Chapter 18: The Sheriff

The county sheriff's office smelled of burnt coffee and floor wax.

A deputy took the tin box and the tape out of my hands at the door, and wrote something on a form.

Then he put me in a room with a steel table and a mirror, and shut the door.

Jude's lawyer arrived forty minutes later, a thin gray-haired woman in a wet raincoat, carrying a leather case.

"Say nothing," she said, and sat down beside me.

"They've charged you with taking property from the Redmond quarry hut.

"That is a hut on Calla Redmond's own land."

"Is it?"

"Her mother's half, by the trust, vested last month.

"They've charged the owner with trespassing on herself."

She said it so dryly that I almost laughed.

The sheriff came in without knocking.

He sat across from me and laid a manila folder on the table, and for a minute he said nothing at all.

"Miss Redmond," he said.

"Your stepmother has asked me to be reasonable.

"Give me the second tape, the one you stole, and I'll drop the charge."

"I didn't steal it."

"Nicolette Redmond will say so under oath."

"She'll say she handed it to me in front of three owners and a groom," my lawyer said.

"I've talked to two of the owners already."

The sheriff's mustache twitched.

"Then we'll hold your client while the facts settle."

A knock at the door.

A deputy leaned in.

"Sheriff, there's an old man in the lobby, says he's got a statement to give."

"Not now."

"He says it's about the night of the death."

The sheriff's face did something quick and small.

"Put him in room two," he said.

"No," my lawyer said, rising.

"In here, with us, and with the door open, so the whole building can hear."

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