Then
I have to wait until early evening to get Aunty Sam alone.
When I do, she’s weeding the lacklustre vegetable patch.
Aunty Sam gets gung-ho about growing her own vegetables every few years, assembling pyramids of potting mix, buying punnets of seedlings and even erecting the kind of wooden signs you might see in a Peter Rabbit book, shortly before Mr McGregor tries to turn him into bunny pie.
Unfortunately, these bursts of enthusiasm, which usually coincide with the end of a relationship, tend to peter out before the vegetables are harvested.
(I’ve thrown a lot of rotting pumpkins into the compost and it never gets fun.)
‘Heidi, do you want to help me plant some carrots?’ she asks.
I do not, as it happens, want to help her plant some carrots. But because I very much want a chance to talk to her, I say that nothing would please me more. We clear an area of the vegetable patch, uprooting dead tomato plants and pulling out an improbable acreage of mint.
‘I was going to save that for some Pimm’s,’ Aunty Sam says, as I throw the mint into the composting bin.
‘Can I ask you something?’ I say as I wrestle carrot seedlings out of their plastic homes.
‘Sure.’
‘The night that Felix died, what were you doing at his house?’
Aunty Sam huffs, but I’m not sure if she’s annoyed by the question (likely) or struggling with the carrot seedlings like I am (also possible).
‘I’ve already told you I wasn’t there.’ When I don’t say anything, she asks, ‘Why are you asking me this again?’
‘There’s a little ding of red paint on your car bumper,’ I say. ‘It’s the same colour as the gate outside Felix and Elena’s place.’ This is a lie. Obviously. It’s such an entry-level lie I’m sure Aunty Sam won’t buy it for a second.
But Aunty Sam’s face flushes. ‘Is there?’
‘Yep.’
A long pause.
‘It could have got there at any time,’ she says.
No kidding. That’s only part of the reason why it’s such a bad lie.
But Aunty Sam was too slow with that excuse, and she knows it.
I wait patiently as I plant my seedlings.
It’s satisfying work – I’m not saying I see a future in gardening, but there’s something soothing about the repetitive action and the optimism of assuming you’ll be around to collect the results.
‘What’s this about, Heidi?’ Aunty Sam says. ‘I thought you and Patrick decided to drop this silly obsession of yours.’
‘It’s not silly,’ I say. ‘I think someone might have actually killed Felix.’
‘Why would anyone want to kill your brother?’
‘Why would anyone not want to kill Felix? You know what he was like,’ I say, not looking at her. ‘We both know what he was like. We know better than anyone, maybe.’
Aunty Sam and I have never talked about Felix like this.
We’ve never talked about his cruelties and his moods.
Or the endless lies and gaslighting he seemed to delight in – not only to get himself out of trouble or make himself look good, but for the joy he felt in telling a lie and getting away with it.
Which stories should I rehash for Aunty Sam now?
The goldfish he flushed down the toilet so routinely I had to ask Aunty Sam to stop buying them for me?
The disgusting comments he used to leave on my Instagram, using a fake account, until he left his laptop open one time and I found out it was him?
The time Aunty Sam took us kayaking and he deliberately capsized me in deep water and without a life jacket, then swore it was an accident?
Of course, I complained about Felix, but Aunty Sam always framed it as petty squabbles between siblings. We certainly never talked about the marks Aunty Sam must have also noticed on Elena and the way she seemed to get smaller every time we saw her.
‘You don’t kill someone for being … odd,’ Aunty Sam says quietly.
‘Elena thinks he was a sociopath.’
‘People today love to pathologise everything.’
‘What do you think?’
‘Felix was a complex person, like we all are, Heidi. He had his problems, and I know he was far from a perfect brother to you or a perfect husband to Elena, but I don’t see what’s to be gained in raking over all that now. What’s this really about?’
‘I know that you were there that night, Aunty Sam. Please don’t say that you weren’t. I just want to know why.’
I’m alarmed to feel tears pressing against my eyelids as I close them. I’m so tired of everybody lying to me and I can’t take this from Aunty Sam right now. I drop the last of my seedlings on the ground and stand up. ‘Forget it,’ I say, hoping to make it inside before I start crying.
‘Wait.’ Aunty Sam stands up too. ‘I’m sorry, Heidi. I didn’t want you to have to deal with any of this. I still don’t.’
