Chapter 20 #2
“It sounded like you had done something. To GG.” I drop my eyes at the last bit because accusing someone of murder is harder than you’d think, and I’ve always liked Bec.
That feeling clearly isn’t mutual right now, because Bec gives me a look that somehow conveys deep personal betrayal.
Unlike Shippy, she still doesn’t give off capable of murder vibes.
But how many serial killers would last long enough to keep upping the body count if they walked around looking extremely guilty every day of their lives?
Jack the Ripper would probably just have been known as Jack the Guy Who Killed That One Sex Worker Before He Got Caught.
“What else did they say?” Dad asks.
“They were looking for the letter and Bec said something about GG being a poor old lady, or maybe it was a nice old lady.”
“It’s not like that,” Bec says. “I was talking about this—the DNA stuff. I felt like Shippy had pushed me into it.”
“That’s nice,” Shippy says, shaking his head so a couple of his curls fall into his face and stick to his forehead. I don’t understand how someone who goes in the ocean every other day can still have dirty hair. Shampoo scientists should be studying this guy.
“I said it as a joke. It was you who said we should do it for real.”
“Come off it, Bec.”
“Guys, save the domestic for when you’re in a police cell,” Dad says.
“We did not bloody murder anyone!” Bec nearly shouts.
She stands up, seems to realize there’s nowhere to go, and sits down again, which is embarrassing for her.
“Yes, I did a pretty bad thing and, yes, I lied to you all, but I would never hurt anyone and I can’t believe you can imagine I would ever have hurt Gertie. ”
There’s a silence that’s probably supposed to make us all feel ashamed, but I just use the opportunity to work through some questions in my head.
“When did GG find out the truth?” I ask.
Bec looks like she’s going to tell me to get stuffed, but maybe she remembers she’s trying to win us over here. It’s like when a substitute teacher at school has to deal with a heckler for the first time and they’re clearly so mad but they have to laugh it off or risk losing the class.
“Gertie said that she got the results a few weeks ago, but she only told me about it on this trip. Shippy and Dylan and I drove down with Vinka and Nick, and that first day Gertie asked to talk to me. She said she knew I wasn’t, uh, related and that she’d had a DNA test done.”
“How?”
“She’d taken one of my hairs on another visit.” Bec looks…what? Impressed? I sure am—I would never have imagined that GG had it in her. “Pretty stealthy, really.”
“What made her suspicious enough to go full Angela Lansbury?” Dad asks, and I don’t point out that DNA doesn’t feature highly in Murder, She Wrote, which is a seriously old murder-mystery show that ran forever ago but holds up pretty well if you course-correct for all the casual sexism.
(If you’re interested, someone uploaded a whole bunch of full episodes to YouTube, and I’m not saying it wasn’t me.)
Bec chews on her bottom lip like it’s a stick of gum. “Are you sure you want to do this now?”
“I’m sure.”
“She told me she was going through your dad’s papers and she found some more details about the baby that was put up for adoption, which made her think it couldn’t have been me.”
“What?” Dad says.
“There’s more than that letter?” Aunty Vinka says.
This—can you tell?—is a legit bombshell. The whole love-child deal only came out in the letter Grandad left behind, complete with a whole to be opened only in the event of my death thing. He wasn’t scared of snakes, but he was not a brave man, my grandad.
“I don’t know whether your dad meant to leave the papers for you with the letter or not,” Bec says, anticipating everyone’s next question.
“Gertie wasn’t sure what to do with them, so she gave them to me.
She said she didn’t want to cause a rift.
She said that she would keep my secret if I wanted her to.
She said we’d still get an even share in the will. ”
“What?” Aunty Vinka asks, just as Dad says, “Bull.”
“It’s true.”
“Did she know where the baby is now?” I ask. “I mean, obviously it’s not a baby anymore.”
“No. The baby really was adopted out, though. I’m not sure why—I think the mum was pretty young.
” We all take a minute to be disgusted by my late grandad (how young “pretty young” is I both do and do not want to know) before Bec keeps talking.
“All I remember is that the baby was called Nicky by the adopted parents and I think they were living here in the southwest, at least for a bit. Green eyes, that was the big one.” We all take a moment to look at Bec’s brown eyes.
“Can I say something?” Aunty Vinka asks, immediately answering her own question when she goes on.
“There’s something I want to say.” She comes up behind Bec, and I see non-Aunty Bec flinch as actual-Aunty Vinka’s free hand lands on her shoulder.
