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“How was she rude?” Jada asked.
“The way she said things. ‘Get me this now, I’m in a hurry.’ ‘I haven’t got all day you know,’ and so on. She kept asking me to hurry up when I was printing out what she wanted and tapping her long nails on the counter clickety-clack, clickety-clack. Had my nerves jumping.”
Ophelia continued the tale. “So, the woman asked for a record about Ian Buckley. Grandma searched the computer and got two hits, one referencing a marriage license with Ian as the groom, and another referencing Ian as a witness to someone else’s wedding.”
Chapter Three
JADA’S BROWS SHOT UP. “TWO records?”
“That’s right,” Ophelia answered. “But Grandma got a little flustered by the woman’s complaints and—”
“I wasn’t flustered,” Mrs. Nell interrupted, shooting a severe look at her granddaughter. “It got stuck in the printer.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Ophelia said. “The woman only got the printout for the record that listed Ian as the groom, and never knew a second one existed.”
“I didn’t realize it myself,” Mrs. Nell said, “until after Miss Snooty Pants was gone and I found it in the printer tray. Serves her right, I say.”
“How did the woman react when she read the printout you gave her?” Jada asked.
“She got excited and even louder and bossier. She wanted me to get her a copy of the actual marriage license.”
“The records department is still behind, technology-wise,” Ophelia explained. “When someone files a document with the department, the first thing they do is enter the information into the main computer, which makes it part of the official, searchable database. The actual paperwork is then stored in a filing cabinet until enough documents build up to send them off for batch scanning and processing by a contractor. Before those files are sent off for scanning, the only way to search for and copy the actual document is to physically find it in the filing cabinets.”
“It’s a terrible chore, let me tell you,” Mrs. Nell added. “You have to bend over those drawers and it takes a long time to hunt through it all. Hurts my back something awful. Worse than washing dishes, or mopping.”
“Which is why you ...” Ophelia prompted.
For the first time, Mrs. Nell looked chagrined. “Well, I’m not proud to admit it, but that’s why I lied to the rude woman. I told her the license wasn’t in the office and that it would take a few days to get it from somewhere else. I shouldn’t have lied, Lord knows it, but I was tired and I didn’t want to get an aching back for someone who would be nasty when it took me a while to find what she wanted.”
“I don’t blame you,” Jada said. “I’d have done the exact same thing if I’d been you.”
“Me too,” Ian added.
Mrs. Nell reached across the table and tapped Jada’s and Ian’s hands in turn. “Thank you both. That makes me feel a little better.”
“Did the woman argue with you when you told her you couldn’t give her what she wanted?” Jada asked.
“No. She paid for her printout and ran off. She was in a hurry like all you young people.”
“I’m a little confused,” Jada admitted, thinking the interview had raised more questions than it had answered.
Ian looked thoughtful. “Ophelia, you said there’s a hard copy of the license and an electronic entry in the official database which states Jada and Sasha were married. There’s also an entry in the official database which says Jada and I were married, but there’s no physical document to support it. Is this correct?”
“It is,” Ophelia said.
“So the next question is, where’s the actual marriage license that claims Jada and I were married? Could someone have stolen it?” Ian asked.
“No,” Ophelia answered. “Grandma, will you tell them the rest, or shall I?”
Mrs. Nell made a scrunched-up face. “Oh, I suppose, if we have to. Go on and do it yourself. I’m worn out. I probably need a nap.” She let her crocheting drop onto her lap, clasped her gnarled hands over it, and closed her eyes.
Ophelia opened the manilla folder, pulled out a sheet of paper and slid it across the table. “Take a look at this. It’s the printout of the computer entry from the allegedly-missing license.”
Jada’s heart thumped when she got a glimpse of the document which had turned her life upside down. She and Ian scanned it together.
It was a simple printout, a compilation of the pertinent info on a typical marriage license: the date, names of the bride and groom, witnesses, who performed the ceremony, where the wedding took place and so on.
There it was in black and white. The groom was listed as Ian Buckley and it was followed by his address, which Ian pointed out was incorrect. The bride was listed as Jada Howarth, also followed by her address, which also was incorrect. The person listed as performing the marriage was Fred Smith of Everywhereville. Ridiculous, Jada thought. That couldn’t be anything but fake.
