Erin Solomon Mysteries, Books 1 - 5

by Jen Blood

  “I didn’t have time to make the bed,” he said, looking over his shoulder at me. “But I got some fresh sheets out for you. And I’ll dig out an extra blanket in case you need it.”

  “In this heat? Unlikely.” I came over and stood beside him at the freezer, letting the cool air wash over me.

  “Wishful thinking, maybe,” he said. He glanced at me when I didn’t say anything. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. I’m good. It’s just, I’ve never seen her like that,” I said. “Kat, I mean.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know—like an actual human being. She’s usually all sharp edges and smartass remarks. Now she’s all… ” He looked at me, waiting for me to finish. I waved my hand around inarticulately. “Weird,” I finally finished. “And not in the normal way she used to be weird.”

  “That was a better way to be weird?”

  “Maybe not. I don’t know. This whole lesbian thing is a pain in the ass. The worst the guys she used to bring home would do when I was a kid was make a pass at me or occasionally pee in the sink. No one ever tried to make me forge a friggin’ meaningful bond with the woman.”

  He laughed. It sounded good—like a favorite song I hadn’t heard in too long.

  “Come on. It’s cooler outside.” He grabbed a couple of popsicles from a box in the corner of the freezer and handed me my favorite—grape—without having to ask. Then, he led the way outside to a porch swing on the back deck that hadn’t been there when I’d visited last.

  He was right, it was a little cooler outside. Einstein circled at our feet before he found a spot and settled with his chin on his paws, his eyes sinking shut fast.

  “So, what about you?” I asked once we were both seated on the swing, looking out over a surprisingly well-manicured lawn. I’d never really pinned Diggs as a porch-swing-and-yard-work kind of guy. “How’s life in Littlehope?” I’d been back ten hours, and it was the first time it had occurred to me to ask the question. Nice.

  He shrugged. “It’s good. Or the same, I guess.” There was a weight on his shoulders I hadn’t noticed before. “Nothing new to report, really.”

  “The paper’s going okay?”

  “It’s a dying industry in a long-dead town. What do you think?”

  “Wow. You guys are a laugh a minute around here.”

  He cracked a smile and looked at me sideways. “Sorry. Just feeling a little…bored, I think,” he said, to my great surprise. “I don’t think I was meant for the editor’s desk.”

  “I could’ve told you that.” I took a couple of bites of my popsicle, careful to affect my most casual, do-whatever-you-want tone when I spoke again. “You could help with this Gendreau thing, if you want.”

  “What about what Kat said?”

  “What about it? She knows I’m not giving up—I’ll get my answers one way or the other. If I can’t get them through her, I might as well see what I can find out from Hank Gendreau.”

  I could see his wheels turning. He set the swing rocking gently as he stared out into the night. “I do have a few Canadian contacts I could call about those other bodies,” he said after a few seconds. I did my damnedest not to appear too pleased with myself.

  Diggs looked at me, just a hint of a spark returned to his baby blues. “Don’t kid yourself—you’re just as big a pain in the ass as your mother, you know.” He paused. “I’m still glad you’re back, though,” he said.

  “Yeah?” We were close enough to touch, but not quite there yet. “Me too,” I said.

  His hand fell to my knee and stayed there as he leaned in. My eyes drifted shut and the night slowed to a sweet, bone-deep ache.

  Until his lips brushed my cheek.

  “We should probably get some sleep.”

  My eyes popped back open as Diggs stood and extended his hand. I couldn’t read his expression—I was pretty sure there was regret in there somewhere, but there was also something veiled that I hadn’t expected. I took his proffered hand, thrown off kilter. It wasn’t like I’d been expecting him to fall all over me as soon as I hit town—especially since that had never been our M.O. before. I wasn’t sure what I had been expecting, though. Or what I wanted, even.

  I let him pull me up, inadvertently brushing a little too close when I was on my feet again. Something that might have been desire or might have been indigestion flickered in his eyes.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, then?” I asked. I sounded as befuddled as I felt.

