“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.”