He shrugged again, then picked a rock up off the ground and threw it high above the pond. I watched it plummet through the hard autumn air and then make a tiny splash in the center of the pond.

“So, no,” he said, “I didn’t kill my sister, Mr. Kenzie. I simply failed to keep adequate watch on her.” He placed his hands back in his pockets and leaned back on his heels, gave me another flash of that pained smile.

“But they blamed you,” I said, and looked back across the lawn to the porch where Christopher and Carrie Dawe sat with their afternoon tea and sections of the Sunday paper. “Didn’t they, Wesley?”

He pursed his lips, nodded at his shoes. “Oh, sure. Sure.”

He turned to his right and we began to walk slowly along the pond in the midafternoon glow of a late October Sunday. His steps seemed uncertain, and then I realized it was more an awkwardness in the roll of his right hip. I looked at his shoes, saw that the sole of the right was two inches thicker than that of the left, and I remembered Christopher Dawe telling us Wesley had been born with one leg shorter than the other.

“Bet it didn’t feel good,” I said.

“What’s that?”

“Being blamed for your baby stepsister’s death when you hadn’t truly been responsible for it.”

He kept his head down, but a wry smile curled up his weak lips. “You have an odd gift for understating the obvious, Mr. Kenzie.”

“We all need our talents, Wes.”

“When I was thirteen,” he said, “I vomited up a pint of blood. A pint. Nothing wrong with me. It was simply ‘nerves.’ At fifteen, I had a peptic ulcer. When I was eighteen, I was diagnosed with manic depression and low-grade schizophrenia. It embarrassed my father. Humiliated him. He was sure if he just toughened me up—tortured me enough with his mental games and constant put-downs—I’d one day wake up made of firmer stuff.” He chuckled softly. “Fathers. Did you have a positive relationship with yours?”

“Not by a long shot, Wesley.”

“Forced you to live up to his expectations, maybe? Called you ‘useless’ so many times you started to believe it?”

“He held me down and burned me with an iron.”

Wesley stopped in the trees, looked at me. “You’re serious?”

I nodded. “He also hospitalized me twice and reminded me on a weekly basis that I’d never amount to shit. He was as close to evil as I’ve ever come, Wesley.”

“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.”