All the Blue-Eyed Angels (30 page)

“I’ve called all the hospitals,” I said.

“And Finnegan won’t budge?”

I shook my head.

Which brought us back to my request.

“So, your plan is to take Hammond’s boat—a boat bigger than any you’ve ever driven before, unless you took up yachting since I saw you last—and brave a violent storm to go out to Payson Isle. And once you get there, how are you planning to get on the island?”

I hadn’t thought that far ahead. The mooring was at least a hundred yards from the island itself, and there would be no tripped-out speedboat waiting to take me from Hammond’s boat to shore. “I’ll improvise,” I said.

“Good plan,” Diggs said. “That always works. And even if you do make it to shore, what happens then? You find Perkins with Kat and… talk him out of it? And what if Juarez is in on this whole thing, too? You’re gonna take out an armed, seasoned FBI man?”

“He’s not in on it.”

Diggs looked like he felt sorry for me. I bristled.

“He’s not,” I insisted. I sounded remarkably sure of myself for someone who wasn’t sure at all.

Diggs sat down on the couch beside me. I scooted over to the edge, leaving a foot or more of space between us. Einstein watched all of this from a spot in the corner of the room. He was wet and bedraggled and, thanks to him, Diggs’ office now stank of wet dog. I wondered why the hell Diggs had put up with me all these years.

“The guy who attacked you on the island—you said he was a fighter, right? He knew what he was doing?”

I nodded.

“You said he was in good shape. Taller than you. Solid. You don’t think it was Joe Ashmont, and it sure as hell wasn’t Matt Perkins—if only because you know for a fact that he was in the hospital at the time.”

I stayed quiet, staring at my hands in my lap.

“How long did it take Juarez to get out to the island after you called?” I didn’t answer. He forged ahead anyway. “Did you have to give him directions to get to the house? Where did he get the boat to get out there?”

I stood. My hands were cold and I had to clench my teeth to keep them from chattering. My clothes clung to me and my hair was still damp. Diggs watched me with quiet resignation.

“So, you won’t help me?” I asked.

“I won’t send you on a suicide mission, no. I’ll talk to Finnegan if you want, though. He’s got budget cuts and the governor breathing down his neck, so I don’t think we’ll change his mind—not until you have something more solid. If I can do anything else, Sol, you know I’ve got your back.”

“I don’t need anything else,” I said.

I whistled for Einstein, and walked out.

A gale-force winds advisory was issued along the coast at four o’clock that afternoon. Boats were battened down, the harbor deserted. I hadn’t heard from Juarez again since his call that morning, and there was still no word of Kat or her car. I’d called Sheriff Finnegan twice more to try and persuade him to send Marine Patrol out looking for Matt, to no avail, and had driven halfway across the county looking for any sign of Matt Perkins, Joe Ashmont, or my mother.

At four-thirty, Edie called. I was in my car on another flooded back road. Tree limbs were down, and power outages had been reported up and down the Midcoast. Einstein had given up trying to figure out any rhyme or reason to our driving route, and was snoring quietly in the backseat.

“Any word on your mum yet?”

I didn’t bother asking how she’d found out. “None yet. You don’t know anyone who might give me a lift out to the island, do you?”

“Nobody’s going out in this, sweetie. You can’t blame them—you know what it’s like out there in a storm. Nobody in their right mind would be on the water on a day like today.”

Which was exactly what I’d been afraid of.

“Did you think of anything else?”

“Matt’s doctor,” she said. “The psychiatrist who treats Matt at Togus. I thought he might have something he could tell you.”

She gave me the number, and we disconnected.

The answering service for Dr. Neil Perry informed me that he wasn’t available until Tuesday, but I could speak with someone else if it was an emergency. I assured them that it was, in fact, a huge emergency—but that no one but Dr. Perry would do. They agreed to convey the message, but they didn’t sound optimistic. I waited for an hour for a return call, and finally decided to take matters into my own hands.

By six o’clock that night, I was on the road to Augusta. I’d left more messages for Juarez, spoken again with my mother’s… colleague, and had a brief, terse conversation with Diggs that revolved around my lack of objectivity and current level of exhaustion. I hung up on him before the call devolved into a shouting match and one or both of us said something we’d regret.

