Chapter 16
I tell nobody what I overheard. I realize how dumb that must sound to someone reading this from the safety of the couch, or their bed, or maybe on a bus, trying to tune out the guy listening to music without his earphones (why, my guy, why?).
As an enthusiastic reader of crime stories, I’m aware that when the local village busybody finds a crucial clue to explain who it is who bumped off their neighbor or the bloody vicar (there’s always a vicar in these things, and I still don’t really understand if they’re the same as priests), they invariably decide it’s a great idea to keep what they know to themselves.
Sometimes it’s because they want to blackmail the murderer or sometimes it’s because they can’t believe the murderer would have hurt anyone.
Either way, it never ends well. Most of the time they become Body Number Two—and while that’s often the murder that helps the detective solve the first crime, that’s not much consolation to Body Number Two.
(There is about to be a Body Number Two in this story, in case you’re wondering, but it’s not me.
How would I even be writing this if I’d been bumped off along the way?)
My first idea is to tell Dad. The child’s solution to every problem.
Not only will he know what to do, but I know what he will do, which is call the police.
He might even insist that we drive to the station together.
The problem will officially be in the hands of grown-ups.
Dylan will be devastated and feel betrayed and my family dynamics will be permanently shredded, but none of it will be my fault, exactly, and nobody looking at the available evidence could argue that I haven’t Done the Right Thing.
But! As I ponder my next move, it occurs to me (and maybe it’s occurred to you too) that I have nothing in the way of proof.
Clearly, Aunty Bec and Shippy are up to something shifty.
Clearly, they also took something from GG’s room, maybe something that incriminates them.
But without that something, there’s nothing to stop them from denying they were ever in GG’s bedroom, suggesting I’m a crazy person, and, oh, I don’t know, murdering me and making it look like an accident.
Worst-case scenario, obviously. Dylan might believe me (he knew I was in GG’s bedroom, after all, and he must have seen his mum and Shippy go up the stairs after me), but I’m not confident the word of two teenagers counts for a great deal with the Dunsborough police. Or in court.
Dylan asks me about the box the moment we’re alone together back downstairs, of course.
But all I tell him is that I didn’t find anything.
He’s so chuffed to relate how he smashed a plate to let me know Aunty Bec and Shippy were back early that I don’t have it in me to admit his warning went over my head.
“Shippy decided not to surf,” he says. “What were they even doing upstairs? They didn’t go into Gertie’s room, did they?”
“They didn’t see me” is as close to an explanation as I offer. Then I just act interested in the movie.
I spend the afternoon trying to put together the pieces I’ve got: the missing box, Aunty Bec and Shippy’s sketchiness, GG’s life-insurance policy, and someone sneaking around outside.
I can’t find my phone (is it possible this house is a Bermuda Triangle kind of a deal, having made first GG’s box and now my phone disappear?) and so have to resort to making notes with pen and paper, which makes me feel a bit like I’m back at school.
Then something happens to disrupt my puzzling.
Actually, it would be more accurate to say that nothing happens, but maybe that’s too confusing?
The thing that both does and doesn’t happen, if you see what I mean, is that Shippy’s new best friend, Rob, fails to return from the beach.
It takes a while for anyone to notice. Does that say something about Rob?
Maybe. But, also, the house is big and everyone’s doing their own thing and it’s not until Dad comes back in the afternoon and asks where Rob is that everyone seems to realize, at the exact same moment, that they have no bloody idea.
“Is he not back?” Aunty Vinka frowns.
Shippy just opens his mouth and shouts: “Rob?” There’s no reply.
“He’s not in the house, Shippy.”
“He must be still surfing, then.”
“I thought you were surfing,” Dad says to Shippy.
“Decided not to,” Shippy says, with a glance at Aunty Bec that probably only looks suspicious as hell to me.
“Rob, uh, wanted to stay at the beach for a bit, but I thought he’d be back by now.” Aunty Bec sounds concerned, maybe even guilty for having left Rob behind. Or is that just because I know she has something to feel guilty about?
Shippy pulls out his phone to look at the time. “He might still be surfing.”
“How exactly was he expecting to get back here without a car, or dare I hope that our time with Rob has come to a close?” Dad asks.