But what particularly drew her up was when she read the witnesses: Trey Russell, which she expected to see, and someone named ... Fanny Blue?
“Oh come on,” Jada said when she read the name. “That’s obviously as phony as the officiant.”
“Surprisingly, Fanny Blue is real,” Ophelia said, “It took a while to work it all out, but I’m confident I know what happened.”
Mrs. Nell shifted slightly, leaning back in her chair and sighing gently. It appeared she actually was going to take a nap.
Ophelia continued with hardly a sideways glance at her grandmother. “Like I mentioned before, after Sylvia left the office on Wednesday, Grandma wanted to help her out with her work, so Grandma took some of the new documents from Sylvia’s inbox which hadn’t been entered into the system and did it herself. Apparently, when she came to this marriage license, she didn’t understand. She got confused.” Ophelia reached into the folder and slid another sheet of paper across the table.
It was a copy of a marriage license, not just a computer entry. The license listed Jada Howarth as the bride, and Sasha Brimgore as the groom. The officiant was Fred Smith of Everywhereville again, and the witnesses were Trey Russell and ... Ian Buckley.
“What?” Jada said aloud. “This makes no sense.”
“It will,” Ophelia said almost apologetically. “When Grandma saw this license listed a woman as the groom, she thought it was a mistake.”
Mrs. Nell opened one eye a tiny slit and peeped around. “Two women can’t get married,” she said, then shut her eye again.
Ophelia shrugged. “What are you gonna do? She’s right, two women can’t get married, not in this state. But this license is from a different state where it’s legal.”
“Never heard of it before,” Mrs. Nell grumbled under her breath.
Jada grinned in spite of everything. Ian cleared his throat.
Ophelia continued. “So, Grandma thought she’d fix it up and correct the error.”
“Nothing wrong with fixing mistakes,” Mrs. Nell mumbled.
“I thought you were taking a nap, Grandma, and you were going to let me tell them what happened,” Ophelia said.
“Fine, but tell it right.” She peeked at her granddaughter, then snapped her eyes shut when she saw Ophelia’s scowl.
“Anyway,” Ophelia continued, “Grandma decided that probably what happened was that the groom’s name was accidentally switched with one of the witnesses’ names. For whatever reason, she picked Ian’s name as the groom and entered it into the computer, then some time between doing that and when she entered in the witnesses’ names, she forgot what she was doing. Instead of swapping in Sasha Brimgore’s name as the second witness, she entered Fanny Blue.”
“Out of curiosity,” Ian said, “who is Fanny Blue?”
“Grandma’s best friend in second grade,” Ophelia answered with an expression that silently, but clearly said, “She’s old and there’s no explaining it so we might as well not try.”
Jada might have laughed, but Mrs. Nell op
ened an eyelid a crack and spied on them. They pretended to look casual until the eyelid dropped closed again.
“If Mrs. Nell made the entry that created the confusion about Ian and I being married,” Jada said, “who made the entry that was accurate, according to the license anyway, which says Sasha and I were married?”
“That’s a good question,” Ophelia said, “but I can’t answer it, unfortunately. I’ve asked everyone who helped out on Thursday or Friday and no admits to doing any data entry. They put all incoming documents into Sylvia’s box so she could deal with them when she got back.”
“Could Mrs. Nell have made a double entry and not changed the groom the second time around?” Ian asked gently.
“No,” Mrs. Nell mumbled, her voice sleepy-sounding.
“I don’t think so,” Ophelia says. “Grandma says she didn’t do any more data entry after that little bit on Wednesday afternoon. Nothing’s impossible, but I bet that if she made changes the first time she saw that license, she’d have made them the second time, too.”
Jada and Ian nodded. Seemed pretty likely.
“The system doesn’t have a time stamp so we can’t know when the other, accurate entry was made,” Ophelia said, “but entries are keyed to particular workstations, and it shows that both were made from Grandma’s. Systems down here are very basic. Computers in the records office aren’t even connected to the internet, so it couldn’t have been done remotely, if you’re thinking in that direction.”
