Chapter 9: Bail

On Friday morning the red light on the camera dome above our bedroom door was dark.

I noticed it on my way out, in the same oatmeal cardigan, with my glasses and my hair pinned flat.

"It went out last night," the housekeeper said, from the landing. "Mr. Lonergan's company is sending a man to fix it."

"Which part of last night?"

"All of it, madam. From ten."

I stood looking at the black glass for a long second.

Rowan, behind me in the hall, buttoned his coat. "Does it matter?"

"Nothing matters until it does," I said.

We went down to the car.

The bond hearing was at the criminal courts on California Avenue, in a room as bright and sour as a dentist's waiting room.

I sat in the gallery in the back row with my handbag in my lap.

Rowan sat beside me, because it was his employee in the dock, and he had a face prepared for it.

The head of security came in with his hands cuffed in front of him.

The county jumpsuit hung wrong on his broad shoulders.

He didn't look at us.

His lawyer was a tall silver man in a suit that cost more than my old car.

"Your honor," the lawyer said, "my client has been with Garvey Group for fifteen years.

"No record. No flight risk. A pillar of his community."

"A pillar who ran," the state's attorney said, drily.

"A pillar who was frightened."

The judge, a heavy tired woman, set bond at half a million.

The lawyer produced a cashier's check with the air of a magician with a dove.

The clerk looked at it, looked at the judge, and the judge raised both eyebrows.

"Is there someone I should thank?" said the judge.

"A family fund, your honor," said the lawyer. "A friend of the accused."

I had seen enough. I got up and went out into the corridor, and Rowan followed.

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