Here She Lies (16 page)

Shoemaker waited until I was locked in and then bid me good-bye with the promise that my lawyer would be along “soon.”
Soon.
What did that mean? There were no clocks on the walls, no windows; the dim light that leaked from an overhead bulb kept you stationary in time. Waiting. The girls chatted. The skinny woman slept. The Chinese woman fumed. I paced, mind grind-ing, heart throbbing. From time to time I paused to gulp air, forcing deep inhales when I realized I’d stopped breathing.

Eventually someone delivered a brown paper bag containing a breast pump. Facing the corner of the cell, pumping milk from my engorged breasts (with an apparatus that was neither mine nor new; it had been offered with no explanation of its origins), I could feel the girls’ eyes on my back. By their whispers I gathered that they were both curious and disgusted by the mysterious collaboration between suctioning machine and woman’s breast; and just as I thought that, I wondered if, despite their age, either had ever known motherhood—motherhood truncated, perhaps, at some point in the process.

Finally the Chinese woman’s voice rang out: “Okay, that enough. Show over!” She had a strong accent and an unmistakable tone of authority. When I turned to look at her, her gaze was back on the wall. Still, I was grateful. On the floor I collected two uncapped baby bottles of milk that Lexy would never drink. My cell-mates all kept clear of the bottles, respecting them, it seemed, and it struck me as an unexpected respite to be here among women.

I didn’t know what time it was when my attorney arrived, but it felt like the end of the day. There had been a change of guard and the soupy light seemed to have grown dimmer. The new guard, a middle-aged Puerto Rican with manicured fire red claws, unlocked the door and waved me over. I was taken to an interview booth—two counters facing each other in a tiny cubi-cle halved by foggy Plexiglas—where a woman in a turquoise blouse introduced herself.

“I’m Elizabeth Mann. You can call me Liz,” she said in a confident, professional voice. Her bleached blond hair fell stiffly to her shoulder blades and was parted in the middle, dead center. “I’ve been working on your case all afternoon, Anais—or do I call you Annie?”

“Everyone does.”

“Anais is just so beautiful.” Her teeth were perfectly straight but yellowed from caffeine and that was when I started to trust her: despite the easy prophylactic of blonding her hair, the rest of her showed the real stripes of her age. She had a superbly weathered face and enough bloodshot in her pretty blue eyes to suggest she worked hard. I knew that Bobby would spare no expense in getting me a good lawyer.
Liz Mann.

Yes: welcome to my world.

“Annie’s easier,” I said, “and I’m used to it.” We talked. She took notes. I explained everything I knew, which wasn’t much. She and Bobby had spoken at length and she knew about our marital problems and she also knew about Zara Moklas’s murder. She knew
all
about Kent, who had sworn on a Bible, personally, to her on the telephone, that he had nothing to do with this. What she didn’t know was that I’d lost my wallet.

“When?” she asked.

“Thursday.”

“Where?”

“Great Barrington,” I said. “Probably somewhere in town—I’m not sure.”

“How much was in it?”

“Not much, maybe twenty dollars.”

“Credit cards? Other kinds of identification?”

“Lots, I guess. Credit cards, driver’s license, car registration, my Social Security card, some store cards, stuff like that.”

“
Very
good,” she said.

“It didn’t seem like it at the time.”

“Have you ever heard of identity theft?”

“Of course.” And then it hit me: my lost wallet.

Why hadn’t I thought of it before? The shock of being arrested and held and
processed
had sent my thoughts reeling in all the wrong directions. “But I canceled all my cards.”

“How soon?”

“The next day.”

“One night is plenty of time for an identity thief.

The damage they can do in minutes is mind-boggling.” She leaned forward, so close I could see details of her skin through the thick plastic partition, how her face makeup was a little too dark and how it filled enlarged pores. “Arrest warrants don’t take that long to process through the system. As soon as they’re issued, they’re out there and the police respond to them. I’m not saying this is what happened, but it’s possible that whoever has your wallet got right to work and committed a crime using your identity.”

“That fast—it’s hard to believe.”

