Page 78 of The Dysfunctional Family's Guide to Murder
“Dylan, you can’t be serious. Just because your mum isdabbling in fraud doesn’t mean you have to leap into blackmail,” Dad snips.
“If the stuff about my mum is relevant, why not the stuff about Vinka?”
“It’s a fair question,” Bec says. “Maybe the medication made Gertie so drowsy she couldn’t call out for help or fight off her attacker.” She’s not looking at Aunty Vinka, so she doesn’t see her face collapse at this.
“I could smell your cigarettes,” Aunty Vinka says suddenly, ignoring the tear starting its kamikaze mission down one cheek. “When I took the tea up to her, the room smelled like cigarettes. That was you, I suppose, Bec, when you had your talk with her that night?”
“I already told you I was there,” Bec says coolly. “Unlike your own nocturnal pursuits, Vinka, it’s not a secret.”
“And did you smoke one of Shippy’s disgusting cigarettes?”
Bec’s face answers the question and Shippy smacks his thigh.
“You took one of my cigs?”
“It was a stressful conversation.”
“You quit ten years ago.”
“It was one cigarette! Anyway, sorry to affect your nasal passages or disturb your chakra with my nicotine, Vinka.”
“It’s not that,” Aunty Vinka says, and now both her cheeks are damp, but she’s otherwise holding it together pretty well. I’m not sure where to look. “You opened Gertie’s window—to let the smoke out, I assume.”
“So what?”
“When I went in there with the tea, I asked Gertie if I should close the window, in case there was rain, but she asked me to leave it open a crack, to get rid of the smell.”
“And you givemea hard time?” Shippy says, still on the cigarettes thing.
Bec ignores him. “Gertie didn’t die of secondhand smoke, Vinka.”
“Exactly.” Aunty Vinka smiles grimly, the effect of which is only slightly blunted by the tears dropping over her top lip. “She died because someone came in through the window.”
Bec frowns. She must understand what Aunty Vinka’s trying to say, but she looks more irritated than guilty.
“Because it was left open and unlocked,” Aunty Vinka says, for the slow ones in the class, “someone could get into the bedroom.”
Dad interrupts. “That doesn’t make sense. The window was smashed. Why would anyone smash a window if it was already open?”
Nobody has an answer to that, although I can think of one.
Aunty Vinka is properly crying now, and Dad pats her on the back distractedly.
“Chin up, Vinka. Unless you secretly offed Gertie, neither you nor Bec is any more to blame for her death than I am for the bloody typewriter.”
“Typewriter?” Bec asks.
“Gertie asked me to take that typewriter downstairs,” Dad says. “I got distracted and forgot, but if I’d done it…who knows.”
“It’s like sheknew,” Aunty Vinka says, and unfortunately forthose of us who would rather scrub toilets with a toothbrush than watch grown-ups cry (just me? It’s not like I’m going to use the toothbrush again, calm down), this makes her cry harder.
“So,” Shippy says. “Between Andy with the typewriter, Vinka with the drugs, and Bec with the window—sorry, babe—it feels like you all had a hand in finishing the old girl off.”
“Shippy,” Dad says, “do f—” He remembers my presence. “Forget it.”
“Does anyone want tea?” Aunty Vinka asks.
Do you want to know whatI’mthinking during this whole weird showdown? Quite a lot, is the short version. Do I believeAunty Vinka fatally drugged GG? Obviously not. But do I believe the cops might benefit from that information? I wouldn’t say this to Aunty Vinka’s face, but: absolutely. If reading, watching, and listening to (I love a good true-crime podcast) mystery stories has taught me anything, it’s that you never know for sure what details are relevant. A throwaway detail on page5 turns up in the final showdown and you wonder how you missed the importance of the car-seat covers being brown and not red. Laugh, if you want, but did you pick up the relevance of the clues on, say, pages 43 and 155? I wonder. (No, don’t look now: That’d be cheating.) I’m also thinking I need to start carrying pen and paper like an old-school detective: At least three times through this whole drawn-out conversation I reach for my phone to make notes, before remembering it’s still missing.
