This Is Why We Lied

“The white button-down shirt Mercy had worn at dinner had disappeared into the bloody pulp of her chest. Water had washed clean some of the wounds. He could see the angry gouges in her shoulder where the knife had been twisted. Dark red squares showed the only thing that had kept the blade from going deeper was the handle.”

Graphic details highlight the brutality of the violent crime against Mercy. This level of detail is a typical genre convention of a police procedural and characterizes Karin Slaughter’s work. In addition, this description generates a visceral reaction and connection with Mercy, the victim, increasing the tension as Will and his team look for the killer.

“Papa hadn’t moved, but she felt like she was a teenager again with his hands wrapped around her neck. Grabbing Mercy by the hair when she tried to run away. Jerking her arm so hard that the tendon popped. She was late to school again, late for work again, hadn’t done her homework, had done her homework too soon. He was always after her, punching her arm, bruising her leg, beating her with his belt, whipping her with the rope in the barn. He had kicked her in the stomach when she was pregnant. […] Testified in front of a judge that she deserved prison time. Told another judge she was mentally ill. Told a third judge she was unfit to be a mother. She saw him now with a sudden, startling clarity. Papa wasn’t angry about what he had lost in the bike accident. He was angry about what Mercy had gained.”

Again, graphic details describe violence. In this flashback sequence from Mercy’s third-person point of view, she recalls how Cecil relentlessly abused her throughout her life, from her childhood to her pregnancy and beyond. The final sentence alludes to Mercy’s new clarity of perspective on her father’s behavior: She suddenly sees his abuse for what it is, an attempt to control her because of his lack of control over his own life.

“He thought about his four fellow guests, wondering what kind of criminals they would hypothetically be. Considering the hefty cost of the lodge, he assumed at least three of them would lean more toward white-collar crimes. Frank would definitely be embroiled in something to do with crypto. Keisha had the sly, competent look of an embezzler. Drew reminded Will of a guy he’d busted for running a Ponzi scheme involving nutritional supplements. That left Monica, who legitimately looked like she was going to murder Frank. Of the group, Will figured she’d be the one most likely to get away with it. She’d have an alibi. She’d have a lawyer. She sure as hell wouldn’t sit for an interview.”

This passage highlights Will’s commitment to his job and his inability to leave it behind, even when on his honeymoon. Will’s job is more of a vocation: It’s who he is as well as what he does. The passage also demonstrates Will’s powers of observation, which will contrast with his biased insistence that Dave is the killer, showing how deeply personal his connection to Dave is.

“Mr. Laid-Back Dave. Mr. Easy-Going Dave. Mr. Life-of-the-Party Dave. No one realized that the Dave they saw was the show. The real Dave, the true Dave, was the one who’d just tried to strangle the life out of her. And the real Mercy was the one who’d wanted him to.”

Here, Slaughter uses a literary device called anaphora, in which a word or phrase is repeated for emphasis and impact. Mercy notes the vast difference between how other people perceive Dave and what she knows is true about him. The last sentence acknowledges the complex nature of Mercy’s relationship with Dave.

“Sara could not begin to understand the warped dynamics between Will and his ex-wife. The only good thing she could say about the woman was that she was gone.”

Asides like these hint at the history that earlier novels in the Will Trent develop. Sara is referring to Will’s relationship with his ex-wife Angie, which was off and on since they were in the children’s home together. Like Will, Angie was abused during childhood and struggles with addictive behavior. Such references highlight the broader arc of the series, which focuses more on the growth and development of the major characters.

“Safety was the one thing she had never felt. There was always the fear that Papa would explode. That Bitty would do something spiteful. That Christopher wouldn’t abandon her. That Dave would—shit, it wasn’t even worth going through the list because Dave did everything except make her feel safe. Even Jon didn’t bring her a sense of peace. Mercy was always terrified that he would turn on her like the others had. That she would lose him. That she would always be alone. She had lived her entire life waiting for the next punch.”

Mercy has endured abuse, neglect, and scorn throughout her life and doesn’t trust those closest to her, thematically illuminating How the Past Affects the Present. In this passage, Mercy offers reasons why each person in her family is unreliable, even including her son, Jon. Her comments about Jon prove prophetic: She does lose him to Bitty, and he ends up being her killer—the “next punch” that she’s waiting for.

“He wrapped his arm around her as she sat down. Sara leaned into him. His body felt solid and reassuring. She thought about Mercy’s question—does he make you feel safe? Except for her father, Sara had never been so sure of a man in her life. It bothered her that Mercy had never felt that way. As far as Sara was concerned, it fell under the category of fundamental human needs.”

As someone who has experienced safety and stability all her life, Sara sees it as a “fundamental human need.” Slaughter juxtaposes her life experience, including her relationship with Will, with Mercy’s to highlight the precariousness of Mercy’s life. Likewise, the fact that Mercy lacks something that Sara sees as essential emphasizes the same point.

“She said, ‘Places like this, you scratch a little bit under the surface and all sorts of bad things come out.’ Will gave her a careful look. ‘I know what you’re going to say: this is why we lied.’”

