Story code: ST-000626
Part 3: I Asked Her to Show It in Order
I slid the visitor pass off my folder and held it where Officer Ortega could see it without taking a step toward me.
“This printed downstairs,” I said. “It has a time on it.”
He looked at the clipped pass, then at the glass doors behind him. “Let me see.”
I handed it over. The white paper was already bent at one corner from where I had tucked it under my thumb. He read the timestamp and his mouth flattened.
Maya spoke before he said anything. “That just means she was in the building earlier. She came back out.”
I turned to her. “Did I?”
She lifted her chin. “You know if you did.”
“No,” I said. “You made the claim. So put it in order.”
Officer Ortega kept the pass in his hand. “Walk me through it. From when you saw her.”
Maya gave a quick, irritated shake to the banner like the fabric itself had annoyed her. “We were already in place. She came up through the middle while we were holding the action line. She brushed through the banner space and pulled the lower section off alignment.”
“Show me,” I said.
She looked at me as if I had said something rude.
I kept my voice even. “Show him. If I came through the middle and pulled the lower section, show where each person was standing and what part was already fixed.”
“This isn’t a demonstration for you,” Maya said.
“No,” Officer Ortega said. “It kind of is now.”
That landed harder than shouting would have. He stepped aside from the center path just enough to clear space on the top landing. “You said she came through while you were already set. Then show me what already set means.”
Evan still had the tape roll in one hand. He shifted from heel to toe. Maya looked at him, then back to the officer.
“Fine,” she said.
She moved to the left side of the banner and gripped the corner. “I was here. Evan was on the right side. The bottom was already secured.”
I pointed at the wrinkled green tape. “All of it?”
“Enough of it,” she snapped.
“Enough to be fixed, or enough to still be getting taped?”
Her eyes cut toward me. She ignored the question and nodded at Evan. “Take your side.”
Evan obeyed. He caught the right corner and the tie dangled loose against the railing.
Officer Ortega noticed it immediately. “Is that how it was when she supposedly hit it?”
Maya hesitated. It was only a beat, but after everything before it, the pause showed.
“The tie had shifted after,” she said.
“After what?” I asked.
“After she came through.”
I said, “Then show how I came through if the banner was across the steps and both of you were holding corners.”
Maya gave an impatient exhale and stepped half a pace forward, still holding the left side. “She cut between me and the rail.”
I looked at the space she indicated. The gap there was narrow even without the banner, boxed in by the stone post and the metal railing. With the fabric stretched across and the right tie hanging loose, there was no clean lane through it at all.
Officer Ortega saw the same thing. “And she touched the bottom edge while passing through there?”
“Yes.”
“With what hand?” I asked.
Maya stared at me.
I lifted my own folder. “This one had my paperwork in it. My phone was in the other. Which hand did I use to pull your bottom tape loose while somehow getting through a gap that wasn’t open?”
“You bumped it,” Maya said.
“Then the banner wasn’t secured.”
“It was secured enough.”
“Not for the story you told.” I nodded toward Evan. “Tell him the order again. Just the tasks.”
Evan swallowed. “We carried it folded. We opened it on the landing. We flipped it so the words faced the street. Maya held left. I taped along the bottom. Then the right-side tie slipped and I redid it.”
“And when in that list did I supposedly come through?” Ortega asked.
Evan looked at Maya. She said, “During the bottom tape.”
I said, “But you just claimed the bottom was already secured when I came through.”
Nobody moved. The breeze lifted the lower edge of the banner an inch and let it fall again.
Officer Ortega looked from the tape line to the hanging tie to the timestamp on my visitor pass. Then he held the pass out to me and said, “We’re taking this inside.”
Maya stepped forward. “Our action is happening now. You can’t just move the issue indoors because she’s related to me.”
“I’m moving it indoors because your sequence keeps changing,” he said. “And because if this pass printed when it says it printed, your time call has a problem.”
Through the glass, the woman at the intake counter was still stacking forms in neat piles. Ortega pushed the door open and raised his voice just enough to carry inside.
“Ms. Park,” he called. “I need intake time on a visitor pass and any note tied to a doorway delay.”
The woman behind the counter looked up, saw the cluster on the landing, and reached for her terminal.
Maya’s hand tightened on the banner corner. For the first time all morning, she stopped talking.
I watched Renee Park turn toward her screen, and I knew whatever came next was going to have a time on it.