by Jen Blood
“Easy, Mimi,” Diggs cautioned. “She’ll put a hex on you, too.”
I glared at him. He grinned back at me. It felt good—almost normal.
“So what’s going on with your mum?” Mimi persisted. “Her and Maya kept this place afloat last winter, coming in for dinners half the week. Both of ‘em were shit drinkers, but Maya was about the best tipper we ever had in this town. She still swings by every now and then, does a check-in at the clinic. I ain’t seen hide nor hair of Kat, though.”
“She’s fine,” I said. “She’s on vacation.”
The woman eyed me wisely. “Sure she is. All right, set down over in the corner there. You eat meat, or are you some damned veggie-tarian like Diggs?”
“No, I’m a carnivore. But I’m not—”
“Crabmeat,” she announced. “I made a crabmeat quiche, just come out of the oven. Should I get you a basket of carrots to munch on or what, hon?” she asked Diggs.
“You still have those veggie burgers back there for me?”
“They might be a little freezer burned, but I’ve got ‘em.”
“Good. Basket of curly fries to share, and a veggie burger. Crabmeat quiche for my girl here.”
“To drink?” she asked, not bothering to write anything down.
Diggs ordered his usual Coke, and I did the same on the assumption that if J. blew into town in the next few hours, I would want to be moderately sober. Then, we obeyed Mimi’s order—it sure as hell hadn’t been a suggestion—and started for a table in the corner. At the last second, Diggs nodded toward a booth farther down. I caught sight of an older man in the booth next to it, though Diggs didn’t say hello.
Diggs sank back on the bench opposite me. I took a second to study him, something I hadn’t done enough of these past few days. Mimi was right: he did look tired, the usual spark in his blue eyes fallen flat. Diggs adapts well, can blend anywhere, but on the beaches of Australia, under the sun, able to stay in motion and escape those slow-killing daily strictures other men seem to handle so well… That’s when he shined. He didn’t look nearly so shiny now.
“So, enough about me,” I said before he could ask for the thousandth time how I was doing. “How are you holding up in all this?”
“I’m okay,” he said.
“Are you?”
He leaned forward and reached across the table to take my hand. “I’ve got you, my health, and a cold Coke and a freezer-burned veggie burger on the way. What else could I possibly need?”
“Jesus. Same old sweet talker,” a gruff voice said from the next booth. Diggs smiled. He didn’t look concerned, never loosening his grip on my hand.
“That’s what I hate about this place, Sol,” he said, raising his voice only slightly. “You try to have a private conversation with your girl, and you’ve got jaded old farts listening in everywhere you turn.”
He let go of me and stood. “Are you coming over here, or are you just gonna stay there and eavesdrop?”
An older man, white-haired and sunworn, stood. I guessed him in his seventies, but still vital, rugged. I expected he’d been a real knockout back in the day; the years had done little to alleviate the appeal. Diggs ignored the hand he proffered and pulled him into a hug.
“I’m sorry about the reverend,” the man said as they parted. “Godless son of a bitch that I am, I never had much use for him—but it’s never easy to lose your folks.”
“No,” Diggs said. He looked uncomfortable for a second before he not-so-subtly changed the subject. “Bill, this is Erin Solomon. Erin, Bill Slater. Bill runs the smokehouse up the road, and about a dozen others around the country.”
“Half a dozen,” Bill corrected.
“Eleven,” Diggs countered. Bill didn’t argue. “Join us?”
“I don’t want to intrude.”
Diggs rolled his eyes. “Sit down, Bill. You already order?”
“Mimi knows what I’m having. It’ll be here soon.” Diggs returned to his seat and Bill slid in beside him. He looked at both of us with the kind of shrewd gaze that I expected missed little. “You here to put your old man to rest?”
“We were already in town,” Diggs said. “Staying out on Payson Isle.”
He looked surprised. “Been keeping a low profile, I guess.”
“Trying to,” Diggs said.
