I Failed a Lie Detector Test
I’ve confessed this to only a couple of people, but I’m now making it public: I failed a lie detector lie detector (polygraph) test.
This happened in the early ’80s, when I was young and naïve—long before I began writing crime fiction. Back then, I believed lie detector tests were infallible. When I failed, I didn’t just feel embarrassed—I questioned my own sanity. Was I a chronic liar and didn’t know it?
Years later, as a mystery writer, I know better.
It started when a friend asked me to bartend Sunday nights at a pricey hotel in downtown Austin. Someone had quit without notice, and he was in a bind. I’d bartended in college, so I agreed to help.
There was just one catch: new employees had to take a lie detector test.
No problem, I thought. It might even be interesting.
It was—but not in the way I expected.
I was sent to a private company across town. My internal alarms went off the moment I saw the man who would administer the test. “Creepy” is putting it mildly. He had greasy, dyed-black hair, dirt under his fingernails, and a stained dress shirt unbuttoned halfway down, exposing a thicket of chest hair. Cheap rings crowded his fingers.
At the time, I didn’t yet have the instincts of a crime writer—but I had enough sense to feel uneasy.
When he took my hand to attach the sensors, I shivered.
The questions began.
Had I ever stolen from an employer? No.
Had I ever been convicted of a crime? No.
Had I ever taken illegal drugs? No.
Then he lingered on the drug question, circling back again and again, rephrasing it each time. Today, I’d recognize that tactic immediately—pressure the subject, unsettle them, look for physiological spikes. But at the time, I was simply confused.
Finally, he asked if I was currently using drugs. I said I’d recently taken antibiotics and occasionally used Motrin.
He moved on, then returned to the same line of questioning.
If I were writing this scene today, I’d have my detective note the repetition, the shifting language, the way the examiner controlled the rhythm of the interrogation. I’d build tension there—because that’s where it lives.
But back then, I was just irritated—and certain of one thing: I had told the truth.
The following Sunday, as I was getting ready for work, my friend called.
I had failed the test.
If this were fiction, that would be the inciting incident—the moment everything tilts. The innocent protagonist accused. The system revealed as flawed. The first crack in what’s supposed to be objective truth.
My friend told me not to worry, said I could come to work anyway, maybe even retake it later.
I told him not to bother. I wasn’t coming back.
Years later, after writing crime novels and researching investigative techniques, I learned what I wish I’d known then: lie detector tests don’t always detect lies. They detect stress.
And stress can come from many places:
- Anxiety
- Fatigue or illness
- Medication
- Confusing or manipulative questioning
- Even the examiner’s own bias
In other words, the very conditions designed to “find the truth” can distort it.
That realization changed the way I think about interrogation scenes. In fiction, a lie detector can be a powerful tool—but not because it reveals truth. Because it reveals vulnerability. Because it can be wrong.
And wrong can be dangerous.
I recently discovered that lie detector tests were actively used in courtrooms in the 1950s—the world of my Sydney Lockhart mysteries. Which raises a delicious possibility.
What happens when Sydney—sharp, observant, and far less naïve than I was—is strapped into that chair? When she knows the machine is flawed, but the people watching believe it isn’t?
That’s not just a test.
That’s a setup.
And in crime fiction, setups are where the real story begins. I can’t wait to put Sydney in this uncomfortable situation and then watch her wiggle out of it. She’d do a much better job than her creator.
Have you ever been falsely accused?
Fabulous post, Kathleen! My mother-in-law used to accuse me of stealing every time she went on a trip. She’d come home, forget where she’d hidden the credit cards or jewelry, then call to accuse me of taking them–even though I didn’t have a key to her house and wouldn’t want anything she owned. She had terrible taste. Of course, she always wound up finding the “stolen” items, exactly where she’d hidden them, but I never once received an apology. It’s one of the many reasons why a patterned my sleuth’s mother-in-law after her. ;-D
Hi Lois, I’m familiar with the fictional mother-in-law. Knowing that she is modeled after the real thing adds some intrigue.
What a great blog post. Lots of good facts and an interesting twist for a Sydney adventure in the future.
Thanks, Debra. Woe be it to the examiner who gives Sydney a lie detection test.
Can’t remember ever being falsely accused, Kathleen, but I do remember when I was accused of something I was actually guilty of but lied about. I was preschool age. My uncle, who owned a food company, was babysitting me and took me with him to his processing plant to pick up some papers in his office. It was Sunday, and the factory was shut down, and dark. Before he went to his office, he left me in a hallway and cautioned me to “stay right there,” because a security system would be triggered if I crossed certain doors. It was dark and creepy with the lights out. After a minute or so I decided to go find him, but I got lost. When he found me he said we had to stay and wait for the police, because “someone” had not obeyed him and had triggered a silent alarm. I told him it wan’t me. It was the first time I remember lying about something and feeling shame.
Uncle’s fault for leaving you alone in a dark hallway.
I would have done the exact thing, Gay.
Ack! How creepy! And yes… What a great kick off to a mystery. 🤔
Thanks, Bethany. I’m considering that.
Interesting post, Kathleen. And an awesome way to use a interesting but creepy experience! 🙂
The thought of that creepy guy still gives me the willies.
I love this post! Not just for the “put me right there” description of the lie detector experience, but also for the way you show how the author’s life connects to the character’s.
Thanks, Saralyn. Sometimes I think Sydney is trying to take over and run the show.
OMG a lie detector test for a job as a bartender. Seriously? That’s insane. But a goldmine for an author! Great fun, Kathleen, you shifty thing you!
I thought so, too, Judy. But the bar was in a fancy hotel, so that might have been the reason.
Wow- what a story!
I failed my new companies drug test….twice! Both episodes, almost 8 months apart, random call-ins to do an on the spot test, mere hours after eating poppy seed cake.😂😂
You think I would have learned after the first time, but I was in my early twenties and didn’t believe lightening could possibly strike twice. They believed me about eating the poppyseed goodies though and I kept my job.
Poppy seeds will definitely show up on a drug test. I’m glad your company believed. Thanks for your comment.