The Wrong Serial Number Changed The Questions At My Table

I did not show Roscoe my phone.

Instead, I asked the volunteer in the yellow vest to read the plate on the empty till aloud.

"T421," she said.

"Can you write that beside the time?"

"Why?" Roscoe asked.

"Because I asked her."

Amara made a small sound behind me. It might have been a laugh. My hands shook too much for me to turn around.

Two Ocean Springs officers arrived while customers stood in loose groups along the tent ropes. I gave them my name and showed them my rental agreement. Roscoe talked over me until one officer raised a hand.

"Let her finish."

His name was Officer Bell. He asked whether anyone had seen me take money.

"She had access," Roscoe said.

"That isn't what I asked."

The yellow-vest volunteer said she had not. Her name was Eva. She had counted the gifts with a retired teacher named Walt.

Walt brought his carbon copy of the count sheet. The original had gone into Roscoe's clipboard.

Cash gifts: $4,860.

Float: $200.

Total secured: $5,060.

All three of our names were on it.

"Which drawer?" Bell asked.

I opened my photo. The plate, rental slip, and corner of my bead mat shared the same frame. T417 had gone on the money table. T421 had been the unused spare beneath it.

"Could you have moved them?" Bell asked me.

"I could have. That's why you should see the recording."

Roscoe folded his arms.

"That camera wasn't approved."

"You approved my demonstration screen on the booth form."

"Not surveillance."

Bell looked at the little camera in my palm.

"Does it have sound?"

"No. Just my bench and the aisle."

He asked me to keep the card safe and send nothing around the vendor group yet. He wanted the whole file, including the time before the count.

I liked that request. A loose bead could mean anything. A row showed the pattern.

At Amara's house, we cleared clay tools off her kitchen table. Her fan clicked above us. She set down two glasses of water and said she wanted to throw both through Roscoe's office window.

"They're good glasses," I said.

"I could make worse ones."

I laughed, then cried so suddenly that my mouth hurt.

Amara sat beside me without reaching for the computer.

"You told him no," she said.

"I was scared."

"I heard you anyway."

We copied the entire card to my laptop and an extra drive. I set the original aside in an envelope and wrote the date across the flap. Then we watched from setup onward.

At seven forty-eight, I had leaned under my table to find silver braid for a customer's collar.

Roscoe entered the camera's wide corner.

He opened a canvas cart with a bent handle. He lifted T417 off the money table and set it inside. Then he pulled the spare from beneath the table and put it in the full drawer's place.

He took less than ten seconds.

On the screen, I came back up holding silver braid. A woman pointed to her collar. I bent over my work.

Roscoe rolled the cart down the side aisle.

"There," Amara said.

I played it again. One frame caught the full drawer's plate as he turned. The digits were plain when I enlarged that corner.

T417.

Three minutes later, he returned without the cart. He opened T421, stared into it, and turned toward me.

There was his shocked face. There was his hand pointing at my apron.

Watching it from above felt worse than being there. I saw how close he had stood. I saw two vendors step away from me before I said anything.

"He practiced the surprise," Amara said.

"We can't know that."

"I can hate it anyway."

We called Bell using the number on his card. He gave instructions for delivering the files and asked me to keep the original card unchanged. I brought the envelope and my laptop to the station that night.

He watched the swap twice.

He asked who else had handled the drawers during setup. I gave him names, including people I liked. Leaving them out would only make a hole Roscoe could point to later. Bell wrote each one on a separate line.

"Thank you for keeping all of it," he said.

By morning, the market board had the report number and a short account from me. I asked them to correct Roscoe's public charge, preserve the money records, and tell vendors where the missing gifts had gone.

I attached no angry words. I did not need them.

At ten fifteen, Amara called.

"He sent a vendor notice."

"What did it say?"

"That your stall was closed pending review. And mine too."

Before I could answer, a second email arrived from the market office.

Its subject was Damage To Market Property: Replacement Camera Fee, $680.