Erin Solomon Mysteries, Books 1 - 5

by Jen Blood

  She pressed her lips together as she considered my question. “Whatever demons Matt Perkins is fighting, they’ve done a number on him. The doctors all said he wasn’t a real danger anymore, but…” I waited for her to get down to whatever it was she didn’t want to say. “Just between you and me, when he came back I never once left my bedroom door unlocked. There’s something not right there.”

  “If Matt wanted to get away from everyone, can you think of someplace he might go?”

  “The islands, I guess. He knows this bay like the back of his hand—if he wanted a break, he’d probably choose one of those little islands out there where nobody ever goes.”

  I pictured the topographical map of Penobscot Bay we used to have in my elementary school classroom. It had been peppered with tiny, uncharted land masses and a dozen larger, established islands.

  “Any one in particular?” I asked hopelessly.

  She just shook her head. She looked stricken as realization dawned. “That fire that killed poor Noel the other night—you don’t think…?”

  “I don’t know.” I stood before she could ask anything else. “I should go, let you get back to lunch. If you think of anything else, could you call my cell phone? Anything at all.”

  I gave her my business card and left, trying to figure out where to go from there.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  As soon as I was back in the car, I called Sheriff Finnegan again. With great patience, he repeated the promise he’d made earlier: if Kat still hadn’t shown up by morning, he would call out Marine Patrol. Until then, though, I just needed to sit tight and ride out the storm.

  Right.

  My next stop was the town landing. It was empty except for a couple of pickups in the parking lot, couples inside the cabs watching as waves battered the wharf and fishing boats bobbed like children’s toys on the stormy seas. I left Einstein in the car and walked the dock’s rain-slicked planks to get to my speedboat. It had taken on water, maybe six inches in its fiberglass bottom, the seats dripping.

  I searched the harbor until I found Noel Hammond’s boat, riding the waves at its mooring. Juarez had warned me specifically: Don’t go out to the island today.

  He’d obviously said it for a reason—the more time that passed without hearing from him and the longer Kat was missing, the more convinced I was that Payson Isle was the key. That’s where I would find my mother.

  The speedboat would never make it the ten miles out there—not in this weather. I needed something more seaworthy… Like Hammond’s boat. Hammond certainly wouldn’t be using it again. So, if you took the raging winds, stormy seas, and raving madman out of the equation, there really was no reason I shouldn’t take it. I just needed the keys… Which I didn’t have. And of course, the fact that Diggs was probably the one hanging onto those keys now that Hammond was gone didn’t make things any easier.

  Back at the Trib yet again, I pushed sopping hair from my face and, this time, didn’t hesitate before I knocked on Diggs’ office door. I went in without waiting for an answer.

  Diggs took one look at me standing there shivering, dripping rainwater onto his faded linoleum floor, and all traces of his earlier anger vanished.

  “Jerry, you wanna grab a couple towels?” he shouted into the other room.

  “Don’t bother, I’m fine,” I said. “I’m not staying. I just need a quick favor—I know you’re pissed, but I just…” I kept my eyes on the floor. I just needed to hold it together. How many times had my mother handled situations ten times worse than this? Death and destruction all around on a regular basis, and she rode out every storm as if she’d been born for it.

  I met his gaze with a newfound sense of calm. “I need to borrow the keys to Noel’s boat.”

  His jaw actually, physically dropped. I knew there was no way he would hand them over without an explanation, so I gave him an abridged version of events up to that point: Kat was missing, as was Matt Perkins. And Jack Juarez, of course, who may or may not be the psychotic, long-lost son of Rebecca and Joe Ashmont. I told him I thought Perkins had taken Kat, and now they were out on Payson Isle.

  Despite my protests, Diggs handed me a towel and made me sit and dry off while he tried to make sense of my story.

  “You can’t be sure Perkins has her, though,” he insisted. Even he didn’t look convinced, though. “She could be… lost, or something. Maybe she was just in an accident—a small one,” he amended quickly. “She could have amnesia. Somewhere, there’s a very surly Jane Doe scaring the hell out of orderlies in some small-town hospital between here and Portland.”