“He said he could get a lift back here with a friend.” Shippy is leaning against the door of the kitchen and studying his phone, like it might provide him with anything other than the time and an update on how long an iPhone battery can last when you use the phone for absolutely nothing at all (actually, ages).
“You just left him at the beach?” Dad says. I look for Dylan to see what he thinks, but, like Rob, he’s missing. Unlike Rob, I’m pretty sure he’s not missing missing and is, rather, hanging out in his tiny box of a bedroom.
Shippy shrugs. “He’s a self-sufficient guy.”
“He’s couch surfing at, what, forty?” Dad again.
“He’s a free spirit.”
Dad mumbles something that sounds like “a freeloading spirit” (which would be an aggressively on-brand Dad joke), but I can’t be sure.
“Have you packed your bag, Ruth?” Dad asks me.
“Did the police say we could go back to Perth?”
“Sure. They have all my details.”
“Not yet. What time are we going?” I both do and don’t want to get out of here. Sharing the house with Aunty Bec and Shippy is making my skin itchy.
“I don’t know,” he says, looking at the kitchen clock.
“It took longer than I thought at the lawyer’s: You can really tell these guys are used to getting paid by the hour.
Maybe we should wait until after dinner—more time for you to pack, and maybe Rob will have turned up by then so we can exchange our tearful farewells. ”
Rob hasn’t turned up by dinner.
The meal is intensely awkward for reasons that have nothing to do with Rob.
Maybe that’s not fair—it’s intensely awkward for me personally, but it’s entirely possible I’m projecting my discomfort onto the rest of the family and everyone else is having a ball.
In my desperation not to sit too close to Aunty Bec or Shippy, I wedge myself between Aunty Vinka and Dad, which means I’m subjected to a lot of sibling banter, mostly around Aunty Vinka’s new business idea, which involves curating “artisanal soap” to be sent to subscribers once a week.
Dad keeps trying to point out that nobody uses a bar of soap every week, but he’s lacking some of his usual appetite to go in for the kill.
Aunty Bec is trying to talk to Dylan about school, but he’s reverted to monosyllabic grunts, so she’s not making much progress.
While pretending to be fascinated by the contents of my stir-fry (it’s harder than you’d think to look really, really focused on a piece of bell pepper), I spend most of the meal mentally compiling a list of reasons Aunty Bec and Shippy might have had to bump off GG.
Money. As in: Aunty Bec will inherit now, instead of waiting for GG to die of natural causes.
That’s it. That’s the only motive I’ve got.
There could be other stuff, of course. There always is in a proper mystery.
Bec mentioned having visited GG by herself recently, so maybe GG saw her do something bad (an affair?
A hit-and-run?) and was blackmailing her?
Or maybe Shippy tried to steal something (jewelry?
Whatever was in that box? An unexpectedly valuable stamp collection GG never mentioned for some reason?) and GG caught him and they got into a fight and he grabbed the typewriter and… ? But nothing feels convincing.
The window for me to tell the family what I overheard up in GG’s room is shrinking.
Dinner is over and the clearing-up has begun.
In another ten minutes Dad will be loading our bags into the car—assuming I ever find my phone, which is still very much MIA—and I still won’t have told anyone what happened or didn’t happen.
I just wish I knew for sure. Can I live with the uncertainty of spending holiday celebrations with two maybe murderers for another ten years?
And follow-up question: Would that be better or worse than opening Christmas presents with two people I’d wrongly accused of murder?
Dad gets up to clear the plates, and I stand and push my chair back from the table. Nobody looks at me because they don’t realize that I’m about to make a speech. Or is it an announcement? A revelation? I have to say something. Don’t I?
“Everyone,” I say, but my voice is slow to catch up, so it’s less pronouncement than gasp. Worse, my single gasped word is entirely silenced by the slam of a car door. And then another.
“Rob,” Shippy says, like he never doubted it.
“Rob,” Dad says, almost disappointed.
“Rob,” I say, relieved.
There’s a knock at the door.
Dad answers, revealing not Rob but two uniformed police officers. One of them is Detective Peterson, who interviewed us before, and the other is a younger man, whose face tells a story. (That story is a short one called “I Think You Should Sit Down We Have Bad News.”)
“Can we come in, sir?”