On a good note, my final call to Sheriff Finnegan that day had infinitely better results.

“I talked to Edie, and she convinced me we should get somebody out to the island,” Finnegan said. “I hope you understand why I had to wait this long, though—if I called out the troops every time there was a family spat and somebody dropped out of sight for a few hours, I’d be fired before the day was out. We just don’t have the resources.”

“But you’ll send someone now?”

“I just put a call in to Marine Patrol. Any idea what we should be looking for?”

I’d been thinking about that. “Look for Joe Ashmont’s boat. I think if you find that, you’ll find Matt Perkins. And my mother.”

Thanks to flash floods around the state, a lot of the smaller roads along the coast were impassable. Halfway down Route 235, forty-five minutes into my drive, I slowed at sight of a tree limb across the left lane. I tapped the brake and realized a split second later that the bridge fifty yards down had been washed out.

Adrenaline and fatigue had my nerves crackling like water on an open circuit board. I pulled myself together with a couple of deep breaths, pulled a u-turn in the middle of the flooded road, and retraced my steps back to the main drag.

I kept going over what I knew—the questions Diggs taught me to ask when I was just a cub reporter with a nose ring and a curfew.

I knew the What, the Where, and the When: 34 dead on Payson Isle, August 22, 1990.

I knew the How, more or less: fire.

That left the Who and the Why. Isaac Payson might not have been with the rest of his congregation when he died, but at this point I sincerely doubted he’d been the one to set the fire. Had Matt Perkins been the one to strike the match all those years ago? And what did Noel Hammond and my mother know about any of it, that made them his targets? And, yet again, what did my father have to do with any of it?

I was back on Route 17, half an hour from Augusta, when my cell phone rang. I glanced at the display and grimaced. Diggs.

“Erin,” he said when I answered. Not Solomon, not Sol. That alone was enough to make my fingers tighten around the steering wheel.

“They found her,” I said. It wasn’t a question.

“They found her car. You should come back.”

Something tightened like wire inside my chest. “Where was it?”

The second Diggs took before he answered lasted at least a decade. “In the quarry,” he said. “They’re sending divers down now to see…”

My vision blurred for a split second before I shook my head. I wouldn’t cry, dammit.

“To see if she’s in the car,” I finished for him.

“Take it slow driving home—the roads are bad. I’ll be there when you get back, Sol.”

I hung up, and turned the car around one more time.

The old Calderwood quarry was at the end of a dirt road that was more mud than dirt by the time I got there. A pickup was stuck about halfway in, half a dozen rain-soaked locals trying to push it out of the way. I pulled off to the side rather than waiting for them, left Stein in the car, and ran the rest of the way to the scene.

I could see the blur of red and blue lights through the trees, the colors bleeding into one another. Three large, free-standing spotlights had been set up at the edge of the quarry. The light illuminated a sheer granite face and a shine of still black water below. I didn’t see any sign of a car in there—my mother’s or anyone else’s.

Everyone was in motion around me. A small boat with three scuba divers inside was motoring to the center of the quarry.

“They can’t bring the car out tonight,” Diggs said from behind me.

I turned. He wore a rain slicker, his boots and jeans caked with mud.

“But they can tell if somebody’s inside,” I said. I was impressed at how cool, how professional and detached, the words sounded.

Diggs nodded. I could tell he was fairly amazed at my demeanor himself. Or maybe disturbed would have been a better word.

“How do they even know it’s down there? I can’t see a thing.”

“I had somebody check it out,” he said. “I figured if something disappears in Littlehope, there’s as good a chance as any that it’s in the quarry. It took some doing to get anybody out here—I had to call in a couple favors.”

I turned back to the ledge to watch the activity below. A good five minutes went by before I had the presence of mind to thank him.

“It’ll probably be a while before they can get in there and tell us anything. Why don’t you let me take you home—just to get warmed up, change into some dry clothes.”

I was wearing the same jeans and turtleneck I’d had on since the day began. I stood shivering with my arms crossed over my chest, and shook my head.

