Lies My Parents Told Me

by Craig Hansen

  “We will,” Tim assured him and soon the law man disappeared down the eastern trail leading away from the promontory.

  Mystelle looked skyward, the sun arcing toward the apex of the sky, still visible in outline behind the clouds, and sighed. “Almost noon. Will be soon enough, anyway. We were supposed to be in Cannon Beach by now to resupply, on our way again by one or one-thirty. Might not even be there till past three now.”

  Tim nodded. “We’ve lost a half-day. I’m not wild about setting out without being sure where Fang is, but—”

  “How can you be talking about moving on at all? Something happened to Fang. We don’t know what. Shouldn’t we know that before we leave here?”

  “Any suggestions for sussing that out, Shabby?”

  “Go jump off a cliff, jerk.”

  Tim stared at the ground and seemed to be counting to five. “Me either, Shabby.” He spoke up enough so everyone could hear. “Everyone, gather your stuff. We’re back on the trail in fifteen.”

  I felt the urge to punch the older man, but memories of my encounter with him earlier in the woods held me back. That, and the knowledge that he was correct.

  What else could we do?

  7

  12:14 p.m.

  I SMELLED FANG’S BODY BEFORE I spotted it. We all did. The scent reminded me of white-tailed deer dung. We had hiked down from the Tillamook Head promontory and come around to the south side when Jori hooted his disgust.

  “Dude! If this is sea air, ship me back to Detroit.”

  Tuco socked him in the shoulder while Jazz stuffed his hands in his pockets and tried to look anywhere but at his hiking buddies. The three boys and Tim had led the way, trailed by Sam, Brena, and Shabby, with counselor Mystelle following, making sure no one strayed off the trail to be left behind.

  “That is foul,” Brena said, as if reporting a fact for no apparent audience.

  Tim breathed deep. “This is country living, boys and girls. Not like the big city. What you smell now is what it’s like when there’s wildlife around. A bear probably relieved himself. No big deal.”

  My eyes scanned the area out of the nervous habit I had formed to always be aware of my surroundings, though it made me no less jittery about what might be out there, just out of sight. In the distance, near the base of the promontory, I spotted an odd indentation dividing a growth of hot-pink fireweed flowers. Earlier along the trail, I had seen these grow in wild bunches, but this area seemed more disorganized, as if someone had walked through roughly, and recently. The lack of markings of a similar passage around it made it stand out.

  “Miss Grant, look at that.” I pointed out the fireweed patch.

  “What?”

  Counselor Tim had overheard us and stepped closer. “What are you two looking at?”

  “See that patch of fireweed?” I pointed it out.

  Tim nodded. “Okay, yeah. Pretty.”

  I sighed, impatience roiling in my veins. “Not that. Look closer.”

  Tim studied the area more closely, his forehead creasing. “Looks like there might be something out there. I’ll go check.”

  I fell in step with him.

  “No,” Tim said.

  “Yes.” I felt determined to see whatever it was we had stumbled across, and as we drew near, I could make out a swarm of flying bugs hovering over the same area.

  Tim moved to take me by the shoulders, but I stopped short to stay out of his grasp. I sucked in a sharp breath and he dropped his arms to his sides.

  “Sorry. I have a bad feeling about what this is, Shabby. I don’t think you should see it.”

  “I have to.”

  “Shabby, why?”

  I brushed my dark hair back over my shoulders, tucking it behind my ear. I shrugged. “Just do.”

  Tim sighed. “All right, but let’s take it slow. If this is what we’re afraid it is, we don’t want to disturb or contaminate the scene.”

  Together, we stepped closer to the fireweed patch. The sweet smell of its blooms perfumed the salty sea air. I caught my first glimpse of bloodied, bruised flesh when we drew within ten feet and the tall grass was able to conceal fewer secrets. We stopped in our tracks for a moment, and then I moved closer.

  “Careful,” Tim said. “No further.”

  I swallowed with difficulty, my lungs tightening, my body coiling, ready to spring. Goth girl Fang looked more colorful in death than she had in life, covered in blood and purple bruises darkening to black and green, her ashen skin now the opposite of pale. Her legs were broken in several places. Arms, too. Her head seemed misshapen and I wished I could draw closer, but knew Tim would try to stop me. I didn’t want him touching me again.

  “She fell. Or something.”

  “Is it her?” Tim tilted his head, studying the body. What remained of it.

