Surfing Detective 04 - Hanging Ten in Paris

planned.”
    “Why are you telling me this?” I was curious. “Does it have anything to do with Ryan?”
    “No, but you’re a detective. You’d find out about Heather and me anyway. I’m telling you the truth about us so you’ll know I’m telling the truth about Ryan.”
    I shrugged. “Okay, so tell me.”
    Then he started in on the same story Scooter and the others had told. And, like them, he sounded canned. He stuck almost precisely to his statement in the police report. Often people alter something, if ever so slightly, in the retelling. But Brad’s reprise was dead on. I just let him talk. The more he thought I believed him, the better my chances to gain his cooperation later, if necessary.
    When I asked if he knew anyone who might want to hurt Ryan, Brad said the only person he could think of was Marie.
    “I meant bodily harm,” I said. “Do you think Marie was capable of that?”
    Brad shrugged. “She sure could have thought more about Ryan’s feelings.”
    “I suppose.”
    I asked Brad several more questions, he answered them halfheartedly, and then I walked back to my car, sorting out what he had said. Why had he told me Heather was pregnant? And why had he pointed suspicion at Marie? Brad seemed smart enough not to simply blurt these things out—unless he had a reason.

eleven

    I drove to Starbucks, ordered a decaf, and waited. It was about the same time I had interviewed Meighan the previous day. If she was a creature of habit, like most people, she’d show up before long.
    No sooner had I sat down with my coffee than the Michigan blonde pushed open the door, walked to the counter, and ordered a latte. When it was ready she turned to look for a table. I stood and waved.
    “What a surprise,” I said. “Do you come here often?”
    “Funny,” Meighan said, “I didn’t think you were much of a coffee drinker.”
    “I’m not,” I said.
    She gave me a look.
    “As long you’re here, what do you say we talk a bit more about Ryan? You know, just to clear up loose ends.”
    “Fine.” She glanced down at her latte; the aroma made me wish I’d ordered one.
    “You said Heather asked you to check on Ryan. Right?”
    “That’s right.” She sipped her latte.
    “Then you went down to his room, the door was open, and you walked in.”
    She nodded and took another sip.
    “Then what?”
    “I saw Ryan hanging and then I ran and got Heather and Kim.”
    “But what did you do
inside
his room?”
    “I didn’t go in.”
    “But you just said you did.”
    She turned away. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
    “Look, Meighan, if Paradise College finds out you withheld information about Ryan’s death, you don’t want to know the consequences.” It was an empty threat, but the best I could come up with.
    She sat in silence, sipping her latte and apparently weighing what I had said. I had no idea which way she’d go. The defiance in her eyes suggested I’d lost the battle. But suddenly her look softened and she said, “Okay, I did find Ryan hanging in his room, but not like everybody thinks. He was naked.”
    “Naked—as in nude?” She nodded.
    “No board shorts?” My instincts about his attire were apparently right.
    “He had nothing on.” Meighan gripped her cup. “I didn’t want him to be found that way, so I slipped on the shorts.”
    “You weren’t embarrassed seeing him naked, or squeamish touching his skin?”
    “Well, no”—she blushed—“I’d, uh, seen him before.”
    “You had?”
If Meighan had been intimate with Ryan after Marie left, maybe he wasn’t as brokenhearted as everybody but his own mother was saying?
I kept that thought to myself.
    “I’d rather not go into it.” Meighan looked away. “Okay, then what happened?”
    She faced me again. “I left the room. And when I came back with the others, I didn’t say anything about the board shorts.”
    “Did Heather or Kim say anything beyond what you already told me?”
    “Not much. Well . . . Kim whispered to Heather. And then Heather put her finger to her lips.”
    “And what did you make of that?” I knew the answer but I wanted to hear it from her.
    “That they already knew Ryan had hung himself?” I left my decaf on the table on my way out.

twelve

    A crack had opened in the wall of deceit. Concerned that Meighan might talk to Heather and Kim, I drove immediately to their apartment. I parked in view of their second-floor flat at the Pi‘ikoi Arms, a faded, low-rise slab building