Page 90 of The Dysfunctional Family's Guide to Murder
“Don’t do anything. I’ll give them to you.” I push the two phones across the table to Sasha. What else can I do: karate-kick the gun out of Sasha’s hand? Throw the phone at his head and overpower him while he’s distracted? Dylan and I combined don’t weigh as much as this guy, and my deadliest weapon is my sarcasm. Sasha keeps the gun steady as he puts the phones into his pocket. The adrenaline that got me this far has burned out and my legs are spaghetti. Or is that relief that this is nearly over? I’m still the only one with a view of the front yard.
“The police,” I say.
“They can’t prove anything,” Sasha says.
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Then what?”
“They’re outside.”
How’s my timing on this? Sasha turns his head just as the front door busts inward and Detective Peterson stands silhouetted in the doorway. It’s straight out of an action movie and my legs immediately give way, which is convenient because I fall just as she shouts, “Police! Get on the floor!” I don’t see Sasha shoot but I hear the shot and see Detective Peterson fall backward.
I think I might be screaming as Sasha runs for the door, hurdling the body on the ground with more speed than you’d expect a big guy to have. I get to my knees and see Detective Peterson saying something into her radio, but everything is muffled. I do nothing but watch as the brake lights of Sasha’s truck come on and then he’s bumping toward the driveway, but I can’t bring myself to care all that much that he’s getting away because a Sasha at large still beats a Sasha with a gun in my face.
“Ruth, are you okay?” It’s Dylan’s voice. He’s on the floor next to me and I start to answer, but anything I manage to get out is lost to the sound of a tremendous crash outside. I look out the window and feel like I’m going to throw up.
Detective Peterson is back on her feet and her face is weirdly calm.
“Stay where you are!” she shouts as I stagger toward her, but she’s running too and in the same direction as me: toward the crash and the two cars, one of which is my dad’s.Dad, Dad, Dad. No, no, no.None of this is supposed to happen this way. I was supposed to get Sasha’s confession on the phone and go tothe police and he’d be put away and I’d be a hero and now Dad is in his car, which Sasha has smashed right intoand…
The door to Sasha’s truck creaks open before I’m halfway across the yard and he stumbles out, looking dazed but still on his feet, moving away from the car and toward the trees that line the driveway.
Dad is in the driver’s seat of his car, looking shocked. I can’t tell for sure whether that’s shock to see me, shock at Sasha’s flight into the trees, or shock from the crash. Maybe a little of all three. I don’t care much because he’s climbing out of the car, and that’s not a thing dead people do. I fall against him, not yet sobbing but wanting to.
“What the—” he says. “Is thatthe farmer?”
I shake my head, although he’s only half wrong. “He’s not a farmer” is all I can say, which must confuse him further.
Aunty Vinka climbs out of the back seat, rubbing her head just as Dylan arrives at my shoulder. She has a cut on her forehead but seems otherwise okay. “What was that?”
Detective Peterson appears beside her.
“Is everyone okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Aunty Vinka inadvertently smears blood across her cheek as she pushes her hair off her face, but she doesn’t seem to notice. She’s too busy looking at Detective Peterson. “We have the same eyes,” she says, sounding dreamy or mildly concussed.
“Uh-huh,” Detective Peterson says in a way all cops must learn in police school when dealing with unbalanced perps or witnesses. “I’ve called an ambulance, ma’am.”
But Dad is there too, and I’m sure he and I are looking atthe same thing: with Aunty Vinka’s hair swept off her face and the two women side by side, there’s a sudden, obvious physical similarity between my aunt and this policewoman. Detective Peterson is (just) taller than Aunty Vinka and she doesn’t jingle when she walks, but, beyond that, they have the same cool green eyes, the same shade of brown hair. They could be…they couldbe…
“Detective Peterson,” Dad says slowly. “Nicola, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Does anyone ever call you Nicky?”
Before Detective Peterson can answer a question that must sound, to her, like Dad has also suffered a serious head injury, Aunty Vinka remembers where she is and what’s just happened. “Nick?” she says, running around to the other side of the car, and I realize who must be in the front passenger seat.
“Stay here and wait for the ambulance. I’m going after the suspect,” Detective Peterson tells us, sprinting into the trees in the same direction as Sasha.
Nick is moaning but he’s conscious, which is something, and he doesn’t seem to be screaming in pain, which is even better. He looks a bit pale and unwashed, but it’s hard to say where hospital grime ends and car crash malaise begins. One leg is encased in a thick white cast from the foot to the knee.
“I hate to say it,” Nick says, closing his eyes with pain. “But I think I’ve broken my arm.”
“Course you have, mate,” Dad says, and he starts to laugh.
There’s a shout from the trees and we all turn to look, Dad’s arms tightening around me. I don’t know about the others, butI’m braced for a shot and wondering if I should have grabbed that bread knife from the kitchen after all.
