by Jen Blood
Diggs got quieter the closer we got to his dad’s church. I heard him take a deep breath as we pulled into the parking lot, psyching himself up. I tried the same, but I needed more than oxygen to steel myself for a visit with Reverend Diggins. A shot of JD and a bag of Hershey’s Minis might do the trick, but even that was doubtful. Still, Diggs had been nothing but supportive while I’d lugged around my considerable baggage for the past year—it was about time I was able to return the favor.
The church was a big, whitewashed building with a white picket fence around it. The substantial parking lot was cracked and definitely in need of re-tarring. There wasn’t a soul in sight, and no cars in the lot. The only sign of life was a light in the basement where Reverend Diggins kept his office.
Diggs parked at the back of the lot, and we both got out. Though it was dark outside, I still felt exposed the second we were out in open air. It had been different at the Reynolds place and over at Diggs’ house, both of which were tucked away from prying eyes. This was in the center of town, streetlights lit. I looked around, chilled to the bone. I saw no sign of J., the cops, or any creepy specters from my past sent to scare the crap out of me. It struck me as sad that I was more freaked out heading into a church than I’d been while lurking in the shadows of a drug dealer’s compound. Understandable given my past, but still sad.
I glanced at Diggs, and realized he was much worse off than I was. I bumped against him as we walked. “Your collection of personally penned Baywatch fanfiction?” I said.
He stopped and looked at me. “What?”
“The thing that got stolen. I’m just trying to figure out what could possibly be so shameful that you wouldn’t tell me. I mean…I know all your secrets, Diggs. Come on.”
“God, you’re a pain in the ass… I’ll tell you another time, okay? Just not tonight.”
“But another time.”
“And another place.”
I let that sink in. We got moving again. “Hey, Diggs,” I said.
“Yes, dear heart?” he said, the words syrupy sweet and dripping with sarcasm.
“You okay?”
He glanced at me. I caught just a slip of a smile. “I’m not sure. We’ll find out in a minute, right?”
Indeed.
The backdoor to the church wasn’t locked, which wasn’t that surprising. Time was marching on, sure, but Littlehope was still a tiny coastal town in one of the safest states in the country. What could anyone possibly have to worry about around here?
If they only knew.
Diggs didn’t turn on the light when we went inside, but there was enough illumination from the intermittent runway/night lights in the hallway to guide us. When we reached the stairs, he turned to me.
“When we get to his office, do you mind hanging back?” He looked nervous.
“Whatever you want.”
“Thanks.” He didn’t seem comforted. I kicked his shin lightly before we started moving again. “Ow. What was that for?”
“Breathe,” I said. “He’s your dad. And if he’s a prick to you, I’ll kick his ass. Okay?”
That, at least, earned a smile. “Fair enough.”
We set out again. When we reached Daddy Diggs’ office door, Diggs hesitated. I gave him a little push.
“You’re freaking me out,” I said. “Just go already. I’ll be right here.”
He straightened his shirt, rubbed his sweaty palms on the legs of his jeans, and took another deep breath before he eventually tapped lightly on the wood. A second of silence followed. Then:
“Come,” Reverend Diggins called from behind the door. Even the single word came out a command.
Diggs glanced at me, visibly steeled himself, and opened the door. I moved close enough to see inside without being seen. Diggs didn’t look like he cared. Or even noticed.
Reverend Diggins looked older than he had the last time I’d seen him—much older. A lifetime older, his thin shoulders stooped, his sparse white hair even sparser. The past couple of years apparently hadn’t done him any favors. The old man looked up at sight of Diggs. A shadow I couldn’t read crossed his face.
“Daniel,” he said. He stood.
“Hey, Dad,” Diggs said. Neither of them raced across the worn carpet for a heartfelt father-son hug.
“What are you doing here?” the reverend said. The prick definitely didn’t look overjoyed.
“I just wanted to check in on you,” Diggs said. He stood stiffly in the doorway, hands at his sides. “I was in town. Wanted to say hello.”
