Alien in the House

down all the time,” Vance said. “Why kill people over something like that?”
    Jeff straightened up. “I need to see a list of the dead representatives.”
    “It’s upstairs,” Raj said. “I’ll get it.” He zipped off and was back quickly. He handed a sheet to Jeff.
    “What is it?” I asked, speaking for the whole room based on everyone’s confused expressions.
    “When Ed and I were working after brunch, I told him about what we’d found, the anti-alien lines in the bills. He said he was already planning to fight them. And that Wendell had been planning to help him. He meant Wendell Holmes. Who died in the hospital from pneumonia right before our party.”
    Chuckie went and looked at the list along with Jeff. “There are only a few staunchly pro-alien supporters on this list. And a few staunch anti-alien supporters, too. Both definitely cross party lines and the pro and anti factions tend to be nonpartisan.”
    “Ed said that as long as he was around to sway the undecided voters, none of these would pass,” Jeff said. “And now he’s not around. Wendell Holmes isn’t around. Some others aren’t around. And we have two dozen new reps getting sworn in two days from now and voting on these bills in just over a week from now.”
    “I’m still not seeing the point,” Mom said. “And we need to see the point of all these murders in order to stop whatever’s going on.”
    “The Mastermind moves in murky ways.” Hey, it was all I had at the moment.
    Len cleared his throat. “I think we’re forgetting something. And that’s what Olga wanted us to focus on—Eugene Montgomery. We’re not sure if she wanted us focused on his incompetence in killing the wrong target or something else, by the way.”
    “Wait . . . no one say anything for a minute.” It was there, right there. The answer was simple—it was us who were making it complex. “Eugene was supposed to kill Edmund Brewer, right?”
    “Can I speak?” Tim said. “Because if I can, the answer is ‘right.’”
    “Okay . . . let’s ask ourselves this question: What would have happened if he’d succeeded?”
    “Well, Ed’s dead, so does it matter?” Jeff asked with more than a trace of bitterness.
    “Yes, it matters. What would we have done?”
    Chuckie closed his eyes. “I think the better question is, what would
you
have done, Kitty? You drove every reaction we had.”
    It was easy to extrapolate. “I wouldn’t have gone down to the bathroom with Edmund, Nathalie would have. And while she might have come for help, we would have reacted differently. Slower, maybe.” After all I hadn’t liked them all that much until after Reyes was killed. “And if Nathalie had reacted the same as she did today, which I’m sure she would have, we’d have been taking care of her.”
    Shoved aside the wish that I’d listened to Jeff months ago and had let the Brewers in sooner. Now I’d never have the chance to really get to know Brewer, any more than I would Reyes.
    “There’s no way anyone could have expected Eugene Montgomery to murder anyone at that party and get away,” Mom said. “Maybe Kitty would have been too busy handling Nathalie Brewer’s reaction to question Eugene. But I locked us down the moment we knew something was very wrong, and the police absolutely would have found what Charles and the dog found. It might have taken them
longer
, but they’d have found the incriminating evidence.”
    “So Eugene was supposed to be caught.”
    “Let’s say you’re on the right track with this,” Chuckie said. “Why?”
    “Because they wanted Edmund Brewer dead, not Santiago Reyes.”
    “Santiago wasn’t hiding that paper for no reason,” Mom reminded me.
    “Then let’s rephrase as they wanted Edmund Brewer publicly murdered by Eugene,” Amy said. “And they wanted Eugene caught for it. But why?”
    “Good question, Ames. Let’s go back to our very early theory from when Vance first tossed out the whole Serial Killer of Representatives idea. Somewhere along the line, someone was going to wake up and notice that all these people were dead. Because Eugene screwed up, we’re all really aware of it now. But let’s say he hadn’t screwed up. He kills Edmund. He’s caught. He tells the police about robots. They put him in a padded cell. Then they put the whole mistress thing together, in about an hour, tops, and Eugene’s on death row without a problem. No one’s going to believe him because no one will