Page 66 of The Dysfunctional Family's Guide to Murder
“We do not,” I say. Then I add: “Please?”
Sasha is wearing the same clothes as this morning, but he’s added an ugly sheepskin coat over the top of it.
“Thanks,” he says, accepting a glass of water from Aunty Vinka, who is sporting a bathrobe and wet hair. “I can’t stay long. I’ve just been struggling with something all day.”
“Long division,” Dad says, right into my ear so only I can hear it. I would laugh, but, as I keep telling Dad, nobody needs to know how to do long division anymore: That’s why we have calculators. (He tried to show me using paper and pen once and it was like watching someone experience a psychotic break in real time.)
“What is it?”
“There’s something I probably should have told you all about Gertie.”
I know what you’re thinking because it’s what I’m thinking too: Is Sasha about to confess to killing GG? Unfortunately not, although wouldn’t that be handy? For one thing, we’ve got a hundred or so pages to go here, so a murderer reveal would be a little premature. For another, Sasha’s demeanor is all wrong for a mea culpa: He’s a little apologetic, but not in asorry I murdered your relativekind of way. Finally, while I’ve been keen to suspect the mysterious neighbor from the start, it’s hard to see what he might gain from GG’s death, unless he secretly seduced her in order to get name-checked in the will. It’s a possibility, I guess, but ew, no.
“How much do you know about her condition?”
“Her illness, you mean?” Aunty Vinka asks.
“Yeah.”
“Not much. She had medicine.” Aunty Vinka waves one hand in the direction of the fridge, which, since Sasha can’t possibly have any idea what she’s flapping her wrist at, is probably more confusing than enlightening.
“It was serious,” Sasha says, and his tone matches the words. “She was very sick.”
“Oh.”
“I told her she should tell you, but you know what Gertie was like: She never liked to bother anyone.”
Dad and Aunty Vinka look at each other. I can see the wordseriously?in a speech bubble over their heads.
“Are you saying Gertie was dying?” Bec asks.
“I think so, yes,” Sasha says—apologetically, like GG’s not already dead and his words might finish her off.
“Did you tell the police about Gertie being ill?”
“The police didn’t really interview me.” (I’ll tell you right now, they should have.)
“What difference could it make?” Shippy asks. “Unless her illness involved a bad case of bashius brainius, Gertie didn’t exactly die of natural causes.”
“Shippy.”
“The police will find out when they do an autopsy anyway,” Dad says.
“Why would they do that?” Aunty Vinka asks. She sounds genuinely shocked.
“I think it’s pretty standard in cases of violent death. Although, in fairness, most of my medical knowledge comes fromCSIand Patricia Cornwell novels.”
“But it’s obvious how she died,” Aunty Vinka says. “Why would they do an autopsy?”
Bec either doesn’t hear Aunty Vinka or doesn’t care for her question because she asks another one, more loudly. “Do you know how long she had?”
“Gertie?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know.” Sasha looks down at his hands, which are big but look smoother than you’d expect from someone who presumably has to handle machinery and…till the field, or whatever it is farmers do now that they have automated tractors and drones. “The impression I had wasthat she was trying to tie up loose ends, get her affairs in order.”
We all sit with that for a bit, wondering how (and why) GG got through the weekend without telling us any of this. Nobody would have called GG an oversharer, but concealing a terminal condition is next-level undersharing.
