All the Blue-Eyed Angels Read Online Free PDF Page A

should do it now. If I can’t even get in the house without losing it, what are the chances I’ll be able to spend all day every day putting the pieces together out here?”
    I whistled for Einstein, who’d decided it was a great time to tour the grounds. We were at the top of the island. In the valley below, I could just make out the remains of the burned-out Payson Church. That would have to come later, though—for now, I focused on the massive old boarding house that I had once called home. I had to start somewhere.
    The original boarding house was a simple three-story saltbox design, with a one-story ell that members of the Church had added on the north side. The windows were boarded with sheets of weathered plywood, and the white house paint had long since peeled away, leaving bare clapboards gone gray with age.
    Before we set foot inside, Diggs and I teamed up to remove the plywood from the downstairs windows. He photographed the perimeter. I tossed a stick for Einstein. Eventually, we ran out of reasons not to go inside.
    I fished the key the lawyer had presented to me three months earlier from my backpack and went to the side of the ell, leading the way to the kitchen entrance. The granite step leading up was split down the center from too many seasons of extremes, slick with moss and rain. I stood to the side and jammed the key in the old, rusted lock, jiggling it back and forth until it finally clicked.
    I glanced at Diggs before I stepped past the threshold. “You want to go first?”
    “I could.” There wasn’t a lot of confidence behind that statement.
    “Forget it. Just be prepared to get out of the way if any hobgoblins jump out at us.”
    “If any hobgoblins jump out at us, you won’t have to worry about me getting out of the way. Trust me.”
    I gave him a shaky smile, wet my lips, and gave the thick, oak door a final push.
    I’d never spent much time in the kitchen as a kid, too busy in the garden with my father. Now, almost twenty-five years later, I remembered little about this part of the house. Despite having removed plywood from the large window over the kitchen sink, dirt and dust ensured that little light made its way through. Diggs and I stood in the entryway squinting as our eyes adjusted to the dim room. Faded linoleum flooring had curled up at the edges, the vintage 1970s pattern obscured by layers of grime.
    “Brady Bunch meets Amityville Horror,” Diggs said. “Nice.”
    “Payson redid the kitchen in ’76, when he first started the church,” I told him, recalling another of the litany of random facts I’d learned about the Paysons over the years. “What you’re seeing was haute couture during the Carter administration.”
    We were whispering. Einstein had taken off yet again, but I could hear him barking in the distance—which meant in all likelihood he was tormenting the island squirrels. I kept the door open for him to come and go as he pleased and walked deeper into the kitchen. There were rodent droppings and a fossilized mouse in the double sink, and the sideboard looked like it could crawl away of its own free will. I moved on, past the kitchen and through a narrow corridor with a steep staircase off to one side.
    The cold settled somewhere deeper than my bones, but the chill I felt had nothing to do with the weather. I stood at the grand arch that opened into the Payson meeting room. This was where it all began, and two and a half decades hadn’t done much to brighten the bizarre living area at the heart of the Payson boarding home.
    A shaft of light cut through the dirt on two picture windows, a door centered between them. I snapped a couple of pictures, and then Diggs went over to pry one of the windows open and get some air flowing. Six picnic tables dominated the expansive room, placed in pairs end to end. An antique hutch against one wall had fallen victim to dry rot, its shelves buckled and its contents—mismatched dishes of all shape and size—scattered on