Page 93 of The Dysfunctional Family's Guide to Murder
“I’m just saying. There’s a lot of prejudice against people who have been incarcerated. Not just Rob, I mean Martin, but Sasha, too.”
“Sashadidtry to murder a guy.” Dad looks at Detective Peterson. “Right?”
“It’s really too early to say,” she says automatically. Then: “If, as seems possible, Sasha arranged to meet Robert or agreed to meet him with the intention of hitting him with his car, we could go for a murder charge, although how much of this we’ll be able to prove, I don’t know.” There’s a moment where maybe she remembers that Dad’s a journalist and that she’s being pretty loose-lipped in the moment. “This is all off the record, by the way,” she says, looking right at him.
“Oh!” Dylan, who’s been letting me have the spotlight here, stands up, then sits right back down again. Maybe his legs, like mine, are still feeling a bit wobbly, even with a hot chocolate and cookie in him. “Rob’s phone!” he says, looking at me. “Sasha took it after you told him it had proof that Sasha and Rob had arranged to meet the night that he died.”
“After you told himwhat?” Dad almost shouts at me, and Dylan mouthssorry.
“I was bluffing,” I add, quickly and a little lamely. “But Sasha believed me and he really wanted that phone, so there’s probably something incriminating on it.”
“Sasha had this phone on him?” Detective Peterson asks.
“He should have.”
“Ruth, we’re going to need you to come into the station to make a full statement about this. You too, Dylan.”
“Oh!” I say. “Dylan’sphone.” Belatedly I realize that this is one more thing I really should have mentioned before now. And if you’re rolling your eyes at me, why don’t you try confronting an attempted murderer, witnessing a car accident, and possibly locating a long-lost aunt in a half-hour time period and see how sharp you’re feeling at the end of it?
“We were filming the whole time with Sasha, when we asked him about GG and Rob/Martin and all of that.”
I look up at the kitchen counter but the phone is gone.How?This house straight-upisthe Bermuda Triangle for phones.
“What?”That’s Dad.
“It was Ruth’s idea,” Dylan says, and I can’t tell if he’s trying to avoid getting into trouble or trying to help me out. He pulls the phone out of his pocket and hands it over to the detective. “I grabbed it when you ran outside,” he says to me.
“Sasha didn’t know about this one,” I add.
“Right.” Detective Peterson doesn’t look as pleased with this development as I feel she should be. Gushy invitations to join the police force to put my detective skills to use may prove thinner on the ground than I’d like.
“Just to clarify: Are thereany more phonesI should be aware of that containcrucial video evidence?” She has the kind of voice that could make me confess to crimes I didn’t commit.
“I don’t think so.”
“Michaels,” she says to the hot-chocolate-making policeman,who is brewing up a second batch and looks annoyed at being distracted just as he’s sprinkling in some cinnamon. “Bag this phone as evidence and radio the hospital. See how many phones were found on Sasha when he was taken in. If there weren’t two on him—no, three; he’d have one of his own—grab some gloves and check the truck.”
Michaels (presumably) nods and turns off the stove, but he doesn’t look pleased about it. (Neither am I: Cinnamon in hot chocolate, who’d have thought it?)
“Let me clarify what happened,” Detective Peterson says. “You filmed the suspect without him knowing it, even though you believed he had tried to kill a man, in order to confront him about that attack? That was seriously dangerous, kids. This isn’t an episode ofScooby Doo.”
“What’sScooby Doo?” Dylan asks.
Detective Peterson meets Dad’s eyes. “Kids don’t get a real education these days,” Dad says.
She nods. “All my daughter wants to watch is kids unwrapping presents on YouTube.” Then she snaps back to being a cop and gives Dylan and me a look that would have told me she’s a mum, even if she hadn’t mentioned it. “You’re both very lucky things worked out the way they did.”
Dylan and I look at each other, ostensibly contrite, but I suspect he’s thinking the same thing behind that façade of apology: that, whatever the grown-ups feel about it, we did something pretty awesome. While I’m watching, the corner of Dylan’s mouth twitches up, and I know I’m right.
“We didn’t know he had a gun,” Dylan says.
The police radio on the kitchen table buzzes, and Detective Peterson snatches it up, stepping away from the table to talk into it.
“You got pretty deep into this detective stuff,” Dad says, tipping his untouched hot chocolate into my empty mug. It’s lukewarm but still pretty good, so I’ll forgive him for (deliberately or not) stopping me from eavesdropping on the police-radio call.
“Sorry.”
“I wish I’d realized how serious you were. Maybe I could have helped.”
