“Why didn’t you?”
“I don’t know. I was focused on the task at hand.”
“So, this idea to kill your father just popped into your head?”
“It had been brewing for a long time. Something snapped inside me. I couldn’t take it anymore.”
“When was the last time you had seen your father prior to the murder?”
“I don’t know. Months. I didn’t want to be around him or her,” she said, her lip curling with disdain.
“So, he was just living rent-free in your head?”
She glared at me, jaw clenched, cheeks red. “Not rent-free. He lived in my head like a cancer. This was the only way I could cut him out.”
Hailey was about to come unglued.
“What did you stab him with?”
“Scissors.”
I let that hang there for a moment. “Are you sure about that?”
She blinked a few times. “Yes. I’m sure.”
I shared another glance with Jack. Maybe she was referring to the shears as scissors. But I wasn’t buying it.
I said to her, “Would you excuse me for a moment?”
The chair screeched as I pushed away from the table. I stood up, walked to the door, and gave a quick knock. A guard buzzed me out, and I stepped into the hallway. I hustled to the main office, grabbed a pair of scissors from Denise’s desk, and returned to the interrogation room.
The scissors clunked as I set them on the table.
Hailey’s eyes found them, and the scissors transfixed her. She couldn’t break her gaze away.
With Hailey in handcuffs, I wasn’t concerned about her grabbing them and going crazy.
“Can you confirm that those scissors are the murder weapon?”
She nodded, still mesmerized by them.
“I need a verbal response.”
“Yes. That’s the murder weapon. That’s what I stabbed my father with.”
“Are you sure about that?”
Her eyes found me. “Positive.”
I gave her a look. "That's not the murder weapon.”
Her face went long, and she swallowed hard. "Yes, it is.”
"No. It's not.”
"Well, it looks just like the murder weapon.”
I laughed. "No. It doesn't. Those are a pair of scissors I pulled off a deputy's desk. Your father was stabbed with shears that look nothing like those scissors.”
