Page 92 of The Dysfunctional Family's Guide to Murder
“Where is the video?”Detective Peterson asks again, and even though she’s not talking all that loudly, somehow her voice shuts everyone else up.
“We gave the phone to Sasha,” I say.
“How did he know you had it?”
“We showed it to him.”
“Youwhat?” That’s Dad, catching up.
“He just turned up,” I say, which is not a super-solid defense. “I had the idea that we could, uh, you know, that he might give himself away about having tried to kill Rob.”
“Sasha tried to kill Rob?” Dad asks.
“Sorry, yeah, I should have said. Rob is GG’s son. His real name is Martin.” I thought I’d love this, but I’m already tired of telling this story, which I’ll spend months telling and retelling.
“What?” Detective Peterson says.
“Are you serious?” Dad chimes in.
“Dylan, were you involved in this too?” Aunty Vinka demands.
“I’m going to need you to explain, please.”
Since that last question comes from Detective Peterson, I decide that’s the one I’ll deal with first.
“Along with GG’s phone, we found a bunch of photos. Most of them are GG with Rob/Martin when he was really young, so we didn’t recognize him at first. But some show him when he’s older, before he went to prison, I guess, and it’s pretty obviously Rob, so we figured Rob must be Martin. That’s why Sasha tried to kill him.” The room is silent: Everyone is hooked, except Shippy, who, rather than meditating on this string of revelations and contemplating his own role in bringing about Rob’s potential untimely death, is reading a two-day-old racing guide from the paper.
“There’s other stuff too: The date of birth on Martin’s birth certificate was a week ago, and when we met Rob, he said the surfing trip was a birthday present to himself, so that lined up too.” I try to get this bit out modestly, but, seriously, I’m smug about having noticed this. Unfortunately, nobody else seems impressed. “Plus, Martin’s middle name was Robert, so, you know, once I saw that…”
“Ruth,”Dad says.
“I don’t know why Sasha wanted Martin’s birth certificate and stuff,” I say. “It’s not like it’s worth money.”
Detective Peterson nods. She’s the only one who seems to be taking this even slightly in stride, and if I could crack open her skull (which I wouldn’t, gross), I think I’d see the bits of this mystery clicking together. “It’s possible Sasha’s original plan was to assume Robert’s, which is to say Martin’s, identity.”
“But Sasha couldn’t have convinced GG that he was her long-lost son,” I say.
“No. It’s not plausible that Gertrude wouldn’t have recognized her own son. It’s just a tragedy that she never got to see Rob. He only missed her by a matter of days.”
This is basically the moment I’d hoped for, when Detective Peterson and I get to pool our theories, but I’m barely able to enjoy it because I’ve thought of something else.
“If that was his plan, it would only have worked if GG was dead,” I say, thinking aloud. “Did Sasha plan to kill GG and assume Martin’s identity to inherit?”
Detective Peterson doesn’t pat me on the head and urge me to enroll in the police force, but she doesn’t laugh, either. All she says is: “We don’t know what he was planning.”
I sit with that for a moment, wondering if Sasha had planned to kill GG and Rob/Martin all along. If we’d gone back to Perth as intended, and he’d bumped her off that night and Rob/Martin another time only to turn up later as Martin, GG’s long-lost, surprisingly alive son, would there be anyone to say otherwise? Or were we being too harsh on Sasha and he never had murder on his mind, just some light fraud and theft? The number ofquestions to be filed under Never to Be Known is really annoying for someone like me, whose preference is to have every loose end double-knotted into place.
“Sasha said he and GG were supposed to meet that evening at the house, but he got put off when he saw that we were all still here,” I say, remembering. “I think maybe GG got all the stuff out for that meeting but she didn’t have a phone to call and cancel.” I try to think back to that night and replay it in my head. Was GG waiting that whole evening for Sasha to rock up and trying to figure out what to tell the rest of us when he did? Could it be that she didn’t want to take her meds for fear they’d knock her out, or was she just being stubborn? “Did Rob come here to see his mother, or was he trying to track down Sasha?” I ask, probably pushing it, but, hey, I have basically solved a non-murder and a near murder today. The most surprising thing about this whole exchange is not so much that Detective Peterson seems willing to chat but that my dad is letting it happen.
“Given that we found this address on Robert, it seems likely that he came here to see his mother,” Detective Peterson says. “Matthew mentioned that Robert befriended him on the beach one day.” She nods at Shippy, which is good because I forgot his real name again. Matthew just doesn’t suit him; he’s got a Shippy face and there’s nothing to be done about it. “It seems possible that meeting was engineered to gain him entry to the house.”
“Why was Martin calling himself Rob?”
“He’s not in a position to talk yet,” Detective Peterson says. “He might have been going by his middle name simply to distance himself from his past.”
“It’s so hard for the formerly incarcerated outside jail, isn’t it?” Aunty Vinka puts in, and Dad gives her a look that’s only slightly more polite than the one on Detective Peterson’s face.
“Maybe not now, Vinx.”
