Page 50 of The Dysfunctional Family's Guide to Murder
“Rob didn’t know her,” Shippy says.
“How do you know?”
“He asked me about those.” Shippy points to the living-room photo wall. I’m there on the beach as a three-year-old, in my school uniform at eight, and as a tween in a family portrait taken for Dad’s birthday. Dad and Aunty Vinka are well represented, and there are a few photos of distant relatives I’ve never met whose names I could possibly recall with a gun to my head. Aunty Bec hasn’t made it onto the wall, and now, I suppose, nobody will bother. Grandma is there with six-year-old Dad on her knee, hung above a smaller photo of a young GG with her late husband and son, and a larger one of her that must have been taken in the last five years. “He would have said if he recognized Gertie.”
“What do you mean he was asking about them?” Dad asks.
“He was just, you know, asking who was who: I pointed out Gertie and he didn’t say anything. Why would he do that if he knew her?”
The still-unnamed policeman is writing this all down in his notepad. I have no idea what the various insignia on his uniform mean, but if he’s the one transcribing and Detective Peterson is asking the questions, she’s probably his boss.
When it seems like things are wrapping up, Dad says: “My daughter and I were planning to head back to Perth tonight. Is that still okay? She’s got school and I’m missing work.”
Detective Peterson looks at him thoughtfully. I wonder if she finds his desire to get out of town suspicious.
“I’ve got to get back for work too,” Aunty Bec adds.
“You can’t go back to Perth now,” Aunty Vinka says, sounding genuinely appalled. “Rob’s in the ICU. He might die. We’ll need to talk to his family.”
“Hey, at least Nick will have someone to talk to while he’s recuperating,” Dad says, unable to resist a gag even with the cops right there.
“He probably doesn’t even have a family,” Shippy says.
“What are you talking about? He might have parents who’ll want to talk to us.”
“I just met the guy. What am I going to say to them?”
Detective Peterson stands up and the policeman does the same. “It would be preferable for you to stay in town,” she says to Dad, “at least for another day. We’re also going to need to take a look at your cars. Is that going to be a problem? I assume that’s them out in the driveway?”
Dad, so tough when it comes to being cynical about power and authority when he’s working or trying to give me an unsought life lesson, crumbles in the face of this petite detective, with her too-sharp green eyes and biceps that suggest she could take him if it came to a fight.
“Whatever you need,” he says.
Everyone makes a big show of being polite as the cops ask a few more questions and agree on a time for the grown-ups to drop in to the station to make a formal statement tomorrow, although it’s obvious we’re all desperate to be alone to discuss What This Means.
“Well,” Dad says, flopping back onto the couch, with a view of the two cops and their flashlights as they start to examine his car. “This has turned into the least relaxing vacation of my life. Worse than that time we got Bali belly with Mum.”
I don’t particularly want to think about that trip, which was our last as a family before Mum and Dad sat me down to say that, while this had nothing to do with me, and they would always be my parents, blah blah, separate homes, blah blah, always love each other, blah blah, not your fault. Yes, wanting your parents to get back together is lamer than that Lindsay Lohan movie about wanting your parents to get back together, but they just never seemed that unhappy.
Instead of remembering the Balinese villa with our own pool, I think about how weird it is that, an hour ago, I was psyching myself up to expose Aunty Bec and Shippy as…something, and now I have no idea what to do with this extra plot twist of Rob’s near-death experience.
The grown-ups were all out of the house for at least some of the afternoon, meaning any one of them could have potentially detoured to run Rob down on the side of the road—assuming Aunty Vinka had access to a car we don’t know about, which I’ll concede is a bit of a stretch. But none of them have a reason to hurt Rob, not unless they’re nursing a secret backstory they’ve kept under wraps or—an unwanted thought intrudes—unless Rob knew something about GG’s death and his arrival at the farmhouse wasn’t a coincidence after all. Could Rob have come here to confront, even blackmail, someone in my family? If so, who?
I need my phone to write these theories down, but I still haven’t seen it since breakfast, which is no longer just bumming me out but officially freaking me out. I’ve searched my room, my bag, and the living room and checked every pocket of every item of clothing I have here. Worse, Dad refuses to be sympathetic, telling me I could do with reducing my screen time, like he isn’t attached to his own phone under normal circumstances. I miss its weight in my hand, even if it is essentially just a very expensive clock most of the time right now. My mind is a mess. I need more time to think things through, but I’m scared someone else is going to get hurt if I can’t work out what’s happening. I need an accomplice, even if the only person I can ask is the one person I shouldn’t.
I nudge Dylan with my elbow, and when he looks sideways, I nod toward the door.
Kitchen,I mouth.
18
“So,” Dylan says once thekettle is boiling loudly enough to muffle our conversation at least a little bit, if we squash together beside the fridge. “What the hell?”
“I know.”
“Are we agreed it can’t be a coincidence that someone tried to kill Rob?”
Give Dylan all the points for enthusiasm: He’s jumped right in, without either of us having to pretend we’re more concerned about Rob than intrigued by the mystery around him. I am not a psychopath (I mean, probably: Those internet tests did seem somewhat legit), but it’s hard to get that worked up about a guy I just met, whose only connection to me was a fledgling friendship with Shippy.
