All the Blue-Eyed Angels (16 page)

Would she have done those things?

There wasn’t a question in my mind. If it meant protecting me and my father, she would have done them without hesitation. Without remorse.

I took out the rosary Juarez and I found on the island the night before, and handed it to Noel.

“Do you know anyone from the Payson Church who might have had a rosary with the initials ‘RW’ carved in it? There was only one RW that I can remember—Rick Wallace.” I might not have been completely honest when I told Juarez I couldn’t remember all the members of the Church.

“And it couldn’t have been him?” Hammond held the rosary in his beefy hand, his gaze fixed on the crucifix.

“Rick was two years younger than me, born on the island. Trust me, the Paysons weren’t huge on Catholicism—no self-respecting member of the Church would have kept this.”

He nodded. After a second or two, he stood and returned the relic to me. “If you have half an hour, we can go talk to somebody who might have some answers.”

He didn’t wait for me to agree, already shrugging on his coat. He returned the photos to his manila file folder, put it back in the other room, and we walked out together.

The Littlehope Residential Home for the Mentally Ill was a massive old Victorian at the end of Seaside Lane, not far from the town landing. When I was a kid, the house had been rumored to be haunted. A fresh coat of paint, new windows, and a wheelchair ramp had done little to change that impression.

When Hammond and I arrived, three men sat together on the porch smoking. Their shoulders were curled in, their bodies tucked against a chill I didn’t feel in the bright sunshine. I apologized to Einstein for being the worst dog owner on the planet and once more relegated him to the car while I went inside.

Edie Woolrich was in the kitchen when we arrived. The place smelled of homemade chicken soup and hot yeast rolls. If this was where one went when insanity came calling, I sincerely hoped I’d be next on the list. She didn’t look surprised to see us when she looked up from the stove—in fact, she acted like she’d been expecting us all along.

“Erin Solomon,” she said, with a long, low whistle. Edie was maybe five feet tall, with a pink scalp visible through thinning gray curls and a penchant for saying whatever came into her head at any given time. At least, she’d had that penchant when I was a kid; I supposed she could have changed over the years.

“Now who would’ve thought a little moppet like you’d grow into a gorgeous thing like this. You look just like your mum.” She shook her head, eyeing me with furrowed brow. “How is the old battleaxe, anyway?”

Of course, it was possible time hadn’t changed Edie in the least. “She’s good—still in Portland.”

“Good place for her,” Edie said, with a hint of a harrumph. Edie had been the first in a very long line of nurses who’d assisted my mother at her beloved clinic; clearly, there was no love lost between them. “Noel said you were coming by—you’ve got some questions?” She turned to Noel with the air of someone accustomed to being obeyed. “Take her on into the dining room, hon. I’ll be right with you.”

A few minutes later, I was sitting in the belly of the old house with Hammond across from me at a massive antique dining room table. Edie sat beside me. Through glass French doors leading into a stately living room, I could see the residents sitting down to watch an old television in the corner.

Edie took one look at the rosary before she nodded to Hammond, as though confirming a question I hadn’t realized had been asked.

“Rebecca—I’d bet money on it. That would’ve been hers.”

“You’re sure?” Hammond pressed.

“Sure as I’m sitting here,” Edie said.

“Rebecca who?”

“Rebecca Westlake,” Edie said.

Hammond stood and took his coat from where he’d draped it behind his chair.

“Wait—where the hell do you think you’re going?” I asked.

“I’ve got a couple errands to run,” he said. “I’m just gonna walk back into town. Edie’ll tell you the story.”

“I think you should stay and fill in the blanks,” I said. Hammond shook his head.

“She knows it better than I do. I’ll give you a call later today and we can compare notes.”

I thought about putting up a fuss, but Edie was watching me like I was a child on the brink of a tantrum. Based on Hammond’s face, he was bracing himself for the same. I decided to go the high road.

“Okay—fine. Just don’t go far. I’ll give you a call when I’m done here, and we can meet up again later.”

He didn’t look thrilled at the prospect, but nodded his agreement regardless. Once he was gone, Edie brought in tea and cookies, and reclaimed her seat beside me.

