“Fine,” says Detective Stark.
Mr. Preston is looking down at me, his eyebrows crinkling together. It may be that he’s concentrating hard, but I think it’s more likely that he’s concerned.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “We’ll be waiting for you after the hearing.”
“See you on the other side,” Charlotte adds. And with that, they turn and leave.
Once they’re gone, Detective Stark just stands there, arms crossed, glaring at me.
“What happens now?” I ask. I’m finding it hard to breathe.
“You and your teapots go back to your charming holding cell and wait patiently for your hearing,” Detective Stark replies.
I stand and straighten my pajamas. The young officer outside is ready to escort me back to the repugnant cell.
“Thank you very much,” I say to the detective before I exit.
“Thank you for what?” she asks.
“For the muffin and the coffee. I do hope you have a more pleasant morning than mine.”
It feels awfully strange to be wearing pajamas in the afternoon, and it feels particularly unnerving to be in a courthouse wearing such wholly inappropriate attire. One of Detective Stark’s police officers kindly drove me to this courthouse about an hour ago, and now I’m seated in a cramped office on the premises with a very young man who will serve as my attorney in the bail hearing. He asked me my name, reviewed the charges against me, told me we’d be called into the courtroom when the judge was ready, and then claimed he had some emails to read. He took out his phone and has been giving it his fullest attention for at least five minutes. I have no idea what I’m supposed to do in the meantime. No matter. This allows me time to collect myself.
I know from TV that as the accused, I should be wearing a clean blouse, buttoned to the neck, and formal dress slacks. I most certainly should not be wearing pajamas.
“Excuse me,” I say to the young attorney. “Would it be possible to go home and change before the hearing?”
His face scrunches up. “You can’t be serious,” he replies. “Do you know how lucky you are to be seen today?”
“I am serious,” I say. “Quite.”
He puts his phone in his breast pocket. “Wow. Do I have some news for you.”
“Excellent. Please share it, posthaste,” I reply.
But he doesn’t utter a word. He just stares at me with his mouth open, which surely means I’ve made some blunder, but what it is I do not know.
Moments later, he proceeds to fire questions my way. “Have you ever done jail time?”
“Not until this morning,” I say.
“That wasn’t jail,” he says. “Jail’s way worse than that. Do you have a criminal record?”
“My record is squeaky clean, thank you very much.”
“Do you harbor plans of leaving the country?”
“Oh, yes. I’d love to visit the Cayman Islands someday. I’ve heard it’s lovely. Have you been?”
“Just tell the judge you have no plans of leaving the country,” he says.
“As you wish.”
“The hearing won’t take long. They’re pretty standard, even in criminal cases like yours. I’ll try to get you free on bail. I’m assuming that like everyone else who’s ever been accused, you’re not guilty and you want out on bail because you’re the sole caregiver for your poor, sick grandmother, right?”
“I was. But not anymore,” I say. “She’s dead. And I’m not guilty on any of the charges, of course.”
“Right. Of course,” he replies.
I’m grateful for his instant vote of confidence.
I’m about to get into the details of my complete innocence, but his phone buzzes in his pocket. “We’re up,” he says. “Let’s go.”
He leads me out of the small office, down a hallway, and into a much larger room with benches on both sides and a wide aisle in the middle. I’m walking down the aisle with him to the front of the courtroom. For a moment, I imagine a similar room with a similar aisle, with the big difference that in my imagination, I’m walking down the aisle as a bride-to-be and the man beside me is not this stranger at all but a man very known to me.
My flight of fancy is rudely interrupted when my young attorney says, “Take a seat,” and points to a chair in front of a table to the right of the judge.
As I sit, Detective Stark walks into court and seats herself at an identical chair in front of an identical table across the chasm of the aisle.