“My God.”
“I didn’t drive my sister to her death to get back at him, though.”
“What?” He threw his head back, chuckled. “Come on now.”
“Here’s what I think happened.” I snapped a twig off the branch in front of me, tapped it against my outer thigh as we walked along the tip of the pond, then started back down the other side. “I think your father blamed you for Naomi’s death and you-some poor fucking basket case back then, I’m guessing-you were this close to cracking up when you stumbled on the medical records, discovered Naomi had been switched for another child. And for the first time in your life, you had a way to play payback with your father.”
He nodded. He glanced down at his right hand, at the small nub of flesh that was all that remained of his index finger, and then he dropped the hand by his side. “Guilty as charged. But you’ve known that for months. I don’t see how you-”
“I think ten years ago?” I said. “You were just a sad, fucked-up freak with a medicine cabinet full of pills and a scrambled, genius brain. And you came up with this easy ploy to get a good allowance out of Daddy, and for a while that was good enough. But then Pearse came along.”
He gave me that studious nod of his, half contemplative, half contemptous. “Maybe. And I fell under his-”
“Bullshit. He fell under your spell, Wes. You were behind this the whole time,” I said. “Behind Pearse, behind Diane Bourne, behind Karen’s death-”
“Whoa, whoa. Hold up.” He held out his hands.
“You killed Siobhan. It had to be you. Pearse was accounted for and neither of the women in that house could have lifted her.”
“Siobhan?” He shook his head. “Siobhan who?”
“You knew we’d come into that house sooner or later. That’s why you drew us in with the five hundred grand. I always thought it was a small amount. I mean, why should Pearse settle? But he did. Because you told him to. Because sooner or later, when it all got messy and difficult, you realized the only thing better than getting the money you felt you were the proper heir to would be becoming the proper heir again. You reinvented yourself, Wes, as the victim.”
His confused smile widened and he stopped at the edge of the pond, glanced over at the back porch. “I really don’t know where you get your ideas, Mr. Kenzie. They’re quite fanciful.”
“When we came in that room, the electrical tape was at your feet, Wesley. That means someone had either been about to bind your feet and forgot, which I find unlikely, or you-you, Wesley-heard us come through the door, popped the racquetball in your mouth, considered binding your feet, but then figured you might not have time and went for the rope on one wrist instead. Only one of your wrists was bound, Wesley. And why? Because a man can’t tie both his wrists to opposite arms of a chair.”
He studied our reflections in the pond. “Are you done?”
“Pearse said I couldn’t see the whole chessboard, and he was right. I’m slow on the uptake sometimes. But I see it all now, Wesley, and it was you pulling strings from the get-go.”
He tossed a pebble at my reflection, turned my face into ripples.
“Ah,” he said, “you make it sound so Machiavellian. Things are rarely that way.”
“What way?”
“Smooth.” He tossed another pebble in the pond. “Let me tell you a story. A fairy tale, if you will.” He scooped up a handful of small stones and began to throw them, one by one, out into the center of the pond. “A bad king of haunted lineage and barren heart lived in his palace with his trophy queen and imperfect son and imperfect stepdaughter. It was a cold place. But then-oh then , Mr. Kenzie-the king and his trophy queen had a third child. And she was a rare creature. A beauty. Stolen, actually, from a peasant family, but otherwise without flaws. The king, the queen, the older princess, even the weak prince-my God, they all loved that child. And for a few brief, spectacular years, that kingdom glowed . And love filled every room. Sins were forgotten, weaknesses overlooked, anger buried. It was golden.” His voice trailed off and he stared out over the pond and eventually shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Then, on a walk with the prince-who loved her, who adored her-the baby princess followed a sprite into a dragon’s lair. And she died. And the prince, at first, blamed himself, though it was clear there was truly little he could have done. But that didn’t stop the king! Oh, no. He blamed the prince. So did the queen. They tortured the prince with their silences, days of it, followed by sudden malevolent glances. They blamed him. It was plain. And who did the prince have to turn to in his grief? Why, his stepsister, of course. But she…she…rebuffed him. She blamed him. Oh, she didn’t say so, but in her blissfully ignorant way-neither condemning nor forgiving-she drove a stake far deeper than the king or queen had. The princess, you see, had balls to attend, galas. She wrapped herself in ignorance and fantasy to block out her sister’s death, and in doing so, blocked out the prince and left him alone, crippled by his loss, his guilt, by the physical shortcoming that kept him from reaching the dragon’s lair quickly enough.”
“Gee,” I said, “tough story, but I hate costume dramas.”
He ignored me. “The prince wandered in exile a long time, at the end of which his secret lover, a shaman in his father’s court, introduced him to a band of rebels who wished to topple the king. Their plans were flawed. The prince knew this. But he went along while his fragile psyche began to heal. He made contingency plans. Many, many contingency plans.” He threw the last of his stones into the water, looked up at me as he bent for more. “And the prince grew strong, Mr. Kenzie. He grew very strong.”
“Strong enough to cut off his own finger?”
Wesley smiled. “It’s a fairy tale, Mr. Kenzie. Don’t get weighed down with specifics.”
“How will the prince feel when someone strong cuts off his head, Wesley?”
“I’m home now,” he said. “Back where I belong. I’ve matured. I’m with my loving father and loving stepmother. I’m happy. Are you happy, Patrick?”
I said nothing.
“I hope so. Hold on to that happiness. It’s rare. It can break any time. Were you to run about making wild accusations you couldn’t prove, it could affect your happiness. You’d get wiped out in court by a few good attorneys with acute knowledge of slander laws.”