“I really can’t get over how much you look like Kat. Except for the hair, of course—the hair’s all Adam. But otherwise, you sure are your mum’s girl.”

I attempted a smile. “People have said that before. I never really saw the resemblance.”

“No, I s’pose not.” She eyed my bruises—the split lip and swollen eye that she had, as yet, not mentioned. “Being Kat’s girl, I don’t guess you had anybody take a look at you. Those are some pretty mean bruises. Your mum’s clinic’s still right where she left it—they do good work there. I’m sure they could fit you in.”

“No need. I know the signs for a concussion. There were no broken bones. Nothing deep enough for stitches. They have better things to do at the clinic, I’m sure.”

She didn’t argue. All the same, I didn’t care for the way she was looking at me—another person from my past who saw me only as the little outcast I’d once been in this town.

“You said you could tell me something about the rosary?” I pressed.

Her eyes lingered on mine, more intelligent than I suspected people gave her credit for. She nodded.

“Of course. The story Noel’s been so keen on.”

This got my attention. “Why?”

“You got me. There are dozens of sad stories that came out of that island. Becca’s wasn’t any better or worse than anybody else’s.”

“Rebecca Westlake, you said?” She nodded. “I didn’t know her on the island—I’ve never even heard that name. It wasn’t in any of the autopsy files.”

“Well… First off, it was Becca Ashmont by the time she joined Isaac’s church. And besides that, she didn’t join up ‘til you were back here with Kat. I don’t know exact dates, but I’m pretty sure she took their boy and left Joe sometime that summer.”

“Joe Ashmont?” The name was coming up too often to be mere coincidence. “She was his wife?”

“They’d been together since they were kids—her and Joe and Matt were joined at the hip from the time they moved here. Never saw the three of ‘em apart in those early years.”

Joe Ashmont had been married. I recalled the story Juarez had told on our trek to Portland the other day.

“Joe and Matt Perkins grew up in an orphanage together, didn’t they?”

“Up in Westbrook, yeah.Becca was there, too. She was a beautiful girl—from one of the tribes up in northern Maine, I think. Or her daddy was, anyway. Something happened, though, and she ended up with the State. In and out of foster homes. She had…” Edie stopped.

I remained silent, waiting. Edie looked at me apologetically.

“Nothing was ever diagnosed, but she had problems. Depression. Maybe something more.”

“And she joined up with the Paysons when?”

“I’m not positive, like I said. Summer, though. Joe came to shore and railed about it for a couple of days—went on one hell of a bender. Things went bad between them a long time before that, though.”

“And you said they had a son?”

“Zion. Joe wouldn’t let them come out to the mainland after a while—they all stayed out to Sheep Island, in that rattletrap shack he’s got. But I went out there a few times when they needed me.”

Yet another piece of the puzzle that made no sense. I tried to remember conversations with my father. Had he ever mentioned any of this? But then, there wouldn’t have been any real reason to say anything. If there were problems, there wasn’t a lot a nine-year-old could have done about them.

“And Hammond… He’s been asking about this?”

“He’s been real keen to hear her story, yeah. I sent him to talk to Reverend Diggins last night, and I think that answered a few of his questions.”

Reverend Diggins. Diggs’ father—the preacher at the town’s Episcopal Church for as far back as I could remember. I had the feeling suddenly that I’d be trailing three steps behind Noel Hammond for this entire investigation.

“Why the Reverend?”

“Becca used to be a member of that church, not too long before she had Zion. She and the Reverend were…” her eyes slipped to the floor. “Close.”

“As in…?” I prompted.

“I’d rather not say anymore, if you don’t mind. It was just a rumor—you know these small towns.”

Apparently, not as well as I’d thought I did.

“I just want to make sure I’ve got this,” I pressed. “Rebecca Westlake grew up in an orphanage with Joe Ashmont and Matt Perkins. They all moved to Littlehope, and she married Joe. Somewhere along the lines things went sour, and she joined Daddy Diggs’ congregation… Among other things.”

Edie winced at the insinuation, but remained silent. I continued.

“Ashmont pulls her out of that church and kept her and her son locked away on Sheep Island until the summer of 1990, when they… escaped?” I looked to Edie for confirmation. She nodded.

