure about that?”
I was, suddenly. For the first time in my life, I was positive. The man I’d seen on the island that day had been real, no matter what my parents might have said to the contrary. “Yeah. I’m sure.”
He got up from his rocking chair so fast both cats skittered away, their tails twitching. He went into the other room without a word, then returned a minute or two later with a thick manila file folder. He opened it and selected three photos.
A blackened body half-covered in charred wood and debris, one hand raised as though in supplication. “It’s a burned body. What else am I supposed to be seeing?”
“Look at the placement—it’s a burned body on the other side of the wreckage. Not everyone was locked inside the church.”
I wasn’t following him.
“It was Isaac Payson,” he said before I had to ask. “Our theory was that he’d drugged everyone, locked them in the chapel, and then sat outside the door and waited for the flames to take him, too.”
“These are more pictures no one saw, I take it?”
“I took them that afternoon when I first showed up, before Kat and the others got to the bodies.”
It was a good minute or more before I could say anything. In the meantime, I sat in shocked silence while the cats purred and Hammond waited for me to pull myself together.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“This isn’t just some little white lie,” I said finally. “She destroyed evidence. She obliterated it, for Christ’s sake.” I thought of Ashmont’s words about my mother earlier that morning: You take anybody down, she’ll be the first to fall. I had no idea what the penalty for this kind of thing might be, but I couldn’t imagine it would be light.