“Westie Butler,” Lucy said with a hint of surprise in her singed voice.
Westie paused, cocking her head. “You know who I am?”
Lucy nodded, smoothing the blankets on her lap. “Amos talked about you after the ball. There aren’t many girls around here with metal arms.”
“No, I reckon not.” Westie sat on the unoccupied bed beside Lucy’s. So did Alistair.
Lucy said, “If you’re looking for Amos, he’s—” Her words were closed off by a choking sound. Tears trickled down her cheeks, following the lines around her mouth.
“We heard,” Westie said, chest tightening when she saw the woman’s sadness.
With a shaky breath, Lucy collected herself enough to speak again. “What can I help you with?”
Westie hesitated. Clearly the woman was in no shape to be talking, but what choice did she have?
“I wouldn’t be coming to you if the situation weren’t dire.” Westie paused, trying to come up with the right words, then just decided blunt and honest was the quickest way to the answers she needed. “I’d like to know why Amos was investigating the mayor.”
Lucy’s open expression shut down. She closed her mouth, leaned back against her pillow, looking out the window beside her bed. “I don’t know anything about that.”
Westie could tell by Lucy’s wavering jaw that the woman was lying. If someone had set Westie’s house on fire with her inside, she’d be afraid to speak too. But Westie wouldn’t let it go. She needed to know what Lucy knew.
“Do you know my father, Nigel?” Westie asked, brushing the hair out of her eyes. Lucy didn’t answer, or even look at her. “He’s a surgeon. Surgeons are like doctors; they take an oath not to talk about their patients without permission. I’m sure Amos was under similar regulations when it came to bank business.” Still no response from Lucy. “Anyway, that oath never stopped Nigel from coming home and wanting to vent after a long day at work. I’m his daughter, so of course he could trust me, just like I’m sure Amos trusted you. Some days I wished Nigel hadn’t trusted me so much. You wouldn’t believe some of the things folks needed to have surgically removed from—well, I’m sure you can imagine.”
Westie waited for Lucy to crack a smile, or at least relax, but her attempt at humor had failed.
“Look,” Westie said, lowering her voice and using her flesh hand to touch Lucy’s, “I know you’re scared. Believe me, I’m terrified too. When the mayor finds out I’m conducting an investigation of my own, he’ll come after me—and the people I love. That’s why I need to know what Amos had on him. I want to take that bastard down once and for all so he can’t hurt anyone else. None of us are safe until I do. Please, Lucy, I need your help.”
Lucy’s lips began to tremble. When she closed her eyes, a river of tears escaped. She nodded her head.
“Yes?” Westie sounded far too eager. Others in the beds nearby looked over at her.
Lucy made a shushing motion with her hand. She looked around, hesitating before saying, “Amos believed Ben Chambers was responsible for the airship explosion that killed our former mayor seven years ago.”
“Why would he do that?” Westie asked.
“To become mayor himself, of course. He was the president of the board of supervisors, the next in line in case the current mayor was unable to perform his duties. He has big political plans. First mayor, then governor, senator, and one day president. He might’ve succeeded by now had he been more likable. He will do anything for that kind of power.” She wiped the tears from her eyes and took a shallow breath that made her cough. “Amos had recently found an old receipt in the county budget for explosives signed out by Ben Chambers only a day before the airship crash. Ben was a property lawyer back then and attended demolitions, only there weren’t any demolitions planned, and the explosives were never returned.”
Westie picked at her lip as she listened to Lucy speak. If the mayor was willing to kill an entire airship of people to get to just one, he was more devious than she’d thought.
“But none of that matters now,” Lucy said. “All the evidence burned up in the fire.”
As soon as the last word left her mouth, Lucy began to cough, the kind of violent hacking that sounded like she might cough up her spine. Westie reached over, cranked the machine to start it up, and handed Lucy the copper tube. It made chugging sounds as it pulled the debris from her lungs. When the coughing stopped, Westie pulled the photo she’d found in the rubble out of her coat pocket.
“Do you recognize any of these people?” she asked.
Lucy nodded, pulling the tube from her mouth and touching the face of her late husband. Her lips eased into a soft smile. “I don’t know who that family is behind them, but that’s Amos shaking hands with James Lovett after he won the mayoralty for the third time in a row. That photo was taken for the newspaper. Amos kept it in a frame in his office.” Her smile fell. “That was just days before James Lovett and his wife were killed.”
Westie squeezed Lucy’s hand once more. “You’ve been a big help. I promise we’ll get the mayor. You won’t have to be afraid anymore.”
Lucy tugged at Westie’s hand when she tried to leave and looked deep into her eyes with a ferociousness that hadn’t been there before. “When you take the mayor down, you be sure to tell him I hope he rots in hell.”
Westie nodded. “You bet I will.”
As they walked away, Alistair said, “That’s a hefty promise to make.”
Westie looked up at him. “And one I intend to keep. Even if I have to kill the man myself.”
Thirty-Seven
Westie and Alistair left their horses under an awning out of the rain and walked against the wind into the center of town.
“Where are we going?” Alistair asked, the tail of his duster snapping in the wind behind him.
Westie put her head down, charging into the storm. “The library keeps records of old newspapers, right?” she said above the howling wind.
“I believe so.”
“That’s where we’re going. This picture was for the newspaper, and since we know James Lovett Senior was killed only a few days after, that gives me a date to look. The name of the family with the little girl holding the doll should be in that article. I need to know who they are and how Olive got that doll. If they’re still alive, perhaps they can tell us more about the Fairfields.”
Just as the clouds started spewing sideways rain, they slipped inside the library, their wet clothes dripping on the floor.