“The police are looking for you,” the reverend said. “They’ve been to see me more than once.”
“Sorry about that. Whatever they’re saying we did, we didn’t do. I’m sorry if they scared you.”
“I wasn’t frightened, it was just an annoyance.” The reverend hesitated. I could almost see him replaying the tape in his head. “You said ‘we’?” He leaned forward, following Diggs’ eye to the door. “Ah, yes. Miss Solomon.” He raised his voice so it was clear I was officially part of the conversation now. “Don’t lurk in the hallway like a common criminal—come in, please.”
I didn’t wait for Diggs to nod me in before I joined them, forcing Diggs deeper into the room. “How’s it going, Reverend?”
“Fine, Miss Solomon. And for you? I don’t suppose if I ask where the two of you have been…”
“Overseas, the last few months,” Diggs said. “Australia.”
Reverend Diggins nodded, half to himself. “I’ve never been. I took your mother to Europe when we were young. She wanted to go to New Zealand, though. We never had the money. Or the time.” He came to, as if he’d drifted to some distant world. “The police are looking for you,” he said again.
“I’m sorry they bothered you,” Diggs said. “We’ll figure it out—if you wouldn’t say anything about me coming here, I’d really appreciate it.”
“Of course.”
Diggs hesitated. The reverend didn’t move. Time slowed to a warm, sticky crawl.
“We also wanted to check with you about something else,” I said, since no one else was jumping in. “We stopped at Diggs’ house earlier, and someone had broken in. The place was trashed, graffiti on the walls, and whoever was there stole something…” I looked at Diggs expectantly, since he still hadn’t shared with me exactly what that something was.
“That’s right,” Diggs said. “They stole something I’d really like back. I wondered if you’d heard anything about that?”
The reverend frowned deeply. Backlit by a soft lightbulb, I was reminded again of Mr. Burns on The Simpsons. I squelched a bubble of hysterical laughter. It occurred to me that I needed sleep. Badly.
“I haven’t heard a thing,” the reverend said. “It’s probably the friends you keep. That’s always been your problem—the associations a man makes speak volumes about him. Joshua has always…” He trailed off.
I looked at Diggs to see if he was following this. Joshua was Diggs’ brother—the one who died almost thirty years ago.
“Dad, Josh is—”
“I know what your brother is,” the reverend said.
Diggs glanced at me, his brow furrowed with concern. Clearly he’d expected hostile, not crazy. It’s hard to anticipate the curveballs in Littlehope, though. He dug his hands into his pockets awkwardly. “Well, if you hear anything about the break-in, I’d appreciate you letting me know. I really would like to find what was taken.”
Once again, he made no mention of what that mysterious something was.
The reverend said a few words under his breath that I couldn’t quite make out.
“What was that?” I said.
“Nothing,” the reverend said. He spoke over my head, directing the comment to Diggs. “You shouldn’t have just left your house to rot. Run away like that. Your brother—” Diggs and I waited for him to finish the thought. Instead, he changed tacks again. “How long are you here?”
“We’re not sure,” Diggs said. The latest exchange seemed
to give him more courage than he’d had before. He still wasn’t the Diggs I knew, but he was inching closer. “Look, since I’ve got you here, I have some questions I’d love to run by you, and I’m not sure when we’ll have the chance to talk again. Do you have a few minutes?”
Reverend Diggins looked at his watch uneasily for a second before he nodded. “Only a few. I need to get back.”
As far as I knew, the reverend had lived alone since his wife had died and Diggs left town more than fifteen years ago—when Diggs was building his house a few years ago, he always stayed with friends. I wondered what the hell the old man had waiting for him that was so pressing he couldn’t spare a few minutes to talk to his only surviving son. I stayed quiet rather than asking, though. And people say I have no restraint.
“I won’t keep you long,” Diggs assured him.
“Of course. That’s fine. What do you need from me?”
“Like I said, just some answers,” Diggs said.