  “Bright and early,” he agreed. “You’ll find that extra blanket in the chest at the foot of your bed, just in case.”

  I thanked him, particularly since what had started out as a steamy night had gotten unexpectedly chilly. I might need that blanket after all.

  Chapter Three

  I decided to run into town the next morning, because sleeping alone hadn’t been enough punishment the night before. I got a stitch in my side halfway there, and another ten feet down the road Einstein spotted a rogue golden retriever and took off running, pulling both of us into an overgrown ditch directly in front of the Mobil station, thus ensuring that my ass-over-teacup tumble be witnessed by half of Littlehope. I staggered into the Trib at a little past nine with a bloody knee, a couple of bee stings, and a hell of a lot less enthusiasm than I’d left the house with.

  Diggs was at his desk with a pencil behind his ear and phone in hand. The wilted flowers had been replaced with fresh ones, and a snazzy straw fedora rested on top of a stack of papers to his left. He grinned when I came in—one of those wolfish grins with too many pearly whites that’s been known to undo women of lesser mettle—and nodded toward the couch.

  “That’s great,” he said into the phone. “I’ll let her know. Yeah—thanks.”

  He snapped his phone shut. “How was the run?”

  “Super, thanks. Very invigorating.”

  He eyed my knee, but wisely made no comment.

  “Who was that?” I asked.

  “Editor at the Quebec Chronicle.” He looked pleased with himself. “Ask me if I found anything out.”

  I arched an eyebrow and waited without a word.

  “Killjoy. Well, I did find something.” He nodded toward the door, refocusing his attention on his computer screen. “Why don’t you hit the showers, and I’ll fill you in at ten. I just want to make one more call.”

  I started to protest, but my knee stung and my stings ached and my hair was definitely not doing what I’d intended when I set out that morning. Besides which, I might as well be trying to pry information from a Chia Pet when Diggs decided he didn’t want to share.

  He called after me as I was walking out. “First aid kit’s still in the medicine cabinet, Flo-Jo.”

  I made an impolite hand gesture in his general direction and hit the showers.

  Once I’d gotten the gravel out of my knee and wrestled my hair into the requisite ponytail, I returned to the office to find Diggs deep in conversation with an unnervingly tall brunette seated on the edge of his desk. A quick flash of what looked a lot like guilt crossed his face when I came in; my stomach bottomed out in that way it does when you get bad news or eat bad clams. Einstein was curled up on the couch glowering at the stranger, which made me feel only marginally better.

  “Sol, this is Andie. She just took over the Lifestyle section here.” He made no effort to tell Andie who I was. I took a step toward her and extended my hand.

  “Erin Solomon,” I said.

  “Oh, I know,” Andie said. She had curves that I lacked and a brighter smile and she was still sitting on Diggs’ desk. I managed to suppress the urge to push her off, but just barely. “I’ve heard all about you, trust me.” The way she said it made me think those stories hadn’t been entirely flattering. “You left out how cute she is though, Diggs.”

  I flashed a brilliant smile. “Yeah, he always forgets that part.”

  She removed her shapely ass from Diggs’ desk and casually brushed her hand against his shoulder, leaning in just a touch. “Well, I
’ll leave you to it. We still on for lunch?”

  “Yeah, definitely,” Diggs said. “I’ll catch up with you later.” He was doing his best to avoid eye contact with either one of us. Andie sashayed out the door. I fired up my laptop and settled in beside Einstein, who thumped his tail uneasily.

  “She’s new,” Diggs said, after I’d frozen him out for a good five minutes.

  “You don’t say.” I pulled up a page on the Gendreau murder and began reading.

  “She’s nice,” he continued. “I think you two will hit it off.”

  “Super.” I kept my eyes on the computer screen. “How long would you say the drive to Quebec is from here?”

  “You’re pissed.”

