Chapter 30 #3
There’s a bit more back-and-forth about who said and did what. Dylan and I do most of the talking, tripping over each other. At some point Michaels reappears with news that three phones were found on Sasha and have been taken as evidence. Detective Peterson stands up, closing her notepad.
“It’s been a big morning and I should head back to the station. Ruth, Dylan, you both look exhausted. Maybe we’d better have you in tomorrow for an official statement instead of today.”
(At the risk of confusing the timeline, it’s worth noting that what Detective Peterson also learned on that radio call, but doesn’t tell us right away, is that Sasha has died.
She already knows there’s not going to be a big trial, just a sad little inquest that Dad, Aunty Vinka, Bec, Dylan, and I will attend, so a lot of the urgency has drained out of this whole thing.)
Dad doesn’t look thrilled. “We were hoping to head back to Perth.”
“Really?”
“Detective, no offense, but we’ve been trying to get out of this town all week.”
“Nick’s back in the hospital,” I point out.
“If we wait for Nick to stop injuring himself, I’m going to die in this farmhouse.”
“We really do need the kids to come in, in person,” Detective Pearson says in a way that it almost sounds like she’s asking a question, although she definitely is not.
“Okay, but we are leaving first thing after we’ve been into the police station tomorrow, then,” Dad says, way louder than I think he means to.
“You need to go to school. I need to keep my job. I also need Wi-Fi, my coffee machine, and I really, really need some clean boxers.” Nobody responds to that last one because: ew.
Also, there’s a washing machine here that Dad could have been using, so that one is kind of on him.
Dad and Aunty Vinka walk out with the cops and Dylan and I trail behind. I’m carrying the last two gingersnaps. It’s only lunchtime, but I’m shattered, held together by sugar and whatever adrenaline leaves behind when it goes away.
“Detective Peterson, can I ask you a personal question?” Dad asks.
“You can ask.”
“Are you adopted?”
It can’t be what she’s expecting, but Detective Peterson must have an amazing poker game because, from what I can see of it, her face doesn’t change. “How did you know that?”
“It’s a long story.”
I know why Dad asks and I assume you do too, unless you’re seriously not paying attention.
Sure, it’s a pretty long shot that this Detective Nicola Peterson could be the half sibling “Nicky” who was adopted out, but also, well, here she is with the right name, the right eyes, and living in the same town where Dad and Aunty Vinka grew up.
Personally, I’m already gaming out what it would be like to have an actual cop in the family.
She could be the cop source-on-the-inside every amateur detective needs…
assuming she’s both unprofessional and reckless enough to let a kid get involved in proper criminal detection, which seems pretty unlikely. Still, it’s a start.
I look at Dylan to see if he’s listening and he raises both eyebrows. I raise one back, just to piss him off.
“Stop for a sec,” he whispers, and I do reluctantly, wanting to eavesdrop on the rest of the conversation.
“Didn’t you hear what they were saying? Dad thinks the detective could be Grandad’s love child.”
“I’m going to wait for the DNA test on that one,” Dylan says. “I’ve been burned before.”
“You have a point.”
“We need to do something, quickly, while your dad and Vinka are out here. Please?”
There’s an urgency in his voice that stops me from asking logical questions like Why? What for? and Haven’t we just solved the whole case like a pair of child geniuses? Instead I follow him inside and back to the kitchen table, where Bec and Shippy are still sitting.
“…completely different to Bitcoin,” Shippy is saying. They look up.
“There’s something I want to ask you, Mum,” Dylan says before Bec can speak or Shippy can elaborate on what Bitcoin-adjacent scam he’s about to lose money on.
We sit opposite the adults and I keep my expression neutral, wishing there’d been time for any kind of background briefing so I could adjust my face accordingly.
“You can ask me anything,” Bec says.
“Will you tell me the truth?”
“What is it?”
“Just answer: Will you tell me the truth?”
Shippy gives me a what’s all this about look that I ignore. Mostly because I have no idea what all this is, in fact, about.
“I’ll tell you the truth.”
“Did you smash the window and put the ladder against the house the night Gertie died?” Dylan asks.
This is…not what I was expecting. If Dylan had asked me, real quick, to jot down a list of my top ten ideas of what this was about, that wouldn’t have made the cut. It’s not what Bec was expecting either, if the southerly location of her jaw is any indication.
“What?”
“Just tell me. Did you do it?”
Shippy licks the tip of one finger and runs it through a line of gingersnap crumbs on the table. “Don’t be ridiculous, Dylan.”
But Bec doesn’t look like Dylan is being ridiculous. “Why would you ask me that?”
“Just tell me the truth, Mum.” For a guy who usually operates somewhere between a two out of ten and a four out of ten on the intensity scale (one being comatose), Dylan has jumped all the way up to nine, and it’s freaking his mum out as much as it is me.
Plus, what is he talking about? Did he miss the whole confrontation scene with Sasha, who, sure, denied breaking the window and setting up the ladder, but also confirmed himself to be a straight-up psychopath who cannot be believed?
“Yes,” Bec says, but quietly. “How did you know?”
Dylan looks at me, presumably to make sure I’m paying attention, as if something more interesting than this bizarre eleventh-hour confession (to what, exactly?) might have distracted me.
