Erin Solomon Mysteries, Books 1 - 5

by Jen Blood

  “I’m just going to get freshened up,” she said. “When are we heading back out?”

  Jamie turned to look at the clock on the wall behind her. It was two-thirty, the wind still howling and the snow falling in earnest now. “I’d like to be back out by three. I’ll rotate Phantom out for the afternoon—she’s getting tired. We’ll leave her with Einstein.”

  Solomon started to object, but one look at the mutt’s bedraggled white coat shut her up. “Fine.”

  “And Beth—one of the students staying here—is about your size,” Jamie continued, still focused on Solomon. “You should go up and see if you can find a change of clothes.”

  “I don’t need to—”

  “Maybe not,” Jamie interrupted. “But it’ll make this afternoon easier on you if you’re dry, wearing clothes that actually fit. There’s a bureau in the bunk room with some stuff in it.”

  When Solomon was gone, Jamie and Carl cleared away the dishes. Cheyenne took off to tend the dogs, while Monty went outside for a smoke break. Juarez and I remained. He sat back in his chair and stretched, his eyes drifting shut. It occurred to me for the first time that he hadn’t gotten any sleep last night, either.

  “Listen, I’m sorry about this,” I said. “Being around her like this has to be awkward.”

  “Not as awkward as I thought,” he said. “I’m not here to play the martyr, I’m here to do a job. I’ve said it before: Erin was never mine. Not really. She’s where she should be… that’s a good thing. I don’t have a problem with that.”

  “Especially not when there’s a long tall blonde who’s already got you on speed dial,” I said.

  He glanced around discreetly to make sure Jamie was safely out of hearing range, shooting a withering glare at me. “That’s not true—we’re just friends. She’s… I don’t even think she likes guys.”

  “She does,” I said shortly. “One in particular.”

  “I’m so not talking to you about this right now,” he said. “You’re as bad as Erin, for crying out loud. We’ve got some real problems here—let’s try to focus on that, huh? Kat’s missing, her house is ashes, and an entire family has apparently committed revolutionary suicide for reasons no one seems to understand.”

  “So, in other words, things are dire—in case I hadn’t gotten that before.”

  “It’s not a joke,” he insisted, tension rising. “I know they’ve been bad before, but this feels bigger. And I’m not sure how well Erin will take whatever comes next. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but she’s not eating—”

  “I noticed,” I said, cutting him off. The air between us got cooler. “I’ve got it covered.”

  He looked doubtful. Annoyance scraped ragged fingernails just below my skin. In the next room, I heard the water running. Under it, Carl and Jamie argued over who would do the dishes. Someone turned on the radio; Marvin Gaye started up, soulful and low. Something Juarez had said stuck in my brain, just registering.

  “What did you say the Melquists committed?” I asked. He looked at me blankly. “You used a term: ‘revolutionary suicide.’ Why would you call it that?”

  “I didn’t. I mean, I didn’t come up with it. That’s what they called it in the note we found at the Melquist house. I thought you and Erin saw it.”

  “We were a little preoccupied—I didn’t read the whole thing.”

  “I just thought the phrasing was strange,” he said. “That’s why it stuck with me: ‘This isn’t suicide. It’s revolutionary suicide.’”

  I forced myself to get up slowly, the words reverberating in my brain. Solomon was still upstairs, probably changing. Possibly pulling herself together; possibly falling apart. There was still a plate on the table with a couple of sandwich halves that hadn’t been cleared away. I grabbed them both along with a bottle of water and started for the stairs.

  “I’m just going to talk to Solomon for a few minutes. We’ll be down in time to leave at three.”

  I was already halfway out of the room by then, but paused to hear his reply. “Is everything all right?” He watched me warily.

  “Yeah, it’s fine. Sorry, I just…” I held up the sandwiches. “She needs to eat, right? We’ll be down shortly.” And then, because Juarez still looked concerned and vaguely confused, I nodded toward the kitchen. “You should go in there. Help clean up. I’m sure there’s a long tall blonde who’d welcome the extra hand.”

