Lies My Parents Told Me by Craig Hansen

Author:Craig Hansen
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781792077593
Published: 2018-12-25T22:00:00+00:00

8

2:02 p.m.

“THAT WAS STUPID, YOU KNOW.”

The sound of an unfamiliar female voice startled me. I now sat on a rock above the shoreline, staring out across the ocean, my back to the scene of death behind me, hoping I might see a whale break the surface as it swam by. I whirled and saw a tallish, blonde-haired, gray-eyed woman on the early side of her forties. Her pale skin was offset by a black pantsuit and robin’s-egg blue blouse under her blazer.

“Who are you?” I asked, my voice sharp and a bit too loud.

“Angela Connor. I’m a detective with the Oregon State Police. Homicide division. I’m here to help.”

She looked as if she could have been a high school cheerleader when she was less than half her current age, but something in the older woman’s eyes told me not to take her for granted. She didn’t smile, so her expression seemed stone-faced, neutral, even a bit guarded, without becoming unapproachable.

“Too late. Fang’s already dead.”

“I know. That’s why I’m here.”

“So why am I stupid?”

“I meant what you did was stupid. I didn’t say you were.”

“Either way. Why?”

“Because, if you had nothing to do with Fang’s death, storming out here as I’m told you did has more than half your friends thinking you did it.”

“They’re not my friends, first of all. I don’t know any of them. Met them all three days ago when I was shipped out here for this stupid hike.”

“Okay, so your hiking companions, then.”

I shrugged, looking away from the older woman and back out at the ocean. A few gulls were circling about a hundred yards south of me, offshore, taking turns dive-bombing the surface of the water, splashing in, and then emerging with a mouthful of late lunch.

“Let ‘em.”

“Why do you say that?”

“In three weeks, I’ll never see any of them again. Maybe sooner, now. What do I care what they think of me?”

“How about, because they are potential witnesses against you?”

“Witnesses? Wait, do you think I killed Fang?”

“At least three of them said they think you did it, because of how you reacted. I wasn’t here. I’m just a detective. I take statements and try to make sense of them. Hard to ignore three witnesses pointing a finger at the same person.”

“God. For a supposed detective, you’re the one who’s pretty stupid.”

To my surprise, my attack didn’t even cause the woman to blink. “Fair enough. Tell me why listening to three witnesses is stupid.”

“Were any of the three who accused me girls? Did any of them say they saw me kill her? If they did, that’s a damn lie.”

Detective Connor shook her head. “No. They assumed it based on how you acted when the body was discovered.”

“I freaked out. I admit that. Doesn’t mean I killed her.”

“It doesn’t?”

“No, genius. I’d just seen a dead body. Of someone I know. Barely, maybe. But I’d been hiking with her, so not a complete stranger.”

“Was this the first time you’ve seen a dead body?”

My stomach knotted, as I sat reflecting.

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