We all sat—Reverend Diggings behind his desk, Diggs and me in plush leather chairs in front. Diggs pulled his chair closer to mine. I resisted the urge to pull farther away. Daddy Diggs had that effect on me, like he was seeing every ungodly thing Diggs and I had done to each other over the years. Silence as uncomfortable as damp wool fell between us. The reverend stared impassively at Diggs. The look on his face was…disturbing—there was no other word for it. A combination of fear and loathing so raw, so intense, that I kind of wanted to clock the son of a bitch.
Number one in my rule book of life?
Don’t fuck with my dog.
Number two?
Don’t fuck with Diggs.
Number three has to do with chocolate.
Right now, I was most concerned with rule number two.
“What did you have to do with the Payson Church?” Diggs finally asked. I tensed. So did the reverend. This was definitely not something I’d been prepared to discuss now.
“I’m not trying to make trouble,” Diggs said. “But with everything that’s happened in the past two years, with the deaths of Matt Perkins and Joe Ashmont, what we’ve learned about the island and the night of the fire… I’d just like to know.” He was completely earnest, no trace of malice in his tone.
“It was years ago,” the reverend said. “I’ve already told you what I know.”
“In the days before the fire, though,” Diggs pressed. “How much contact did you have with Isaac Payson? What did you know about him?”
“I knew nothing of him—had virtually no association with the man,” the reverend said. “What I did know, I can’t recall now.”
“Just think about it for a second,” Diggs pushed. Still earnest, quiet—nothing like the take-charge man I knew in every other situation we’d ever been in. His father changed him, though; he was twelve years old all over again, still trying to figure out a way to get what he needed without pissing off the old man. “Concentrate. Think back.”
“I told you—I don’t recall.”
“You must remember something about the place, though,” I said. “Something about the church, or Isaac Payson…”
“You were the one who lived there,” he said to me coolly. “I have no idea. Your father came to me for help. I never would have had anything to do with them otherwise.”
“What did he say to you that night?” I asked.
This was a piece of the puzzle that still didn’t make a lot of sense to me: shortly before the night the Payson Church of Tomorrow and most of its members went up in flames on Payson Isle, my father had allegedly come to the reverend for help getting a woman named Rebecca Ashmont away from the island. The story was that Dad was afraid Rebecca was putting the church at risk by tempting Reverend Payson in ungodly ways.
Of course, the fact that I now had a vague memory of Payson murdering my BFF pretty much shot that story to hell—clearly, the man had bigger skeletons in his closet than one oversexed member of the congregation with unholy designs on him. What made Rebecca Ashmont such a threat?
“When my father came to you,” I persisted, “what was the plan? What were you supposed to do about Rebecca Ashmont?”
“That was more than twenty years ago—I don’t recall the details. Your father came to me with concerns. I told him that I would do what I could to help him get the woman away from the church,” he said. “Clearly, that never happened. Rebecca’s husband called late that night and told me to forget it. That I was to leave her alone.”
“And you never had any interaction with Isaac Payson?” I said. “Before the fire, you never had any idea what he was doing out there.”
The reverend shook his head. “I already told you: I had no association with the man.”
Diggs didn’t say anything, but I could tell Rebecca Ashmont’s name had triggered something for him. Since Daddy Diggs had consorted with Rebecca when she was a member of his congregation, his reaction was understandable. If possible, the tension got even thicker.
The reverend’s gaze shifted from Diggs to me. “Miss Solomon, I wonder if I might speak with my son alone for a few moments.”
“I’d rather stay, if it’s all the same to you,” I said.
“It’s not all the same—”
“Whatever you have to say, you can say it in front of her,” Diggs said.
The reverend stood and walked to his bookshelf. I noticed a limp that he hadn’t had the last time I was in town. He turned to face us again once he was across the room, like he was drawing strength from the dusty old tomes behind him.
“I’d like to know what it is she’s pulled you into,” he said to Diggs. “I know her parents had secrets… That whatever happened on Payson Isle had roots in evil beyond anything I’ve ever touched.”
