Chapter 9
The thing about family vacations is you’ve got to be prepared for the fights.
It doesn’t matter how many of you there are, how big the house is, or even how much you all like each other: Sooner or later someone will have a fight with someone else.
Wait long enough and it’s entirely possible that everyone will have a fight with everyone else.
When Dylan and I fight, it’s not even about the murder.
We’re in my bedroom, officially just hanging out but unofficially comparing theories.
We’re both suspicious of Sasha: Dylan because he’s too good-looking (he doesn’t say that, but I know) and me because it’s easier to think about a stranger killing GG than anyone in our family.
Even so, it’d be easier to pin it on Sasha if GG had been killed with a shotgun or a spade or, I don’t know, run down by a combine harvester.
A typewriter is such a weirdly specific choice of weapon that it feels personal, especially after Dad’s revelation (if it is a revelation) that GG asked him to move it only hours before it was used to kill her.
Is it possible GG wanted the typewriter moved because she was scared of it, or is that the kind of thought you have right before you get committed to a mental-health facility?
“Who else is on the suspect list?” Dylan asks when we’ve run out of possible motives for Sasha to be the killer.
He flops back on his elbows, knocking my book off the bed with one long arm.
He rolls over, exposing a slash of stomach I don’t even notice, picks it up, and scans the cover.
“This is the one where the narrator did it, right?”
“No spoilers.”
“You’ve read it before. You’ve probably read it three times already.”
“Just because I know the ending doesn’t mean I want to know it.”
“You’re so weird.”
“Hello? That’s why you adore me.”
“That’s true.” I’m waiting for the joke that doesn’t come, and instead, when I look at him, he’s just looking at me.
“Do you want to talk about a fictional murder in a book or do you want to talk about the actual murder that happened under our roof?”
Dylan concedes the point with a head tilt.
In the days of the long hair, that head tilt made his hair fall into his eyes in a way that briefly inspired Ali and me to write some pretty gushy things in our journals.
Now that he’s my cousin (half cousin, and technically in Western Australia you can marry your cousin—don’t ask me how I know), maybe I should be grateful for the buzz cut (although it does, now I’m looking closely, make his eyes look even bigger).
“I asked the question,” he says. “Who’s on your list?”
I open the notes app on my phone to the list I’ve made, headlined Suspects. He reads it, looking first confused and then amused.
“You’re really putting yourself down as a suspect?”
“In the interest of fairness.”
“And me?”
“See above.”
“And your dad?”
There’s a moment where I could tell Dylan that Dad wasn’t in his bedroom that night, and I think about it.
But, really, what am I saying—that he was briefly out of bed at some point?
He was probably in the bathroom. Or getting a drink of water.
He might even have been smoking in the garden, if he’s been keeping a secret nicotine addiction from me.
Regardless of the fact that I dutifully thumbed his name into my phone, I know Dad could never have hurt GG, just as surely as I know that I didn’t do it.
I don’t think Dylan did it, just like I don’t think Aunty Vinka, Aunty Bec, or even Nick or Shippy did it, but it’s not the same.
“In the interest of fairness.”
“Statistically, it’s most likely to be a man,” Dylan says.
“Only one of those has mysteriously disappeared in the night.”
“So…Shippy?” Dylan doesn’t look as troubled by the idea that his mum’s boyfriend might have murdered someone as you’d think.
“The thing nobody seems to have thought of yet is that Shippy is just as likely to have become the murderer’s latest victim as to be the murderer himself.”
“You think Shippy’s dead?” Again, Dylan’s face doesn’t reflect great shock or alarm at this idea.
“When people go missing in books and movies, they usually wind up dead. That’s how the police know they’re dealing with a serial killer. This is a classic act-two second murder.”
“You are aware this is real life, Ruth?”
“Even in real life people do sometimes get killed. Like in this house, for example. Plus, I know Shippy is Shippy, but is he murderer material? Sexual-harassment scandal, absolutely. Light embezzlement? Aggressively on-brand. Murder? I don’t know.”
“What is light embezzlement, exactly?” Dylan asks, looking like he’s thinking about smiling. I ignore him.
“Let’s think about this logically.” I take back my phone. “What are the established facts?”
“We’re really going to Miss Marple this?”
“And you pretend you’re not a Christie fan.”
“Christie who?”