“I didn’t know,” he says. “But you had a cut on your hand the morning after Gertie died.” I look at Bec’s hand and see a faint red line across one finger in the spot where I’d noticed a Band-Aid covering what I’d assumed was a burn from the stove.
She immediately covers one hand with the other, as though this isn’t a bolting-the-barn-door/horse-on-the-loose situation.
“I heard you get up early the morning Gertie died, but you never said anything about it. Plus, Sasha said it wasn’t him, and why would he lie about that, of all things?
The window was unlocked and open, so the only reason it could possibly have been smashed was to make the police believe someone outside the house killed Gertie.
It never really made sense that Sasha would bother trying to divert suspicion from people in the house. ”
Um, rude? It made sense to me when I accused Sasha. Sometimes criminals have dumb plans.
“What’s this about, Bec?” Shippy asks.
“I did it, but that’s all I did,” Bec says quickly, her eyes on the front door.
Through the window I can see a couple of police officers photographing the crashed cars.
Dad, Aunty Vinka, and Detective Peterson are in conversation.
“It was so stupid.” She puts her hand on top of Dylan’s and he doesn’t immediately pull it away.
“What happened?” he asks.
“I woke up really early,” she says. “Nobody else was up. Gertie was an early riser as well, and so I went upstairs to see if she wanted anything. I wanted to talk to her too. You might not believe this, Dylan, but I wasn’t sure if keeping up the lie about me being part of the family was the best idea.
” She’s looking at her son but getting nothing in return.
“I found her on the floor. I thought she had been killed. There was no sign of a break-in or a forced entry. I thought…I didn’t know.
The last conversation we had, she basically confirmed I’d get a lot of money when she died. ”
Nobody says anything because yikes. I can only think of one reason why Bec might have done such a reckless, fairly stupid thing.
“You thought Shippy had done it for the money?” Dylan asks.
“You thought I killed Gertie?” Shippy, it appears, has finally caught up.
“I wasn’t thinking straight,” Bec says, now turning to Shippy. “I’d just told you that I was in Gertie’s will and then she died. You’d been out of bed that night and you took a shower before you came to bed.”
“To get rid of the smell of smoke.”
“I know that now. After I found Gertie, I went outside for a walk, just to clear my head—I was probably in shock, but I was planning to hike across the field to call the police. Then, when I walked around the house and saw the ladder right there, I thought, well, I thought I could make it look like someone came in from the outside. I smashed the window with a rock for the same reason. It was an insane thing to do, obviously.”
“Right.” Shippy looks into her eyes, which are big and pleading and, gosh, she really does manage to look so pretty, even in a crisis.
I’m sort of bummed, just for the moment, that we’re not related so there’s no chance I’ll age like her.
“You were trying to protect me.” (Is it just me or does Shippy seem… flattered?)
The front door opens, and Dad and Aunty Vinka come in.
“…chakra,” Aunty Vinka is saying. “I felt it from the start.”
“Vinka, you’re so full of it,” Dad says. “Let’s save it for the DNA test. No online tests either. I want to talk to someone wearing a white lab coat.” He pats me on the head. “What a day. Ruth, how are you?”
“I’m okay.” I’m seriously not okay. I’m trying to process this latest development that (a) Bec thought that Shippy might have murdered GG, (b) she tried to cover it up to protect him, and (c) he seems cool with it? And (d) Dylan figured it out without me.
Dylan looks across the table at me and I try to decode the message in his eyes. Is he asking me not to tell Dad what his mum did? Is he telling me I can if I want to? Is he just, like me, utterly exhausted and trying not to face-plant into the dregs of the hot chocolate and drown?
“I think I’m going to lie down,” I say.
Dylan catches me on the stairs. “Thanks,” he says.
“For what?”
“Not saying anything to your dad.”
“The cops might still figure it out.”
“Maybe.”
“Do you think Sasha will survive that snakebite?”
Dylan shrugs. “Is it bad that I don’t really care? You solved it—our part in this is over.”
“We solved it.”
“Sherlock never gives Watson any credit.”
“So, you admit you’re the Watson in this relationship?”
“I’ve always been the Watson.” Dylan gives me a sideways smile as we reach the landing outside my bedroom. “About the Lisa thing,” he says.
I put my hands over my face. “I’m too tired to talk about this. I just want to go to bed.” I listen back to what I’ve just said. “To sleep! Alone!”
“Ruth!” Dylan sounds like he’s laughing, but I’m not moving my hands to find out. “It’s okay. Go sleep. We can talk about this later. If you want to.”
A pause. “I want to. Later.”
“Good.” I’m not sure exactly what I’m agreeing to.
More hand-holding? Kissing? A define-the-relationship conversation?
It all feels only marginally less intense than solving a not-quite-murder mystery and helping to bring an attempted murderer to justice but also a perfectly acceptable task to put off to another day.
In my room I ignore the creepy figurines (I’ve faced so much worse) and crawl into my bed, closing my eyes. When I wake up it’s evening and my eyes feel gritty with sleep. Dad has woken me with news: Dinner is ready, Rob is out of the ICU, and Nick has broken not one but both of his arms.