Page 56 of The Dysfunctional Family's Guide to Murder
“Where didyouget the letter?”
“None of your business. Hand it over.”
“It’s not addressed to you.”
“It’s not addressed to you, either.” He has a point.
“You took it from GG’s room.” That’s the sentence that means I can no longer pretend this is an innocent mix-up or a chance encounter. But, really, Shippy’s heart-attack face does not give the impression of a man who is willing to give me the benefit of the doubt. The fact that he’s here at all suggests he came back on purpose because he was worried about what I might be up to.
“What do you mean?”
“You took it from GG’s room.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“I was there.”
“No, you weren’t.” An admission, not that he notices.
“I was under the bed.” It’s not really possible to say this without sounding like a creep or a weirdo, but I refuse to feel guilty about what was ninety-five percent an innocent coincidence. He takes a few beats to digest this, looking like he’s trying to decide whether to deny it and go defensive or get even angrier.
“You were spying on us?” Option B, then.
“Not on purpose.”
“Are you seriously going to make me take the letter offyou?” he asks, and his red cheeks are a little more purple than they were before. A spontaneous heart attack still seems like too much to hope for.
“I guess so,” I say, trying to sound as tough as John Wayne when he’s just come across the baddies, even though I have neither a gun nor a horse to carry me away. (Those old Westerns may be kind of problematic, but they’re good at teaching people how to pretend to be brave.)
Shippy takes another step into the room. “Give me the bloody letter, Ruth.”
Language,I think but do not say.
I take a step back like a good dance partner might, conscious that I’m getting closer to the wall. If I can get out of this room and out of the house, I think I can outrun Shippy. But there’s anifin that sentence.
Also, if I do run—fleereally is the word—I will have set something in motion that can’t be stopped. If I run and if Shippy catches me…what then?
“What happened to GG?” I ask, stalling. My brain decides now is the perfect opportunity to remind me that Shippy was the only one out of the house long enough to have taken GG’s jewelry to Perth. The moment Sasha told us about that jewelry should have been the giveaway: Shippy could easily have made up the whole story about the flat tire and driven to Perth and back. Okay, maybe noteasily,but he could have done it. Then there’s Rob’s “accident.” Again, too late, it seems obvious that, if anyone tried to kill Rob, Shippy would have to be the prime suspect. HeinvitedRob here in the first place, and if Robsomehow had a suspicion about GG’s death, then Shippy—the guy who helped him out by offering him a place to sleep—is the only one of us who might warrant a conversation first instead of going straight to the cops. Maybe Aunty Bec wasn’t with him the whole time they were out of the house, like I assumed. If she stopped off at the shops or to get a coffee, it would have been so easy for Shippy and Rob to leave the beach together, for Shippy to come up with a reason for Rob to get out of the car, for Shippy to turn the car around, and…
“What are you talking about?” My mind has been freewheeling to such an extent I can barely remember what I asked Shippy. Luckily, he’s quick to remind me. “I don’t know anything more about Gertie’s death than you do.”
This might still be okay,I tell my heart in an effort to slow it down. This isn’t yet unsalvageable. I take another step back, even though Shippy hasn’t moved. I’m standing beside the bed, and I wonder if I’m fast enough to spring onto the mattress, roll across it, and get up and out the door before Shippy makes it across the room. Unlikely.
“So, what about this letter?” I wave it, still mostly just playing for time, while the part of my brain that isn’t frozen with fear comes up with a better plan.
“Give me that.”
“Or what?” I ask the question before I realize just how much I don’t want to hear the answer.
“Or I’ll give you—” he starts to say, but stops when we both hear the same thing: the sound of the front door opening and muffled voices—voices!—from the other room. Abandoningall pretense that, hey, this is just a comical misunderstanding we can definitely joke about later, I shout“Daaaaaaaad!”as loudly as I can, which is pretty loud. My throat hurts when I’m done.
My dad is not, as I think I’ve made clear, a heroic sort. He’s more about cracking gags and making snide comments than he is about running into burning buildings. He got robbed on the street once and cheerfully handed over his wallet and phone to the guy robbing him because, as he told me later, who wants to get stabbed over an iPhone 7 with a cracked screen? But when I see him running down the hallway toward me a beat later, he looks as badass as Tom Cruise ever has in any of those dumb movies where he zip-lines off a building or rides his motorbike off a mountain.
“Dad,” I say again.
Shippy’s vibe changes when Dad makes it to the doorway. Like a window blind has been snapped into place, his regular expression of relaxed indifference is back on, and, while I can still see the rage now that I know what I’m looking for, he looks, more or less, like the Shippy I’ve always known.
“Ruthie? What’s wrong?” Dad pushes past Shippy and comes over to where I’m standing, back flat against the wall, although I wasn’t aware of taking that last step. There are more footsteps from the other room, and Aunty Vinka and Dylan appear in the doorway too. Finally I feel myself relax enough to sit down on the bed and open the hand crushed around the letter. (My nails have left half-moon creases on my hand.) “What happened?” Dad asks me; when I just shake my head, he repeats the question to Shippy in a totally different tone of voicethat tells me his mind has gone to the obvious Bad Touching place.
