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By Root 803 0

Hunter over? Don’t you remember that she and Emma went upstairs and took off their clothes and played operating room, and then they went screaming down the hall and jumped on the old mattress stark naked? I didn’t really think anything of it. I thought, How nice, they’re getting along so well. Sally went home and told her mother she had her butt sewed up by Doctor Emma and that when she’s at our place she is not required to wear clothes. Darla Hunter called in a fury: ‘What is it about your sexed house?’ That was a good one, our sexed house. I tried to keep a straight face, tried to tell Darla that we belong to the missionary-position club and have a once-a-month average and that furthermore I thought it was normal for children to play—Oh Christ, Howard, I don’t have all day here. God knows I didn’t have a very ordinary childhood, but at least I got to play dirty doctor under the Meyers’s porch.”

“Alice—”

“They booked me, Howard. I was in the bullpen.”

“What?”

“Only for a few minutes, and alone. It smelled. I had to stand handcuffed to the counter, while they got my name and address. They took my fingerprints and a mug shot that goes right into the computer. In a minute they’ll give me my Day-Glo orange jail suit that says RACINE COUNTY JAIL in black-stenciled letters on the back. I’m not kidding, it’s the whole works. When I’m arraigned I’ll have to shuffle into court with my feet in shackles.”

I said her name again. I thought to say, “Why? Why you?”

“Did you get Rafferty?” she asked instead.

“He’s on vacation. He won’t be in until Thursday. Finn is supposed to call back any minute. Alice, why—”

“I want Rafferty. Theresa says Finn is lecherous and drinks too much and tells off-color jokes. I couldn’t have someone defending me who is a judge for the Miss Dairyland contest. I don’t want anyone but Rafferty. They’ve got me on probable cause, some kind of lawyer deal where they’re pretty sure you did it, sure enough to put you in the slammer. Listen to me! I’ll come out of here speaking a new language and all with the timbre of a truck driver. Robbie was checked out by a child protection worker and they’ve had a couple of investigating officers on this case for weeks. For all I know they talked to Darla Hunter and she told them about our sexed house. While I’ve been lying in bed crying my eyes out over Lizzy, they’ve learned that I’m an unbalanced, vicious woman who runs from funerals and tortures young children with rectal thermometers and tongue depressors. They drag you off in a squad car you almost start thinking you’re crazy or guilty.”

Alice was born exaggerating. She probably sputtered and howled much longer than the trauma of birth requires. I was used to taking a lot of what she said with a grain of salt. I didn’t know her well, when we were married. I knew her enough to think there wasn’t much point in having the years pass if she wasn’t along for the ride. She is an intemperate person, one minute shut up in herself and the next dancing a jig, telling an implausible story about a mouse running up her leg at the doctor’s office.

“I’m coming right away,” I said. “We’ll get Finn for today. I’ll be there in thirty min—”

“No,” she said. “There’s nothing you can do. Just call the office and have them tell Rafferty it’s critical, to call you the instant he’s back. I’ll talk to one of the public defenders here in the meantime. Can you imagine what Rafferty does on vacation? Something eccentric, stamp collector’s camp in Reno, or—or Morris dancing with the bells and handkerchiefs. I trust him even though he’s peculiar, don’t you?”

“I need to come,” I said.

“No! Listen. You couldn’t even see me now. They’re taking me up in two minutes.” When I realized she was indisposed, I began talking at her as forcefully as I could in low tones. The justice system was corrupt, I knew, but they couldn’t slap her in jail without adequate proof. Finn would get her out within the hour, when his meeting was over.

“Howard,” she said, her voice wavering. “You don’t realize about this. I’m in here now and it’s going to take more than