All the Blue-Eyed Angels (19 page)

I had few photos of my father. He always used to say he wasn’t good looking enough to waste film on, though this was hardly true. The photo had been taken before he’d lost everything in the fire, but looking back I realized that there had always been something a little haunted about Dad. In the picture, he was working on the island. He wore a t-shirt, his hand up to shield his eyes, squinting in the glare of the afternoon sun. He didn’t look thrilled at whoever had snapped the shot.

“Erin,” Juarez said again. He crouched beside me and helped pick up the scraps scattered at my feet. “We need to go.”

“In a minute,” I said. I leafed through the rest of the book. There were also clippings from other mass suicides—mostly Jonestown. Some of the text was highlighted, with scrawled notes in the margins.

Juarez took my arm. “Dammit, Erin—you can’t just come into someone’s home and start prowling around.”

I pulled away. “Keep your knickers on, would you? I just want to look—he’s been doing the same investigation I have, probably for a hell of a lot longer.”

He didn’t answer me. When I looked up, he’d straightened and was staring at the notepad he’d taken from the phone stand in the other room.

“I think you should take a look at this.”

I set the scrapbook down carefully and stood. Juarez bit his lip and handed me the paper.

There was a telephone number written in red ink, with a
206
prefix—Washington state, if I remembered correctly.

Above it, written in Hammond’s sloping scrawl, was a name.

Adam S.

I went straight to his telephone, picked up the receiver, and dialed the number.

My hands were shaking.

“That could be anyone—could mean anything,” Juarez said. He was watching me like I might burst into flames any second now. I didn’t blame him; at this point, I wasn’t willing to discount anything.

On the other end of the line, a phone rang. Five, ten, fifteen times. No answering machine, no voicemail. Juarez didn’t say anything. Just stood there, waiting with me.

Twenty-two rings, and then a voice.

“Dammit, Noel—I told you not to call me again.”

I nearly choked on the sound. My eyes flooded; the world tilted sideways.

“Dad?” I barely recognized my own voice. A few seconds of silence passed between us—no one speaking, no one breathing.

The line went dead.

August 14, 1990

On a Friday afternoon, the wet heat of July having given way to the golden swelter of August, there is a fight on the compound. Rebecca watches it unfold from a distance: Zion and Will Colby, another boy from the Church. It’s not so much a fight as an attack, really, because Zion does nothing to defend himself. Rebecca has seen this boy watching her son. She’s seen the envy, the hatred, in young eyes spoiled not by experience but by a soul that Rebecca imagines has always been rotten.

The boy is wiry, quick and lean, a head taller than Zion and perhaps two years older. Though most of the children in the Church are quiet and well behaved, Will is argumentative, lazy, always looking for a way out of daily chores or evening services. He hates Zion. Rebecca sees it in the way he fixates on her son, the way he slows to whisper remarks to him—remarks that Rebecca cannot hear but can nevertheless imagine, by the snakelike twist of the boy’s mouth, his fists clenched as though he’s just delivered a physical blow.

Zion never responds.

On this day, however, the boy has apparently had enough of her son’s passivity.

Rebecca watches Will lean in to whisper something. She stands at the open entrance to the greenhouse, the doors open to allow a breeze through the stifling space. The boys are across the field, alone, the other children having already returned to the house for lunch. Zion turns and walks away. Will chases after him and shoves him, hard, in the back. Zion stumbles two or three steps but does not fall. He pauses, rights himself, and continues to walk away.

Will races out in front of him, and Rebecca remembers similar fights between Matt and Joe when they were boys. Joe—teeth and hands clenched, his entire body tensed like a fist ready to strike. She feels the blow Will delivers before Zion does. It is not a practiced swing like one Joe might have thrown, but it does the job. Zion falls backward and lands in the tall grass. Rebecca can just see his head as he shakes it slowly, clearing it of the pain. He does not rise, though Rebecca can hear the other boy shouting for him to do so.

There is a moment when she considers going to defend her son herself. Thinks of what it must have been like for Mary to watch her child take the lashes, unable to intervene. Like Mary, however, Rebecca knows it is not her place. She stands silent in the distance and watches, motionless.

