Chapter 19
“I thought you were down at the dam.”
This is, you don’t have to tell me, not a great line. It’s not a denial. It’s not an excuse. It’s straight-up self-incrimination, and I really thought I’d be better than this in a crisis. I’m disappointed in myself.
“I’m back.” His face, which normally tends toward blandly benign, is crinkled into an expression that might be anger. It might even be rage. “What are you doing in my room?”
I could point out that this really isn’t his room and it’s really not even Aunty Bec’s room and if it’s anyone’s room but GG’s it’s closer to being my dad’s room than his, which makes it closer to being my room than Shippy’s, but of course I don’t say any of that because there’s still a chance I can just walk away from this.
“Sorry, I was just looking for, uh, a tampon.”
This is more like it. Obviously, it makes no sense at all that I’d be looking for a tampon in Aunty Bec’s shoe, but I’m operating, for the second time tonight, on the instinct that anything to do with periods makes dudes like Shippy profoundly uncomfortable.
I may have failed with Dad, but Shippy seems like a guy who could be brought undone by the phrase “heavy flow.”
Except Shippy is either more enlightened about menstruation than I thought (unlikely) or he doesn’t believe a word I’ve said (more likely) because he doesn’t seem remotely bothered.
Instead he chooses this moment to notice the letter in my hands.
His eyes go to Aunty Bec’s running shoes, and I know I am more screwed than Ali that time her mum discovered her secret TikTok account.
(It was actually super wholesome, dedicated to where to find the best banh mi in Perth, but do you think her mum wanted to hear that?)
“Where did you get that?”
He knows the answer, so I don’t bother saying anything. I just stand up and shuffle backward as he comes further into the room, shrinking it instantly. The door is still open, but he’s between me and it, and there’s a vein in his neck that’s suddenly as thick and dangerous as a snake.
“Give it to me.” This is not a pass the salt or make us a cup of tea kind of a request. This is a demand.
Over Shippy’s shoulder I can see the empty hallway. Did Shippy come back alone? I desperately want my dad, but I’d settle for Aunty Bec, who, even if she did have something to do with GG’s death, surely wouldn’t let Shippy actually hurt me. Not like this, anyway. Probably not. Would she?
I try to do something brave, the kind of thing a real girl detective in a book might do, safe in the knowledge that she’s the hero of the story and will definitely survive until the end.
(I do not, in case it’s unclear, possess the same certainty at this stage in the proceedings, but I have to do something.)
“Where did you get the letter?”
“None of your business. Hand it over.”
“It’s not addressed to you.”
“It’s not addressed to you, either.” He has a point.
“You took it from GG’s room.” That’s the sentence that means I can no longer pretend this is an innocent mix-up or a chance encounter.
But, really, Shippy’s heart-attack face does not give the impression of a man who is willing to give me the benefit of the doubt.
The fact that he’s here at all suggests he came back on purpose because he was worried about what I might be up to.
“What do you mean?”
“You took it from GG’s room.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“I was there.”
“No, you weren’t.” An admission, not that he notices.
“I was under the bed.” It’s not really possible to say this without sounding like a creep or a weirdo, but I refuse to feel guilty about what was ninety-five percent an innocent coincidence.
He takes a few beats to digest this, looking like he’s trying to decide whether to deny it and go defensive or get even angrier.
“You were spying on us?” Option B, then.
“Not on purpose.”
“Are you seriously going to make me take the letter off you?” he asks, and his red cheeks are a little more purple than they were before. A spontaneous heart attack still seems like too much to hope for.
“I guess so,” I say, trying to sound as tough as John Wayne when he’s just come across the baddies, even though I have neither a gun nor a horse to carry me away. (Those old Westerns may be kind of problematic, but they’re good at teaching people how to pretend to be brave.)
Shippy takes another step into the room. “Give me the bloody letter, Ruth.”
Language, I think but do not say.
I take a step back like a good dance partner might, conscious that I’m getting closer to the wall. If I can get out of this room and out of the house, I think I can outrun Shippy. But there’s an if in that sentence.
Also, if I do run—flee really is the word—I will have set something in motion that can’t be stopped. If I run and if Shippy catches me…what then?
