“If you don’t mind,” GG says, and Dad looks immediately panicked. My snort is too loud, because he looks at me, either hurt or pretending to be.
“I think you’re forgetting the summer I fixed the wiring for the downstairs lights,” he says. What Irememberfrom that summer is Dad getting first stuck and then zapped after attempting to get at the wiring by jamming himself into a crawl space under the wooden floorboards, which Grandad inexplicably built for Oompa Loompa proportions, but it doesn’t seem polite to say so.
“Maybe later,” GG says, letting him off the hook. “The boy next door can always take a look. He’s handy.”
“Do you want to come downstairs with us, Gertie?” Dad asks. “It’s probably time for some lunch.”
GG shakes her head, and Dad is out the door before she can find another DIY job for him to balls up. I start to follow him, but GG stops me. “Ruthie, can you do me a favor?”
“Can I get you a cup of tea or something?” Slowly I’m turning into every other woman in this family: offering tea just to avoid silence.
“No, I’m fine. I was just hoping you could get something down for me?” She points toward the wardrobe: a massively wide wooden thing that outlived Grandad and will probably see us all off, if only because nobody can figure out how to carry it down the stairs. “There’s a box,” she says. “Could youreach it for me? I’m just in the middle of a tricky bit.” She raises the knitting in case I need proof.
“Sure.”
The box is on top of the wardrobe, next to GG’s old typewriter (which is the approximate size of a small car) and an old-fashioned suitcase. It’s cardboard, with a fitted lid, and big enough to fit a bowling ball. (I really hope it doesn’t contain a bowling ball.) Someone, presumably GG, has writtenfor Mon the side with a red marker.
“Where do you want it?”
“On the bed, please.” It’s lighter than I expected, but the reaching and twisting required to get it down still make me wince. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” I rub at my shoulder, embarrassed she’s asking me if I’m okay and not the other way around. “I tweaked my shoulder at tennis the other day.”Wrenchedwould be more accurate. “Do you need anything else?”
GG hesitates, but then she shakes her head. “I’ll ask your father if I do.” I’m not going to argue with that.
Downstairs, I head for the bookcase to grab an Agatha Christie or a Sherlock Holmes, undecided which pompous windbag of a detective I’m in the mood for. I’ve finished the book I brought with me for what was supposed to be a weekend visit, and I’m in the mood for a comfort read. Reading, eating, and going to the beach are really all there is to do down here, and I’m not a big beach person.
Dylan walks past as I drop into the couch. He looks at the book covers.
“You’ve graduated from Enola?” Dylan and I spent onesummer vacation here so obsessed with the Enola Holmes novels that we decided we were going to set up our own detective agency. Unfortunately, our first and last case, the Mystery of the Broken Window, was solved in under two minutes when we found a dead crow on the washing machine, and by the time the next summer came around, Dylan had moved on.
“Enola holds up,” I say, and Dylan nods as he walks away.
I openThe Murder of Roger Ackroyd,thinking not of Sherlock or Enola or even Dylan, but instead wondering about the box in GG’s room and whoMmight be. I’ll find out eventually, but it’ll take a while.
3
Am I taking too longto get to the murder? I might be taking too long to get to the murder. But without this helpful scene-setting you’d have missed the clues about who did it. Did you notice them? There’ll be others.
For now, let’s jump ahead to dinner and I’ll try to be quick.
Dinner is what we’re told is chicken casserole, and because it’s from GG’s freezer, I’m not supposed to criticize. It’s one of those sticky nights where a thunderstorm threatens, so we’re all a bit sweaty, and Dad keeps opening the windows to get a breeze through, then shutting them when someone complains about the mosquitoes.
Aunty Bec tries to make small talk with GG about the casserole—it’s delicious! When does she find the time?—but GG puts an end to that by insisting she didn’t make it. So far as she’s concerned, it appeared in the freezer one day (information, by the way, she shares only after it’s been defrosted, cooked, and partially consumed). I try not to think about thelikelihood that it’s been here since Grandad died a year and a half ago—a death in the family being the conventional time for people to turn up with foil-wrapped casserole dishes. If it’s been here sinceGrandmadied eight years ago, we’re definitely done for, so best not to contemplate it.
“Does Mrs.Whatsit still own the place next door?” Dad asks, poking his fork into something unidentifiable and brown.
“She died. There’s a young bloke there now.”
“Ah, that’s right, you said—the phone guru,” Dad says.
Dylan, who hasn’t touched his meal, appears with a stack of buttered toast and slides a piece onto my plate.
“In case you’d rather not die of salmonella,” he whispers, and I’m grateful enough to not even mention that you don’t get salmonella from food being in the freezer too long.
As the last of the casserole is being choked down (Aunty Bec) or scraped discreetly into the bin (me), Aunty Vinka arrives home in a taxi.
“Nick’s fine,” she says, before anyone can ask.
