Erin Solomon Mysteries, Books 1 - 5

by Jen Blood

  I hung up. I stood beside Juarez, both of us at the wheel as he guided the boat home.

  “They killed him,” I said. I didn’t even know who ‘they’ were, but I knew I was right.

  Juarez put his arm around me and pulled me close. We rode the rest of the way back in silence.

  Chapter Twenty

  We watched Hammond’s house burn from the water. A blur of orange flames smudged into the fog, the colors muted like the pastels I used to use as a kid. I stopped off at Diggs’ place on the way and stashed the scrapbooks I’d stolen from Noel. My father was alive, and someone had murdered Noel Hammond; it was clear that those two facts were intricately related, and I was sure that Hammond’s notes would reveal something about both of them.

  When the scrapbooks were secure and Einstein was happily oblivious at my heels once more, Juarez drove us to Hammond’s place. The sirens could be heard all over town. Whole sections of Littlehope had been cordoned off, cars lined up to the end of the little lane where Hammond lived. I was shivering, my stomach tight, my mind muddy. We parked at the end of the road, behind a long line of pickups carrying locals who had already arrived on the scene—either to help or, more likely, just to soak in the excitement on an otherwise dull Saturday night.

  The red lights from the fire trucks illuminated the trees in waves of color. A trooper’s car was parked vertically across the road to halt traffic; Sheriff Finnegan stood beside it talking to a cluster of neighbors, some still in bathrobes and slippers.

  He spotted Juarez and me and gave me a kind smile. “Diggs is waiting for you. Go on through.”

  The house was engulfed in flames by the time we got there. The weight of the smoke, the strobe effect from the sirens, the knowledge of what had happened… All of it was surreal. I couldn’t make sense of anything.

  “We need to find Diggs,” I finally said aloud.

  “That’s what I was thinking,” Juarez agreed.

  He scanned the crowd, though I knew it was more likely that Diggs would be closer to the action. The air changed the closer we got to the blaze, thickening into waves of heat and black smoke. My eyes stung and my lungs ached. Three fire trucks stood in front of the burning house, one from Littlehope and two from neighboring towns. Hammond’s truck was in the driveway. The paint on the hood was bubbling from the high temps; my cheeks and forehead felt too hot, stretched tight across my bones.

  Diggs was with the firefighters, who were posted at strategic intervals around the property. He had a fire helmet on and his camera out, doing his best to stay out of the way as the firemen focused on trying to get the flames under control. I thought of Hammond’s cats; of the few conversations we’d shared; the mystery he’d been working to solve; the books that we had both read in an effort to understand that single, life-altering event over twenty years ago.

  Juarez turned to speak to me, but I ignored him. The fire was loud: breathing, creaking, the timbers of the house hissing as they burned. I continued walking toward the fire, mesmerized by the flames, until Juarez caught my hand and pulled me back. He leaned in until his lips were at my ear.

  “The truck. That’s probably where he was last.”

  No one was paying much attention to the vehicle, the firemen too busy trying to control the blaze while the cops kept the locals at bay. Juarez was good at staying under everyone’s radar, guiding me to the truck with his hand at my back.

  Just as I was reaching for the door handle, he intercepted my hand. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and opened it himself.

  “Heat, remember? And a possible crime scene,” he said, once more at my ear.

  I nodded, and felt like an idiot for not realizing that myself and like crap for having to realize it at all.

  Hammond’s truck smelled like cigarettes, but the interior—like his home—was clean and orderly. A blue chamois shirt covered in cat hair was on the passenger’s seat, a cell phone and a bag of groceries resting on top.

  “He wouldn’t just leave these in the truck,” I said.

  I went around to the other side, the fire hot at the back of my neck. I opened the passenger’s side door with my jacket sleeve, the heat from the metal burning my fingers even through the fabric. The keys dangled in the ignition. Juarez frowned.

  “It’s not exactly a crime Mecca here,” I said. “People leave their keys in the car all the time.”

  “Not if they were city cops, they don’t.”