“I’m all right.”

Diggs didn’t say anything to that. It seemed like the rain might be lightening up—or maybe it had just been like this so long I couldn’t tell the difference anymore. An indeterminate amount of time passed before Diggs took my hand and pulled me away from the ledge.

“I got these from the Jeep.” He produced a sweatshirt and a pair of sweats, with a bright orange poncho on top of the pile. I hadn’t even realized he’d gone.

“I’m not leaving,” I said.

“So don’t.” He pushed me toward the edge of the woods gently, handed me the clothes, and turned his back.

“I know you’ve got an exhibitionist in there somewhere—now’s the time to give her a thrill.”

Since I wasn’t going to win this argument anyway, I found a quiet spot just inside the woods and peeled off my soaking clothes. The sweatpants were too long and the sweatshirt was too big and the poncho came nearly to my knees. Still, they were clean and dry and the fact that they smelled like Diggs didn’t hurt matters. I rolled pant legs and shirt sleeves with fingers that had gone numb with cold long before.

“Okay,” I said when I was finished.

Diggs turned back around. He smiled faintly when he saw me. “Sorry—I didn’t have anything smaller.”

“No, this is good. Thank you.” I couldn’t find the energy to return his smile. With nothing else to say, I returned to the ledge.

Diggs pulled me away from the edge a few inches, which made me think of the afternoon he’d lost his brother here. The day Diggs put away childish things.

There was a crash down below, followed by a flurry of movement and panicked shouts.

“Get clear,” one of the techs nearby yelled down. “Christ—what the hell are we doing out here? Somebody’s gonna get killed.”

I turned in time to see Sheriff Finnegan take the tech aside. The sheriff glanced at me with a quick smile that I imagined was meant to be reassuring.

“Easy does it, boys,” he yelled down below. “We don’t need any heroes. We’re just looking for a clear visual. Take your time.”

“That jolt kicked up too much sediment at the bottom,” the tech told him. “We’ll have to wait ‘til it settles again. It’ll be at least an hour.”

I felt a wave of nausea. Diggs put his arm around my shoulder, but I stepped away from him. Away from the ledge. Away from the sirens and the shouting strangers and the shell of my mother’s car buried deep in the water below.

When I was eleven, I started working at Kat’s clinic after school. My mother was always too busy for family bonding, but some nights we’d order in and sit in the break room eating pizza, talking about the patients she’d seen that day. It was the only time I ever felt close to her—those short hours when we could compare notes on her cases. She would quiz me on what I’d seen, symptoms different patients had presented with, possible diagnoses.

I wanted to be a doctor, back then. Not because of any real interest in medicine, mind you—just because it seemed like ten years of medical school was the simplest way to create any kind of meaningful relationship with my mother.

At the edge of the woods, I took a few breaths and pulled myself back together.

“What’s the word from the island?” I asked Diggs when I rejoined him.

He looked confused.

“Payson Isle?” I elaborated. “Finnegan was sending somebody out.”

“I don’t know if he did, though. I think once we found the car—”

“Matt’s still out there—I know it. Whether Kat’s with him or not, we still need to find them.”

Diggs didn’t say anything. I left him and went to talk to the sheriff. Meanwhile, twenty-five feet below, divers continued to search the murky depths for any trace of my mother.

It was eleven o’clock before they got a visual on the inside of Kat’s car. I heard the crackle of a walkie talkie, and one of the cops on the ledge responded. The words were hard to make out. Diggs tried to take my hand, but I walked away. The divers had climbed back in the boat, and I could hear the motor starting up again as they returned to dry land. I thought I might be sick before someone finally spoke to me.

Sheriff Finnegan took my arm and pulled me aside.

“The car’s empty,” he said. I thought of all the ways other people would handle the news—drop to their knees and thank God; burst into tears; embrace strangers.

I just nodded. My throat felt dry, my eyes drier. “Thank you,” I said. Finnegan started to walk away, but I ran after him.

“This means he still has her,” I said. “You said you sent someone out—you haven’t heard back from them yet? They should have been able to get to the island and back by this time, I don’t care what the weather is. You’re sure they went there?”