A Map of the World - Jane Hamilton [72]
“Usually in a case like this, when the accused is an upstanding community-minded person, the bond is between three and ten thousand. Somewhere in that range. I’ll argue with the judge, make a motion to reduce the bail or change it to a property bond. The farm is your greatest asset in terms of bargaining for the bail. A chunk of property like that indicates that you are here to stay. But I can tell you right now: It’s going to be a fight. How many students are enrolled at Blackwell Elementary—did she say seven hundred? You have fourteen hundred parents in a feeding frenzy, my bets are the judge isn’t going to make out like a softie.”
Rafferty closed his book and rose, hiking his pants up at his waist and then tucking his shirt in all the way around. He worked at this with the fervor of a small animal digging a hole. “We’ll see what they come up with at the hearing in a few weeks,” he said.
It was clear that for him the meeting was over. I wasn’t anywhere near ready to leave. He hadn’t enlightened me. I still wanted to know why he thought Alice had been singled out. I guess I had the hope that Rafferty could declare the whole thing a gross injustice and that would be the end of it. He thrust his hand at my chest as I rose. I looked at it, wondering what to do. I had to think, left from right, hand from foot, to find the correct limb to meet his shake.
“Try to get some rest,” he said then, bumping my arm with his knobby fist in what I suppose was a gesture of camaraderie. “We’ll get through this, you’ll see. It isn’t the first time this has happened, and I’m afraid it won’t be the last. We’ll stand firm and plow over ‘em.” He went to the door and opened it wide. “I’ll be calling as I frame specific questions.” The girls were on the sofa, their mouths full of candy that stunk of artificial banana, strawberry, blueberry. I knelt down to pack up their things. “I’ll see her today,” he was saying, “I’ll tell her that we talked, that they”—he nodded at the girls—“look fine.”
At the front door Claire said, “Look, Daddy, we’re like Hansel!” Behind us was a trail of Starburst wrappers all the way down the stairs. They were hot colors, bright bits of paper. She laughed. “We’ll be able to find our way back from the forest!”
Chapter Ten
——
ON SATURDAY NIGHT I called Miss Bowman, our egg lady. We used to get our own eggs, before the neighbor dogs killed all of our chickens. I had thought the hen house was dog-proof but the black Labradors managed to squeeze in through the swinging door. I had shot at them and missed. They each had the audacity, Alice said, of a fox. The only dealings we’d had with Miss Bowman was the weekly exchange of a dollar fifty for two cartons of eggs. She was a scrawny, gray-haired woman who raised chickens and terriers. She was strange for many reasons. Without saying a word, she used to hand me Jehovah’s Witness tracts. There was also something wrong with her right eye. She didn’t seem to be in pain. It was the bystander who suffered, looking at the half-closed lid and the displaced half-iris.
“Miss Bowman,” I said.
“Who is it?” Her voice creaked from what I assume was disuse.
“Miss Bowman, this is Howard Goodwin, your egg customer from down the road.”
“Uh.”
If it had been Salem in witch-hunting times she would have been the first to go. She would have been suspect because she talked to her animals, because she was a single-woman property owner, and because she was disfigured. She was about as out of touch with the world as someone like me could hope to find.
I said, “My girls were wondering if they could come down and help you with your chores. You don’t know them very well, but they’ve always liked visiting you when we make an egg run.” It was true that Emma and Claire argued over who would pet the Scottish terrier that was chained to a post in the yard.
Miss Bowman was quiet on the other end of the line.