“Yeah, when I was two. Can you please tell me what’s going on?” I try to rearrange my clothes, since the leggings I slept in have slid down and the T-shirt on top is bunched up. At least I put on a bra this morning or I’d never be able to make eye contact with Dylan again.
Aunty Bec chooses this moment to finally come out of the kitchen, a Band-Aid on one finger suggesting she was at least distracted enough by the uproar to burn herself on the stove, if not enough to actually stop making breakfast.
“What’s wrong?” she asks Dad.
“I’m going to get the police.”
“Should I come?”
“No, stay—Vinka needs you. I’ll take the kids.”
Dad doesn’t pick me up again (he really does look quite winded—is he even doing cardio at the gym?) but heads for the front door, clearly expecting Dylan and me to follow, which we do, still wearing the clothes we slept in. Shippy looks up from the cricket (probably a tea break).
“What’s up?”
“Gertie,” Dad says. “Don’t go upstairs.”
“Why not?”
Dad shouts something as he snatches keys off the table with one hand and his phone with the other. My feet are doing their best to trip me as I follow Dad out the door. I’ve barely buckled my seat belt before the car is speeding down the driveway. Nobody mentions calling an ambulance, which is normally a good sign but right now feels like a very bad one. When I twistaround to look at Dylan in the back seat, he’s not even reachingfor his own seat belt.
Uncharacteristically, I don’t ask any questions as we skid over the gravel. Dad already answered the biggest one I had when he shouted to Shippy.
“It’s a crime scene!” he yelled.
I’ve seen enough TV cop shows to know what that means.
5
GG is dead. Obviously. Youdon’t get screams and the police and Dad cosplaying a fireman unless someone is dead. The surprising thing about GG being dead isn’t so much that she’s dead—it’s been my experience that old people only have one trajectory—but the way that she died. I’m warning you now that it’s not great, but it’s also easier if I come out and say it, not talk around it like the police did when they interviewed me: GG was killed by being hit on the head with her improbably gigantic typewriter. Not the most obvious murder weapon, you might think, but right up there in the gruesome stakes.
By the time we’re back from the police station, an ambulance has taken GG’s body away and a detective has taken statements from all of the family. It doesn’t look like the crime scenes you see on TV, where cops are swarming everywhere, dusting for fingerprints and rummaging through drawers. There’s one sad bit of crime-scene tape across GG’s bedroom door, and that’s…kind of it?Underwhelmingis the word.
It’s a relief when the police leave in the afternoon so we can gather in the living room for cookies, tea, and wine for the adults. I don’t bother asking if I can have a sip or explaining to Dad, yet again, how things work in Europe. Last time I tried, he managed, through his laughter, to tell me to start with Italian lessons. Aunty Vinka’s the only one missing: She’s getting Nick from the hospital (or so she thinks).
“This is the last of it,” Shippy says, pouring a splash into Dad’s mostly empty wineglass.
“That didn’t last long.”
“There’s three of us drinking it,” Shippy says defensively, and Dad is distracted enough, or on his best behavior enough, not to look at Aunty Bec’s untouched glass. She’s perched on an armchair, ostensibly reading a book but really looking at Dylan, who is also allegedly reading a book on the far side of the same couch as me. His earphones are on, but no way is he not listening to the adults. Just like me. “Plus, none of us are driving tonight.”
“Or tomorrow,” says Dad.
“What do you mean?”
“The police are going to want to talk to us again, mate. Didn’t they ask you if you were sticking around?”
“Yeah, but—”
“I don’t think they’re going to be happy if we head back to Perth right away.”
“They’ve already interviewed us.”
“Come on, Shippy. We talked to that Officer Peterson—”
“Nicola’s a detective, actually. Nice lady. Do they still have minimum heights for the police?” Shippy asks.
“—for, what, half an hour? Forty-five minutes?”
