Chapter 7: The Sheriff's Interview Room
The county sheriff's station smelled like old coffee and floor wax. They'd put me in a room with cinderblock walls painted beige and a metal table bolted to the floor. I still had my tuxedo jacket on but I'd loosened the bow tie hours ago. My hands were cold. An officer had taken my phone at the Whitmore for evidence photos and then given it back with the battery nearly dead.
A detective came in around one thirty in the morning. He was in his late forties, gray at the temples, wearing a navy polo with a small sheriff's star embroidered on it. He introduced himself as Detective Harrell. He didn't offer his hand. He set a legal pad down and a small recorder.
"Mr. Mercer, I need to keep you separated from both women while we do formal interviews," he said. "You understand that?"
I nodded. "I do."
"We're recording everyone. That includes you if you want to give a statement again."
"I want to," I said. "But I want to hear what they say."
"You will," he said. "After."
He left me there listening to the air conditioner rattle. Through the thin wall I could hear a woman's voice rising and falling. I couldn't make out words, just tone. Vivian's voice, then quiet, then Harrell's lower voice asking something again.
About twenty minutes later he brought Vivian back past my doorway. She'd taken the tiara off and was holding it in both hands. Her eyes were red but her makeup was still perfect except for a smudge under one eye. She didn't look at me as she passed.
Harrell came back in with a folder.
"We spoke to your wife first," he said. He flipped a page. "She states she was at the head table around nine thirty fixing a loose crystal on her tiara. Says one of the stones was catching. She reached over and her hand brushed your champagne flute. Accidentally. She denies handling any pills, denies putting anything in the drink."
I stared at the table. "She said nine thirty?"
"That's what she gave us. Nine thirty, give or take a few minutes."
He let that sit there. I could hear a clock ticking somewhere in the hall.
"And Nora?" I asked.
He turned another page. "Ms. Hale states she was rehired for event coordination. Says she has a text from your business partner inviting her to work the reception. Mr. Ellis Grant."
I blinked. "Ellis didn't tell me he brought her back."
"She showed us the text on her phone. Timestamped three days ago. 'Can you cover the Whitmore? Daniel will need a steady hand.' That's the wording." He looked up at me. "Does that sound like Mr. Grant?"
"Yeah," I said. "That sounds like Ellis."
That changed something in my chest. Nora hadn't crashed the wedding. She'd been let in the side door by someone I trusted. Someone who knew how Vivian and I had been fighting about money the last month.
Harrell tapped his pen against his pad. "There's a problem with the times."
"What do you mean?"
He slid a printed still across the table toward me. It was grainy, black and white, from the Whitmore's security feed. A timecode in the corner read 21:47:12. It showed Vivian at the head table, her hand extended over two flutes. Her tiara was still on her head, centered and straight.
"Your wife says she was at the table at nine thirty," Harrell said. "This is nine forty seven. She wasn't at the table at nine thirty. She was on the dance floor at nine thirty with you and the photographer. We checked that file too."
I felt my jaw tighten. "So she lied about when."
"Or misremembered. People do under stress," he said, but his voice made it clear he didn't believe that. "Still, it's documented. Her statement says nine thirty. Video says nine forty seven. That's a seventeen minute gap and she's the only one who touched the glass before Ms. Hale says she saw something."
I looked at the photo again. Vivian's fingers were inches from the rim of my glass. At nine forty seven, three minutes before Nora shouted.
"Can I read what they said?" I asked.
Harrell considered it. He left and came back with two stapled packets, both with thick black marker lines through names and a few paragraphs.
"Redacted transcripts," he said. "You can read them here. You can't take them with you. And you can't talk to either woman about what you read tonight."
The first packet was Vivian's. Her words were typed exactly how she'd said them, with pauses marked. I was fixing a loose crystal on my tiara at the table and my hand touched the glass accidentally. I don't take pills. I don't have any pills. I would never do that. I read it twice. The language was careful, like she'd rehearsed it.
The second packet was Nora's. I was rehired for event coordination and has text from Daniel's business partner inviting me. I came to do my job. I saw her crushing something white over his glass near the champagne tower. Then, near the bottom, I wasn't sure until I saw the powder fall.
I closed both packets. My hands weren't cold anymore.
"Detective," I said, my voice lower than I wanted it to be. "If Vivian was fixing her tiara at nine forty seven, why was the tiara still perfectly centered in the photo?"
Harrell didn't answer right away. He picked up the still and slipped it back in the folder.
"That's a good question," he said. "We'll ask her again tomorrow."
May you like
He stood, which meant I was supposed to stand too. He told me they'd hold the ballroom closed and that lab results on the glass were still hours out. No one was being declared a suspect tonight. He told me I could wait in the lobby while they finished processing.
I walked out into the hall where Vivian was sitting on a plastic chair with a sheriff's deputy standing near the water cooler and Nora was in the other interview room with the door closed, and I realized I was now the only person who had read both stories side by side.
