Page 98 of Snow Creek

She’s pulling herself under. Inside she’s clawing at the surface and trying with all she can to find a way out.

There is no way out.

“I know what you did,” I tell her. “That’s why I’m here.”

“I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t do anything.”

In a flash she bolts for the door. She’s unsteady. She’s a blinded deer on an icy road. My new best friends from Chelan County are right there to stop her. She sinks to the shiny linoleum floor, splayed out like a broken doll.

Her face is flushed and she’s sobbing.

“Sarah Wheaton, you’re under arrest for the murder of your parents, Merritt and Ida Wheaton.”

I finish reading her rights while cuffing her on the way to the car, thanking the Chelan deputies for their help and promise to follow up when I get back to the office.

Sarah is a sad, broken record.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she cries, taking her place in the back seat. “I didn’t want my brother to do it. I told him that it was wrong. That he could go to jail.”

She’s been following the news.

“Remember,” I caution, “anything you say can and will be used against you in court.”

I tell her she can have a lawyer appointed free of charge.

“I know,” she says. “But I really didn’t do anything wrong.”

I merge on Highway 2 and head west. I didn’t get the pretzel, but I did bring home a killer. Sheriff will be both elated and disappointed. I want to call in with an update. But I don’t.

Sarah wants to talk.

“My mom and I came into the workshop. Joshua had just killed our father.” She stops to remember or to fabricate her story.

I’ll know in a moment which.

“My dad was molesting me, Detective Carpenter. He had been for years. When Joshua found out he told me he was going to put a stop to it. I thought he was going to call the sheriff. He didn’t. When my mom and I went into his workshop that night it was because we heard them fighting. Fighting more than normal.”

As she speaks my eyes leave the road longer than they should as I watch her in the mirror.

“Your father was molesting you.”

She senses my sympathy and pounces on it as some kind of common ground that will work some magic and somehow save her where her brother had failed.

“Yes. It was terrible.”

“And no one knew.”

“Not until I told my brother.”

While I’m an accomplished liar, I sometimes hate the game. This is one of those times. She’s young and out of her league. What she’ll tell me next, I think, will be a lie.

“Your mom didn’t know.”

She shakes her head.

“Really,” I say.

“Yes. She had no idea.”

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