Zion grunts as the larger boy attacks him, but it is the only sound she hears from him. A few seconds into the fight, there are footsteps behind her. She does not turn, sensing Isaac’s presence more than seeing it.

“He is being tested,” she whispers to Isaac.

When she looks at him, there is unmistakable fury in the Reverend’s eyes. “No,” Isaac whispers back, before leaving the greenhouse and running toward the boys. “He is being beaten, you fool.”

He reaches the two boys and pulls Will—struggling, grunting, pink and angry and futile—from Zion. Rebecca goes to them as Zion stands with some difficulty. He is bloodied, his left eye cut and already beginning to swell. She feels sick, dizzy. Confused. This is her role? To stand idly by and let her son pay with his own blood, for a destiny he did not choose? Was Mary a pacifist, or merely a victim?

At that evening’s service, Isaac orders Will to stand alone at the pulpit. The candlelight flickers over his features; Rebecca believes that she glimpses the demons living in his young soul. The boy’s mother, Cynthia, stands with averted eyes while Isaac circles her son.

“Cruelty is not a godly trait,” Isaac begins. “Violence is a vice borne of man. It is not God’s will that we inflict pain upon others, merely to lessen the pain within ourselves.”

He turns to Will, the boy now standing with arms slack at his side, face blank and eyes downcast. Zion stands beside Rebecca, his eyes also on the ground. He said nothing while she washed his cuts, tended his bruises. He says nothing still, as Isaac continues to circle.

“Son,” Isaac addresses the boy at the pulpit. “I know that you feel pain and shame for what you have done. But I believe that Satan has buried that pain so deeply beneath hatred and envy that you don’t understand the turmoil that resides in your soul.”

The congregation is silent. Will still stands with his eyes averted, the faintest tremor visible in hands that are now bruised from the earlier attack.

“But I believe the only way for you to truly reconcile the torment and hate that has seduced you is to confront it. Here and now.”

Isaac stands in front of the boy, his back to the congregation, completely obscuring the smaller figure before him. “It is time for you to kneel before this Church and beg forgiveness for the violence you have brought to this tranquil place.”

He puts a hand on the boy’s shoulder, pushing him down. There is no air, no sound, in the chapel. The boy resists. Isaac’s other hand goes to Will’s opposite shoulder, forcing him to his knees. Zion is watching now, his good eye open wide.

“Have you never heard, boy, that violence begets violence? When the Romans doled out lashes to Christ until his body was broken, did he strike back? Wish them ill?”

Isaac’s voice lifts, echoing in the too-warm room. He moves so that the congregation can see the kneeling boy, tears now running down the child’s pink cheeks.

“No, sir,” the boy replies, his voice barely a whisper in the stillness.

“And the passivity demonstrated by Zion this afternoon—do you believe that in his place, you would have the restraint—the courage—to lie still and silent in the face of such violence?”

There is a moment’s pause before the boy shakes his head. Isaac turns to the congregation, locking eyes with Zion.

“Son. Come here.”

Zion does as he is told, avoiding eye contact with his assailant.

“Would you take up arms against your oppressor?”

Zion does not hesitate. “No, sir.”

“But what about an eye for an eye, son?” Isaac’s voice is low, tempting; he is suddenly Lucifer promising the forbidden fruit. “You deserve to be safe in your own home, do you not?”

There is silence as Zion puzzles this out before he finally speaks. “My soul is what matters. My soul is safe.”

Rebecca sees the smile of admiration on the Reverend’s lips before he can hide it. He nods approvingly. “Yes. Your soul is indeed safe.”

The tears have dried on Will’s cheeks now. His eyes are hard, staring straight ahead, no longer paying heed to the faces fixed upon him.

“But what of
this
soul?” Isaac continues. Zion moves to return to his seat, but Isaac stops him with a hand on his shoulder. “This soul, my friends—do you not smell the decay that comes from this boy?”

Isaac takes Zion aside, whispering to him. Zion shakes his head—slowly at first, then with more vehemence. Pleading. The congregation looks on, silent, the air filled with the low tremor of blood. Rebecca remembers the Romans in Isaac’s paintings, and feels that she now understands their fire-filled eyes.

