Page 110 of Obsession
I swallowed the lump in my throat.
The man stood up and came towards me. I tried to sit up straight and not give him any cause for suspicion.
“Hi, Katherine. I’m Detective Shane Walker from the SPD. Please calm down, I’m not here because you or your father are in trouble.”
He flashed his badge. A detective. I continued to panic. That explained his lack of uniform. He was one of the important people who always went after the big sharks, not high school druggies.
He smiled at me like he would at a scared animal, and I probably looked like one too.
“Nice to meet you,” I shook his hand.
Over his shoulder, I saw my father’s exhausted face. Tired and … angry. It was clearly my fault that this detective was in our house. I turned my attention back to him.
“Did you happen to hear about the incident on Saturday afternoon, Katherine? The incident that happened during the preparations for the “My Ballard” fair?”
I frowned in confusion. This discussion had taken a strange turn.
I looked at my father.
“Are you talking about the boy who died?”
He nodded.
“His death wasn’t an accident. Someone pushed him off the building.”
A cold shiver ran down my spine and I looked at the detective in increasing shock. He was quite young, barely over thirty, with short black hair and a muscular body, apparently as tall as Harris. He was wearing jeans and a black shirt, but he was a man of the law, the kind you wouldn’t want stalking you.
“I’m sorry to hear that, but what do I have to do with it?”
“After interviewing the witnesses, we found out that you had a conflict with the victim not long before he died.”
My heart stopped.
“I wouldn’t exaggerate; it wasn’t really a conflict, but yes, he was around me.”
He looked at my father as if asking his permission for something. My father nodded, and before I could ask what the hell he was talking about, he opened the folder he was holding and handed me an A4 sheet of paper. A picture of a boy.
I frowned for a moment because I couldn’t recognize him, then I remembered and tried to stifle my whimpering.
It was the boy who had tried to help me with the jars of honey.
He was still alive in the photo, but then he gave me a different image and I couldn’t suppress the wince anymore.
I wouldn’t have been able to recognize him if I had seen the second photo first. He was… crushed.
I covered my mouth with my hand and turned my head.
“Judging by your reaction, I’d say you knew him.”
The way he analyzed me made me frown, but I tried to stay calm and suppress my reactions, to put on the shield, because the situation had gotten ugly as shit, and I was in no mood to be blamed for the boy’s death.
“You showed me a picture of a crushed corpse, how should I react to that?” I scolded, and he immediately shoved the photos back into his folder.
“I’m sorry, but I wanted you to know who we were talking about.”
“But I don’t know what you’re talking about. I saw him for a minute on Saturday; if that. He wanted to help me put the jars of honey on the shelves. I didn’t see him before that, I don’t even know his name.”
“Tristan Reece. He was nineteen.” I ran my fingers through my hair and tried to stay calm. “What happened after that?” he continued.