  I avoided looking at the body’s face, hesitant to confirm the identity, though I felt certain I knew who it was, the only person it could be. I forced my eyes up. Dark hair with streaks dyed purple. Small, thin lips covered in black lipstick. Her face, despite the damage to the head, remained recognizable. The clothing matched the light sweats Fang had worn to bed the night before.

  I crumpled to my knees, shaking, unable to cry, though feeling like I should. It would make sense. Yet, something held me back.

  Behind me, I heard Sam say, “Oh hell no,” while Brena began to weep loud enough to be heard.

  “Not good, not good, not good,” Mystelle kept saying. I could picture the trip’s female counselor pacing awkwardly back and forth on the trail despite her injured ankle, even without looking back at her.

  The boys were strangely silent.

  Wisely, Tim allowed me to work through my discovery of Fang’s body without laying a finger on me. I felt grateful for that. My legs tensed, coiled springs, waiting for the chance to release. My hands clenched into proper fists, thumbs outside my fingers.

  The world around me grayed out. I was nine again, one of my mother’s boyfriends, who insisted I call him Uncle Kevin, leering over me in my bedroom, his hands on me, his hissing, snake-voice threatening, telling me if I made so much as a peep, he’d leave me there, walk to the kitchen, grab the biggest knife he could find, and serve my mother to me for breakfast.

  I’d believed him.

  Even with Tim standing four feet away, the others at least a hundred yards, I fought a sensation of claustrophobia gripping me. Stumbling to my feet, I whirled toward the ocean and ran. Tim called after me, then Mystelle, then some of the hikers near my age. None of it mattered to me. I needed to get away, needed to breathe, to run, to find the space that would allow me to get my mind straight.

  “Don’t follow!” A warning, shouted without turning around, came as I paused to shed the weight of my backpack. While I heard a stir of voices behind me, no pounding of footsteps pursuing me helped me feel the air around me, the absence of others in the space nearby, and as I reached the rock-strewn shoreline, I waded out into the surf, which was colder than expected, colder by far here than even Lake Superior in the early fall. Yet it felt refreshing. When the water reached my knees, I stopped running, dropped to my knees, and splashed my face with the briny surf. Soon I was soaked through, every stitch on me water-logged, but the chill cut through the wild heat coursing through my veins, cooling me, calming me.

  Covering tears shed only in part over the loss of my hiking buddy.

  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. “No. My mom’s boyfriend, when I was nine.” I stopped short of mentioning him raping me, just before he took his own life, queasy at the possibility I’d already said too much.

  “I’m sorry.”

  I was near tears now, my voice quavering, but I shook off the consoling hand Connor placed on my shoulder. The detective drew it back but seemed to make a mental note.

  “Sorry doesn’t change it. Anyway, it was years ago.”

  “What did you think of Fang?”

  The change of topics caught me off guard. “Not much. I was just getting to know her. She was a bit schmeeked.”

  “I’m sure she was just shy, but—”

  “Not meek. Schmeeked.” I rolled my eyes.

  “I’m not familiar with—”

  “She smoke and toke.”

  “Marijuana?”

  I nodded.

  “You, too?”

  “She offered. No, thanks.”

  The detective raised an eyebrow. “Why not? Pot’s legal in Oregon.”

  “Not at my age. Also, I’ve read some studies. THC can damage the hippo-something part of your brain.”

  “Hippocampus. You believe that?”

  I shrugged. “Most of my classmates think it’s propaganda.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “Most of my classmates also think nine-eleven was an inside job, sponsored by the CIA and Israel to incite a war on Islam. I prefer to think for myself.”

  Detective Connor nodded.

  “Besides, my mom’s boyfriend overdosed when I was nine, remember? I can’t write the possibility off.”

  The detective scribbled something in her notebook and I felt my neck muscles stiffen, knotting up. I narrowed my gaze at the woman.

  “What are you writing?”

  Connor shifted, pulling her notebook closer to her, making it hard for me to get a glimpse. Then she flipped it shut.

  “Notes to myself. Little reminders. Nothing you need to worry about.”

  I huffed, picked up a stone, and tried to skip it along the surface of the surf. It didn’t work well when it was windy like it was becoming.

  “Why is everyone assuming it’s me, or that she was even killed? Maybe she jumped, y’know?”

  The detective raised her head and I noticed both surprise and respect flash across the older woman’s face. I kept a grin off my face.

  “Is that what you think happened?” Connor asked.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably not. But I’m just a high school kid.”

