Page 76 of The Dysfunctional Family's Guide to Murder
“You’re paying me back for suggesting your mum was involved.”
“That’s not what I meant. Look, maybe we should just leave it to the cops. This whole son thing probably means we’re all off the hook anyway. The cops will find this guy and we’ll be in the clear.”
There’s another theory that’s been bouncing around in my head that I haven’t yet shared with Dylan, but I’m not sure if now is the time. It takes me a moment to decide whether Dylan and I really are a team, or if I’m going to treat him the way all fictional amateur sleuths treat their sidekicks and leave him in the dark until the last possible moment.
I go for option A, even if Sherlock would disapprove. “Has it occurred to you that Shippy is around the right age to be GG’s son?” I see right away that it has not.
“That’s crazy. We would know.”
“Would we?”
“Shippy’s been going out with my mum for years.”
“Maybe GG’s son’s been secretly out of prison for years.”
“Gertie would have recognized him, and why would they keep it a secret?” Dylan’s pissing me off a bit, making multiple good points today.
“What about Nick, then?”
“What about him? Why would you think he could be Gertie’s son?”
“I don’t, I’m just saying he’s the right age, and if we think GG’s son had a motive to kill her…”
Dylan shakes his head. “Nick’s one of the few people who couldn’t have done anything. He’s been in the hospital this whole time—he couldn’t be involved. Plus, not to be weird about it, but wasn’t Gertie’s husband white?”
“Okay, good point.” Another one?This guy.Still, my mind is full of scenarios in which Nick, faking his injuries, could have slipped out a window or through a back door, or Shippy, still assumed by GG to be in prison, has multiple facial surgeries so GG can no longer recognize him, then spends years getting closer to the family in order to…
“I don’t know—” But I never do get to hear one of the many things Dylan doesn’t know, because a burst of static and a beep from the car audio system make me jump. A voice is coming out of the speaker like a ghost in a Victorian horror story.
“…outrageous. How can you ask me that?” It takes me a beat to recognize Aunty Vinka’s voice coming through the car speakers. “Hello? Andy?” Out the car window, I see Dad with his phone pressed against his ear (surely a total safety hazard?) heading back to the car. His phone call has been picked up by the car system. It’s not the first time it’s happened, but it’s never been this…juicy? “You can’t just accuse me of, what, trying todrugGertie with her own medication?”
I watch Dad pull the phone away from his ear to glare at the screen. His lips are moving but I can’t hear a thing.
Then the driver’s door opens and Dad gets in, chucking abag of Licorice Allsorts onto my lap just as Aunty Vinka tries one more time. “Andy?” Dad’s face makes it obvious that he’s figured out what happened.
“Sorry, Vinka, I lost you for a second there. I’m in the car with the kids now, though.”
“Oh.” Aunty Vinka’s voice smooths out immediately. “Sorry. Hi, kids. We can talk about this later, Andy.”
“Sure,” Dad says, hanging up. “So,” he says to me, “how much of that did you hear?”
24
Things go to hell soonafter we get home.
You didn’t miss anything in the car. If you’re imagining for a moment that I’m fade-to-blacking over a heart-to-heart with Dad and Dylan in which we pool our suspicions and really bond over how messed up it is to speculate on whether your family members could be killers, you don’t know my dad.
He refuses to answer any questions about what he and Aunty Vinka were talking about. Dad’s official line is that I should be asking Aunty Vinka these questions, and then, when he finally gets pissed off with us, he says, “Gertie didn’t die of an overdose, kids,” in this really patronizing way, like the time I was ten and asked why he didn’t have an iPad when he was young. Maybe he doesn’t even realize that his choice of words has confirmed my suspicion.
When we get home, Dad makes a big show of calling everyone into the living room for a family meeting, and I’m pleasantly surprised when I (briefly) think it’s about the wholeVinka/drugs/tea thing. Instead he wants to discuss what they’re all going to tell the police. Comparing notes ahead of a police interview is, I’m fairly sure, exactly what the police do not want possible witnesses to/suspects in a murder/attempted murder to do, but this is one conversation Dad can’t exclude me from, so I sit down and wait for the revelations to start.
“I think we should tell the detective about Bec,” Dad says, in a voice that suggests he’s primed for someone to object. Bec and Shippy are sitting right next to him—grumpy but present—so this is kind of a ballsy thing to say.
But it’s not Bec or Shippy who reacts. It’s Dylan.
“You can’t do that.”
“Dylan,” Bec says. “It’s okay.”
