pawing through my tampons and breath mints.
With Officer McAfee on my right and Officer Baker on my left, we strolled down the hallway of the Brea Ridge Police Department, which was conveniently attached to the Brea Ridge Correctional Facility. If they decided to arrest me, we’d have a short walk over to my new accommodations. Yay.
Officer McAfee, his left hand on my right elbow, led me to an interrogation room. It consisted of a table with an office chair pushed up against the side nearest the door, a metal folding chair across the table but pointed in the direction of the opposite wall, and another office chair—this one with casters—facing the metal chair. The setup was inclined to make me believe that the Brea Ridge Police Department was hurting for funding and that they’d just thrown a mishmash of furniture into the room, but Myra wasn’t the only one who watched crime shows. I knew that the furniture was situated in such a way as to make me—the person being questioned—as uncomfortable as possible so I’d want to tell the police everything I knew and get out of the interrogation room. Well, little did Officers McAfee and Baker know, they could’ve put me in the most comfy rocker/recliner in town with my feet up and a masseur working out the knots in my shoulders, and I would be no less eager to leave the jail than I was at this precise moment.
As expected, Officer McAfee indicated I should sit on the hard, uncomfortable metal folding chair. He sat on the office chair in front of me and rolled closer, effectively hemming me in . . . as if I were planning on bolting out the door. I might’ve considered it were I not innocent . . . and if Officer Baker—who was much smaller than Officer McAfee—had taken that chair rather than the one across the table from me.
Officer McAfee nodded at Officer Baker and the other officer picked a cardboard box up off the floor and sat it onto the table. It was a rather large, square box, and I wondered . . . dreaded . . . what was inside. From my perspective, it couldn’t be anything good. It was certainly not a bakery box—I doubted there were donuts or cookies or pretty cupcakes inside. This was just a plain brown box with a red EVIDENCE sticker on the side.
Officer Baker lifted a porcelain cake stand with a metal turntable out of the box. The metal turntable was dented.
“Ms. Martin, have you ever seen this cake stand before?” Officer McAfee asked.
“Of course,” I said. “Or, at least, I’ve seen one like it. We were all issued cake stands just like that one to use for the duration of Chef Richards’s Australian string work class. He supplied all the materials we’d be using himself. Of course, they weren’t ours to keep . . . they were only ours to borrow.” Great. Now I was babbling like Myra.
“ We being . . . ?” Officer Baker prompted.
“The ten students in the class,” I answered. “And Chef Richards . . . he had one of the cake stands too, naturally.”
“Was there anything to distinguish the cake stands from each other?” Officer McAfee asked. “How would you know which one was yours?”
“The one sitting on the table next to my name card was the one I was assigned to use for that class period,” I said. “Otherwise, they all looked the same.” I tilted my head. “Until now, anyway. Someone has ruined that one.” I turned my head in the other direction and kept talking despite my better intentions. “Well, maybe not ruined . Somebody might be able to get that dent out of it—it’s not that big of a dent—and then it would be fine. I’d hate for that cake stand to simply be discarded. Those are fairly expensive, and—”
Officer McAfee interrupted me with, “Ms. Martin, your fingerprints are on this cake stand.”
“Oh, then it must have been the one I was using,” I said. “But it wasn’t dented yesterday. Someone must’ve knocked it off the table after I left.”
“No one knocked it off the table, Ms.
With Officer McAfee on my right and Officer Baker on my left, we strolled down the hallway of the Brea Ridge Police Department, which was conveniently attached to the Brea Ridge Correctional Facility. If they decided to arrest me, we’d have a short walk over to my new accommodations. Yay.
Officer McAfee, his left hand on my right elbow, led me to an interrogation room. It consisted of a table with an office chair pushed up against the side nearest the door, a metal folding chair across the table but pointed in the direction of the opposite wall, and another office chair—this one with casters—facing the metal chair. The setup was inclined to make me believe that the Brea Ridge Police Department was hurting for funding and that they’d just thrown a mishmash of furniture into the room, but Myra wasn’t the only one who watched crime shows. I knew that the furniture was situated in such a way as to make me—the person being questioned—as uncomfortable as possible so I’d want to tell the police everything I knew and get out of the interrogation room. Well, little did Officers McAfee and Baker know, they could’ve put me in the most comfy rocker/recliner in town with my feet up and a masseur working out the knots in my shoulders, and I would be no less eager to leave the jail than I was at this precise moment.
As expected, Officer McAfee indicated I should sit on the hard, uncomfortable metal folding chair. He sat on the office chair in front of me and rolled closer, effectively hemming me in . . . as if I were planning on bolting out the door. I might’ve considered it were I not innocent . . . and if Officer Baker—who was much smaller than Officer McAfee—had taken that chair rather than the one across the table from me.
Officer McAfee nodded at Officer Baker and the other officer picked a cardboard box up off the floor and sat it onto the table. It was a rather large, square box, and I wondered . . . dreaded . . . what was inside. From my perspective, it couldn’t be anything good. It was certainly not a bakery box—I doubted there were donuts or cookies or pretty cupcakes inside. This was just a plain brown box with a red EVIDENCE sticker on the side.
Officer Baker lifted a porcelain cake stand with a metal turntable out of the box. The metal turntable was dented.
“Ms. Martin, have you ever seen this cake stand before?” Officer McAfee asked.
“Of course,” I said. “Or, at least, I’ve seen one like it. We were all issued cake stands just like that one to use for the duration of Chef Richards’s Australian string work class. He supplied all the materials we’d be using himself. Of course, they weren’t ours to keep . . . they were only ours to borrow.” Great. Now I was babbling like Myra.
“ We being . . . ?” Officer Baker prompted.
“The ten students in the class,” I answered. “And Chef Richards . . . he had one of the cake stands too, naturally.”
“Was there anything to distinguish the cake stands from each other?” Officer McAfee asked. “How would you know which one was yours?”
“The one sitting on the table next to my name card was the one I was assigned to use for that class period,” I said. “Otherwise, they all looked the same.” I tilted my head. “Until now, anyway. Someone has ruined that one.” I turned my head in the other direction and kept talking despite my better intentions. “Well, maybe not ruined . Somebody might be able to get that dent out of it—it’s not that big of a dent—and then it would be fine. I’d hate for that cake stand to simply be discarded. Those are fairly expensive, and—”
Officer McAfee interrupted me with, “Ms. Martin, your fingerprints are on this cake stand.”
“Oh, then it must have been the one I was using,” I said. “But it wasn’t dented yesterday. Someone must’ve knocked it off the table after I left.”
“No one knocked it off the table, Ms.
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