“Still, I’m surprised I didn’t hear something, though—Lucy’s tangled up with those dog people out on the island. She said she heard something about a pretty girl and a big blond oaf being in town. I should’ve done the math.”
“Lucy’s Bill’s wife,” Diggs explained. “It’s hard to get much past her.”
“You can’t get anything past her,” Bill corrected him. “I gave up trying a long time ago. So, what gives? What’s the real reason you decided to brave the old port?”
“It’s a long story,” Diggs said. He hesitated, but only for a few seconds. “I was wondering something, though.”
Bill raised his eyebrows when a couple of seconds had passed. “You plan on spitting it out, or wait till I die of suspense. Time’s getting on—you probably won’t have to wait long.”
“Are you still active with the gun club?”
“Sure. What the hell else are you going to do around here if you can’t shoot? And with the drug trade coming up the way it is, I figure it’s best to keep on my game. Damn meth dealers keep creeping around our place. Why?”
“You know anyone around here who’s a little…too into the guns? A little too enthusiastic?”
“It’s a gun club, Diggs. We don’t sit around and play bridge, for Christ’s sake. Everybody’s pretty into ’em.”
“Then is there anybody around here who isn’t in the gun club, but you’d think twice if you found out they were locked and loaded?” I asked.
He thought for a second, more reserved now that I was asking the questions. Scratched his beard. Adjusted his glasses. “Other than Mike Reynolds? Nobody who comes to mind.”
“What happened out at his place the other day wasn’t a surprise then,” Diggs said.
“You kidding me? Everybody knew it was only a matter of time with that son of a bitch. I’m just grateful the kids got out of there safe.”
“You knew him,” I said.
“Sure. Small town, you know how it goes. He came to the range every so often. Knew his guns, and he was a hell of a marksman.” He paused, studying us both. “I guess I’m not supposed to ask what the hell’s going on with you two.”
“Long story,” Diggs and I said at the same time. A flicker of a smile crossed Bill’s face.
“Lucy and I do that all the time—you’ll want to watch it. You won’t have a thought safe from her,” he said to Diggs, nodding to me.
“That ship sailed years ago,” Diggs said.
Mimi brought us our food and stood by expectantly, arms crossed over her chest and head at a slight tilt—waiting to be proven right. I tried the crabmeat quiche, since it appeared I had no choice.
And then I tried it again.
“Oh my god.”
“Told you,” she said. “You thought I was kidding. Best crabmeat in the state.”
“You’re such a loser for being a vegetarian right now,” I said to Diggs, in between bites.
He bit into his freezer-burned veggie burger without argument.
Things were quiet around the table for a while after Mimi left us. I’d devoured most of my quiche and half the curly fries before Bill spoke again.
“Official word is your old man was a hit and run,” he said.
Diggs nodded, immediately serious. Nothing like vehicular manslaughter to kill the mood. “That’s right. You know anything about it?”
The older man looked uncomfortable.
“It’s all right,” Diggs said. The way he looked, you’d almost think he was telling the truth. “I know he’d gone round the bend. Did you talk to him at all, these past few months?”
“No,” Bill said with a shake of his head. “I told you, I was neve
r much for the godly set.”
Another couple of seconds passed before Diggs finally got around to the question I knew he’d wanted to ask all along.
“I don’t suppose you know anything about this girl my father supposedly...” He trailed off awkwardly.
Bill looked down, his jaw hard. “I might know a thing or two. Laurie—that’s the girl—is my oldest’s goddaughter. Whole family’s spent some time at our place over the years.”
“What do you know about what happened?” Diggs asked.
“Not much. But there’s more to the story than most people are telling, I know that. Something funny’d been going on with Laurie for a lot of years. Don’t know that the reverend was at the root of it, but the girl was never quite…” He shifted uncomfortably.
“Never quite what?” Diggs pressed.