“Zion.” Isaac’s voice is firm, uncompromising, as he leads her son to the kneeling boy. “For the good of another’s soul, for the sake of this child’s redemption, I command it.”

Isaac presents Zion with a whip, long and black as a serpent, the end trailing to the floor.

The first blow Zion delivers is weak; there is a small slap as leather connects with flesh, and Will rocks slightly in his place before a sneer touches his lips.

“Again!” Isaac shouts.

The congregation is on their feet. Zion is weeping, the tears clean and bright, when he strikes the second time. Harder now. Will falls slightly to the left, his smile faltering before he rights himself.

“Do you fear the path of your soul, William?” Isaac’s voice tears through the chapel; Rebecca trembles at the sound.

The boy does not reply. Isaac says nothing, looking to Zion. Zion’s jaw tightens. He closes his eyes for a moment. When he opens them, his tears have dried. When he strikes this time, it is with all the strength in his small body. The whip cracks across pale, lean shoulder blades. Will falls. His fists clench, and he starts to rise. Isaac keeps him down with a hand on his shoulder, until the boy obediently kneels once more.

“Do you feel the rage, son? The hate? Do you feel Satan undermining Christ’s love, twisting your soul to tar?”

There is a madness in Will’s eyes, a hatred so pure its only equal could be love. Rebecca stands by and waits, whispering her son’s name, understanding now that Zion is the only one who can save this lost boy. She doesn’t flinch, and neither does Zion, when he delivers the next blow.

“You can do a reverse address search, right?”

I’d wiped my eyes half a dozen times, but I couldn’t get the tears to stop. I was shaking, seated on Hammond’s couch with his cats eyeing me warily. Juarez looked pretty wary himself.

“You’re sure it was your father?”

“I haven’t heard his voice in twenty years and I have every reason to believe he’s dead, so… No, Jack, I’m not sure it was him. But if it’s all the same to you, I’d still like to follow up.”

He didn’t ask any other questions. I listened as he made the request to an anonymous voice on the other end of the line, and we waited in silence until he motioned for the notepad and paper. He wrote down an address and a name, thanked the person on the other end of the line, and hung up.

“It’s registered to a Jane Bellows,” he said. “

1162 Highgate Lane. Olympia, Washington.”

“Jane Bellows.”

“Does the name mean anything to you?”

I shook my head. When I finally had my wits about me enough to move again, I gathered the scrapbooks and the notepad and headed for the door. Juarez cleared his throat, blocking my path with clear intent.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m taking these. I need to know what Hammond knows—he’s too far ahead in this, and I’m completely fucking lost.”

“Erin, I work for the government—I took an oath to uphold the law. I can’t just stand by while you steal someone’s stuff.”

“Seriously?” The look on his face made it clear that, yes, he was indeed serious. “You’ve gotta be kidding me. Imagine if this was you, okay? This is you, and you finally have a lead on your family and that whole thirteen-year blank slate you’ve been lugging around. It’s all locked away in these two volumes. You’re telling me you wouldn’t take them?”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m beginning to understand why Diggs is always saying you’re a pain in the ass.”

“I’m just focused. Dedicated.”

“Or obsessive and completely lacking in conscience.” He was smiling when he said it, but he still didn’t move out of my way. “I’m going back to the car. Leave things as you found them when we came in. If you don’t, of course,” he looked at me significantly, “I will have no way of knowing that.”

He squeezed my shoulder on the way out. I waited until he was out of sight, then tossed the two scrapbooks and the notepad with the Washington phone number into my bag. I turned off the lights, slid the door shut, and went to the car. I’d made no attempt to hide my presence from Hammond, and didn’t plan to. He would know exactly who had taken his research, which meant he would have no alternative but to return my calls.

And, finally, tell me what the hell was going on.

Hammond’s truck was in the parking lot at the town landing when we got there, his boat nowhere to be seen. I tried to keep an eye out on our way to Payson Isle, but between approaching nightfall and the lowlying fog, we might as well have been looking for a ghost ship. When we reached Payson Isle, though, it was clear that he—or
someone—
had been there. I’d expected the trail to my father’s cabin to be nearly impenetrable; instead, freshly broken branches and clear footprints marked the way.