  “So, whoever it was jumped him while he was in the truck?” I asked. I nodded toward the cell phone. “Should we…?”

  Juarez looked over his shoulder to make sure no one was watching. He picked up the phone and flipped it open, still glancing over his shoulder occasionally. Something was happening in the house—firefighters motioned frantically, shouting just before a crash inside brought the blaze to life with renewed fury. A central beam in the house collapsed in a frenzy of sparks and thunder. I stood half-in, half-out of the truck, transfixed by the sight.

  There was another crash, raising with it a series of shouts from the firefighters. Diggs had put his camera away and was gesturing toward the back of the house. While someone sprinted toward an ambulance parked on the road, another man took off running for the back door.

  “I think they found something,” I said. When I turned to Juarez he was looking at me strangely, Hammond’s cell phone still in hand, as though something in the scene was out of place. “What is it?”

  Sheriff Finnegan spotted us and came running over, while another trooper pushed people back so an ambulance could get closer to the house. When Finnegan reached us he headed immediately for Juarez, his face flushed.

  “I’m sorry, Jack—I need you to take a step back. This is a crime scene.”

  Juarez apologized. He discreetly returned Hammond’s phone to its place on the seat before he stepped away from the truck.

  “Have they found Hammond?” I asked Finnegan.

  He managed a pained smile. “We’re not sure yet—things are too chaotic to know much of anything right now.”

  I was too busy watching the paramedics to respond. They disappeared behind the house with a backboard; when they returned, there was a body covered in blankets between them. The night was bathed in reds, oranges, and blues, as though I was watching the world through a colored lens. The paramedics moved slowly. They didn’t tend to the body they carried—they barely looked at it. Juarez looked away at the same time I did, and I knew we’d both reached the same conclusion.

  “You two should get back,” Finnegan said. “Behind the line, if you don’t mind. Diggs will come find you when there’s news, but you really can’t be going through things over here.”

  Juarez nodded. “You’re right—I’m sorry, just habit. You guys will let me know if there’s anything I can do?”

  “We will.”

  Juarez took my arm. He attempted a smile and failed miserably, looking once again toward the crowd. “Come on, there’s nothing we can do here. We’ll catch up with Diggs later.”

  Once we were out of earshot of the police, I turned to Juarez. “Did you get a chance to check out Hammond’s phone?”

  He nodded. “Yeah—I checked both ingoing and outgoing calls.”

  “And?”

  “According to caller ID, the last call he made and the last he received were from the same person.”

  I waited. I had a bad feeling I knew where this was going.

  “Who?”

  “Dr. Katherine Everett,” he said, watching me closely.

  I nodded. I reached for my cell phone, resigned at last to the one thing I’d been hoping to avoid since I’d started this whole thing.

  I called my mother.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Kat answered on the second ring. She was asleep when I called, but woke quickly—a skill perfected after years working in emergent care. When I told her about Hammond and the fire, there was a pause on the line before she said she’d drive up from Portland and be there shortly. No argument, n
o tears, no questions. I hung up feeling like we’d just sealed a not-terribly-significant business deal.

  Juarez and I returned to his car, where I let Einstein out to water a few unsuspecting shrubs. The spectators had thinned as the fire died down, though the volunteer fire brigade had come en force and wouldn’t be leaving any time soon; a long line of pickups with red lights on the dash were parked along the side of the road, with others still arriving as the night wore on.

  Juarez walked with me, though we both remained silent. When his phone rang just as we were returning to the car, we both started. I took small comfort in the fact that at least I wasn’t the only one running on pure adrenaline these days. He checked the caller ID and apologized to me before he turned his back and answered.

  I was left to listen to the heavy, dull thud of wet timber falling as the fire crew brought down the last of Hammond’s house. I surveyed the scene, stopping at sight of a man standing beside a decrepit red pickup. He wore an orange hunting cap pulled low over his eyes, but even from a distance I knew who it was: Joe Ashmont. He climbed back into his truck and drove away before I could do anything—not that I had a clue what the hell that might be. I couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d wanted me to see him there.