‘Any of what?’
‘I did drive out to Mosman Park that night. I wanted to talk to Felix about my house situation. It’s complicated.’
‘He wanted to sell the house and you couldn’t afford to buy him out?’
‘Or maybe it’s not.’ She almost smiles. ‘You knew about that?’
‘More or less.’
‘I don’t think he understood how attached I am to this place,’ she says.
That’s not true. We both know Felix understood exactly how attached Aunty Sam was to her house – that’s why he would have wanted to separate her from it. That would have been the fun part for him: to know Aunty Sam was in pain and he was the cause.
Are you getting it yet? Do you see what he was like?
‘What happened?’ I ask.
‘I wanted to talk to Felix in person about it. I thought I could talk him around. I didn’t know he and Elena were having people over that night. I parked and started to go to the front door when I—’ Aunty Sam stops.
‘What?’ I ask.
‘I changed my mind,’ she says quickly.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I heard voices and realised they must be having a party. I also realised how wild it was to turn up without any warning. So, I went back to my car, thinking that I’d call him in the morning instead and we could talk it out like adults. Obviously, that never happened.’
It’s an explanation that fits what I know about that night. Kind of. So why do I still feel like there’s something Aunty Sam isn’t saying? Or is this what happens when you spend your time being suspicious of everyone?
‘Heidi,’ she says. ‘I’m asking you to drop this.
I don’t think this is a road you want to go down.
Felix is dead. You need to grieve for him and move on and stop this amateur detective business.
Patrick and Michael are going home tomorrow and Elena will move out with her friend and I think it’s important for you to put this behind you. ’
‘But …’ I start to tell Aunty Sam about Patrick’s luggage tag and the conversation I heard him have with Elena.
Then I stop. Call it misguided loyalty, but I don’t want Aunty Sam to look at them differently, not if there might be an innocent explanation.
‘Haruto!’ I blurt. ‘He says he saw someone out there that night. Don’t you think that’s significant? ’
‘Has Haruto told the police?’ Aunty Sam asks.
‘I don’t think so,’ I admit. ‘He didn’t seem completely sure it was a person.’
‘So it might have been nothing,’ she says gently. ‘I don’t want to see you waste your time on this when you should be thinking about getting back to school and patching things up with Lilia.’
‘I can’t let this go,’ I say.
‘Heidi …’ Aunty Sam turns on the hose and starts watering the seedlings. It feels like she’s avoiding my eyes. ‘There’s something else. I’ve wanted to tell you this, but I’m not really sure—’
The sound of the back flywire door banging in its frame surprises us both and we look up to see Patrick.
‘Hey,’ he says. His grin disappears when he realises he’s walked in on something and he looks like he’d moonwalk back inside if he could.
‘I was … wondering if anyone was up for pizza for dinner later? Michael’s going to order. ’
‘Sure,’ Aunty Sam says, dropping the hose and pulling off the cute gingham gardening gloves that (obviously) match her headscarf. She’s clearly grateful for the interruption. ‘In fact, I might go and wash my hands now. Heidi, we can talk later?’
It’s a question but not a question, because she’s already halfway inside.
‘How’s the packing going?’ I ask Patrick while trying to work loose the dirt under my nails.
‘It’s a red-eye flight tomorrow,’ he says.
‘So?’
‘I’ll think about starting in, I don’t know, twenty-four hours?’
‘You’re terrible. Have you got any plans for your last day in Perth?’
I try not to make my eyes too pleading and keep my lips shut tight so the phrase hang out with me can’t squeeze its way out.
‘Actually, I was going to ask if you wanted to come to Elena’s?
The op shop is sending a truck around to pick up the boxes, but someone has to be there to let them in and show them what to take.
I thought you might want to do your part to make some tragic Wilco fan happy.
Maybe after, we could get some lunch? Are those carrots? ’
Patrick’s examining the new vegetable patch when he says this, so he doesn’t see what happens to my face.
T-shirts.
Wilco.
Felix.
Another puzzle piece I didn’t know I was missing thunks into place so hard that I feel it. My knees wobble. I don’t see it yet. I can’t quite see it yet, but for the first time I think I might know – not just suspect, but know –that my brother was murdered.