“What happened to GG?” I ask, stalling. My brain decides now is the perfect opportunity to remind me that Shippy was the only one out of the house long enough to have taken GG’s jewelry to Perth.
The moment Sasha told us about that jewelry should have been the giveaway: Shippy could easily have made up the whole story about the flat tire and driven to Perth and back.
Okay, maybe not easily, but he could have done it.
Then there’s Rob’s “accident.” Again, too late, it seems obvious that, if anyone tried to kill Rob, Shippy would have to be the prime suspect.
He invited Rob here in the first place, and if Rob somehow had a suspicion about GG’s death, then Shippy—the guy who helped him out by offering him a place to sleep—is the only one of us who might warrant a conversation first instead of going straight to the cops.
Maybe Aunty Bec wasn’t with him the whole time they were out of the house, like I assumed.
If she stopped off at the shops or to get a coffee, it would have been so easy for Shippy and Rob to leave the beach together, for Shippy to come up with a reason for Rob to get out of the car, for Shippy to turn the car around, and…
“What are you talking about?” My mind has been freewheeling to such an extent I can barely remember what I asked Shippy. Luckily, he’s quick to remind me. “I don’t know anything more about Gertie’s death than you do.”
This might still be okay, I tell my heart in an effort to slow it down.
This isn’t yet unsalvageable. I take another step back, even though Shippy hasn’t moved.
I’m standing beside the bed, and I wonder if I’m fast enough to spring onto the mattress, roll across it, and get up and out the door before Shippy makes it across the room. Unlikely.
“So, what about this letter?” I wave it, still mostly just playing for time, while the part of my brain that isn’t frozen with fear comes up with a better plan.
“Give me that.”
“Or what?” I ask the question before I realize just how much I don’t want to hear the answer.
“Or I’ll give you—” he starts to say, but stops when we both hear the same thing: the sound of the front door opening and muffled voices—voices!
—from the other room. Abandoning all pretense that, hey, this is just a comical misunderstanding we can definitely joke about later, I shout “Daaaaaaaad!” as loudly as I can, which is pretty loud. My throat hurts when I’m done.
My dad is not, as I think I’ve made clear, a heroic sort.
He’s more about cracking gags and making snide comments than he is about running into burning buildings.
He got robbed on the street once and cheerfully handed over his wallet and phone to the guy robbing him because, as he told me later, who wants to get stabbed over an iPhone 7 with a cracked screen?
But when I see him running down the hallway toward me a beat later, he looks as badass as Tom Cruise ever has in any of those dumb movies where he zip-lines off a building or rides his motorbike off a mountain.
“Dad,” I say again.
Shippy’s vibe changes when Dad makes it to the doorway. Like a window blind has been snapped into place, his regular expression of relaxed indifference is back on, and, while I can still see the rage now that I know what I’m looking for, he looks, more or less, like the Shippy I’ve always known.
“Ruthie? What’s wrong?” Dad pushes past Shippy and comes over to where I’m standing, back flat against the wall, although I wasn’t aware of taking that last step.
There are more footsteps from the other room, and Aunty Vinka and Dylan appear in the doorway too.
Finally I feel myself relax enough to sit down on the bed and open the hand crushed around the letter.
(My nails have left half-moon creases on my hand.) “What happened?” Dad asks me; when I just shake my head, he repeats the question to Shippy in a totally different tone of voice that tells me his mind has gone to the obvious Bad Touching place.
“What’s happening?” Aunty Vinka asks, looking between Shippy and me like one of us is going to explain.
“Sorry,” Dylan pants, a little out of breath, and we’re lucky nobody seems to notice his non sequitur and think to ask who he’s apologizing to and for what.
“Nothing happened,” Shippy says, and he’s obviously trying to clear the air, but this is a guilty-as-hell thing to say.
“I’m okay,” I say.
Aunty Bec arrives then, her eyes going from Dad’s expression to Shippy’s obvious discomfort to me, now shivering on the bed. (It’s the adrenaline wearing off, I suppose, but it feels pathetic.) Nothing happened. Nothing happened.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing happened,” Shippy says again, echoing my thoughts while managing to sound incredibly defensive. “I came in here and Ruth was going through my things.”