This quote makes the first direct reference to the title. In this context, it refers to Sara and Will lying about their professions to avoid the conversations that always seem to occur. Ironically, this lie allows them to operate undercover after Mercy’s death. In addition, the quote thematically alludes to The Impact of Lies and Secrets, since layers of lies and secrets surround the McAlpine family and Mercy’s death.

“‘What bullshit are you mired in?’

‘More than is dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio.’

‘Let’s skip the Shakespeare,’ Will said. ‘I’m an investigator. I need facts.’

‘Here’s one,’ she said. ‘Every person inside of that house is going to lie to you. I’m the only one who’s going to tell you the truth.’

In Will’s experience, the least honest people were the ones who went out of their way to announce that they were being honest, but he was eager to hear the aunt’s version of the truth. ‘Run it down for me, Delilah. Who has a motive?’”

Will’s frank conversation with Delilah thematically elevates The Impact of Lies and Secrets. Will’s experience in law enforcement leads him to most doubt the one who claims to be honest. This also reveals Will’s character: He prefers facts over literary references (in this case, a famous line from Hamlet that speaks to the limits of human perspective and understanding).

“This was the frustrating part of an investigation. People lied. They hid things. They kept their secrets. They shared others. And sometimes none of it had anything to do with the crime you were trying to solve.”

Although this is a locked-room mystery, Will isn’t an amateur detective. He’s a professional and thus understands human nature when under the duress of an investigation. In addition, this quote emphasizes the human inclination to keep secrets, and that part of the investigator’s job is sorting out which layers of lies are relevant and which simply obstruct the truth.

“I haven’t run across Mercy since Papa’s accident a year and a half ago, and then I only saw her once at the hospital. Town’s a hard place for her. She mostly stays up the mountain. Place is real isolated. Not a lot for folks to gossip about if you’re not mixing it up in town a little.”

Nadine’s comment highlights Mercy’s extreme isolation: She’s basically in exile at the lodge, completely dependent on her family. Mercy’s history illustrates the theme of How the Past Affects the Present, as she’s unable to escape her past mistakes and move forward. Although Nadine only has a small role in the story, she serves an important function: She not only explains community sentiment but shows how the locals don’t universally condemn Mercy. Nadine is compassionate and regrets not standing up for Mercy when she was alive.

“Will looked at Sara. They knew what should be done. The backpack was a valuable piece of evidence, but it was sitting among other valuable evidence. The arson investigator would want to take photos, comb through the debris, collect samples, run tests, search for accelerant, because something had clearly been used to make sure the cottage burned. Will had been inside while it was blazing. Fire didn’t spread like that on its own.”

Unlike most of her other novels, which are more conventional police procedurals, in this novel, Slaughter blends the police procedural and the locked-room mystery. In this passage, she highlights some of the obstacles that result. Because they aren’t at the lodge in a professional capacity, Will and Sara have no authority to act, even though they know exactly what should be done.

“A lot of cops thought the way you met violence was with violence. Will wasn’t one of those cops. He wasn’t here to punish Dave. He was going to do far worse than that. He wanted to arrest him. To put him in jail. To make him suffer through the stress and helplessness of being a defendant in a criminal trial. To let him have that boundless sense of hope that he might possibly get away with it. To see the crushing look on his face when he realized that he hadn’t. To know that he would have to scramble and claw every day for the rest of his life because inside the prison walls, men like Dave were always at the bottom of the pyramid.”

In this reflection, Will shows both his understanding of the bureaucracy of the justice system and his unconventional perspective. He understands that the better revenge is to go by the book and force Dave to endure the drawn-out legal process. However, this passage also shows the depth of Will’s enmity toward Dave, which is clouding his judgment on the case.

“And it come to me that this was maybe the first time I’ve really seen him for who he is. That the crying Dave or the laughing Dave or the high Dave or the angry Dave or even the Dave who pretends he loves me ain’t the Dave that he is at all. The real Dave is empty inside.”

Mercy reflects on how lies and secrets are central to her relationship with Dave, whose identity shifts according to circumstances, further developing The Impact of Lies and Secrets as a theme. The repetition of “the […] Dave” is another example of anaphora, which uses repetition for emphasis and to build tension. In this case, the repetition illustrates the range of Dave’s deception and his constantly shifting identity.

“Faith tried not to get ahead of herself. She had always wanted to work a real-life locked-room mystery. ‘You’ve got a limited number of suspects trapped in a remote location. That’s some Scooby Doo shit.’”

Here, Faith refers directly to the locked-room mystery genre. This passage develops Faith’s character as down-to-earth and expressive, in contrast to Will’s quieter nature. This contrast makes them a successful investigative pair. Faith often uses pop culture references, in this case to Scooby-Doo, a cartoon that featured a weekly mystery, often involving abandoned or isolated locations.

“She saw an empty paper bag marked EVIDENCE on the counter. The sheriff had gone so far as to take out a pair of gloves, but he hadn’t actually bagged and tagged the suspect’s personal items: a pack of cigarettes, a bulging Velcro wallet, a tube of Chapstick and an Android phone.”

