Chapter 22
There’s a woodpecker outside my window.
Except…are there even woodpeckers in Australia?
I’ve always thought of woodpeckers as existing only in American novels, where people get lost in the woods and there are bears to worry about instead of snakes.
Certainly, I wish this one would go back to living in a fictional world and leave me alone when I’m trying to stay in my dream, which involved me playing in the Australian Open against Rafael Nadal (which, yes, I realize, makes no sense on a number of levels).
I close my eyes, but the woodpecker is getting louder, and is it…
talking? It’s at this point I have to say farewell to Nadal and the cheering crowd and admit there is no woodpecker outside my window but instead somebody knocking on my door, with a frequency and power that suggests they’re going to have bruised knuckles if I don’t get out of bed soon.
I reach automatically for my phone to check the time and remember that I still haven’t found it. How is that even possible in a house this size?
“Who is it?” I call.
“It’s Dylan.” He immediately opens the door, dramatically shielding his eyes. “I’m coming in.”
“I see that.”
“Get up, we’re going into town.”
“What?” I’m less surprised by the idea than by the fact that Dylan seems to be talking to me again, like nothing even happened, after last night.
“We’ve got to get out of this house.” Dylan looks more awake than usual, with shower-damp hair and a T-shirt I haven’t seen before, with what I’m pretty sure is a Pokémon on it. He sees me looking at it. “They’re back,” he says.
“Did they ever leave?” I mean it seriously, but he takes it for sarcasm.
“Shut up. Get out of bed. Your dad’s giving us a lift into town.”
“What?”
“Stop saying what. Your dad said we could go with him but only if we’re ready in, like, ten minutes, and I hate to say it but he said that fifteen minutes ago.”
“Do you want me to come?” I don’t add the important bit: Since I helped expose your mum and her boyfriend as huge liars and maybe prime suspects in GG’s murder.
“Yes.”
“Why’s Dad going into town, anyway? What time do they have to go into the police station?”
Dylan ignores the questions and lobs a dress from the floor at my head. “See you downstairs in five minutes.”
I make it in four. So there.
“I thought you said town was just for tourists,” Dad says into his rearview mirror.
“We are tourists. Also, we want to get out of the house.”
“You sure you don’t just want to check your messages and your TikTok?”
“Dad, I’m not on TikTok.”
“I thought all teenagers had to be on TikTok. I thought there was a law.”
“It’s very loud.”
“That’s supposed to be my line.”
“She’s a lurker,” Dylan says, a genuine betrayal. I forgot I’d told him that.
“What does that mean?”
“Exactly what it sounds like.”
“Anyway.” I talk over them both. “I think I’ve lost my phone.”
“That’s a shame,” Dad says.
The phone’s been missing since yesterday, and frankly, neither Dad nor Dylan seems as upset as they should be by this devastating development.
I don’t say it to them, but I can’t quite get away from the idea that someone has taken it.
The passcode protecting it is the year of my birth (I know, I know), which wouldn’t exactly require an elite team of code breakers to solve.
But why anyone would want access to my stupid texts and a series of embarrassing selfies in which I try and fail to master a smoky eye, I can’t imagine. Or maybe I just don’t want to.
We slow as the traffic backs up: SUVs full of Perth people, here to visit the allegedly famous bakery (it’s only fine), shop in the general store (it’s gone hipster chic), and pay six dollars for a lettuce at the supermarket.
“What are you getting in town?” I ask Dad.
“Bakery and supermarket run. If we’re not leaving, we need fresh food. Plus: tampons for your aunt.”
“Too much information, Dad.”
“It’s a natural bodily function, Ruth.” He tilts the rearview mirror to give me a look. “How are those cramps, by the way?”
The mention of Aunty Vinka reminds me of something. Also, Dad’s crack at my (fake) cramps feels unnecessarily loaded with suspicion and I’m keen to change the subject.
“Dad, weird question, but did Aunty Vinka go up to GG’s room the night she died?”
“I don’t know. Not that I know of.” Dad’s distracted, looking for a parking spot, or he’d be more suspicious about why I’m asking. “Why?”
“No reason.”
“Ruth, you remember what I said about leaving this to the cops, right?” Okay, so maybe he’s not that distracted.
“Yes, Dad. I just, uh, Shippy said something about her taking GG a cup of tea. Anyway, how much longer are we staying here?”
“The police want to interview us again today and Detective Peterson asked us to stay a day or two. I’d say tomorrow at the earliest, but we’ll see.”
“Do the police need to talk to me, too?” Yes, of course I’m having visions of swapping theories with Detective Peterson, culminating in her begging me to drop out of school early to join the police force, but what of it?
