“I told you my name,” Bethany said. “You didn’t ask for anything else.”

“People dress up for all sorts of things. You don’t get to impersonate a police chief because you want a picnic shelter.”

“Candace,” Lorna said from behind her, “enough.”

Candace glanced back. “I’m talking to her.”

“I know. Everybody can hear you.”

Burnham pointed toward a bench. “Ma’am, sit down. You’re interrupting our investigation.”

Bethany looked at Quentin, then at Casey, whose notebook was open but whose pen had stopped moving.

“I am going to sit,” she said. “Not because you have resolved anything. Because I don’t want a confrontation in front of my family.”

She lowered herself onto the concrete bench beside Quentin. The skirt of her dress spread across the dusty seat. A faint gray smear appeared where the fabric touched the edge. Alma made a small distressed noise and reached for a towel, but Bethany shook her head.

“Leave it, Mama.”

Candace seemed delighted. She framed the bench in the livestream, making sure the white dress and the handcuffs were both visible.

“There you have it, neighbors. Everybody’s calm now. The bride can sit right there until the party is finished.”

“You should stop filming us,” Rowan said.

“It’s a public park,” Candace replied. “You were very clear about that earlier.”

“A public park doesn’t make every cruel thing you do wise.”

She ignored him. “Wes, make sure they don’t get up before five.”

Casey looked at his watch. Four forty-nine. Eleven minutes until the time Burnham had chosen. He had spent the past half hour trying to convince himself that a senior officer must know a fact he did not. Now he could see that there was no missing fact. There was only a refusal to verify the obvious.

He eased to the edge of the group and opened the town Parks calendar on his phone. The wedding booking was there. He took a screenshot, then looked up the staff directory. It listed Chief Bethany Tisdale, with a formal photograph identical in every respect that mattered to the woman on the bench.

He showed the screen to Burnham.

“Sir. It’s her.”

Burnham barely glanced down. “You found a photograph online. That doesn’t tell us who is sitting there.”

“It’s a department directory photo.”

“Upton, enough. I will verify it with dispatch.”

He did not call dispatch.

Casey felt the cold truth of his own position. He could document what happened, and later he could say he had tried. But later would not uncuff Quentin now or remove the camera from Bethany’s face. He wrote the time in his notebook and resolved not to let another instruction keep him from asking a question he knew was necessary.

For the next eleven minutes, he failed at that resolution more than once. It would be months before he stopped replaying those failures.

Chapter 21: A Bench with a View

The concrete was warm through Bethany’s dress. A breeze moved across the lake, carrying the smell of charcoal from the distant south beach. Somewhere a child laughed, untroubled by the idea that a wedding might vanish because an officer refused to check a directory.

Quentin turned his cuffed wrist a fraction. “I ruined your day.”

“You don’t have that kind of power,” Bethany said.

“Apparently I’ve got the power to attract every police officer in the county.”

“Two officers. Let’s not flatter them.”

He smiled despite himself.

“Five o’clock,” he said. “Cornell’s team is coming.”

“I know.”

“I’ve never known him to be late.”

“Neither have I.”

“And you told him not to come.”

“Several times.”

“You might owe him an apology.”

“I might.”

He looked at her dress. “There’s dirt on the hem.”