The Sacramento library was an empire of knowledge tucked into the most perfect, ornate building Westie had ever seen. It smelled dusty and old, but in a good way.
They found a shelf of scrapbooks of old newspapers, hundreds of them. There were four different books from the year she was looking for. Pulling them from the shelf, she plopped them down on the table, hearing people shush her from dark corners.
She cracked open one of them. Alistair took another. Reading made her eyes dry and her lids heavy. She yawned and scratched her head, fingers tangling in her dirty locks, wishing she were conducting her research from a tub full of hot water and freesia-scented bubbles instead.
“I think Sacramento may be cursed,” Westie said. “Listen to this.” She began reading the headline on the front page. “Tailor Harvey Mull died after falling on his own scissors. And this one: Milkman David Kinsey swallowed an entire chicken leg and choked.”
“I saw a couple of those too,” Alistair said. “A housemaid named Sugar Babineaux fell from the deck of an airship.” He flipped a page. “A paperboy named Maximilian MacPhee was mowed down by a runaway coach.”
“Jesus,” Westie said, “sounds like it’s safer to live in Rogue City. I’d rather take my chances with bandits and creatures.”
As Westie scrolled through the various stories, she came upon the article about the airship explosion that had killed James’s parents.
“Here’s the article about the airship explosion, but—” She turned back several pa
ges. “There’re stories missing, all the front pages of the news that happened the days leading to it.” Westie leaned back, rubbing her flesh hand across her face, vision blurred from reading. “Including the one that would’ve had the photo of the girl and her doll in it.”
“Well, this was a waste of time. What now?” Alistair asked, wiping his eyes.
Westie pressed her lips together, fighting the sense of defeat that made her want to get on her horse, ride back to Rogue City, and just give up.
“I reckon now we go to the Fairfield house, see what we can find.”
“This is insane—you know that, right?” Alistair said as they rode down a long, twisting path.
“Yes.”
Alistair rolled his eyes. “At least you’re aware.”
“Relax, Alley. The Fairfields are in Rogue City. No one will be there to catch us snooping.”
After they’d ridden a half mile on the narrow road, a house came into view. It had taken some nosing around to get the address, but finally, after Westie had convinced the postman she was a long-lost relative of the Fairfields, he gave in.
The house was in the country surrounded by unfarmed acreage, a modest colonial that might’ve been beautiful once. It was run-down now, the yard overgrown, crabgrass reaching through the cracks in the walkway. Two pillars held up a sagging porch like old sentries, their white paint peeling.
“This is it?” Alistair said. “I imagined a mansion and stables with exotic Arabian horses. I can’t imagine James living in filth like this.”
Westie didn’t think so either, but it was out of the way. Privacy seemed beneficial for a family of cannibals.
Westie left Henry to graze while she climbed the steps to the porch. Dozens of weathered doll heads looked up at her from the ground. She shivered, kicking one of the more morbid-looking ones away.
Alistair nudged a bottle of milk next to the front door with the toe of his boot. The goop inside barely moved. The door opened as soon as Westie touched it. She took a breath and walked across the threshold.
Leaves scattered across the wood floors, following them inside. The living space was expansive, with a fireplace big enough to fill it with warmth. There was a brick of wet newspaper beside it, the ink melted away long ago and the pages stuck together. Wind moaned as it funneled through the chimney, causing a draft.
Alistair ran a finger across a ceramic figurine of a faery, then wiped the dust on his trousers. “Looks like the maid took a day off.”
To Westie’s surprise, the Fairfields lived humbly. The furniture was handmade of roughly carved oak; the wallpaper was an outdated floral print that bubbled and folded in the corners. There were hooks on the walls, but all the pictures had been taken down. Only four circular plaster molds of handprints remained. Westie stepped up to get a closer look.
Below each hand was the name of the person it belonged to carved into the plaster.
Westie scowled at the molds. “Put your hand up to Hubbard’s print.”
Alistair studied the shapes a moment before pressing his hand to the mold, his fingers reaching the tips of Hubbard’s. “Does that look like the hand of Hubbard Fairfield?”
Westie thought back to the ball, the way Hubbard’s hand had swallowed up Nigel’s when Nigel had helped Hubbard to stand after Westie nearly crushed his fingers. Nigel was not a little man with little hands, but Hubbard had made it look that way.
“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 conve
rsation 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!”
“All a genius gets is a kiss on the head?” he said with a playful look that turned his eyes to slivers.
“If I find what I think I might, you’ll earn much more than a kiss.”
Alistair made a choking sound beneath his mask, his face flaring pink.
All Westie had to do was follow the trail of doll parts to find Olive’s room. Inside was a bed with a dirty pink canopy, a rocking horse, wicker furniture, and ruffles covering everything—
“The curtains,” Westie said, pulling the photo from her pocket.
She studied the crisscross pattern of the doll’s dress. It was a perfect match to the curtains.
A nagging feeling, a mix of hope and sorrow, shivered beneath her skin. “I think the people in this photo might be the real Fairfields. The doll’s dress was made from the same fabric as these curtains.”
Alistair did his own comparison, putting the picture right up to the curtains, his mask whirring. “I think you might be right.” Though she couldn’t tell by the sound his mask made, she saw excitement in his eyes.
As she brushed aside the clutter on the floor, Westie tried not to think about what might’ve happened to the little girl holding that doll. Alistair bent down to help.
“Yes!” Westie shouted, and began to laugh as she caught sight of the box beneath the bed. Even little girls had their habits.
She sat in front of the box a moment, just looking at it. It was painted pink with white stripes and the word TOYS in block letters. After a while she closed her eyes and prayed to the Wintu creator, the spirits, to Nigel’s god, and to anyone else who might’ve been listening, to please not let her fail.
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