Chapter 8 - The Sheriff Bagged the Fork and the Phone
The sconces were still on when the sheriff walked in, and that was the strangest part. The ballroom still looked like a reception. The flowers hadn't wilted. The cake was still white under the plastic, roses pressed flat where the wrap touched them. But nobody was acting like a guest anymore.
A deputy stood by the double doors with his hands clasped in front of him. A second one kept the path clear between the cake table and the little office off the foyer. My feet hurt in my heels. I hadn't sat down in over an hour.
Jonathan stood a few feet from me with his bow tie undone. He kept looking at the doors, then at me, then at her.
She was still in the green uniform and apron. She'd folded her arms, but the fork was gone. A deputy had it in a clear bag on the cake table.
The sheriff was a woman in her fifties with short gray hair and a brown uniform. She didn't raise her voice. "We're going to separate for statements," she said. "One at a time. It'll be cleaner that way."
I breathed out. My hands were shaking and I tried to hide it by holding my clutch with both hands.
She looked at me first. "Ma'am, office. Your husband can wait in the hall. Ma'am," she nodded to the staff woman, "you stay with Deputy Reyes until I call you."
Jonathan touched my elbow as I passed. He didn't say anything. His hand was cold.
The office was small. A desk, two chairs, a filing cabinet, a parking lot window with the blinds half down. Somebody's sweater hung on the back of the door. The air conditioner hummed too loud.
The sheriff sat across from me and set a small recorder on the desk. "I'm Sheriff Dalton," she said. "This is voluntary. I need a timed account of the setup hour near the cake. Just what you did, when, as best you remember."
I nodded. My tiara felt too tight. I wanted to take it off but I didn't.
"I was in the dressing suite until about six," I said. "Hair and makeup check. I came down around six-fifteen. The photographer wanted pictures by the cake before guests were seated."
She wrote as I talked. Not typing. Writing with a pen.
"Jonathan and I stood by the cake around six-thirty," I said. "We didn't touch it. We just posed. Then guests came in. I talked to donors. I didn't go back to the table until the cutting was announced."
"What time was that?"
"After eight. Eight-fifteen, maybe."
"Did you see anyone touch the tiers?"
I paused. I could hear my own breathing in that little room. "No," I said. "I didn't see her touch it. I didn't touch it."
She looked up. "Did you take anything from the family that night? An envelope, cash, a check?"
My face went hot. "No."
She didn't react. She just wrote it down. That scared me more than if she'd argued.
When she walked me back out, Jonathan was leaning against the wall in the hall. He stood straight when he saw me.
"Mr. Whitaker," Dalton said. "You're next."
He glanced at me. I tried to give him something steady. I wasn't sure what my face did.
I waited in the hall with Deputy Reyes. The staff woman was at the other end, near the foyer, arms still folded. She didn't look at me. We could hear the low murmur of guests still in the ballroom, and chairs scraping.
After a while Jonathan came out with Dalton. His face was pale under the stubble.
Dalton called the staff woman in. She walked past us without a pause. Her shoes squeaked once on the tile.
Jonathan and I stood there together but not touching. Reyes didn't tell us we couldn't talk, but it felt like we couldn't.
"Did you tell her the truth?" I whispered.
He nodded, staring at the office door. "I told her I didn't see."
The parking lot lights were on by the time Dalton came to get both of us. She brought the staff woman with her. The four of us stood near the side exit where it was cooler, by the sheriff's SUV. Moths hit the floodlight above the door.
Dalton held a clear evidence bag with a phone in it. I recognized the cracked case.
"This phone," Dalton said to the staff woman, "you said you have a recording on it."
"Yes, ma'am."
"I'm asking for temporary hold. I won't play the full video for anyone here tonight. It stays in custody until we log it. You'll get a receipt."
The staff woman hesitated. For the first time that night she looked unsure. "Will I get it back?"
"After it's logged and copied, yes, unless a judge says otherwise," Dalton said. "This protects you too. Chain of custody."
She slowly nodded and held out her hands, palms up, then pulled them back. "I consent," she said quietly.
Dalton bagged it, sealed it, wrote across the seal. She tore off a pink slip and handed it to her. The staff woman folded it and put it in her apron pocket.
Then Dalton turned to Jonathan. "Sir, for the record, same question I asked inside. Did you see either woman touch the cake tiers tonight?"
Jonathan looked at me, then at the staff woman. He swallowed. "No," he said. "I was right there. I didn't see either of them touch it."
I felt my knees go weak. I wasn't sure if that helped me or hurt me.
Dalton nodded and wrote it down on her clipboard right there under the floodlight. "Cake stays quarantined," she said. "Fork stays bagged. Both slated for testing. No results tonight. No viewing tonight."
The staff woman stared at the bag with her phone in it. "I told what I recorded," she said. "Timed, like you asked."
Dalton glanced up. "And it'll be in your statement."
A tow truck went by on the county road beyond the lot, loud and then gone. The air smelled like cut grass and car exhaust.
May you like
Dalton closed her clipboard. "Go home separately tonight," she said. "Don't discuss details. If that video spreads further, tell me."
Jonathan finally took my hand. His fingers were still cold. I held on anyway as we walked toward our car, my gown catching on the asphalt.
