Chapter 8: Ten O'Clock
I was at Gerald's office by nine forty-five.
Paul Okafor was already there — a compact, careful man in his early fifties, with a yellow notepad and the kind of stillness that made you want to speak precisely.
He shook my hand and waited until I was seated before he opened the notepad.
"Mr.
Calloway," he said.
"I've reviewed the materials your attorney submitted.
I have some questions, and then I'd like you to walk me through the transfers in your own words."
"All right."
We spent forty minutes going through everything.
He asked clean, direct questions and wrote down the answers without comment.
When I finished, he set his pen down.
"The mortgage application is the clearest point of entry," he said.
"Signature forgery on a lending document is a felony in this state.
The structuring of the bank transfers — if we can establish that Mr.
Hale directed them — adds a second charge.
Potentially wire fraud, depending on how the transfers were routed."
"How long will it take?" I asked.
"To build the case properly?
Several weeks.
We'll need the account records from the receiving institution, which requires a court order.
We'll want to interview your wife and Mr.
Hale separately." He paused.
"Mr.
Calloway, are you aware that today is the scheduled wedding date?"
"Yes."
"Your wife and Mr.
Hale will both be present at the venue this morning."
"I know."
He looked at me steadily.
"We won't be making any arrests today.
I want to be clear about that.
This investigation moves at the pace the evidence requires, not the pace of personal events."
"I understand," I said.
"I wasn't expecting that."
He nodded.
"One more thing.
Your wife — is she aware that you've made a referral to this office?"
"Not from me.
She may have guessed."
"If she contacts you today, don't discuss the investigation.
Refer her to Gerald."
I said I would.
Gerald walked me out to the pavement.
"Go to the wedding," Gerald said.
I looked at him.
"You released the venue.
You made the suit.
Go." He almost smiled — Gerald almost never smiled.
"The legal process will still be here on Monday."
I drove home, changed into the charcoal suit, and looked at myself in the mirror for a moment.
The lapels sat cleanly.
The shoulders were right.
It wasn't the suit I had planned, but it was mine.
I arrived at the venue at eleven fifteen.
The ceremony was at noon.
The coordinator met me at the door with a clipboard and a slightly uncertain expression.
"Mr.
Calloway?
We weren't sure—"
"I'm the father of the bride," I said.
She checked her list.
Then she stepped aside and let me in.
The venue was full of flowers — white and pale yellow, the kind Sabrina had liked since she was a girl.
The chairs were arranged in long rows.
Guests were beginning to filter in, most of them people I didn't recognize, friends of Sabrina's fiancé, relatives of my wife's I had met once or twice over the years.
I found a seat near the back.
My wife saw me from across the room.
She went very still.
Dennis, standing beside her, followed her gaze.
His expression moved through several things in quick succession — surprise, calculation, then a kind of forced composure.
He crossed the room toward me.
"You came," he said.
"I did."
"And the venue—"
"Is released.
The wedding will proceed."
He studied me.
"What changed?"
"Sabrina asked me to come," I said.
"So I came."
He didn't know what to do with that.
He stood there for a moment, then nodded once and walked back to my wife.
I watched them speak in low voices.
My wife glanced at me twice.
The second time, something in her face looked less like anger and more like fear.
She knew about the referral.
Somehow, she knew.
The music started.
The guests stood.
Sabrina appeared at the back of the room in her dress, and she was beautiful, and when she saw me she stopped walking for just a moment.
Then she walked toward me, not toward Dennis, and held out her hand.
"Walk me down?" she said.
I took her hand.
Dennis watched from the front of the room.
He didn't move.
May you like
I walked my daughter down the aisle in a suit I had made in three days, and when I placed her hand in her fiancé's and stepped back, I felt something settle in my chest — not happiness exactly, not yet, but something solid.
Something that had been shaken and had held.