Bill met his eye. “She was always pretty damned…forward. With men, I mean. Couldn’t have been more than twelve or so and she was at our place playing one day. She came over to me and I just…got this feeling.” He shook his head. “I didn’t like her playing with the other grandkids, after that. Especially the boys. She was precocious, maybe you could say. I don’t think it was her fault, of course—Lucy tried to talk to Jake and Alice, but Jake’s a stubborn son of a bitch. He built that company of his from the ground up, trucks his traps all over the goddamn country—now he thinks he’s the man with all the answers. You ask me, most likely he was at the bottom of it from the get-go anyway.”
“Are they in town now?” Diggs said.
Bill frowned. “I don’t know.”
I didn’t even know the man, and I could still tell he was lying. Diggs just raised his eyebrows, waiting.
“You don’t think they’ve seen enough trouble from Diggins men?” Bill said.
“I just want to talk to Laurie. I won’t cause any trouble, I promise. But I need to know if my father said anything to her.” He reached into his back pocket for his wallet. Bill waved him off.
“I’ve got it.”
“That’s all right,” Diggs said.
“I’ve got it,” Bill repeated, more firmly. “You really gonna fight with an old man? Just take care of yourselves. Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
“Thanks, Bill,” Diggs said sincerely. He clapped the man on the shoulder, then looked at me. “Ready?”
So much for dessert. I nodded. “Aren’t I always?”
Diggs didn’t even smile, that weight fully returned to his shoulders. We said goodbye to Mimi and stepped into the cold air and gathering clouds of New Year’s Eve in Littlehope.
We decided against the rental we’d gotten the other , Diggs and I walked the scant half mile it took to reach the Smiths’ little ranch-style home, on a dead-end street off Littlehope’s main strip. There were no cars in the driveway, though a Christmas tree still sparkled in the window. We paused at the end of the walk. I looked at Diggs.
“So, what’s the plan? You just go up, knock, say ‘I know my father was accused of diddling your little girl, but I was hoping you wouldn’t mind if I spoke with her alone.’”
“You don’t think that would work?”
I just tipped my head and waited for him to get serious.
Before he could, the Smiths’ front door opened.
If there had been any ambiguity in Bill Slater’s comment about Laurie Smith, his meaning was pretty clear the second I laid eyes on the girl.
With big blue eyes and a generous mouth, lush curves and thick dark curls, Laurie Smith was a vision. Bill wasn’t talking about her looks, though—the moment she sashayed out the door, barefoot, that was obvious. She wore torn jeans and a soft-pink camisole that showed…a lot. Including, but not limited to, a sizable hickey at her collarbone. She crooked her finger at Diggs, turned, switched her hair over her shoulder, and walked back inside.
Diggs glanced at me. He looked worried.
“I’d like to remind you, your daddy already tapped that,” I said.
“Feeling insecure, are we?”
“Just making sure you keep thinking with the right head.”
He smiled. “That head being yours?”
“Damn straight, sweet pea,” I said. I hip checked him into motion.
The front door was still open when we got there. Laurie was nowhere in sight. I arched an eyebrow at Diggs. He shrugged. We crossed the threshold. Music—Otis Redding, actually—was playing down the hall. We followed the tune and eventually found Laurie swaying to the music, standing in front of a giant Christmas tree. She had a glass of wine in her hand. Or I guess it could have been grape juice, but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.
“My name’s—” Diggs started when we got through the door.
“I know who you are,” Laurie said. “You’re Daniel. The bastard.” She turned to face us. Her eyes were bright. Borderline manic.
“My father told you that?” Diggs said.
“Among other things,” she said. She bridged the distance between herself and Diggs, and ran a long finger along his chest. “He didn’t say how hot you were, though.”
Diggs carefully removed her hand and took a step back. “I wanted to ask some questions about…what happened between you and my father.”
“Sex,” she said simply. “I mean…you have heard of it, haven’t you? He was nice to me. Sometimes. Liked me on my knees—”
“Okay,” I interrupted. I stepped in between her and Diggs before things got messy. “That’s not really what we’re after, but thanks for searing that visual into my brain. What we’re asking is more about what the reverend might have talked to you about. And…how things got started.”