“I know it is,” she said, “but time the way we think of
time
doesn’t exist in cyberspace. With enough information, someone can nab your identity in minutes on the Internet, sitting at home in their bathrobe. Believe me,
anything
is possible.”

“So how do we prove that?”

“We don’t. We start by demonstrating to a judge that it’s a
possibility
and showing that you have no criminal record. We ask the judge to set reasonable bail. We get you out and then we start searching for the proof.”

“But
how
?”

“I’m going to explain everything to you as we go, but first things first.” She stood up and tucked her files and pad under her arm. “I’m going to see if I can get us on tonight’s docket. I’ll see if we can get you an ROR. Otherwise I’ll ask the judge to set bail.” I must have looked as bewildered as I felt.

“Release on recognizance, without having to post bail,” she explained. “The charge would still stand, but you could move freely within the state.” It sounded more hopeful than anything else I’d heard in the last eight hours, and I thanked her.

A few minutes later, back in the cell for more waiting, I was surprised to find only the Chinese woman there, alone, still staring at the wall. I felt a little disappointed that the Hispanic girls were gone; I was sure they would have wanted to know what had happened and I wanted to
talk
.

“I have a lawyer,” I told my lone remaining cell-mate. “I’m getting arraigned soon.”

She looked at me now. In her small, dark eyes I saw that it wasn’t anger I’d perceived in her face before. It was longing.

“Good,” she said.

“And you?” I asked her.

She said only, “I finished,” and then her eyes again found the wall.

Liz eventually returned. When the guard unlocked the cell I said good-bye to the Chinese woman, but she didn’t respond. I felt terrible for her, worse than for the other women. I had the sense that something unexpected had shattered this woman’s life, that she may have reacted badly to some grave surprise and she already knew that her reaction would cost her everything.
Did she have family who would help her now?
I wondered, following Liz down the hall.

We walked quickly through a maze of underground corridors until a different elevator took us up two flights to the courtrooms. “We’ve got a decent judge,” Liz said. “He was willing to squeeze us onto his docket. And your husband’s waiting.”

“Bobby’s here?”

Liz nodded. “You’ll only have a minute to talk before we go in.”

We found Bobby pacing in the broad hallway outside the courtroom. The marble floor was glassily polished, making his every step squeak, and under the high ceiling he seemed very small. His work clothes—

blue slacks and white shirt—looked wilted after the long flight. He was wearing his brown corduroy jacket, the one he kept in our downstairs hall closet, which told me he had stopped at home on his way to the airport. I wondered why he had taken the time. That he had changed from shoes to sneakers said he was planning on testing his endurance. His face looked a little haggard, as if he had already been up all night.

I stood in front of him, all rumpled beige suit and torn stockings and scrambled hair and mascara-darkened eyes, hands manacled behind me, lawyer and guard on either side.

“Oh, Annie.” It was that luscious voice of his, soft and a little coarse when he felt moved.

I stepped toward him and he put his arms around me. He kissed my cheek twice and the tears just seemed to heave out of me. “It’s okay. Shh, shh. We’ll work this out.”

“Did you reach Julie?”

He shook his head. “I left her a few messages. I gave her your cell number since mine won’t work here.”

“They took my cell phone,” I said. “She won’t be able to reach me.”

Liz, who stood off to the side, interjected, “You’ll get that back when this is over.”

“But what if something happens to Lexy?” I asked her. “What if Lexy or Julie
needs
us?”

“I know it’s frustrating,” Liz said. “Just be patient.” Easier said than done, but what choice did I have?

“What about Kent?” I asked Bobby. “Did you talk to him?”

“He doesn’t know anything about it,” he said. “He seemed pretty upset, actually. He said he was sorry we were going through this and he wanted to be support-ive.”

“
Kent
said that?”

“Believe it or not, he did.”

Liz glanced at her watch. “All right, guys, let’s have a word before we go in.” Her voice fell to a whisper: “I think we’ll do fine with this judge, but he’s famous for not giving RORs. We should expect bail, so, Bobby, why don’t you save your wife some time by getting the ball rolling?” She handed him a business card. I managed to read the larger print: BAD SEED BAIL BONDS.