  Damn skippy I was pissed. I leaned into the feeling for just a second before I pulled back and got myself in hand. Diggs and I had been friends for years—I’d learned a long time ago that that was the best we could hope for. So he’d suggested a few months back that he might be interested in something more; it wasn’t like he’d declared his undying love. And I was the one who took off, not him. So now… Well, now I was going to focus on work. Chase down leads. Find my father. All anything else amounted to were distractions I didn’t need.

  After another five seconds of silence, I almost bought it.

  I met his eye. “It’s fine, Diggs. I didn’t call—it’s not like I expected you to sit around and wait for me to come back.”

  “I just thought you and Juarez…”

  I waved off the explanation. “Yeah, I know—I told you, no big deal. We’re good. Now, what’d you find out from your contacts up north?”

  He wasn’t buying the act, but at least he did me the courtesy of going along with it. “I’m just waiting for a return call, then I’ve got a few more things to check out. Maybe we can go over everything a little later. What time’s your thing with the lawyer?”

  I checked my watch. “Actually, I should probably get going now.” It was ten minutes till ten; my appointment wasn’t until one. I packed up my stuff, grabbed Einstein, and took off before I had to face Amazon Andie again.

  Since it was once again way too hot for any good dog to be car-bound, I left Einstein with Maya—who assured me that she and Kat would treat him like the grandson they never had until I returned. I left town and headed back up Route 1 into Rockport, where I swam a few laps at Walker Park and tried to clear my head. The mercury was pushing ninety that day, the park filled to the brim with trendy moms corralling trendy toddlers on the playground. I chose a picnic table as far from the action as possible, managed to tap into someone else’s Wifi from one of the neighboring houses, and got my head back in the game.

  At a little before one, I changed into something moderately respectable and drove the five minutes it took to get from the park to the offices of Max Richards & Sons, just over the Rockport bridge. I double checked the address I’d been given when I ended up at a huge old Victorian place badly in need of paint. Or possibly demolition. A six-foot privacy fence surrounded the perimeter. The front steps sagged, the yard was overgrown, and when I knocked it sounded like the hounds of hell were about to burst through the front door to devour me.

  After some colorful language on the other side of the door, a thin, sixty-ish woman wearing a frayed housedress finally opened up. A pack of dogs ranging from ten pounds to two hundred surged toward me until the woman hissed a few more choice epithets in what sounded like French. The lot of them slunk backwards, tails low, as I crossed the threshold. The place smelled like wet dog, spoiled food, and old coffee grinds. Shredded newspapers and old books littered the entryway. Whoever this woman was, housekeeping clearly was not her forte.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I think I must have the wrong place. I’m looking for Max Richards?”

  She stared at me like I’d just dropped from the sky. I persevered. “I think his office must be around here—it’s a law office. Max Richards and Sons?”

  The woman pointed behind her. “He’s waiting for you. Down the hall and up the stairs. Troisieme etage. Third floor.” It took me a minute to place her accent, a kind of Downeast-Meets-Cajun-N’Orleans common to the Acadian contingent in northern Maine.

  One of the dogs dared to slink forward to sniff my hand. I scratched his ears and the woman smiled, revealing gray teeth and a badly receding gumline. Despite the smile, she was still staring at me like my head was on fire.

  “Il s’appelle Midget,” she said. Midget was the two-hundred pounder, a cross between a Newfie and a grizzly bear. The other dogs crept forward at my attention. “Allez—Go. I can only hold them so long.”

  I went.

  Once I’d reached the top of the third flight, past peeling wallpaper and sagging steps and air so warm and so damp I felt like I was trapped at the bottom of an old gym sock, I found a long, dark hallway with a dim light burning. Classical music played behind a door to my left. I knocked, and was met with an eardrum-piercing shriek and what sounded like a bookshelf falling. Five minutes passed before a white-haired man with glasses opened the door just a crack. It was all very Dickensian.

  “Erin? Come on in—nice to meet you. Mind the bird.”

  I ventured inside the cramped space where there was, indeed, a balding white cockatiel perched on a branch in the corner. An orange, one-eyed tomcat sat in the windowsill, tail twitching. An oscillating fan blew hot air around the room.