  “I’ve called all the hospitals,” I said.

  “And Finnegan won’t budge?”

  I shook my head.

  Which brought us back to my request.

  “So, your plan is to take Hammond’s boat—a boat bigger than any you’ve ever driven before, unless you took up yachting since I saw you last—and brave a violent storm to go out to Payson Isle. And once you get there, how are you planning to get on the island?”

  I hadn’t thought that far ahead. The mooring was at least a hundred yards from the island itself, and there would be no tripped-out speedboat waiting to take me from Hammond’s boat to shore. “I’ll improvise,” I said.

  “Good plan,” Diggs said. “That always works. And even if you do make it to shore, what happens then? You find Perkins with Kat and… talk him out of it? And what if Juarez is in on this whole thing, too? You’re gonna take out an armed, seasoned FBI man?”

  “He’s not in on it.”

  Diggs looked like he felt sorry for me. I bristled.

  “He’s not,” I insisted. I sounded remarkably sure of myself for someone who wasn’t sure at all.

  Diggs sat down on the couch beside me. I scooted over to the edge, leaving a foot or more of space between us. Einstein watched all of this from a spot in the corner of the room. He was wet and bedraggled and, thanks to him, Diggs’ office now stank of wet dog. I wondered why the hell Diggs had put up with me all these years.

  “The guy who attacked you on the island—you said he was a fighter, right? He knew what he was doing?”

  I nodded.

  “You said he was in good shape. Taller than you. Solid. You don’t think it was Joe Ashmont, and it sure as hell wasn’t Matt Perkins—if only because you know for a fact that he was in the hospital at the time.”

  I stayed quiet, staring at my hands in my lap.

  “How long did it take Juarez to get out to the island after you called?” I didn’t answer. He forged ahead anyway. “Did you have to give him directions to get to the house? Where did he get the boat to get out there?”

  I stood. My hands were cold and I had to clench my teeth to keep them from chattering. My clothes clung to me and my hair was still damp. Diggs watched me with quiet resignation.

  “So, you won’t help me?” I asked.

  “I won’t send you on a suicide mission, no. I’ll talk to Finnegan if you want, though. He’s got budget cuts and the governor breathing down his neck, so I don’t think we’ll change his mind—not until you have something more solid. If I can do anything else, Sol, you know I’ve got your back.”

  “I don’t need anything else,” I said.

  I whistled for Einstein, and walked out.

  A gale-force winds advisory was issued along the coast at four o’clock that afternoon. Boats were battened down, the harbor deserted. I hadn’t heard from Juarez again since his call that morning, and there was still no word of Kat or her car. I’d called Sheriff Finnegan twice more to try and persuade him to send Marine Patrol out looking for Matt, to no avail, and had driven halfway across the county looking for any sign of Matt Perkins, Joe Ashmont, or my mother.

  At four-thirty, Edie called. I was in my car on another flooded back road. Tree limbs were down, and power outages had been reported up and down the Midcoast. Einstein had given up trying to figure out any rhyme or reason to our driving route, and was snoring quietly in the backsea
t.

  “Any word on your mum yet?”

  I didn’t bother asking how she’d found out. “None yet. You don’t know anyone who might give me a lift out to the island, do you?”

  “Nobody’s going out in this, sweetie. You can’t blame them—you know what it’s like out there in a storm. Nobody in their right mind would be on the water on a day like today.”

  Which was exactly what I’d been afraid of.

  “Did you think of anything else?”

  “Matt’s doctor,” she said. “The psychiatrist who treats Matt at Togus. I thought he might have something he could tell you.”

  She gave me the number, and we disconnected.

  The answering service for Dr. Neil Perry informed me that he wasn’t available until Tuesday, but I could speak with someone else if it was an emergency. I assured them that it was, in fact, a huge emergency—but that no one but Dr. Perry would do. They agreed to convey the message, but they didn’t sound optimistic. I waited for an hour for a return call, and finally decided to take matters into my own hands.