“That’s a load of crap and you know it,” Diggs said, taking me by surprise. He said it quietly enough, but there was no mistaking the shift in tone.
“Excuse me?” his father said.
“You’re going to tell me they were any more un-Christian than Jesup Barnel? That the things they did in the Payson Church were any more wrong than what that man did to me in Kentucky?”
When Diggs was twelve, shortly after his little brother died, Reverend Diggins sent him to a Fundamentalist Kentucky preacher with a unique approach to the word of God. While Diggs was there, the preacher—Jesup Barnel—performed an elaborate, crazy-as-hell backwoods exorcism on him, at the reverend’s request. I’d seen a videotape of the whole thing—the highlights of which included branding Diggs with an iron cross and basically waterboarding him until he renounced Satan. Diggs was still a little bitter about the whole thing. Not without justification.
“Don’t take that tone with me,” Reverend Diggins said. “You drop out of sight for months at a time with no explanation, the police roust me searching for you, and then you return with your little protégé once more under your arm…” He said protégé like he would have said whore, if he hadn’t known it would push Diggs too far. As it was, Diggs flinched. He stood.
“This was a mistake,” he said to me. “Come on.”
“Hang on,” I said. I turned my attention to Daddy Diggs. “Look, I don’t know what you’ve got shoved up your ass, but Diggs came here because he was genuinely concerned. Obviously, something happened while we were gone. You look like you’ve been sick…”
The reverend stiffened at the something-up-his-ass comment. He looked at me coolly. “I had a stroke six months ago—not that it’s any of your business. Clearly, the year has had its ups and downs.”
“Oh,” I said lamely. “Well…see, there you go. We didn’t know.”
“No. You wouldn’t,” he said.
I waited for Diggs to jump in. When he did, I really wished he hadn’t. “I’d like to get back to what we were talking about before,” he said. “About Rebecca Ashmont. Remind me again: how did you know Rebecca?”
“Diggs,” I warned.
He didn’t even look at me. “Just a second, please. Come on, Dad. You told Erin once, right
? Admitted to her what there’d been between you and Joe Ashmont’s wife?”
“Leave,” the reverend said. He remained standing with his books. His voice was even, but there was fire behind it.
“Why? Is this something you forgot about over the years, too?” Diggs asked. He advanced on the old man. The earnest son desperate for his father’s approval was gone; the man I saw now was infinitely more familiar, since it was the one I’d seen in countless interviews over the years—the man who got answers no matter what. I knew the shift didn’t bode well for the reverend. “The fact that you were banging Rebecca Ashmont while Mom did your laundry and cooked your dinners and took your beatings—”
“Enough!” the reverend shouted, the dragon awoken. “You will not come into my church and speak to me that way.”
“I’ll speak to you however I damned well please,” Diggs said. “You lost the ability to beat me into submission a long time ago.”
If the reverend felt any regret for the way he’d treated Diggs in the past, he showed no sign of that now. His eyes, a deep brown that looked nothing like his son’s clear blue ones, burned darker. “Get out. I didn’t invite you here. Don’t come back.”
The old man was physically withered now, a good head shorter and at least fifty pounds lighter than Diggs. Diggs stayed where he was, his body taut. I thought of the little boy he’d been; the things the reverend had done to him—the lashes on his back, the crucifix on his chest. I put my hand on Diggs’ arm.
“Come on. Let’s go.”
Reverend Diggins turned his back on us both. “Your mother was right,” he said. I willed the son of a bitch to shut up, trying to steer Diggs out before the old man delivered his killing blow. “Losing Joshua was my punishment. God took the wrong son. He left me with a bastard child with the devil in his heart. Get out,” the reverend said again. He sank into his chair, his strength gone. “I don’t want to see you again.”
Diggs didn’t move. I took his arm and pulled him toward the door, none too gently.
He remained silent even after we’d gotten back in the car. It was past eleven now. The moon was high overhead, the air cold enough that I could see my breath. I cranked the heat and waited for Diggs to get us out of there.