  “You’re Max Richards?”

  “In the flesh,” he assured me. He moved a pile of newspapers from a rickety chair with threadbare upholstering and motioned for me to sit.

  “Sorry for the mess. You met Bonnie?”

  “Your…uh, the woman, downstairs?”

  He nodded, smiling. “She’s an odd one. Nice enough, but she’s not much for order. I hired a cleaning lady once—lost her, though.”

  Whether she’d quit or just been misplaced in the clutter was unclear. Max took a seat behind his desk, where the paperwork was piled so high I could only see the top of his glasses and his balding head.

  “Hank wasn’t sure you’d be by or not,” he said.

  “I figured I’d at least look into things. He told me to check in with you about the case files.”

  He hauled a box out from under his desk and nudged it toward me with his foot, then repeated the procedure with three more.

  “Seriously?”

  “You asked,” he said. “This is everything: notes, transcripts, photos, press clippings.”

  I mopped the sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand. “So you really don’t think he did it?”

  “Not a chance,” he said without hesitation. He wasn’t quite so Dickensian once I got a better look at him—or if he was, he was closer to Skimpole than Micawber. Though he was probably in his sixties, it wasn’t a frail sixty and he moved with surprising agility. He wore a tweed sport coat and dress slacks, his only concession to the heat a notable lack of footwear and an unknotted plaid tie. He seemed sincere enough, but I didn’t take that too seriously. He was a lawyer, after all.

  “What about the confession?” I asked.

  “Read the transcripts and the notes the police kept,” he said. “You’ll see erasure marks from the arresting officers right there—they altered the original documents. He loved Ashley. Besides which, he has no history of mental illness; it’s true he was no choirboy in his youth, but there was nothing in his past to indicate something like this. There’s no doubt in my mind that he didn’t do it.”

  I opened the first box and peered inside to find three bound volumes of court testimony and a bunch of photos.

  “This may take a while,” I said.

  “Take your time.” He stood and put an expert Windsor knot in his tie without so much as a glance in the mirror. “I have meetings in Augusta this afternoon, but I’ll be back when I’m through. You think you may still be here?”

  “You could have meetings in Johannesburg and I’m pretty sure I’d still be here.”

  He chuckled. “Well, it’s just th
e capitol for me today, so I expect we’ll see each other before you go. Watch Spartacus doesn’t get too close. He can be ornery.”

  He left before I could ask whether Spartacus was the bird or the cat. Neither of them looked that friendly. I listened to Max whistle his way down the stairwell, then once I was sure he was gone, I carried two of the boxes to a worn duvet at one side of the office and set to work.

  Ashley Gendreau had just turned seventeen when she was killed, on a hot July day in a small northern town called Black Falls, population 6,093. The same Black Falls, presumably, where Hank Gendreau and my father met, according to Hank’s story. On the day she disappeared, Ashley had been in the house watching her younger sister, who was two at the time. Mrs. Gendreau—their mother—got home at four that afternoon to find Ashley’s shoes by the door and her backpack still on the couch. The sister was asleep in her room.

  Ashley, however, was gone. The transcripts from the original trial in 1988 were yellowed and worn inside their black binders. I paused at a section in the first trial transcripts, when Ashley’s mother—Hank’s ex-wife, Glenda Gendreau—had been questioned.

  Q. Was your husband home when you returned that afternoon?

  A. No. Nobody was there but Chloe—the baby.

  Q. Did it seem strange to you that Hank was gone?

  A. No. He said he was going out in the woods for a couple days. I knew he wouldn’t be back. Didn’t give it a second thought.

  Q. Did he say what he would be doing in the woods?

  A. Hank likes to go out there whenever he gets the chance, just to be with nature—sometimes he’ll go out hunting, but most times he just likes to hike around.

  Q. Were you aware of his drug use?

  A. I knew he’d done some stuff in high school—it was the ’70s. Everybody did that kind of thing.

  Q. Did you know he had LSD that he intended to take that day?

  A. No. I didn’t think he did that stuff anymore.