“I forgive you.” In a rose-pink caftan thing, with her hair wild around her face, Aunty Vinka looks like a hippie from the sixties or someone who pickles her own vegetables and crochets blankets.
(Actually, she definitely does do both of those things, although the scarf she once crocheted for me was so bad that Mum let me take it to the secondhand shop, and even the lady behind the counter was all “really?” when I handed it over.) “I forgive you,” she repeats.
Her eyes are half closed, so she probably doesn’t see Dad’s eye roll.
“Um,” Bec says, looking like she’s waiting for a but.
Aunty Vinka takes a step back and opens her arms. There’s a moment when it seems like Bec won’t get up, either because she’s not the hugging type (she’s really not) or because this is all super cringe (it really is), but then she stands up and allows herself to be hugged without giving much back.
I look at Dylan in the hope of exchanging she is too much looks, but he’s now staring at the table like it has insulted his girlfriend (and everyone knows I’m the only one who’s been doing that lately).
Aunty Vinka is still talking. “You made a really bad decision and lied to us. But I still love you. You might not be my sister, but you’re still family.”
She’s absolutely not.
“Thank you,” Bec says after a slightly-too-long pause. “I appreciate that.”
“The thing is,” Aunty Vinka says, releasing Bec, “if there’s anything else that you want to tell us, now is the time. This is a safe space.” This feels like a stretch, given two residents of this space have been recently hospitalized and another is dead.
Bec looks unsurprised. This, presumably, is that but she was waiting for. “What do you mean?”
Aunty Vinka looks at her toes, which are painted rose pink to match the caftan. “Like with Gertie,” she says, and Bec’s jaw clenches shut.
“Are you serious?”
“I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m just asking.”
“I cannot believe this.”
“The police are going to ask.” Aunty Vinka is such a spider-under-glass-trapping, oat-milk-drinking, gluten-fearing hippie that I forget sometimes she’s also Dad’s sister. You don’t spend twenty years under one roof without rubbing off on each other, I guess.
Bec pushes her chair into the table, a move that’s unnecessary but probably feels pretty good. “Call the police if you want. I have nothing to hide.”
“What about fraud?” Dad says. “The police might be interested in that.”
Bec makes a noise that’s as close to pfft as I’ve ever heard in real life.
“The Dunsborough cops aren’t going to care whether I lied about my parents.
They want to solve a murder, and the sooner they figure out I had nothing to do with that, the better.
Come on.” The last two words are delivered to the tops of Shippy’s and Dylan’s heads.
Seeing Dad’s face, she adds, “I’m not making a run for it: I’m going into the bloody garden for one of Shippy’s secret bloody cigarettes, and don’t even try to tell me you don’t have any, Shippy, because I don’t want to hear it.
“Dylan?” Bec is looking at her son, who hasn’t moved. “Will you come outside?”
He stands up but shakes his head. “You are unbelievable.”
“Dylan,” she says quietly, “we can talk in the garden.”
But Dylan goes the other way: out of the kitchen and toward his bedroom. We all hear the sliding door bang shut, and the only shock here is that we don’t also hear the door fall off its tracks and add to the death count.
It’s a relief when Bec and Shippy disappear to the garden.
“Are you sure they’re okay out there?” Aunty Vinka asks.
“They’re not going anywhere without Dylan. Anyway, they don’t have a car.” Dad turns to me. “Are you okay, Ruthie?”
“I’m okay.”
“I’m sorry you had to see all that. I should have sent you upstairs.”
“Stop trying to send me upstairs.”
“Ruth, you’re a kid.”
“I’m fourteen.”
“What point do you think you’re proving?”
“I’m the one who found the letter.”
“I realize that.”
“You wouldn’t even know about Bec’s lie without me.”
“I also realize that.”
A little bit of my frustration at being constantly excluded and my disappointment at not having figured out yet who killed GG explodes in my dad’s direction. I’m not shouting, exactly, but my voice is loud enough to wake if not the dead, then maybe Rob from his coma.
“I’m just sick of being kept in the dark about everything.”
“Ruth, you’re…” Dad takes a deep, slow breath, and I’m pretty sure he’s counting to ten in his head, the way his anger-management book advises. Maybe even twenty. “I know you feel grown-up, and I’m sorry if I didn’t give you enough credit for finding that letter.”
An apology! Almost unprecedented.
“It’s okay.”
“Do you think Bec’s telling the truth about Gertie leaving her in the will and not wanting to tell any of us about it?” Aunty Vinka asks Dad.