Page 38 of The Dysfunctional Family's Guide to Murder
“Is her lawyer in Perth?” I ask.
“Margaret River. I’ll go tomorrow and then I’ll call the cops and see if we can head back to Perth. You’ve missed enough school as it is.” (We’re not going anywhere, in case you’re wondering. This house is like that song about the hotel: You can never leave.)
“How much?” Shippy asks.
“I don’t know if we should be discussing this,” Aunty Vinka says, getting up to put on the kettle.
“Why not?”
“Isn’t it a bit gauche?”
“I don’t know what that means,” Shippy says.
“Course you don’t, mate,” says Dad. “But you don’t need to flap your hands either, Vinx. It’s not a secret. Potentially it’s worth about half a million dollars, but like I said…” Dad has to repeat his last three words to drown out Shippy’s four-letter word. “Like I said, it’s probably a moot point and we should all take a deep breath before Shippy starts sketching plans for a backyard pool.”
I look sideways at Dylan, who’s looking down at his plate, and I wonder if he’s thinking the same things I am. I’ve always known that Dad would inherit a slice of the farm. But it’s hard to get excited about inheriting part of a house that may or may not be sold or where you may or may not be forced to take all future family vacations until the end of time. Inheriting cash is so much more exciting. We could go on a trip to somewhere that isn’t a three-hour drive from Perth. I might be allowed to buy a new phone that isn’t just Dad’s old one.
“Do you want more?” It takes me a moment to realize Shippy’s talking about pasta, not money, and that at some point I finished everything in my bowl. I very much do not want more, but what I do want is a reason to stay at the table.
“Maybe abitmore.”
He blobs in a huge spoonful, looking pleased. Only when I look down at the mound of gray meat and slightly congealed pasta do I realize the depth of my mistake. Looking up the table to where Aunty Vinka is eating plain pasta laced with olive oil and pepper is one of the few occasions I’ve ever thoughtlongingly of veganism. Still, I sit there, listening to the grown-ups speculating about family law, a rare subject on which their knowledge is roughly comparable to my own (none of us has a clue), while also mentally sketching out every possible hiding spot in GG’s room where she might have concealed a box. Why she would do such a thing, I have no idea, but I can’t move on from the suspicion that the box is important and that, if I could just figure out what happened to it, I might know why GG died.
I’m right, but not for the reason I think.
13
After dinner we watch amovie: an old rom-com about a woman obsessed with weddings and improbably unlucky in love. It’s the only one of the DVDs everyone can (more or less) agree on, and it’s charming in bits—and the bits when it’s not provide welcome white noise for me to think. Dylan disappears to his room before the two romantic leads have even met each other, so I curl up next to Dad, pretending it’s only to get access to the family block of chocolate being passed around. Friday night was movie night when Mum and Dad were still together, but nobody got that in the divorce and I miss the feeling.
When the movie’s over and the two good-looking people on-screen have decided to be good-looking together permanently, I grab a book from the bookshelf—my cover story—and head to Dylan’s room.Roomis an oversell: It’s more like a walk-in closet off Aunty Bec and Shippy’s room, with a sliding door Grandad installed because there isn’t enough room fora normal door. Harry Potter would really feel like he’d come home.
Dylan takes a long time to answer the door. Areallylong time considering the room is only just big enough for a bed. There’s no space for a wardrobe or a chest of drawers—just a couple of shelves bracketed on the wall to hold a reading light and a stack of oldWomen’s Weeklymagazines. Dylan looks rumpled and suspicious when he finally slides the door open. I hold up the book, momentarily forgetting it’s only my cover story, and he frowns.
“What’s that for?”
“I’ve got a plan.”
“Of course. Come in, Detective.”
“If you’re going to be like that about it—”
“Come in.”Dylan stands back from the doorway and I sit, cross-legged, at the end of his bed because there’s really nowhere else unless you have the upper-body strength to hang from the light fixture like a bat, which I don’t. “So? What have you got?”
“The box.”
“The box?”
“The one I told you about.”
“You found it?”
“No. But I’m going to go look for it in GG’s room.”
“Now?”
“That’s the idea.”
Dylan looks less enthused than I’d hoped. It’s not that I thought he’d whip out a flashlight and magnifying glass, but I expected slightly more than a slow blink.
