Page 104 of A Murder is Going Down

‘If Patrick’s the murderer and you get back together with Ben, I’m going to break something,’ she snaps.

‘Can I get on with it?’

Then

‘What the hell is going on?’ Patrick says, and I’m trying to figure out how much he heard. ‘Did Aunty Sam steal my phone?’ he asks.

‘Uh, yeah. I think so.’ I hang up on Aunty Sam and drop the phone into my pocket.

‘Why?’ Patrick looks at the t-shirt I’m still clutching in my arms. ‘And why have you got Felix’s old Wilco t-shirt?’

I’m still trying to make sense of what Aunty Sam has just told me. It can’t be right. It doesn’t make sense. I was so sure I had figured it all out, but ifPatrickwas here that night that must mean … It must mean …

‘I just … I really like the band, you know. They’re underrated.’ Not my best lie, but I’m dealing with a lot here.

Aunty Sam thinks she saw Patrick dressed up as Felix on the night that Felix died. This tallies with what I’d started to suspect about that night except … Patrick? Patrick, who is dry and cutting, but also loyal and who was impossibly, deliciously rude to Ben and who wants me to go to Melbourne to see Lucy Dacus?That Patrick?

‘They’re actually the exact opposite,’ Patrick says, taking a step towards me. He crouches down next to where I’m kneeling beside the boxes, so close that our knees are touching.

‘Heidi, what’s going on?’ he asks.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t think you even like Wilco, so why are you so desperate to get Felix’s old t-shirt?’ He puts his hand on the t-shirt and I let him pull it out of my arms.

I have no idea what to say, so I blurt out the truth, even if that’s the stupidest possible thing I could do at this moment. But there’s still part of me that can’t accept what I’ve heard from Aunty Sam. ‘It’s a clue, I think.’

‘Okay?’ Patrick says, like it’s a question.

‘Felix was wearing a Wilco t-shirt when he died.’

‘Uh huh.’

‘Aunty Sam said it was his favourite yellow one. She thought it was fitting that he was wearing it when he died. She wanted to bury him in it, but the paramedics cut it off him, so she couldn’t.’

‘Dark, but what’s your point?’ Patrick asks.

‘This is the t-shirt.’

‘But it’s not.’ Patrick looks at the t-shirt in his hands. ‘This one isn’t cut up.’

‘I know.’

‘This can’t be the t-shirt Felix died in,’ Patrick says.

‘Obviously. But it looks identical: same bright yellow, same font.’

Patrick shakes his head. ‘He had a lot of Wilco t-shirts, Heidi,’ he says gently.

‘This one I recognise,’ I say, refusing to let it go. ‘He had it for years, since he lived at home with me and Aunty Sam.’

Patrick’s frowning like he’s confused, but I don’t think he’s confused. ‘Then he had two of the same shirt,’ he says. Does he know how unconvincing he is? Has he always been this bad of a liar or am I getting fluent in Patrick?

‘I don’t think so. I saw this one the other day when we were packing up Felix’s clothes. Even when I threw this very t-shirt at your head, I didn’t put it together with the fact that he was supposedly wearing it when he died.’

‘Heidi,’ Patrick says, but I don’t let him get further than my name.

‘Then you said something about making Wilco fans happy by donating the t-shirts to the op shop and that reminded me that I’d seen his favourite one here at the houseafterFelix died, which made no sense.’