  “Keep pushing, pal,” Juarez said with an unexpected gleam, “and I might just rethink being so gracious about letting Erin go. You don’t need to distract me—it’s obvious something’s up. Just promise me one thing?”

  I hesitated before nodding.

  “Let me know if you think you’re in over your head, please. I’ll help any way I can,” he said seriously.

  “I will. I just...” I stopped, not sure how to continue.

  “I know. You don’t have to apologize. Just go—take care of her. I’ll stay here and help the long tall blonde,” he said with a bashful grin. “It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.”

  ◊◊◊◊◊

  When I reached the upstairs bedroom, I found Solomon seated at the edge of the bed, staring at the floor. She had on a sports bra and underwear, but hadn’t gotten any farther than that. Her shapely legs were pale and goose pimpled, a sweatshirt draped over her lap. Solomon and I have seen each other in all stages of undress over the years; modesty is a lost concept. I strode into the room, my adrenaline running high.

  “Get dressed. I need to talk to you.”

  “It’s creepy wearing someone else’s clothes.”

  “You’ll survive.”

  “I appreciate your concern.” She paused. Her eyes narrowed at sight of the sandwiches. “What are those?”

  I walked across the room, set the sandwiches on the nightstand, and took the sweatshirt from Solomon’s lap. “Lift your arms.”

  She didn’t move, trying to decide whether this was worth a fight. Finally, she did as I asked. I pulled the sweatshirt over her head. It was roomy, but fit better than anything she’d been in up to that point. I pulled it down to her waist, my hand grazing her bare thigh. Before she could recover, I grabbed one of the sandwich halves and put it in her hand.

  “Now, eat this.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  Einstein’s fuzzy face lit up. He ambled toward her, lured by the promise of more free tuna salad.

  “Keep your distance, dog,” I said, my own temper rising. “Come on, Erin. For Christ’s sake—eat the damned sandwich, or I’ll tie you to the friggin’ bed and feed it to you.”

  “I don’t want the damned sandwich, for crying out loud. And while you in full alpha is kind of a turn-on, it doesn’t make me any hungrier.”

  There was a brief standoff, while she sat there with the sandwich in hand and her temper rising fast.

  “Okay, why don’t we try blackmail, then?” I paused, waiting until I knew I had her attention. “Eat half the sandwich, or I won’t tell you the major breakthrough I just had about your father, the Paysons, and a possible link to the Melquist family and Barnel’s Kentucky flock.”

  That got her. She narrowed her eyes at me. “You’re lying.”

  “We’ll see. Half a sandwich, ace. A small price to pay for a little information.”

  She took a bite, nearly gagged, and choked it down. I handed her the bottle of water. She took a slug, set it down with unnecessary roughness, and looked at me. “I’m listening.”

  “You don’t want to put some pants on first?”

  “Diggins,” she threatened.

  I handed the rest of the unfinished sandwich half back to her without a word, and watched until she finished it off. Once we were done talking, there was no way in hell I’d get her to eat another bite. When the sandwich was gone, she drained her water bottle, crossed her arms over her chest, and sat back down. Still without any pants, of course.

  I went over and closed the bedroom door, then returned. Solomon watched me uneasily. “Juarez
told me what the Melquists’ note said—the one they found at the house,” I began. That was all it took to get her attention. “He couldn’t remember all of it, but one phrase stuck with him.” I repeated it, word for word as Juarez had said it to me: “This isn’t suicide. It’s revolutionary suicide.”

  Solomon paled instantly.

  “You recognize it, don’t you?” I asked.

  “Barnel said something like it, in the videotape he sent to the FBI.” She got up and went to the dresser, where a pair of cargo pants were folded neatly. She pulled them on without comment, then continued. “And I think Isaac Payson used almost the exact words during a conversation I remember him having with my dad when I was a kid.” She held her hand up, stopping me before I could speak. “But those weren’t the only times I’ve heard the phrase.”

  I already knew what she was talking about. I mentally replayed an audio recording I’d heard years before, when I was researching a story on mind control. Beneath the words, music played and children screamed as a madman proselytized to a mass of dying believers.