“That’s not true.” I’m not lying (a pleasant change for me).
Yes, technically, I absolutely went through Shippy’s things.
But he’s lying when he said he saw me do it: He’s only deducing (correctly) that I went through his stuff in order to find the letter.
“I was looking for…” I don’t know how to end that sentence, so I start a new one: “I found this letter. It’s addressed to GG.
I think they know something about GG’s death. ”
“Who’s they?” Dad says, just as Shippy says, “That’s bull.”
I pass Dad the letter, only letting it go reluctantly, and he smooths it out on the bed.
“I don’t know what she’s talking about,” Shippy says.
For the first time since he got here, I look at Dylan and there’s a question there, but I can’t tell what it is, so I just shake my head, meaning not now.
Then I look away, because it’s going to be easier to say what I have to say without looking at him.
“They took this letter from GG’s room,” I say, eager to get my story out before Shippy has a chance to tell his.
“Who’s they?” Dad says again.
“Shippy and Aunty Bec. In GG’s room, uh, they found something—I think it was this letter.”
“Ruth?” That’s Dylan, but I don’t look at him. I can’t.
“What the—” It’s Aunty Vinka, who almost never swears in front of me, even that time Dad nearly severed his thumb with the electric carving knife. (Don’t ever use an electric carving knife.)
“What’s going on?” Aunty Bec asks like she doesn’t know. “What are you saying, Ruth?”
I think about the conversation I heard, trying to get the words right.
“I was in GG’s room before and I heard Shippy and Aunty Bec talking.
And Aunty Bec said something about Shippy making her do something to a sweet old lady.
” I can’t get the sentence they might have killed her out while Dylan is looking at me with his saucer-plate eyes.
“And they took this letter. I’m not totally sure what it is, but I know he wants it. ” I nod at Shippy.
“We weren’t talking about Gertie’s death,” Aunty Bec says.
“Bec!” It’s Shippy, looking furious or hurt or a combination of the two.
“It’s over,” Aunty Bec says, and she sounds tired. “There’s no point.”
“What were you talking about, then?” I ask.
“We were looking for that letter. We thought that if the cops found it, well, it wouldn’t look good for us.”
“You are kidding me,” Dad says loudly, hitting the letter with his open hand, and I know that he’s figured it out too.
“What’s it say?” Aunty Vinka asks, and Dad passes it to her, looking dazed.
“That’s about you?” Dad asks Aunty Bec. She doesn’t say yes but she doesn’t deny it either, which apparently is all the confirmation Dad needs.
“Is anyone going to tell me what’s going on?” Dylan asks, and he might be asking me, but I can’t say a thing.
“It’s bloody…it’s unbelievable is what it is,” Dad says. “You absolute…We’ve got to call the cops. Who has a phone?”
“There’s no reception, Andy,” Aunty Vinka says very gently, not looking up from the letter. Dad is too angry to look embarrassed.
“We didn’t hurt anyone,” Aunty Bec says.
“Can I see the letter?” Dylan asks, ignored by everyone.
“Debatable,” Dad says. “If this isn’t a motive for murder, then I’ve never seen an episode of Columbo.”
“What’s in the letter?” Dylan asks.
“What’s Columbo?” Shippy asks.
“This can’t have been Bec’s idea,” Aunty Vinka says, mostly to herself, turning the letter over just in case there’s an explanation for all of this on the back. (There isn’t.)
“Where did you find it?” Dad asks me.
“In Aunty Bec’s shoe, but they took it from GG’s wardrobe.”
“Can someone tell me what’s in the letter!” Dylan sounds ready to explode.
“It’s the results of a DNA test,” Dad says, possibly because he, like me, fears that Dylan is at risk of winding up splattered around the walls in tiny pieces.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that Shippy and Bec—sorry, Dylan, your mum—are liars.”
“What?”
“Bec is not our half sister. She was not Dad’s secret love child, and she is definitely not entitled to a share of Dad’s—or Gertie’s—fortune.”