“I dunno about that.”
Dad takes a sip of his wine. “Does that strike you as sufficient time to come to grips with a murder committed in the middle of nowhere with a house full of suspects?”
My eyes flick to Dylan, who’s watching Dad intently. (Those earphones are connected tonothing.)
Shippy still doesn’t get it. “What do you mean,suspects?”
“Come on, Shippy, you must have watchedMidsomer MurdersorBroadchurchat some point in the last twenty years?”
I wait for Shippy to fire back, but he just laughs, and the tension between him and Dad disappears like the wine.
“Do we need some more wine?” Shippy puts his empty wineglass down on the coffee table.
“Try the cellar—that’s where the good stuff is,” Dad offers. “Our dad used to stockpile brandy there, and there might even be a few bottles left, unless Gertie’s been hitting it hard. Actually, I’ll come with you.”
“There’s acellar?” Shippy frowns.
“Thewinecellar: It’s just that big cupboard in the hallway.”
“Can I have some?” Dylan asks, ostentatiously pulling off his earphones. (Impossible for my brain not to notice that, despite him not touching his phone, there’s no sound coming from the twin speakers now hanging from his neck.)
“Uh, no,” Dad says, giving him anice tryexpression.
“I’m sixteen this year.”
“Exactly.”
“Mum?”
Aunty Bec’s let Dylan have a drink at home before—he’stold me about it—but she shakes her head. “I’ll make some more tea. Ruth? Dylan?”
I nod, more to get her out of the room than because I’m dying for another cup of tea, especially if she’s going to use one of Aunty Vinka’s tea bags, which smell like flowers but taste like hot water that only met flowers at a party once.
“Hey,” I say, scooting closer to Dylan now that the adults are out of the room for at least as long as it’ll take the kettle to boil. “What did the police tell you?”
“Same as you, probably. Mostly they just wanted to know what we did last night and if I heard anything. Mum was there the whole time.”
“Do you know how she died?”
“Hit in the head, right?”
“Yeah,by her old typewriter.”
This is clearly new information to him. Dylan’s eyes don’t go wide or anything, because I’m really not sure that happens outside novels, but his nostrils sort of flare like he’s sucking in a lot of air. “Did the police tell you that?”
“Only because I saw it in her room and asked them about it. Dad wasn’t stoked.”
“Why would anyone kill someone with a typewriter?”
I wait a beat for courage, then ask the question I was too embarrassed to ask the cops. “Could she have done it herself?”
“Bludgeoned herself in the head?” Dylan gives me just the kind of look I was hoping to avoid from the cops. “I don’t see how. Mum told me someone broke in through the window.”
The ladder. I didn’t even think to ask the police about theladder I’d seen leaning up against GG’s window. Enola would be ashamed.
“Why would anyone break in? It’s not like she was rich.”
Dylan quirks his mouth. “She was kind of rich.”
