“I haven’t been reconsidering,” I said. “Have you?”
“Not for myself, but I thought maybe you had.”
I shook my head. “I’m having fun. I’ll admit I’m a little worried about being able to sell the house again, but not so much that I want to give up.”
“So we’re still partners?”
“Of course we’re still partners.” I tilted my head back and smiled up at him. He tilted his head down and kissed me. This state of affairs went on for a few minutes, and might have gone on longer if there hadn’t been a knock on the door.
“Saved by the bell,” Derek said, with a rueful look at me. I smoothed my hair.
“It’s just as well. This isn’t really the place, is it? You go see who it is. And wipe your mouth on the way. Lipstick, you know.”
Derek grinned, rubbing the back of his hand over his lips as he went. I ducked into the bathroom to inspect myself in the mirror and make sure I looked decent before I went to join him.
When Derek came back, he had Wayne with him. The chief of police looked particularly bland. “Sorry to interrupt,” he said, by which I deduced that I-or Derek-hadn’t done as good a job as I had hoped of hiding the evidence of our recent clinch.
“No problem. We were just… um…”
“Right,” Wayne said when I faltered on the description of exactly what we’d been doing. “I came to tell you about Ricky Swanson. Or Patrick Swanson. Formerly Patrick Murphy.”
“He admitted it?”
Wayne nodded. “No reason why he shouldn’t. Being Patrick Murphy isn’t a crime. Even hiding the fact that he’s Patrick Murphy isn’t a crime. He isn’t impersonating anyone. The Swanson name is legal; he took it when he was adopted by his aunt and uncle. His aunt Laurie, who he grew up with, is Peggy Murphy’s sister. Her married name is Swanson. And he’s registered at Barnham as Patrick Swanson; Ricky is just a nickname.”
“And being Patrick Murphy doesn’t mean that he’s guilty of anything at all.” I nodded. “Derek and I were just talking about it.”
“Oh, is that what you were doing?” Wayne said. Derek grinned. I blushed.
“Earlier. We were talking about it earlier.”
“Right. And you decided that just because he’s Patrick Murphy, it doesn’t mean squat.”
“Pretty much,” I admitted. “We did come up with a few possible scenarios, though.”
Wayne hooked his thumbs in his belt and rocked back on his heels while I went through the various combinations of events that Derek and I had come up with earlier.
“I’ll look into it,” he said when I was done, “but I doubt anything will come of it. I just don’t think he’s involved, Avery. Yes, he’s Patrick Murphy, and yes, the house belonged to him. Yes, he knew Holly, but there’s no reason to think he would have wanted to murder her. They were five the last time they met, and we have no proof that he ever came back here. Not until a couple of weeks ago, and by then she was long dead.”
“True.”
“Much simpler to assume that someone local killed and buried her. Someone who knew Holly and knew that the house was empty. And then that same person killed Venetia Rudolph when she realized what had happened. It’s so much easier that way.”
“Occam’s razor,” Derek nodded. I glanced at him.
“Pardon me?”
“Occam’s razor. Lex parsimoniae. The law of parsimony. Or, in common parlance, the simplest solution is often best. And right.”
“Fine.” I shrugged. “Have it your way. Ricky Swanson is Patrick Murphy, but he didn’t have anything to do with Holly’s death or Venetia ’s murder. He just came back to Waterfield because…?”
“He was curious,” Wayne said. “His mother went to Barnham, and so did his grandfather, and he wanted to face his demons and see the house again before selling it. Or so he said. I’ll make some inquiries, see if he was in Pittsburgh four years ago for his own high school graduation, but I don’t think this’ll come to anything. Sorry, Avery, but…”
He was poised to continue, but had to take a break when his cell phone rang. “Scuse me. Rasmussen here. Yeah, Ramona…”
“That reminds me,” I said to Derek, “remember a couple of months ago, when we got pulled over for doing that U-turn on Main Street, and you said you hoped it was Officer Estrada-Ramona Estrada-because you’d be able to talk yourself out of the ticket?”
He grinned. “You’ve realized that Ramona Estrada is older than my stepmother and happily married, haven’t you?”
“And not an officer, either. She’s the police secretary, you jerk.”
The grin widened. “Were you worried?”
“Not at all,” I said robustly.
Derek chuckled, but before he could answer, Wayne severed the connection with Ramona Estrada and turned back to us. His face was expressionless. “Have to go, I’m afraid. Ramona just took an anonymous tip I have to check out.”
“You’re kidding,” I said, interested. “What?”
“Someone called to say we’ll find Holly White’s missing bag of clothing in a house in the Village.”
“That sounds like good news,” Derek said. “Might be a break in the case?”
But Wayne shook his head, his face gloomy.
“Why not?” I asked. And then, “It’s not Aunt Inga’s house, is it?”
“Phoebe Thomas’s house,” Wayne said. He added, after a beat, “ Brandon ’s mother.”
And with that bombshell he walked out, leaving us speechless and gaping at each other.
Thirty minutes later we were sitting outside a house in the Village watching Wayne greet Phoebe Thomas.
The house was another Queen Anne Victorian, but less ornately built than Kate’s B and B, which boasted two different turrets-one with an onion dome, one with a square mansard roof-a wraparound porch, a bay window, and gables in every imaginable direction. The Thomas house was much simpler: just a square, two-story box with a porch across the front and a steeply pitched gable up top.
“ Eastlake,” Derek said.
“Excuse me?”
“Charles Eastlake. British architect and furniture designer. The Eastlake style is named after him.”
“I knew that,” I said.
Derek glanced over at me. “Uh-huh.”
“No, I did. Really. Mandatory architecture classes in design school. I’ve heard of Charles Eastlake. Also called stick style, right?”
He grinned. “Right.”
I smiled. “See? I told you.”
“You did. So what do you think is going on over there, O smart one?” He indicated the porch of the stick, or Eastlake, Victorian, where Wayne was still speaking earnestly to Phoebe Thomas. She was a tall woman, approximately the same age as him-mid to late forties-with the fair hair that her son had inherited. But where Brandon was strapping and sturdy, with rosy cheeks and bright eyes, Phoebe looked thin and pale. She was hugging both arms around herself, and silver strands were mingling with the light of her hair. Her face was pinched and drawn. Not that I could blame her for that under the circumstances, although I suspected that the anonymous tip hadn’t been the cause; this was something deeper.
“Is she sick?” I asked. Derek nodded.
“Multiple sclerosis. Symptoms started to manifest four or five years ago.”
“Around the time Brandon graduated from high school.”
“A little before, I think. Her husband decided to make himself scarce, and no one has seen him since. He’s living somewhere in Connecticut with a new wife.”
“What a peach,” I said. “That explains why Brandon joined the police force instead of going to law school. He wanted to stick around in case his mother needed him, and he probably needed to make a living, if she couldn’t.”
Derek nodded. “How did you know that he wanted to go to law school? Did he tell you?”