“So, she and her boy go into hiding on Payson Isle. And a month or so later, with no apparent warning, the Payson Church and all its members go up in flames.”

“I think you have the gist of it,” Edie said.

I looked in the next room. I could see a glimpse of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire playing on the TV, the same three men from the porch now crowded together on the sofa.

I stood.

“You’re going to see Reverend Diggins now?” Edie asked.

“It’s the most logical step, wouldn’t you say? At least, Noel thought it was.”

“Please don’t tell Diggs what I said, whatever you might find out. He and his daddy never got on too well, and I don’t see how this could help matters.”

Saying Diggs and the Reverend didn’t “get on” was like saying the Yankees and the Red Sox had some minor artistic differences. Still, I promised Edie that I would keep her revelations to myself. I climbed back in the car with Rebecca Westlake’s rosary clutched in my left hand, and prepared myself to take on Daddy Diggs.

The church Reverend Diggins ran was across the road from Wallace’s General Store. Ironically enough for a woman who’d run off to join a religious commune as a teenager, my mother was possibly the least God-fearing woman on the Maine coast, so growing up I’d had few run-ins with the good Reverend and his congregation. The few I did have, however, were memorable—and not in a good way. I didn’t like the man then, primarily because of the way he treated Diggs, and I sincerely doubted that was about to change.

I got out of the car and lit a cigarette, leaning up against the door while I smoked. The sun had vanished once again and there was a light rain falling. I kept my sunglasses on despite the gloom, but I knew I wasn’t fooling anyone. My back ached and my stomach was queasy and it felt like evil trolls were playing a snare drum inside my head.

And I really didn’t want to talk to the Reverend.

When he was twelve years old, Diggs and his younger brother Josh skipped school to go swimming in the local quarry. Diggs’ idea, of course. He’d been warned against it, and Josh—a blond, blue-eyed Hummel replica of a child who, by all accounts, was the 20
^th
century equivalent to Christ himself—didn’t really want to go. But Diggs needled and cajoled as big brothers will, and eventually Josh—ten years old at the time—agreed.

It was an unusually hot day in June, but that particular afternoon the Diggins boys were the only ones at the quarry. They biked up to the highest ledge. Diggs took the first dive, barely making a ripple as he sliced into the still waters below.

For all his extraordinary qualities, Josh was never the athlete his brother was. He stumbled when he was pushing off the ledge, failing to get the momentum or height he needed to clear the rocks.

At ten years old, Josh Diggins fell head-first into the Calderwood quarry, and hit the rocks below with a crunch of bones and flesh that Diggs wrote, many years later, still echoed in his sleep.

Diggs tried to revive him. When he couldn’t do that, he biked two miles with his dead brother on his handlebars, to the nearest house he could find for help.

It took years before Diggs let me read the story he’d written about that afternoon. I’d known about his brother, of course—no secrets in a small town and all that. But it was an unspoken pact between us, particularly in those tenuous early years when he was the mentor and I his adoring student, that we both shoulder our dark burdens in silence. Somehow, just knowing life had kicked the crap out of both of us early on was enough for me; I didn’t need the details.

After that day, the Reverend and Mama Diggins never got over the loss of their youngest son, and they never let Diggs forget the part he’d played in that loss. Though he graduated at the top of his class and set records in every sport Littlehope had to offer, he was always a wild child—bedding the towns’ fairest daughters, drinking every keg dry, and smoking whatever happened to be available.

All the same, when Diggs got the call from his mother ten years later saying that she was dying and would he please come home, he dropped out of Columbia three months shy of a Master’s in Journalism, and returned to his hometown.

That was when we met. He stayed while his mother fought a two-year battle with cancer that she ultimately lost and then, despite the undeniable tension between father and son, he stuck around town reporting for the
Trib
for another year after that. He left three days after I did, confirming my suspicion that he’d only remained in Littlehope to make sure I survived those last, lonely days of high school and was safely settled at Wellesley before he got on with his own life.

A shout from across the street jolted me back to the present. I looked up to find Jed Colby, the man I’d interviewed earlier in the week, smiling at me. He waved as he climbed into his pickup, then drove across the intersection and pulled up beside me.