Revenge and the Wild(83)

“Not at all. Maybe the plaster shrank when it dried.”

It was possible, Westie thought, though she doubted it. “Yeah, maybe,” she said, and continued to poke around.

“Looks like they left in a hurry,” Alistair said, pointing to the open cabinets still full of the family’s personal effects.

“Let’s go see their rooms,” Westie said.

There were six rooms on the top floor of the house. They went to the master bedroom, which must have belonged to the married couple. Alistair was right. It did seem as though they’d been in a great hurry to leave. The bed hadn’t been made, and there were clothes strewn about. Alistair went into the closet while Westie checked a stack of shoe boxes in a corner. There were a lot of things tucked away in the boxes, but nothing personal, nothing that could teach her anything new about the Fairfields other than the fact that they lived like slobs.

Westie then squeezed into the closet with him to look. All the clothes were still in their tailoring bags. She opened one with a dress inside. Like their little prints, it seemed the Fairfields had little bodies as well.

She lifted a brow. “I don’t suppose their clothes shrank too when they dried.”

Alistair shrugged, looking at the dress. “It’s possible. Perhaps the tailor washed the clothes after making them, or maybe he just took the wrong measurements.”

“Or perhaps the dress wasn’t meant for Lavina at all. Look at the name on the bag,” Westie said, remembering the name from one of the articles she’d read.

“‘Harvey Mull’s Tailoring,’” Alistair read aloud. “Why does that name sound familiar?”

“Harvey Mull was one of the people who died seven years ago when he fell on his scissors, remember?”

“Right, of course.”

Westie’s mind began to spin. “There’s a stack of old newspapers next to the fireplace, so old they’ve practically turned into a block of wood. And the milk next to the door; the milkman dropped it off but never came back to pick it up, and you said it yourself, the place is in need of a maid.”

Alistair straightened, face opening up with comprehension. “All those people died around the same time. You think the Fairfields killed them—but why would they do that?”

A theory was slowly forming in Westie’s head. She talked slowly to keep from getting ahead of herself. “Seven years ago, seven years go,” she kept repeating as the pieces came together. “I don’t think the Fairfields we know are really the Fairfields at all. The people who killed my family—seven years ago—obviously made their way to Sacramento. They were murderers, no doubt looking for a fresh start.” Westie edged past Alistair out of the closet and began pacing the room. “The banker said the real Fairfields were hermits. Perhaps the family we know saw this as an opportunity. All they’d have to do was kill off the real Fairfields and a handful of people who knew them.”

“But how would the killers of your family know the Fairfields were hermits? And how would they know who the Fairfields knew and didn’t know?”

Westie looked up at the ceiling in thought. An ugly brown water stain stretched from one corner of the room to the other. “They wouldn’t. But the mayor would. Ben Chambers took Mayor Lovett’s seat after he died. Ben would’ve known about the Lovetts’ ailing son and their fortune, as well as the family of recluses who stood to inherit all of it.”

“All right then,” Alistair said, sitting on the bed. As soon as something moved beneath the covers he hopped back up, a screeching metal sound coming from his mask. When a little brown field mouse scurried out, he let out a long breath that whistled through the sound box. After gathering his nerves, he said, “How would a bunch of vagabonds know someone as important as Ben Chambers?”

“Will you stop that?” Westie said with a scowl.

Alistair chuckled. “These are questions Nigel will ask you when you go to him with this theory of yours.”

She sighed. “I know. I’m missing something, I’m just not sure what yet. The answers have to be in this house somewhere.”

Frustrated, Westie began digging through drawers.

Alistair leaned against the closet door. He looked as tired as she felt. “The Fairfields we know are crazy, not stupid. They won’t leave evidence of their crimes lying around for anyone to find, especially while they’re out of town.”

Westie’s hand hovered over a pair of knickers too small to fit Lavina, her thoughts spinning back to the day they’d broken into the Fairfields’ room at the inn and she’d found Olive’s box of souvenirs from murder victims under the bed. Westie also recollected the conversation with the little girl by the manzanita tree, when Olive had said that she kept trophies even though her mother told her not to.

“No,” Westie said, her voice rising, heart filling dangerously with hope. “Lavina and Hubbard wouldn’t keep evidence of their crimes, but I know who would. We’ve been searching the wrong room.”

“What are you talking about?”

Westie stood in front of Alistair, smiling so wide it felt like the corners of her mouth would split. “You’re a genius, Alley, a goddamned genius.” She grabbed him by the face, kissing his forehead.

He stood proudly. “Am I?”

Westie laughed. “Yes, you are!”