“The established facts of the night,” I continue. “GG was murdered on Sunday night. She was wealthy.”
“Rich,” Dylan corrects me.
“What’s the difference?”
“Rich people don’t talk about money.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“Whatever,” Dylan says. “She had money.”
“And our parents will inherit it.”
“And Vinka.”
“And Shippy. What’s your point?”
“There might be other things going on. If Gertie had money outside this place or if she borrowed against it, someone else might have had a motive we don’t know about.”
“So, the motive is money?” I say.
“It’s the obvious one.”
“I agree.”
“Why’s Nick on your list?”
“Everyone’s a suspect.”
“But he was in the hospital.”
“Only with a broken leg. He could have snuck out, called an Uber, come here, killed GG—”
“Sorry I asked.”
“—and got back to the hospital without anyone noticing he’d gone.”
The door opens and I yelp, but it’s only Dad with a mug of tea and a plate with two chocolate cookies on it. He clicks on the overhead light, then stops so abruptly when he sees Dylan that the tea sloshes over the rim of the mug.
“Sorry, mate, didn’t know you were here. Ruth, I thought you might want some tea?”
“Thanks.” I quickly click my phone to turn the screen dark.
“The kettle’s just boiled if you want one, Dylan.”
“I’m good,” Dylan says, although I’m not a hundred percent sure Dad was offering. I take the mug, the plate, and then the opportunity.
“Hey, Dad, what time did you go to bed the night GG died?”
“Ten or ten-thirty, I think. Why?”
“Were the others in bed?”
“Heading that way, but why?”
“Did you check on GG before you went to bed?”
“Yeah.” He gives me a look that says his patience with this interrogation is over. “Why?”
“Just asking.”
I wait for Dad to mention that he got out of his bed for some reason, but he’s frowning at the flickering overhead light.
“How long has that been happening?”
“Um, I dunno. A day?”
“This house is falling apart.”
Once Dad’s gone, I pick up my phone and type: Dad first to bed at 10/10:30 p.m. GG alive and well.
Dylan leans in to read the screen. “You’re taking his word for it?”
“What?”
“That Gertie was still alive when he went to bed.”
“Yeah.”
“Just saying.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“What time did you go to bed?”
“I went to bed at eleven.”
“You went to bed before I did.”
“I went to my bedroom before you.”
“What were you doing?”
“In my…bedroom?” I hate that this makes me blush and I double hate that Dylan sees it. “What do you think? I did some yearbook stuff, listened to some music, turned out my light at eleven. Like I said.”
My mind hooks on what’s probably an irrelevant detail. It’s like that. It can’t help itself. “You’re doing yearbook?” I’d be less surprised if he’d announced he’s marrying his biology teacher. Dylan looks…cagey.
“Are we going to talk about murder or yearbook?”
“How can I possibly solve the Mystery of GG’s Death when the Mystery of Why Dylan Is Doing Yearbook is right here in front of me?”
“You’re getting weirder.”
“Just tell me why.”
“I’m community minded.”
“Are you, though?”
“I love my school?”
“Do you?”
He makes a sound like a bicycle puncture and I know I’ve got him. “Okay, I’m helping a friend.”
“Who?” Then I get it. “Lisa.”
“Yeah.”
“So, you’re doing your girlfriend’s homework? That makes so much more sense.”
“It’s not like that.” But the flush in Dylan’s cheeks tells me it kind of is like that.
“I’m just glad you guys are okay.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing.”
“It’s not nothing. What do you mean you’re glad we’re okay? Why wouldn’t we be okay?”
This is the moment I should stop. I could make a joke and change the subject.
But I’ve never been good at keeping out of other people’s business.
I have a bad feeling this is going to be like that time Ali was missing twenty dollars from her locker, and then our friend Shannon (who is no longer our friend Shannon) had money for the cafeteria even though she never has money on a Tuesday, because she gets paid for her deli job on Thursdays, and all I did was mention it to Ali, and then boom, and, really, couldn’t I have let it go?
I’ve learned nothing because I say, “I just noticed some guy on her socials, and I wasn’t sure.”
“What guy?”
“The guy on her Instagram.”
The train is rolling out of the station, and even if I wanted to leap out onto the platform, it’s too late. Or maybe that’s a bad metaphor. Maybe the train is rolling but I’m on the tracks and there’s no chance to get out of the way. Out of my own way. Wait, am I the train or…?