  Juarez returned with his boxers clearly in a bunch, forehead furrowed and jaw tensed. So far, I’d only seen one person who had that effect on him.

  “Matt?” I asked.

  He nodded. “He’s not at Togus—they don’t know when he left, or how he got out.” He rubbed his stubbled chin. He looked as tired as I felt.

  “You should go—try and help find him.”

  “I can give you a ride back to Diggs’ place…”

  “No, that’s all right. I’ll just wait for him to finish up, we’ll be fine.”

  He still didn’t move, though. I took a step closer. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but then all of a sudden I had my arms around him and my head on his chest. I’ve never been the hugging type. Juarez, on the other hand, returned the embrace without hesitation.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said. “Try to get some rest tonight?”

  “You’re one to talk. Thanks for…everything. Really. You don’t know me, yet you keep showing up to dig my ass out of some of the most god-awful messes.”

  He leaned down and kissed me on the mouth, then pulled back so quickly I had no time to respond one way or the other.

  “It’s no trouble—it keeps me from dwelling on my own mess. I’ll give you a call when I know what’s going on with Matt. Stay safe.” He squeezed my hand, climbed into his car, and drove away.

  Einstein and I stood abandoned in the middle of the road for a couple of minutes while I tried to decide my next move. Kat was on her way, but it would take her at least a couple of hours to get to Littlehope from Portland. Hammond’s house was just a hulking, blackened frame, the inside unrecognizable. I spotted Diggs standing beside the wreckage. He’d taken off the helmet the fire crew had loaned him; now, he stood there with blackened face and tired eyes, the cover boy for our most recent tragedy.

  I tugged on Stein’s leash, and the two of us met Diggs as he walked toward us.

  “Are you okay?”

  He looked like he might cry. Instead, he stepped closer and reached into my coat pocket, fishing around for something. He smelled like smoke and sweat and exhaustion. I wasn’t sure what he was doing until he pulled my cigarettes from the pocket, extracted one, and lit it without ever taking a step back. One deep inhale and a shaky exhale, careful to blow the smoke away from me, and only then did he say a word.

  “I’m okay,” he said.

  “I called Kat. She’s on her way.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  I wasn’t sure whether he was sorry for the fire or Hammond’s death or the fact that my mother was coming. Probably all of the above. I managed what I hoped was a brave smile, and held his hand as we walked away from the shell of Hammond’s home.

  My mother showed up about an hour and a half later, as promised. Diggs and I were back at the Trib, Diggs writing up some late-night copy on the fire, Einstein and I curled up on an uncomfortably overstuffed sofa in his office. I’d just dozed off when I heard a door on the other side of the building open and slam closed.

  “Shit,” I said.

  Diggs didn’t even look up from his keyboard. “You’ll be fine.”

  Easy for him to say. Another two minutes of suspense, and Kat found us.

  “Sweet Jesus,” she said as soon as she’d laid eyes on me. “What the hell happened to you?”

  “I told you—there was a fire.”

  She came closer. “What’d they do, put it out with your face?”

  In the chaos, I’d completely forgotten about the attack. Kat took my head in her hands, tilting my face this way and that, pressing none-too-gently on my bruised cheekbone. There would be no hugs, no tearful reunions, with my mother. Just the palpating of battered bones to prove she cared.

  “Nothing’s broken,” she announced.

  I pulled away. “Thanks. I know.”

  Kat’s coal-black hair was pulled into a ponytail, a couple of curls hanging daintily at her ears. She wore jeans and a black cashmere sweater that set off her fair complexion well. The best Hollywood costume designer couldn’t have chosen a more appropriate outfit for someone coming to see the wreckage of an old lover’s home in the middle of the night.

  “You look worse than she does,” she said to Diggs. He looked up from the computer. He hadn’t bothered to change after the fire, choosing instead to head straight to his computer to get the story up on the paper’s online site, since he couldn’t make the morning edition.

  “I sincerely doubt that,” Diggs said.