“I liked him,” she said. “He was always so sad. And lonely. And I started thinking one day—like, how long since he’d actually done anything, you know? A decade? Longer? What would it be like, to have him touch me? So, I stayed after one day—told him and my parents I was having a spiritual crisis.”
“So it happened more than once,” Diggs said.
“Sure,” she said. “Every Tuesday and Saturday, starting last May.”
Holy shit. I tried to get my brain around that one. “And did you two ever…talk, at all?” I was almost afraid of the answer.
“What kind of question is that?” She flopped back in an easy chair in the corner, stretching her long legs over the arm. Closer now, in addition to the hickey I could see what looked like a handprint on her upper right arm, like someone had grabbed her—and not nicely. “We fucked twice a week for months. Of course we talked—what do you think I am?”
So, so many responses came to mind. I nearly bit my tongue off to keep quiet.
“When was the last time you spoke with him?” Diggs asked.
“We stopped after my parents freaked out. I sent him a couple of letters, but he never wrote back.” I thought I glimpsed a trace of sadness, which she quickly stuffed away. “After the stroke, though, I didn’t try again. I figured he probably had enough problems. I sent him a card, though.” She stopped and drained her wine, then studied the glass for a few seconds. “I didn’t mean for it all to get so screwed up afterward, you know? I just… I didn’t think my parents would find out.”
“Sure,” I said. “Because when you’re getting boned by a preacher four times your age twice a week in a town of thirteen hundred people, what are the chances that kind of thing will get out?”
Diggs shot me a look that told me clearly I needed to work harder on the whole biting-my-tongue thing. Laurie was shooting daggers at me with her eyes. Against my better judgment, I gave her and Diggs some space.
“Did you ever meet at my father’s house?” he asked.
“No—he didn’t like me going there. We always met at the church. I thought that was hotter, anyway.”
“Did he ever mention my brother when you were together?”
Laurie studied him. There was an unexpected glimmer of intelligence reflected in her eyes. “Yeah, he did. He talked about him a lot, actually. And I know he felt guilty about what
we were doing, even when I tried to convince him it was okay… He always said his son and his wife dying were his punishment. God testing the flesh—and he kept failing.”
“Did he say anything that made you think he might be violent?” I asked.
She laughed. “Are you kidding? He was the most violent man I ever met—that was part of what I liked about him. He was so intense. His eyes had blood in them, you know? Guys my age don’t know what to do, they’re all freaked out by what they want and what they think they should want. And guys your age—” she looked at Diggs, “act like it’s your God-given right. A man like the reverend… He was grateful, and passionate, and twisted, and everything was so…big. Every kiss, every touch, every decision meant something.”
Diggs turned away. I stayed with it, though. “So you say you two talked,” I said. “And he was definitely aggressive. Did you get any sense that he was thinking of inflicting violence—hurting people?”
“You mean other than me?” Diggs’ flinched at the words, his back still to her. She smiled at his reaction, her eyes following his every move. “He’d go on rants sometimes. But the only one he ever really wanted to hurt, so far as I could tell, was you.”
“He told you he wanted to hurt me?” he said. He turned to face her.
I thought of that stupid picture again—Diggs at four, big blue eyes and white-blond hair, clinging to his mom’s skirt. Barely part of their story.
“I know what it’s like,” she said to Diggs. She barely acknowledged me at all now. “Having parents who think you’re Satan’s spawn—like it never dawns on them that maybe the reason you’re so screwed up has something to do with them. I knew when he talked about you that I wasn’t getting the whole story.”
“What did he say?” Diggs asked.
She shrugged. “Just your standard reverend talk, you know? He sinned, the devil punished him by sending you—a reminder of his wife whoring around or whatever.”
“He told you he wasn’t my father,” Diggs clarified.