Page 11 of The Dysfunctional Family's Guide to Murder
“About everything.” Dad holds his arms open. “About what happened last night. About, you know,whodunit.”
“What?” Shippy’s head jerks up.
“Andy.”Aunty Vinka nods at me, and I get that feeling you get right before someone sends you out of the room. Luckily, Mum, who would definitely be telling me to go upstairs right now, isn’t here. (I knew that divorce would come in handy oneday.)
“Ruth’s already been interviewed by the police. She knows what they are investigating.” Everyone looks at me, like I’m supposed to say something.
“Yeah, I know GG was killed,” I say, trying to look like this doesn’t thrill me just a little. I’ve read a lot of murder mysteries (too many, a child psychologist might suggest) and I’ve seen stories about real-life murders in the news (my parents’ fault for making me watch the news with them every night), but the idea that GG has been murdered still doesn’t feel real. It can’t—otherwise, shouldn’t I be weeping in a ball right now? “There was a ladder outside the window,” I say. “That must be how they got in.”
“I think it was left out in the garden by the guy who fixed the roof last month,” Aunty Bec offers.
“It’s the typewriter that I don’t get,” Dylan says. “Why hit someone with atypewriter? How would you even be sure it would kill them? You’d have to use so much—”
This time Aunty Vinka actually pokes Dad, right in his side.“Andy,”she says, and I know Dylan has ruined this for me.
“Ruth, your loving aunt makes a fair point. Maybe thisisan adult conversation. Why don’t you go and have a shower before dinner or something?”
“I don’t need a shower.”
“Have a bath, then. There are some fancy bath-salt things in the cabinet.”
I don’t want to go because I know the adults are going to talk about GG and I’m going to miss everything. But if I stay, I’m pretty sure they’re not going to talk about GG at all. It’s all veryCatch-22(a book Dad bought me that I couldn’t finish, although, if he asks, I loved it).
“Is Dylan allowed to stay?”
“That’s up tohismum.”
Aunty Bec shrugs. Well, this is unbelievable.
“Fine.” I slide off the couch and take another cookie. “I’ll go.” I stomp down the hall to the bathroom, get the bath started, then (obviously) sneak back like I’m six again and trying to catch Santa on Christmas Eve. I know, Iknow,eavesdroppers only hear things they don’t want to hear, or however the saying goes, but this is a real-life murder mystery happening in my house, and if Dad thinks some fancy bath salts are going to distract me, he’s kidding himself. (Idolike fancy bath salts, though—he knew what he was doing there.) For once, luck is with me: Apparently, someone’s been redecorating, and the big standing lamp that usually lives in the corner of the hallway on the far side of the stairs has been moved closer to theopen kitchen door for no reason I can see. Under normal circumstances a lamp would offer bugger-all cover (exactly how skinny do you think I am?), but this is one of those boxy, full-length things, and if I crouch, there’s a chance it might hide me if someone decides to come and check on the bath situation.
“…not about fascism. It’s a murder investigation. It takes more than a couple of hours,” Dad is saying. Don’t ask me how they got onto fascism in the thirty seconds I’ve been gone.
“They should be out there, looking for the person who did it,” Shippy says, his words getting sloppy around the edges.
“As far as they’re concerned,weprobably did it.” Dad shuts everyone up with that.
“What do you mean? Someonebroke inthrough a window. There was a ladder,” Aunty Bec says.
“Right.” Dad puts a whole lot of weird mustard on that single word, hitting thetwith the enthusiasm of Mrs.Labouchere, my choir teacher.
“Why would they think we…anything to do with it?” Shippy asks, his voice muffled (smart money says he’s going back for another drink).
“Great point, Shippy. It’s not as though one of us could possibly have slipped out of the house in the night, propped up the ladder, hit Gertie over the head, and made it back to bed before morning, is it?” I can tell from Dad’s tone that he’s building to something, preparing to Make His Point. This is helpful for me because his voice is getting louder.
“I don’t think—”
“I’m sure the police think it’s far more likely that a strangerhappened upon this remote farmhouse and decided that, rather than break in at ground level, he was going to break into the window on the top floor for no obvious reason and with no obvious motive, just on the off chance there might be untold riches hidden under the bed.”
“Andy.”
“Given we’ll inherit now that Gertie’s dead, I’m sure the burglar theory is where the police are going to be focusing their investigation.”
“Are we allowed to be discussing this?” Aunty Vinka says.
But Aunty Bec is talking now. “Hypothetically, I suppose we did all have a motive, but why would any of us need to use a ladder and smash the window?”
“I wouldn’t worry, Bec. You had the least motive out of all of us.”