  By six o’clock that night, I was on the road to Augusta. I’d left more messages for Juarez, spoken again with my mother’s…colleague, and had a brief, terse conversation with Diggs that revolved around my lack of objectivity and current level of exhaustion. I hung up on him before the call devolved into a shouting match and one or both of us said something we’d regret.

  On a good note, my final call to Sheriff Finnegan that day had infinitely better results.

  “I talked to Edie, and she convinced me we should get somebody out to the island,” Finnegan said. “I hope you understand why I had to wait this long, though—if I called out the troops every time there was a family spat and somebody dropped out of sight for a few hours, I’d be fired before the day was out. We just don’t have the resources.”

  “But you’ll send someone now?”

  “I just put a call in to Marine Patrol. Any idea what we should be looking for?”

  I’d been thinking about that. “Look for Joe Ashmont’s boat. I think if you find that, you’ll find Matt Perkins. And my mother.”

  Thanks to flash floods around the state, a lot of the smaller roads along the coast were impassable. Halfway down Route 235, forty-five minutes into my drive, I slowed at sight of a tree limb across the left lane. I tapped the brake and realized a split second later that the bridge fifty yards down had been washed out.

  Adrenaline and fatigue had my nerves crackling like water on an open circuit board. I pulled myself together with a couple of deep breaths, pulled a u-turn in the middle of the flooded road, and retraced my steps back to the main drag.

  I kept going over what I knew—the questions Diggs taught me to ask when I was just a cub reporter with a nose ring and a curfew.

  I knew the What, the Where, and the When: 34 dead on Payson Isle, August 22, 1990.

  I knew the How, more or less: fire.

  That left the Who and the Why. Isaac Payson might not have been with the rest of his congregation when he died, but at this point I sincerely doubted he’d been the one to set the fire. Had Matt Perkins been the one to strike the match all those years ago? And what did Noel Hammond and my mother know about any of it, that made them his targets? And, yet again, what did my father have to do with any of it?

  I was back on Route 17, half an hour from Augusta, when my cell phone rang. I glanced at the display and grimaced. Diggs.

  “Erin,” he said when I answered. Not Solomon, not Sol. That alone was enough to make my fingers tighten around the steering wheel.

  “They found her,” I said. It wasn’t a question.

  “They found her car. You should come back.”

  Something tightened like wire inside my chest. “Where was it?”

  The second Diggs took before he answered lasted at least a decade. “In the quarry,” he said. “They’re sending divers down now to see…”

  My vision blurred for a split second before I shook my head. I wouldn’t cry, dammit.

  “To see if she’s in the car,” I finished for him.

  “Take it slow driving home—the roads are bad. I’ll be there when you get back, Sol.”

  I hung up, and turned the car around one more time.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The old Calderwood quarry was at the end of a dirt road that was more mud than dirt by the time I got there. A pickup was stuck about halfway in, half a dozen rain-soaked locals trying to push it out of the way. I pulled off to the side rather than waiting for them, left Stein in the car, and ran the rest of the way to the scene.

  I could see the blur of red and blue lights through the trees, the colors bleeding into one another. Three large, free-standing spotlights had been set up at the edge of the quarry. The light illuminated a sheer granite face and a shine of still black water below. I didn’t see any sign of a car in there—my mother’s or anyone else’s.

  Everyone was in motion around me. A small boat with three scuba divers inside was motoring to the center of the quarry.

  “They can’t bring the car out tonight,” Diggs said from behind me.

  I turned. He wore a rain slicker, his boots and jeans caked with mud.

  “But they can tell if somebody’s inside,” I said. I was impressed at how cool, how professional and detached, the words sounded.

  Diggs nodded. I could tell he was fairly amazed at my demeanor himself. Or maybe disturbed would have been a better word.