  “How good a look did you get at the body of your friend?”

  “Not very. I’m just saying, maybe she fell. Maybe she was attacked by a bear. We saw a bear up there yesterday. Fang and I, I mean.” I pointed toward the promontory.

  “I won’t know for sure until the full coroner’s report is completed. And that’ll just be a draft. If there’s a need for toxicology reports, or DNA testing, it might be weeks before we know for sure. Unless you just want to confess now.”

  I felt my eyes pulse in my head and snarled, “what kind of Veronica Mars games you trying to play with me, po-po?”

  “Just making sure.”

  “So you’re still stuck on murder?”

  “For now. That, or she jumped.”

  I shook my head, more certain now. “Fang didn’t seem the type.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Kinda, yeah, but that doesn’t mean I did it. You see something that makes it seem like murder to you?”

  “At the scene?” Detective Connor waved a hand where police photographers and crime-scene experts were wrapping up their work, loading what was left of Fang into a body bag.

  I nodded.

  “We’re keeping our options open.”

  “That’s a press statement.”

  “You like investigating all leads better?”

  Both annoyed and amused, I shook my head and stared over at the crime scene. Mystelle, Samara, and Brena huddled together, Counselor Mystelle with a blanket pulled around her as the wind chilled the occasionally-sunny day. Brena cried, constantly rubbing her cheeks and eyes with her thumbs and the back of her hands. Sam stood a couple steps away from the other two, pacing when she could, her face red and full of dark emotions.

  Tuco stood with Jori and Jazz on either side of him. He held a Frisbee in his hands, flipping it, looking eager to play. Jori shifted from one foot to the other, impatient, ready to move on and frustrated he couldn’t. Only Jazz seemed close to grief; he shook his head and ran his hands through his hair, sometimes stopping to cover his eyes for a while. Counselor Tim was being interviewed by another detective, and I supposed that made sense, considering he was the other person who’d approached the body before the police had arrived.

  Anger boiled beneath my skin. “You’re making jokes while a girl a year younger than me is being loaded into a body bag.”

  Detective Connor nodded. “You either laugh or you cry. To deal, I mean.”

  “You forgot another option.”

  “Which is?”

  “You put it away. Bury it. Forget about it so you can get through. Cope later.”

  “Is that what you do, Shabby?”

  Huffing, I turned from the detective and stared out across the Pacific, longing for the Great Lakes. Why did I have to be here, of all places? Anywhere else would be an improvement. Anywhere without all these strangers,
without idiot detectives accusing me on the basis of gossip just because I needed to get away, to breathe.

  “That is an option, but it’s not a healthy one.” The detective laid a hand on my shoulder but I shrugged it away. “Buried things tend to stay buried too long, and once you start digging them up, well….”

  “Connor!”

  One of the detectives was waving her over and I let her go, waited until the Fang’s body bag was out of sight, tucked away in the ambulance, before walking back to rejoin the group. As I approached, the two counselors huddled to talk to each other, separated from the kids, and soon I drew close enough to hear their discussion.

  “… going to be okay, Tyee?”

  “I already talked to the office. Counselor Gwen will be meeting us in Cannon Beach in about an hour. You’re covered.”

  “Sorry. I feel like a heel for leaving you like this, but my ankle’s still swelling, and—”

  “It’s fine. Health comes first. You know that. I just hope we get there, what with the forecast.”

  The counselors turned to look west at the ocean and spotted me drawing close.

  I lifted a hand in a halfhearted wave, confusion clouding my mind. “Hey. Sounds as though we’re going to keep hiking. After all this?”

  Tim stepped forward. “That’s right, Shabby. There’s every possibility this is an accident. Right now, they know our hike schedule and where we’re all going to be. We’ve been cleared to continue the hike, both by the Fireweed Trail directors and by the state cops.”

  “That’s weird. Talking to Detective Conner, it sounded like they were going to arrest me, at least.”

  “No. Not today, at least. Let’s round up everyone else.” Tim lifted his eyes to the overcast sky, frowning. Dark clouds lined the western horizon, meeting the steel-gray waters and cresting waves.

  As Tim gathered the other hikers, Detective Connor met up with Counselor Mystelle, allowing her to sit in the passenger side of her state-issued, unmarked cruiser. The ambulance, lights and sirens off, led the way and both Samara and Brena began crying. I felt rage pulsing through my bloodstream, a ravaging fire. That could have been me, I thought.