Slaughter illustrates the methodical and bureaucratic nature of law enforcement characteristic of the procedural genre. This passage again juxtaposes correct procedure with what’s actually happening, while emphasizing that Sara has no control.

“If Biscuits looked exactly how she’d imagined from Will’s recording, Dave McAlpine was the exact opposite. Faith had somehow framed him in her head as somewhere between Moriarty from Sherlock Holmes and Wyle E. Coyote. In person, Dave was handsome, but in a bedraggled high-school-prom-king-gone-to-seed kind of way. He’d probably slept with every other woman in town and had a $20,000 gaming set-up inside his rented trailer. Which was to say, exactly Faith’s type.”

Faith’s point of view and voice add some humor to the narrative, and she characteristically uses pop culture references to explain her perspective. While Moriarty is the deviously intelligent nemesis of Sherlock Holmes, Wyle E. Coyote is a villain from the classic Looney Tunes cartoons. Faith’s comments about Dave also reference her own relationship history, and her self-deprecation shows both awareness and humor.

“The likelihood that Sara would find any information this morning that required immediate action was close to zero. So why was the boss here?”

Sara finds Amanda’s presence at the autopsy unusual, since she doesn’t usually attend. This case is breaking the status quo in numerous ways, including Amanda’s role in the investigation and Will’s life. As his boss and a mother figure, Amanda is as personally involved in the case as Will is.

“Faith looked at Penny’s worn face. Once you peeled away her posturing, there was a depressing level of defeat. ‘Shit,’ Penny muttered. ‘No matter what I did, it was always gonna end up this way. Same with Mercy. Her daddy wrote the first page of her life before she had a chance to figure out her own story.’”

Penny explains the position that both she and Mercy were trapped in their families, thematically illustrating How the Past Affects the Present. She reveals the cycle of abuse that makes Mercy’s death seem almost predestined. Ironically, Mercy’s notebook gives her a chance to write her own story, exposing everything in her own words.

“Unlike the rest of the men on the property, Chuck was a complete mystery. They didn’t know his last name. They hadn’t been able to do a background check. More importantly, Mercy had embarrassed the man in front of a group of people. Roughly eighty percent of the murders Will investigated were perpetrated by men who were furious about their inability to control women.”

Will’s thoughts emphasize the difficulties of investigating in such a remote location: They’re unable to access even a basic level of law enforcement services, like a background check. He isn’t able to rule people out as quickly as he normally might, and this means he can’t rule out Chuck as the killer. He even cites a statistic regarding male murderers from his investigations. Throughout the novel, real-life statistics and facts help place the characters in a real-world context.

“‘Another liar come up here to lie.’ Bitty ended the conversation with that. She walked up the stairs, went into the house, and shut the door behind her. ‘Jesus.’ Faith hooked her purse over her shoulder and made her way to the parking pad. This place wasn’t The Lottery. It was Children of the Corn.”

Faith again uses pop culture references, this time Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” and Stephen King’s “Children of the Corn.” While Jackson’s story is about a town that hosts an annual ritual to sacrifice one resident, in King’s story, children are members of a demonic cult that kills residents and visitors alike. As examples of the horror genre, “The Lottery” falls within the folk horror genre, whereas “Children of the Corn” is more graphic, bloody, and even contains supernatural elements. When Faith shifts her opinion from one story to the other, she emphasizes the increased degree of unease she feels at the lodge.

“Faith folded the map and pretended like none of this was weird.

Faith asked, ‘Any word on whether forensics was able to save Mercy’s notebook?’

She had asked Sara the question, but Sara was looking at Will. Which was odd, because forensics was Sara’s department.

Will gave a tight shake of the head. ‘No word on the notebook yet.’

‘Okay.’ Faith tried to ignore the weirdness.”

This scene emphasizes how the location has disrupted the status quo operations of Will and his team. The isolation has stymied them and upended their normal processes. Faith’s expectations and the tension surrounding the shift are evident in her repeated attempts to ignore the “weirdness.” This is further complicated by the new personal dynamic of the team: Although they’ve worked together for a long time, this is their first case after Will and Sara’s marriage.

“Will’s body started to accept the truth before his brain did. His skin felt hot. His ears buzzed with a loud, piercing ring. His mind spun back to the dining hall like a carousel of nightmares. He saw Dave’s rattled expression when Jon ran out the door. The slow change in his demeanor. The nod of understanding. The sudden capitulation. It wasn’t Jon’s departure that had triggered his confession. It was hearing Bitty’s soft whisper—My precious boy. Faith had joked that Bitty acted like Dave’s psycho ex-girlfriend. But it wasn’t a joke.”

This passage emphasizes the shocking nature of Will’s revelation about Bitty’s relationships with both Dave and Jon. Sensory imagery in which Will’s ears buzz and his mind spins emphasizes his visceral reaction. Bitty’s abuse of Dave and then Jon highlights its cyclical nature, although Dave’s willingness to take the blame on Jon’s behalf shows an attempt to break that cycle.