  Kat looked back at me. “Yeah, you’re right. Not even close. Come on—I’m taking you both wherever it is you’re shacked up these days.”

  “I have to work,” Diggs said. “You’re welcome to stay at my place as long as you’re in town, though. Erin knows the way.”

  Einstein’s tail wagged ecstatically as he turned himself inside out at Kat’s feet. She always had that effect on dogs—growing up, we always had at least a couple of rescued mutts who trailed her at the clinic and slept by her side at night. I always imagined she’d end up retiring to a big mansion with fifteen hounds and no contact with humanity save late nights in a chat room, thrilling the masses with her most gruesome surgeries.

  She scratched Stein’s ears and chin. “Einstein, right? He got bigger.”

  “He did,” I said. “Puppies tend to do that when they grow into dogs.”

  “Come on, Einstein,” she said. She turned and left with my turncoat of a hound on her heels, without bothering to say goodbye to Diggs. There was the implicit expectation that I would follow behind. I shot a last pleading look at Diggs.

  “Come home soon,” I said.

  “Yeah, right. Between your mom and the Greatest Cuban-American Hero, I’m thinking of having a shower installed here.” At the look on my face, he changed his tune. “I’ll wrap up in an hour or so—you’ll be fine. Very few mothers eat their young once they’ve hit maturity.”

  With that questionable reassurance, I grabbed my coat and Einstein’s leash and headed for the door.

  My mother drove a vintage cherry red VW Beetle convertible. Stein hopped in the back and settled down immediately. I took the front, directing Kat along roads we’d traveled together back sixteen or seventeen light years before.

  “How’s Maxwell?” she asked, shortly before we reached the turnoff to Diggs’ place. I looked at her blankly.

  “The professor.”

  “Michael,” I corrected her. “He’s fine. We got a divorce.”

  For a second, she looked thrown. “I didn’t know. When?”

  “Not long ago. You never liked him anyway.”

  “He was too old for you. And clearly sleeping with every willing coed in greater Boston.”

  Ah, the unbridled charm of Dr. Everett. Since I c
ouldn’t argue either of her points, however, I chose not to comment. “I want to talk to you about Noel Hammond,” I said instead.

  She drove too fast on Diggs’ dirt road, sending the Beetle flying up over the final hill before his house came into sight. She didn’t say anything until she’d stopped the car.

  “Go inside and get cleaned up first. I’ll make some tea. We’ll talk then.”

  There was no point in arguing. Instead, I let her put her bag in my room and showed her to the kitchen.

  The shower did little to reenergize me. In fact, it did the opposite; I found myself dozing with my forehead against the tiled wall halfway through, and ended up curled up naked on the shower floor while the pulsing spray rained down on my weary head. Kat knocked on the bathroom door.

  “Are you still alive in there?”

  I managed to revive myself enough to get out, towel myself dry, and put on semi-clean pajamas. Einstein had crashed out on his dog bed. He didn’t even stir at the promise of tea and crumpets. I left the bedroom door open in case he changed his mind, and went to face my mother.

  A cup of steaming chamomile tea was waiting for me, along with a toasted English muffin that I pushed aside without a thought. The tea was more bitter than I’d expected, but it was hot and the smell of chamomile was a nice alternative to the smoke that still lingered in my nostrils. I drank half of it without waiting for it to cool.

  “You’ve lost weight—and not in a good way. You should eat something.”

  “I’m not hungry. Tell me about Noel, Kat.”

  “Why don’t you tell me about Noel? You got pretty chummy with him toward the end.”

  The turnabout wasn’t unexpected, but it still annoyed me. “You slept with him to keep him quiet after he saw you destroy evidence out on the island the day of the fire. You lied to police, blackmailed a detective…”

  She looked bored. “It sounds like you have it all figured out. Is there some kind of confession you’d like me to sign?”

  “I want you to tell me the truth for once in your life!” I heard Einstein stir at my tone, his toenails clacking on the hardwood floor before he appeared at the kitchen door. Actually, two dogs appeared at the kitchen door. Neither of them were in focus. I closed my eyes.