  We didn’t commit suicide. We committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world.

  “Jonestown,” she said. “Jim Jones used the term in the death tapes authorities found while they were sifting through the bodies.”

  Jonestown. The single event has become a landmark in American history, a kind of dark touchstone. People remember the assassination of JFK, the day the Towers went down… and a revolutionary preacher from Indiana who convinced over nine hundred followers to die with him in a remote jungle in Guyana.

  “It could be coincidence,” I said. “Or maybe these religious leaders—Payson, Barnel, maybe even this Melquist guy—were admirers of Jim Jones.”

  “Did Jesup T. Barnel strike you as the kind of man who’d follow a self-proclaimed communist preaching civic reform and racial equality?” she asked. “Especially after that man went nuts, relocated his followers to the wilds of South America, and killed them all?”

  “You have a point there.” I hesitated, trying to come up with a rational explanation. I’d been trying for a while now, but Juarez’s words had set something in motion in my head. I looked at Solomon. “When did you say your father joined the Payson Church?”

  “1978,” she said without hesitation.

  “When in ’78?”

  “Around Christmas, I think.”

  “And when was Jonestown?”

  “November 18, 1978.” I could tell from the look in her eye: Neither of us had missed the correlation in the timing.

  “And we still have no idea where your father was between 1970, when his sister was murdered, and the day he met up with Isaac to join the Payson Church in ’78.”

  She shook her head. A few seconds of silence passed. “Please say something,” she finally prompted.

  I’d been doing research—looking up facts and figures, doing random Internet searches, during the endless six months that winter when Solomon had insisted we not see each other. I started calling up those facts now, hoping that Sol’s logic would shine through and she’d reassure me that this was all nonsense. Conspiracy theory crap, all of it.

  “Do you know where Jim Jones was from?” I asked.

  She waited a few seconds, no doubt running through the same information I had amassed on the subject: The People’s Temple, founded by Jim Jones in the 1950s in Indianapolis, before Jones moved the entire operation to California in the ’60s. By the time he’d settled in San Francisco in the early ’70s, he had massive support from politicians, celebrities, and a loyal and ever-expanding congregation. He—or his church, at least—was worth millions.

  Solomon frowned, her forehead furrowed. “Do you know where Jim Jones was from?”

  “I did a search on your father’s hometown, since it’s come up more than once in this investigation. I mean, it all seemed to start there: Mitch Cameron is from there, your dad… Not to mention psycho killer Max Richards. All roads seem to lead back to Lynn.”

  “And Jim Jones…?”

  “Grew up in a shack in Lynn, Indiana.”

  “He would have been gone before my father was born, though,” she argued. “Jones started preaching in Indianapolis, right? I doubt he had any ties to Lynn by the time my father was born in ’55. And Dad’s family didn’t even move to Lynn until he was older.”

  She fell silent again, working through something.

  “Noel Hammond…” she began. Noel was a former Bridgeport detective who’d been murdered in Littlehope the previous spring, when Solomon’s investigation was just getting off the ground.

  “What about him?”

  “That scrapbook I found at his place before he died… I didn’t get much chance to check it out before Kat commandeered the whole thing and refused to give it back. But I saw enough to know there were two recurring themes in that book: The fire on Payson Isle, and the 1978 mass suicide at Jonestown. At the time, I’d assumed Noel was just learning more about cult suicide as a general topic, in order to better understand what happened with the Payson Church.”

  She didn’t need to finish that thought—I knew exactly where she was headed: What if he wasn’t doing research at all? What if there was a tangible tie-in between Solomon’s father and Jonestown?

  I started to say something, but was interrupted by a knock on the door.

  “We leave in five, if you two are still in,” Jamie called.

  “We keep this to ourselves,” I whispered to Solomon. “If there really is a connection here, everyone who’s made that connection so far is dead. We keep our mouths shut, and we take things slow.”

  She nodded silently.

  “We’ll be right there,” I called to Jamie.

