𝙃𝙀𝙇𝙇 𝘼𝙉𝘿 𝘽𝘼𝘾𝙆 - 𝑺𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒎

Two

Sheriff Burke, a round man in his fifties, wiped the stress from his face. "Who's up next?"

A young officer looked at the clipboard he was holding. Deputy Riley, but Jacqui knew him better as Dewey, Tatum's older brother. He's a big guy and fairly handsome in a scrubbed-clean boyish way.

"Jacqueline Hawthorne," Dewey responded. Sheriff Burke gestured to bring her in.

Principal Himbry, who was also in his fifties, saw her standing in the doorway. He rose and let her take a seat. "Ah, Jacqueline. I wish we were here for better circumstances."

Jacqui sat down in the chair, slumped back. "Morning, Dewey."

Dewey shook his head. "It's Deputy Riley today . . . Jacqueline." He clearly had a bit of difficulty saying her full name instead of what he and everyone else usually called her.

"How is everything?" Sheriff Burke asked.

"I'm really tired." She said, dropping her bag on the ground.

"We can tell you are, you have sunglasses on indoors."

"Yeah, the windows are really loud." She honestly replied, Dewey lightly furrowed his brows in confusion.

Burke nodded to him. "How are your parents?"

"Wouldn't know, they're in New York. Work stuff." Jacqui said. They all exchanged a glance and Dewey wrote stuff down.

Burke cleared his throat. "Okay, we're gonna keep this very brief, Jacqui," Himbry said. "The police just want to ask you a few questions, okay?" He put his hand on her shoulder. Jacqui stared at his hand and back at him, after a moment he moved his hand away.

Asking a few questions normally meant an interrogation, and apparently having a parent or guardian or lawyer in the room was no longer a thing.

"Jacqueline, were you very close to Casey Becker?" Burke asked.

Jacqui shrugged. "I knew Steven Orth more. I shared English with Casey but I was good friends with Steven in elementary school and a good chunk of middle school." Dewey wrote stuff down as Jacqui began to impatiently tap her fingers on the chair.

"Do you know how to use a knife?"

"Anyone can do that."

"Do you like to hunt?"

"Gross, never."

"Where were you last night?"

Jacqui took a deep inhale and slowly exhaled, Dewey knew where she was going with this and just stared. "At a party,"

"On a Wednesday?" Burke questioned, not fully buying it.

"I know it sounds crazy, but look." Jacqui shuffled around her pocket before taking out a magenta digital hand camera. She started scrolling through the pictures, murmuring things like 'no' and 'not that one' before coming across a picture from that night that didn't have anything clearly illegal in it. "Yeah, see?" She handed the camera to Burke. "The date says from yesterday."

Burke looked at the picture carefully and looked back up at her. "Is that a bag of 'leaves' on the table?" He asked, handing the camera back to her.

Jacqui harshly swallowed before nodding. "I'm actually . . . really happy you asked that, because . . . are you smelling that weed smell?"

Sheriff Burke and Dewey nodded in unison. "Yeah."

"'Cause I was at that party - where I didn't drink or break any laws - and a dude broke in, smoked weed next to me, and bolted." She laughed, turning the camera off and putting it back away. "It's . . . so crazy."