Page 36 of The Dysfunctional Family's Guide to Murder
“No.”
“Because there’s absolutely nothing to worry about.”
“I know.”
I reallydon’tknow. If what Dad’s saying is true, it must have been his voice I heard talking to GG when I was on my way to the toilet. But his is the only voice I think I would have recognized, even at a whisper through a closed door. And if itwashim, what were they talking about like that?
“I know you love mysteries, and I love that about you, but this is real life, Ruth. It’s a lot more boring than a book. It can also be more dangerous, which is my way of saying that I don’t want you doing anything stupid.”
“Like what?”
“Like searching Gertie’s room for what I imagine you would call clues.”
“That’s not—”
“Somebody killed Gertie, honey. This isn’t a game or a story. You need to leave this to the cops.”
He waits for me to agree that he’s right, of course he’s right. I wait for him to stop treating me like I’ve only recently gotten the training wheels off my bike.
“I’d better get these sheets downstairs,” I say.
Dad goes back into GG’s bedroom. He’s very clearly up to something, but aren’t we all? I watch through the gap in the door as Dad bends over in front of the wardrobe, his body obscuring the secret drawer he is obviously sliding open. It can’t entirely obscure the flutter of the paper he pulls free.
I hurry down the stairs before he can catch me, wondering not just what Dad has found (and how I’m going to get a look at it) but what has happened to the box that GG was so keento see the night she died. Probably, if I was paying attention, I might have a pretty good idea about that already. Considering Dad was bang on when he accused me of looking for clues, you’d think I’d be slightly less hopeless when it came to spotting them. Still, I bet you haven’t figured it out yet either.
12
Dinner is weird. It’s notjust the food, although that is definitely a bit weird—a ground-beef-heavy pasta thing invented by Shippy, which, he repeatedly tells us, is easy to make. I believe him. It’s notterrible,just a bit odd: The texture of the meat is rubbery, and there’s a strange aftertaste that makes me refill my water glass twice. I don’t ask anyone how long the meat has been in GG’s freezer, because I don’t want to know.
What’s even weirder is how everyone’s acting. It starts when I get to the kitchen and the adults stop talking, like a scene from a Western. Nobody in the kitchen blows me away with a six-shooter, but there’s a long beat of silence before Aunty Bec asks me, loudly, to set the table. (It’s already set.) Dad, meanwhile, is leaning in to Aunty Vinka at one end of the table, talking intently and gesturing with his hands like he was born just south of Rome. While Shippy is doing the rounds, dolloping out huge servings of pasta almost against our collective will, Dad moves on to Aunty Bec. The whole thing couldn’t be more suspicious if Dad had regrown the unfortunate mustacheof the Pandemic Years. Nick’s still in the hospital, by the way (told you).
My chair scrapes as I drag it closer to Dylan, who is moving lumps around his plate with one hand and holding a book open with the other. He yelps when I elbow him in the ribs, but I think he’s faking it.
“What was that for?”
“The grown-ups are acting weird.” I say this as quietly as I can, but the adults are so busy talking to each other in suspiciously vigorous whispers that they probably wouldn’t notice if I screamed it across the table.
“Where haveyoubeen?”
“I think Dad took something from GG’s room.”
“What?”
“I have no idea. But remember I said there was a hidden drawer?”
“You said secret drawer.”
“Same thing and who cares. I think he took something outof it.”
“Did you ask him about it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
It’s a fair question, and the answer,because I think he’d lie,feels like a betrayal of Dad. Instead, I pivot.
“There’s something else.”