  I listened to Jamie’s footsteps recede down the hall. Solomon hadn’t moved. She wasn’t touching me, sitting carefully apart. I let her have her space, lost in the implications of our theory myself. Had her father been a follower of Jim Jones and the People’s Temple? And if so, what the hell did that have to do with everything that was happening now, thirty-five years after Jones’ congregation killed themselves and Jones put a bullet in his own skull?

  I slipped my hand into Solomon’s. It was cold. “We can’t say a word. Whatever this means…”

  She nodded, not looking at me. “I know. We trust no one.”

  Chapter Five - Diggs

  Jamie and Juarez were already outside, the rest of the team waiting at the door by the time Solomon and I rejoined them.

  “That was fast,” Monty said. He insinuated himself between Solomon and me, helping her into her jacket before he draped a well-muscled arm around her shoulders. “You know if I was in his place, I would’ve kept you up there all day, baby girl.”

  “I couldn’t take it,” she returned, fluttering her eyelashes at him. “You’re too much man for me, Monty.”

  “Oh, I’ll go nice and slow, baby. By the time we get done—”

  “Jesus, Monty,” I interrupted. “At least wait until I’m in the other room before you start putting the moves on my girl, huh?” It came out with more intensity than I’d intended. Solomon looked at me in surprise. Monty removed his arm from her shoulders, chastened.

  “I didn’t mean anything by it, man. Just havin’ some fun.”

  “I know—sorry. I just… I think I’m a little on edge.”

  As we were walking out, Solomon slipped her hand into mine and held me back. She looked up at me intently. “You all right?”

  “Yeah,” I said, embarrassed. “Just… you know. Tired. And I’ve never been wild about watching you be manhandled by other guys.”

  “Because that happens so often.”

  “It happens more often than I’d like,” I said.

  “What did I tell you? Least evolved man I know.”

  Before she could get away, I pulled her in and kissed her, hard and fast. “You love it,” I murmured when we parted. She looked a little dazed, but she didn’t argue.

  Back
in the driving snow and freezing ocean air, things got serious again fast. Everyone looked determined; no one looked optimistic. There were only a few places left on the island Kat could possibly be. If she’d ended up in any one of them, she probably hadn’t done so in good health.

  Solomon trudged through the slush with her head down. The wind had risen to a dull roar and darkness was falling fast when the pit bull stopped suddenly, head up, and sounded off with two sharp barks. Before I could ask questions, the dog was leading Jamie and the rest of us on a mad race through the underbrush. There was a dip in the rocky terrain, then another hill. At the top, Jamie, Cheyenne, and the dog came to an abrupt halt. Juarez reached them first, Solomon and me straggling behind. Carl and Monty brought up the rear, doing their part to ensure we weren’t murdered by nightfall.

  Juarez held up a hand for us to slow down, but his gaze was fixed on whatever was ahead. I pushed sweat and snow from my eyes and continued forward.

  “Hang on,” Jamie called, her voice strained.

  “What is it?” Solomon said. She didn’t slow down.

  Juarez looked at me, then at Solomon, the look an unmistakable plea for me to do something. I grabbed Solomon by both arms and held on, pulling her backward.

  “Wait,” I said. “Let them do this.”

  She shook her head. “I need to see—”

  I didn’t let go. No one moved on the hillside. Carl and Monty finally reached us, breathing hard. For once, Monty didn’t have a quip. They strode past us without a word and half-skidded, half-climbed up the greasy hillside to join the others.

  “What the hell is it?” Sol shouted to them. I watched as she forced herself back to calm, or at least the pretense of it. “Please, Diggs,” she said. “I’m all right.”

  “Jamie?” I called up.

  She turned. Even from a distance, even in the driving snow, there was no mistaking the look on her face: Horror, through and through.

  “Let her go,” Jamie said.

  I did, reluctantly. Sol ran up the hill and I kept pace beside her, catching her when she slipped in the slush and went down hard on one knee. At the top, we both stopped at what appeared to be a manmade ravine, maybe fifteen feet across and ten feet deep. The bottom was filled with about a foot of slushy snow and hunks of rock.