Page 32 of The Dysfunctional Family's Guide to Murder

“I went out for a surf,” he says.

“A surf?”

“The swell was unreal.”

“But—” Aunty Bec hesitates, like she’s trying to find the biggestbutin what he just said. She makes a call: “Your surfboard’s in Perth.”

“First day of the trip I got talking to Rob in town when you were in the bakery. He said he could hook me up with a board if I needed it, but I didn’t think we’d be here long enough.” Shippy grins. “Only remembered this morning and thought I’d try my luck.” Everyone looks at Rob, who seems to be a step ahead of Shippy and ducks his head apologetically. “I thought I’d be back hours ago.”

“You didn’t wake me up to tell me?”

“I texted.”

“No, you didn’t.” Aunty Bec takes a deep breath. “I didn’t have any messages on my phone, and I went out to the bloody paddock—and got bitten by a bull ant, by the way—to check.”

“I did.”

“Show me your phone.”

Aunty Vinka comes in with a tray full of mugs and everyone takes one, even though the tea is gray and smells like a full dishwasher before a cycle.

“The message didn’t send,” Aunty Bec says, shaking her head at Shippy’s phone. “Did you try to send it when you were still here?”

“Yeah.”

“The here where there’s no phone reception?”

“Oh.” Shippy gets it. The scary thing is, he’s a civil engineer: People rely on this guy to keep bridges from falling down.

“Why were you gone all day?”

Shippy’s face relaxes, as if he thinks the hard bit is over. He has no idea. “The surf was unbelievable, so I did wind up staying awhile. Rob was getting out at the same time, so we went for a coffee and grilled cheese that, seriously, took like twenty minutes.”

“Great coffee, though,” Rob chimes in, doing his bit for the Dunsborough Tourism Board, I guess.

There are still some unanswered questions—Why is Rob here? What happened to the rest of the lost time? Is it possible Shippy has some kind of hidden depths that enable Aunty Bec to put up with…the rest of it?—but Rob reminding us all of his existence seems to prompt Aunty Bec into some knee-jerk civility.

“Do you live in Dunsborough, Rob?”

“Just in town for a surf,” Rob says. “It was my birthday last week, so, you know, bit of a present to myself.”

“He’s been sleeping in a friend’s van,” Shippy adds, “so I told him he was welcome to crash here for a day or two.”

Everyone cares way too much about what this complete stranger thinks of us to react openly to this, but Dad reaches out a hand to crush Aunty Vinka’s shoulder and Dylan bumps his knee against me. (I can’t look at him.)

“If it’s okay,” Rob chimes in, possibly correctly interpreting the silence.

“It’s fine,” Shippy says.

“You’d be very welcome,” Aunty Vinka says. “Wearehoping to head back to Perth in the next day or so, though.”

“That’s seriously so kind,” Rob says with an easy smile. “Is it just you guys in the house? I think you said the other day it was your…stepmother’s house, Shippy?”

Dad is having none of this cozy Welcome to the Family business. “I still don’t understand why you were gone all day.”

“That’s the wild part,” Shippy says, clearly loading an anecdote. “We had our coffee and food and, okay, we might have had a brownie too.” He glances at Aunty Bec. “But when we got back in the car, the tire was flat, totally blown. Must have picked up a nail on the drive from the beach, because there was a big one just sticking right out of it.”

“And it took you all day to change the tire because…?” Aunty Bec presses.