  “How do they even know it’s down there? I can’t see a thing.”

  “I had somebody check it out,” he said. “I figured if something disappears in Littlehope, there’s as good a chance as any that it’s in the quarry. It took some doing to get anybody out here—I had to call in a couple favors.”

  I turned back to the ledge to watch the activity below. A good five minutes went by before I had the presence of mind to thank him.

  “It’ll probably be a while before they can get in there and tell us anything. Why don’t you let me take you home—just to get warmed up, change into some dry clothes.”

  I was wearing the same jeans and turtleneck I’d had on since the day began. I stood shivering with my arms crossed over my chest, and shook my head.

  “I’m all right.”

  Diggs didn’t say anything to that. It seemed like the rain might be lightening up—or maybe it had just been like this so long I couldn’t tell the difference anymore. An indeterminate amount of time passed before Diggs took my hand and pulled me away from the ledge.

  “I got these from the Jeep.” He produced a sweatshirt and a pair of sweats, with a bright orange poncho on top of the pile. I hadn’t even realized he’d gone.

  “I’m not leaving,” I said.

  “So don’t.” He pushed me toward the edge of the woods gently, handed me the clothes, and turned his back.

  “I know you’ve got an exhibitionist in there somewhere—now’s the time to give her a thrill.”

  Since I wasn’t going to win this argument anyway, I found a quiet spot just inside the woods and peeled off my soaking clothes. The sweatpants were too long and the sweatshirt was too big and the poncho came nearly to my knees. Still, they were clean and dry and the fact that they smelled like Diggs didn’t hurt matters. I rolled pant legs and shirt sleeves with fingers that had gone numb with cold long before.

  “Okay,” I said when I was finished.

  Diggs turned back around. He smiled faintly when he saw me. “Sorry—I didn’t have anything smaller.”

  “No, this is good. Thank you.” I couldn’t find the energy to return his smile. With nothing else to say, I returned to the ledge.

  Diggs pulled me away from the edge a few inches, which made me think of the afternoon he’d lost his brother here. The day Diggs put away childish things.

  There was a crash down below, followed by a flurry of movement and panicked shouts.

  “Get clear,” one of the techs nearby yelled down. “Christ—what the hell are we doing
out here? Somebody’s gonna get killed.”

  I turned in time to see Sheriff Finnegan take the tech aside. The sheriff glanced at me with a quick smile that I imagined was meant to be reassuring.

  “Easy does it, boys,” he yelled down below. “We don’t need any heroes. We’re just looking for a clear visual. Take your time.”

  “That jolt kicked up too much sediment at the bottom,” the tech told him. “We’ll have to wait till it settles again. It’ll be at least an hour.”

  I felt a wave of nausea. Diggs put his arm around my shoulder, but I stepped away from him. Away from the ledge. Away from the sirens and the shouting strangers and the shell of my mother’s car buried deep in the water below.

  When I was eleven, I started working at Kat’s clinic after school. My mother was always too busy for family bonding, but some nights we’d order in and sit in the break room eating pizza, talking about the patients she’d seen that day. It was the only time I ever felt close to her—those short hours when we could compare notes on her cases. She would quiz me on what I’d seen, symptoms different patients had presented with, possible diagnoses.

  I wanted to be a doctor, back then. Not because of any real interest in medicine, mind you—just because it seemed like ten years of medical school was the simplest way to create any kind of meaningful relationship with my mother.

  At the edge of the woods, I took a few breaths and pulled myself back together.

  “What’s the word from the island?” I asked Diggs when I rejoined him.

  He looked confused.

  “Payson Isle?” I elaborated. “Finnegan was sending somebody out.”

  “I don’t know if he did, though. I think once we found the car—”

  “Matt’s still out there—I know it. Whether Kat’s with him or not, we still need to find them.”

  Diggs didn’t say anything. I left him and went to talk to the sheriff. Meanwhile, twenty-five feet below, divers continued to search the murky depths for any trace of my mother.