Chapter 8: What the Sheriff Said
Sheriff Reyes had an office that smelled like coffee and old paper.
She was younger than I expected — mid-forties, with close-cropped hair and the particular stillness of someone who had learned to listen before speaking.
Grace sat beside us.
Detective Osei sat across the table with a laptop open and a recorder running.
Clara had not slept.
Neither had I.
"Start from the beginning," Sheriff Reyes said.
"And take your time."
Clara started from the beginning.
She talked for a long time.
Reyes did not interrupt.
Osei typed steadily.
Grace occasionally placed a document on the table — the hospital intake record, Diane Purcell's written statement, the chain-of-custody form for the USB drive.
When Clara finished, Reyes looked at the documents for a moment.
"The woman in the grave," she said.
"You have no information about her identity."
"No.
I've thought about it for years.
I don't know who she was or where she came from.
I only know she wasn't me."
Reyes nodded slowly.
"We'll work with the state forensic office to reopen that identification.
It's going to take time, but it can be done." She looked at Clara directly.
"I want to be honest with you.
This is a complicated case.
Ten years is a long time.
Evidence degrades.
Witnesses' memories change.
And Holloway will have attorneys who are very good at making complicated things look uncertain."
"I know," Clara said.
"But." Reyes tapped the USB drive on the table.
"If these recordings contain what you say they contain, that changes the weight of everything else significantly." She looked at Osei.
"How long for the forensic audio analysis?"
"If we prioritize it, forty-eight hours."
"Prioritize it." Reyes looked back at Clara.
"In the meantime, I'm going to ask you both to stay somewhere other than Sarah's apartment.
He already knows you're together.
I don't want him knowing where."
"He tried to access my cloud storage last night," Clara said.
Reyes looked at Osei.
"We'll need a warrant for his devices," Osei said.
"The attempted access plus the threatening text should be enough to support it."
"Get it drafted today." Reyes stood.
She extended her hand to Clara.
"Ms.
— what name would you like me to use?"
Clara looked at her for a moment.
"Clara," she said.
"My name is Clara."
Reyes nodded.
"We'll be in touch within forty-eight hours."
We were almost at the door when Reyes spoke again.
"Ms.
Clara." We turned.
"The man who identified your remains.
He stood in front of an officer of the law and made a formal statement.
He let a family bury their daughter without knowing who she was.
He let your mother grieve herself into an early grave." She paused.
"I want you to know that I take that personally."
Clara didn't answer.
But something in her shoulders changed.
We stayed two nights at Grace's guest room.
On the second morning, Grace called while I was making coffee.
"The forensic analysis is done," she said.
"Osei called me an hour ago.
The recordings are clean.
Authenticated.
And in the third recording, Garrett Holloway describes, in his own words, removing your identification from your person and leaving the scene." A pause.
"They executed the warrant this morning.
His attorney is already asking for a continuance."
I set the coffee pot down.
"Did they get his devices?"
"All of them.
And Sarah — they found something else.
Financial records.
It appears he had been in contact with a county official about the estate reversion.
He was trying to accelerate the timeline."
"He was trying to make sure Clara's inheritance disappeared before she could claim it."
"Yes." Grace's voice was steady.
"That adds a fraud charge to everything else."
I looked through the kitchen doorway at Clara, who was sitting at the table with a cup of tea, looking out the window at a garden she had never seen before.
"Tell me when he's formally charged," I said.
"I will," Grace said.
May you like
"It's moving, Sarah.
It's really moving."