“What are you talking about?”
I pick my phone up off my bedside table, then put it right back down when I remember there’s no internet. This is going to be harder without visual aids.
“You know I follow her on Instagram and TikTok, right?”
“I didn’t even know you were on TikTok.”
“I lurk.” I sound defensive. I hate sounding defensive. “You don’t know what I’m talking about?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Am I going to do this? I’m going to do this. “She’s just been posting a lot more thirsty selfies than usual.”
“What does that even mean?”
Dylan is online enough to know exactly what thirsty means, but I indulge him anyway, somehow already regretting every moment of this conversation, even the bits that haven’t happened yet. “She’s been posting pics and videos where she looks super hot.”
“That’s what everyone does. That’s what social media is.”
“That’s a very reductive view, but put that to the side for a moment. Lisa, historically, hasn’t posted thirsty selfies and now she’s posting lots. Exhibit A. Exhibit B: A guy called PandaBear02 has been liking all of them.”
“Who the hell is Panda Bear-oh-two?”
“That’s his social-media handle.”
“I didn’t think his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Bear-oh-two, named their kid Panda.”
“His real name is Paul and I think he’s a senior.”
Dylan’s face does a thing, like maybe that name and my single-line description aren’t completely unfamiliar to him. I do the classy thing and don’t ask him if he knows a Paul who’s a senior and has been creeping around his girlfriend. “How do you know that?”
“The internet, Dylan.”
“Heaps of random dudes follow Lisa on social. Some of them are weird and creepy. Her DMs are a toilet,” Dylan protests.
“It’s just that whenever he comments—which he does all the time—Lisa likes or replies to his comments. She doesn’t do that with the other weirdos.”
“Okay.”
“And when I set up a fake profile so I could follow PandaBear02 on Instagram, I—”
“Wait, really?”
“—I noticed that for the past couple of months, he’s been doing a lot of vagueposting of, like, a photo of a sunset with ‘thinking of her’ or something super cheesy like that. Kinda creepy, too.”
“Says the stalker.”
“And then a week or two ago he posted a photo of a girl, shot from behind, like you couldn’t see her face. But she had long brown hair.”
“Lots of girls have long brown hair. You have long brown hair.”
“It’s really more of a lob, but thanks for noticing. So this Panda—”
“His name is Paul Rainbow,” Dylan says abruptly, red blooming high on his cheeks.
So he knows. Or if he doesn’t know, he at least knows who Paul is, which might mean it’s all aboveboard and Paul is Lisa’s gay friend or her brother or, hell, her gay brother. Dylan’s face, though, doesn’t look like Paul is Lisa’s gay brother.
“Paul Rainbow sounds as made up as PandaBear02.”
“I know.”
“Who is he?”
“He’s a friend of Lisa’s.”
“Okay.”
“Because girls aren’t allowed to have friends who are boys?
” Dylan’s voice has gone all spiky, and those big eyes, so soft ten minutes ago, are half concealed by lowered eyelids.
He slides off my bed, and I have to stop myself from telling him to tie up his loose shoelace.
Pick your moment, Ruth, pick your moment.
“I didn’t say that.” I’m trying to work out how to articulate what it was that made me suspicious, but Dylan will have me institutionalized if I try to explain how PandaBear02’s use of the baby-seal emoji conveyed a romantic vibe. “I was just being nosy. I’m sorry.”
“You’re not being nosy; you’re going full Jane Marple.”
“I knew it—I knew you were a superfan.” It’s my effort to change the topic, and it almost works. Dylan’s mouth, halfway curled around an insult, closes and opens again.
“Everyone knows Miss Marple.”
“People have heard of Miss Marple; they don’t know her first name is Jane.”
“Whatever.” Okay, so it didn’t work. “Why are you prying into my life? You don’t even know Lisa.”
Now my cheeks are red, like we’re passing the embarrassment back and forth between us. “Can we forget I said anything? I’m an idiot. You know this.”
Dylan is halfway across the room, shoelace flapping. “Whatever. I’d better go and do some more of my girlfriend’s homework.”
“I didn’t—”
“Tell me when you’ve worked out who did it in the library with the candelabra.”
He’s gone before I have time to point out that a candelabra does not appear anywhere in the game of Clue.