Chapter 32
Sean had hoped that neither Ben nor Tim had changed their clothes, and when he found them in the room, he was glad to see that they still wore their suits from the night before. The men glanced over at Sean, and the groom stepped forward first.
“Did you find something, Sheriff?” he asked.
Sean ignored the question and immediately studied the groom’s shoes. The pair in the video were grey and tan, with green socks. Sean had watched the footage a dozen more times to make sure he had the color right.
Sean walked over, hiked up the groom’s pant leg, and found the green socks underneath. Ben’s socks matched the ones in the video perfectly.
“What are you doing?” Ben asked, and he stepped back.
“Come with me,” Sean said.
Sean led Ben across the hall to Julie’s room. He didn’t bother knocking since the door was open and found the maid of honor sitting at the edge of her bed.
“What’s going on?” Julie asked, frowning.
“I don’t know,” Ben answered.
Sean stood between the two of them. “You’re having an affair.”
The pair immediately denied the accusations, but Sean waited them out. And after a few minutes of silence, with their faces growing redder by the second, Julie finally burst into tears.
“It was a mistake,” Julie said. “A stupid, dumb mistake.”
Julie sobbed, while Sean turned to the groom, who kept his head down. He couldn’t even look Sean in the eye.
Once Julie calmed down long enough to answer some questions, Sean led them back down to the video room and showed him the video he’d found.
“Just in case you thought you could talk your way out of it,” Sean said.
“It was a mistake, like she said,” Ben said. “It was… We were drunk!”
“Did Karla find you?” Sean asked.
Julie wiped her eyes, her makeup running from all the crying, and she slowly nodded. “We only kissed,” Julie said. “But this…wasn’t the first time.”
“Did Karla know about the other times?” Sean asked.
“I don’t know,” Julie said quietly.
“She didn’t,” Ben answered more confidently, and then he second-guessed himself. “At least, I don’t think she did.”
Sean sighed and then rubbed his temples. “So, I just want to make sure that I’m following this correctly.” He pointed at the two of them. “You two were drinking last night and started making out. Karla found you and…then what?”
“We tried to explain,” Julie answered. “Tried to tell her that it didn’t mean anything, and it was a stupid mistake.”
Sean pointed to the video screen, which still showed a frozen screenshot of them kissing.
“I might not know all the details, but that doesn’t look like a first kiss to me.
And I doubted it looked like it to Karla, either.
” He leaned forward. “You understand how this looks, don’t you?
The bride finds her sister and her soon-to-be husband necking in the stairwell, and then she turns up dead the next morning. ”
The pair started arguing, stumbling over their words, both swearing they would never, under any circumstances, hurt Karla. But by the time they finished, Sean had more questions than answers.
“What happened after she saw you?” Sean asked, and then he held up his hand, stopping them before they both started speaking over one another. “Julie goes first.”
“She was in shock,” Julie said. “Ben tried to go after her, but I told him that I should do it. But he—” She stopped and looked at Ben.
“I grabbed her,” Ben said. “I shouldn’t have done it, but I was drunk. I didn’t know my own strength. She screamed. I let her go, and then she ran away.”
“I followed her,” Julie said. “She sprinted to the kitchen, and that was where we started yelling at each other. I told her I was sorry. I told her I didn’t mean it.
I told her…” She shut her eyes. “I told her that she was still my sister, and then she said…not anymore.” She sobbed quietly to herself.
“Then what happened?” Sean asked.
“She told me to leave, so I did,” Julie answered, wiping her eyes.
“Did you see her again?” Sean asked.
“No,” Julie answered.
“Did you see her lose her shoe?” Sean asked.
“She took off her heel and threw it at me, then grabbed a knife,” Julie said. “She threatened to kill me, and then she slammed the blade into the countertop. Then I…I ran.”
“We didn’t hurt her,” Ben reiterated.
Sean remembered the skin and blood underneath Karla’s nails and then stood up. “I’ll need both of you to submit to a DNA test. If you’re innocent, then it shouldn’t be a problem. If you’re not… Well, we’ll know soon enough.”
“Whatever it takes to prove I didn’t do anything,” Ben said.
“Yes,” Julie said. “Whatever it takes.”