“Well, I heard. On the radio on the drive in. I heard him speak."
I did not hear him speak. I did not have the radio on. I lie clean. I lie the way the lies have started coming, easy, small, steady, because I have been practicing lately lying to Val.
"Right," Val says. I don’t know if she believes me. She is the most unreadable person I have ever met.
She turns another page.
"The investigation wants a statement from all of us. You, Kessler, the first-in crew, the arson board. They are going to interview each of us formally by Friday."
"Yes, Chief."
"You'll walk through your statement before the interview. You'll walk through it with me."
"Yes, Chief."
"You’ll tell them what you told me."
"Yes, Chief."
"You saw no one in the house. You were at the scene in an off-duty capacity because you saw the smoke column from the road on your way home to the northwest cabin. You called it in. You helped the first-in crew establish perimeter. You did not enter the structure."
"Yes, Chief."
She looks up.
The look is the look. It is the look I have sat across from fourteen years. She has used it on suspects. She has used it on liars. She has used it on an assistant chief in Pittsburgh in 2008 that I watched her use it on. She has never used it on me.
She is using it on me.
"Hale."
"Chief."
"Were you at your apartment Monday night."
The question.
The question is not about Monday night. The question is about whether I am going to sayyesplain, or whether I am going to pause before I say it, because the pause is what she is watching for.
I do not pause.
"Yes, Chief."
The lie comes out at the same rate all my lies are spilling out. It is the same rate. I know the rate now. I know it the way I know the four-minute mark.
"Monday night?”
"Yes, Chief."
"Officer Lark ran the plate of a dark Ford parked on county road seventeen at oh-four-forty Tuesday morning. The plate was yours. The truck was empty. He didn't stop. He wrote it up as a passing observation. He gave me a courtesy call yesterday afternoon because he thought I should know one of my people had a truck sitting on a county road at four in the morning on the night of a fire."
My throat does a small thing.
She watches the throat.
"What was your truck doing on county road seventeen at four in the morning, Hale."
I have two seconds.