A parking spot opens up and Dad’s focus switches to not sideswiping either of the Range Rovers hemming us in. We squeeze out of the car and Dad looks at his watch.
“Synchronize watches and meet back here in, what, an hour?” I wave my naked wrist at him. “Synchronize your phone, then. Okay, sorry, Ruth—synchronize Dylan’s phone. Look, I don’t care what you do. Just be back here at ten-thirty.”
I wait until Dylan and I are alone to ask: “So, where should we go?”
“What about the library?”
“Do you even have a Dunsborough library card?”
Dylan is looking smug about something. “I thought we could talk to Laura.”
“Laura?” The name sounds familiar, but I don’t get there before Dylan fills me in, which I hate.
“My mum said she was a friend of GG’s, remember? I thought maybe she’d know something about…well, I’m not sure, exactly, but something relevant?”
“That’s not a terrible idea.”
“I know.”
“Have you ever heard of self-deprecation?”
“Of course not, I’m a moron.”
“I see what you did there.”
It doesn’t take long to find the library, where a woman with Laura pinned over one boob is handily right behind the desk.
Laura’s way younger than I expected, not GG’s age but late twenties, maaaaaybe thirties if she’s hard-core about using SPF 50. She’s too cool to work in a library, too, with a hi-top fade haircut and a nose ring worn where you’d put it on a bull.
“Excuse me?”
“How can I help?”
I wait for Dylan to step in but he just gives me a go on look, like we’re kids again and Mum’s sent us to the shop to buy our own ice creams. (Dylan never wanted to be the one to pay.)
“My name’s Ruth. I know this is a strange question, but are you the Laura who knew my, uh, Gertie McCulloch?”
Laura’s smile goes on quite a journey, from polite to genuine and then (don’t ask me how her lips pull this off) melancholy.
“Ruth! Of course. Gertie told me about you. Poor Gertie. I’m so sorry for your family.” She looks expectantly at Dylan.
“I’m Dylan. I’m a family friend.”
“I like your T-shirt.”
“Yours too.”
That’s when I notice Laura is also wearing a Pokémon T-shirt. (Seriously, are Pokémon cool or did Dylan just get lucky?)
“We heard that you were friendly with Gertie?” I say.
“That’s right. She used to come in here a bit. She was great.”
I avoid the temptation to ask what a cool librarian and a twice-widowed geriatric lady might find to chat about, but only just.
“We’re trying to find out anything we can about Gertie to understand, I guess, why someone could have killed her. She didn’t talk about many friends, so we thought maybe you might know something?”
I’m floundering like a two-year-old in the deep end. We should have rehearsed this.
Laura frowns, looking genuinely concerned. (Fair enough, too.) “You’re wondering if I know anything about Gertie’s death?”
“Not like that,” I say quickly, in case she thinks I’m accusing her of getting handsy with the typewriter. “I just mean, GG used to come in here a lot. Did she ever say anything about, uh, her health or her…family?”
“We talked about books, mostly. We were both into mystery novels.”
“Anything else?”
“That’s a pretty broad question.”
“Did she ever talk about her health?”
“Not really.”
“What about her family?”
There’s a pause before Laura answers. “Sure. Like I said, she told me all about you and your grandad.”
“Did she talk about her son?”
“She talked about him a bit.”
“What did she tell you?”
“You know he died?”
“That’s what Gertie said.”
Laura gives me an impatient look. “Why don’t you tell me what you want to know?” she asks.
“Did she tell you her son is still alive?”
“You found out about that, huh?” Dylan and I just nod.
“I never really got whether she was ashamed because he was in prison or ashamed because she’d told everyone he was dead.
Either way, it just seems so ridiculous, right?
” We make noncommittal noises. “I guess it’s a generational thing because, like, who around here doesn’t have a relative who’s been done for dealing? ”
I ignore the part of me that wants to ask about Laura’s relative who has presumably been done for dealing. “Was Gertie’s son in jail for drugs?”
“I don’t know. But he was in there for a while.”
“What’s his name?”
“I don’t think Gertie ever said. Or, if she did, I forgot.”
“Do you know what he looks like?”
Laura frowns. “No.”
“Did you know he was out of prison?”
The surprise on Laura’s face looks genuine. “No. Is he?”
“Yeah. We think so.”
“Did Gertie know?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m surprised she didn’t tell me. Although I have just got back from Bali.
” (I noticed the tan but entirely missed the opportunity to do a Sherlock Holmes bit where I inferred the location of her recent vacation because of it, combined with the fact that her Pokémon T-shirt is a cheap Balinese knockoff, not legitimate merch, which is a bummer, just quietly.)
“I told Nicola this, by the way.”
“Who’s Nicola?”
“Detective Peterson.”