“It’s across the street and left one block. They’re open twenty-four hours. Ask for Vinnie and tell him I sent you. Tell him to start the paperwork; I’ll call you at Vinnie’s number with the amount. You brought it, right?”

“Yes.” He touched the outside of his jacket and I remembered that it had a deep inner pocket.

“Brought what?” I asked.

“Don’t worry, Annie,” Bobby said.

“Don’t
worry
?”

“He’s right,” Liz said. “All you should be thinking about right now is getting out. Your house should have enough value to cover a bond. We’ll get you out, we’ll clear up the charge, and you’ll buy back the bail bond.” Was
that
what he had in his jacket pocket? The deed to our
house
?

“No, Bobby!”

“Annie,” he said, “we have no choice.” He turned around and left us, and the nightmare continued. I could hardly believe how quickly things could fall apart. Liz took my arm and guided me through a smaller-scale security checkpoint and into the belly of the courtroom.

My bail was set at two hundred fifty thousand dollars, less than the value of our house if you counted equity.

That house amounted to most of what I had, since I’d failed to vest my pension by the time I resigned my commission. I was glad that Bobby had his own well-funded pension, because if this nightmare continued to implode, if we couldn’t find the proof Liz was so certain of, I wanted him to have more of me than just my share of the house. He would have Lexy if I landed in jail for this crime I didn’t commit; he would have Lexy and his pension and the house; he could sell it and move. He could find a new wife. He could start over.

“What are you thinking?” Bobby sat beside me in the back of a yellow cab. It was nearly midnight and Liz had taken her own taxi home. He had turned his attention from the cascade of urban images to look at me, but I couldn’t look at him; I had my purse, my watch and my cell phone back—with only one unlistened-to voice mail, from Clark Hazmat, of all people; Julie still hadn’t returned Bobby’s calls—but my dignity had stayed behind in that paper envelope.

“Nothing.” How could I tell him what I was thinking? Despite my innocence I felt ashamed for having been arrested. I even felt ashamed for having ever left him. I was glad Lexy would be too young to remember this episode in our lives and I vowed that if we came through this whole I would never let my imagination stray from what was important: each other, our family, our home. “I want to see Lexy. Can’t we go straight back to Julie’s?”

“We have to do what Liz said. Get some sleep, find out why this happened, work with her to get it cleared up.”

“Could you actually go to sleep?” I asked.

“No. Could you?”

“No way.”

“Listen, Annie. On the plane I started reading a book about identity theft that I picked up at the airport.

It said everything shows up on credit reports, even arrest warrants.”

“Liz said there’s no such thing as time in cyberspace and that if this is all because of my wallet getting lost—”

“That’s right. She told me the same thing. That’s why I bought the book.”

“But it’s just so hard to believe a thief could accomplish so much in four days!”

“According to the book,” he said, “it can happen that fast. Those reports are updated daily. So if whoever has your wallet also bought stuff before the accounts were canceled, if he committed a crime, it’ll all show up.” “Embezzlement? In four days? That’s impossible!”

“I don’t understand this either. The computer guy who was coming tonight was going to help me pull our current credit reports, but obviously that didn’t happen.

So let’s do it right now. We’ll start there, see how far the damage goes. Is there a computer at the apartment?”

“No,” I said. Bobby had never seen the studio; we had often discussed coming for a New York weekend but had never gotten around to it.

“There must be a cybercafe open somewhere.” He leaned toward the front seat, presumably to ask the driver where we could rent computer time, but I stopped him.

“I need about fifteen minutes with my pump. We have to go back to the apartment.” As always, biology trumped all, and we continued to East Fifty-sixth Street.

When we arrived, the street was illuminated by the generalized ambient glow that spread over the city at night. It was never completely dark here. Bobby paid the driver and we hurried into the building, winding up the five flights of stairs.

I switched on a few lights in the apartment and stood at the dish drainer piecing together my breast pump with such haste that parts of it fell to the floor. I didn’t bother rewashing them; I wasn’t going to take the time to save the milk tonight, breast relief being my only goal. Bobby sat at the table leafing through the Yellow Pages while I pumped on the couch. When I was through I washed up and changed my clothes.