Kasey Michaels - Bowled Over

"Hoosegow?"

"Something Sterling said to me. It would appear he's quite taken with the term. I rather favor it myself, it's amusing. And rather rolls off the tongue, don't you think? Hoosegow."

"Not now, Alex, please. I don't need amusing right now." Maggie looked over to the desk where the booking officer or whoever he was sat, talking to Sterling. "What's he doing over there anyway?"

"Sterling? Why, being his usual amiable self, I imagine. Leave him be, Maggie. If anyone can arrange for a way for us to speak with your father yet this evening, it will be Sterling."

"Not really, Alex," Mrs. Kelly said, getting to her feet. "Tate's friend's wife is arranging bail now. Or releasing Evan on his own recognizance, as I believe she called it. After all, it's not as if he could have done anything too terrible. Not Evan. He isn't capable."

Maggie goggled up at her mother. "Cripes, Mom. Nobody told you why Daddy's here?"

Alex put his hand warningly on her shoulder, speaking quietly.

"Tread carefully, Maggie. We're muddling along with precious few histrionics, save your dear sister, that is. We're not flying up into the treetops. Yet. Let's attempt to remain this way as long as possible."

Maggie considered Alex's warning, and then nodded her head in agreement. They'd start slow, that's what they'd do. Daddy had been arrested. Her mother was coping with that fairly well. Why rush into telling her why he'd been arrested? What was that old joke? Something about the cat was on the roof ... ?

She looked toward Tate, now standing with the man who'd come in with him. But the woman was gone. "She's a lawyer, Mom? The guy's wife?"

"Much more than just a lawyer, Margaret. She's the senior partner in a very prestigious firm in Basking Ridge."

"And she does criminal law?"

Mrs. Kelly didn't answer, but just waved Tate and his companion over to them. "Sean? This is my daughter, Margaret. Margaret—Sean Whitaker." She shot a look at Maggie. "Sean's a Realtor."

Maggie waited a beat, for her mother to say, "And Maggie's a famous writer."

When the silence stretched out for a good five seconds, with no word coming from Alicia Kelly, Maggie put out her hand and had it thoroughly wrung by the handsome blond-headed man who looked like he'd just stepped out of a Calvin Klein ad.

"A pleasure, Sean. And your wife is an attorney?"

"She is, Margaret, yes. Cynthia Spade-Whitaker. You may have heard of her? She just successfully defended several charges against—well, names don't really matter, do they?"

"In Jersey? Not unless the name is Soprano, right? Bada-bing," Maggie said, knowing she was being snarky.

Then again, it had been a long day, and it wasn't over yet.

And she may have inadvertently hit the target, as handsome Sean seemed to turn a little green around the gills. "Everyone deserves a good defense. I'm really very proud of her. So," he added, much too brightly, "how did you break your leg?"

"My foot, actually. I broke it chasing down a purse snatcher who'd grabbed some old lady's bag as she came out of Barney's. Got him, too. The mayor's giving me a commendation next week. I do try, but it's hard to be humble."

Alex coughed into his fist.

"Really? That's ... that's very heroic of you. Ah, and here comes my wife now."

Everyone turned to watch as the blond-haired sylph with eyes as green as grass glided into the room, a self-satisfied smirk on her artfully made-up face. "All done, kiddies," she said—crowed. "I found us a judge who ... well, let's say he owes our firm a favor. Mr. Kelly will be released in a few hours. Just as soon as our judge comes here and arraigns him in a special private session and someone posts bond, of course. Tate, I'm sure you can manage that. The bail bondsman will want ten percent—fifty-thousand dollars."

Sometimes being the outsider had its benefits. Maggie could stand back, unnoticed and forgotten, and observe her fellow humans, as writers tend to do. Like now, when Maggie could watch Tate's nostrils flare, watch his Adam's apple climb his neck as he swallowed rather convulsively.

She couldn't resist: "Oh, that's great, Tate. To the rescue, as usual. Mom, isn't Tate great? What a guy."

Alex pulled her back down onto the bench and then sat down beside her. "Neither you nor your brother should ever consider playing at cards for money, my dear. I can read both your faces quite easily. Tate doesn't have fifty-thousand dollars he can readily convert to cash—and you know it. But remember, Maggie, this is not about sibling rivalry. It's about Evan."

"I do know that. I'm trying not to think about Daddy back there somewhere behind that door, half swallowed up by some horrible orange jumpsuit and sharing a cell with a bunch of Christmas Eve drunks. I'll let Tate off the hook in a moment, post the bail. But would you look at Mom? She's beginning to get a sort of deer-in-the-headlights look. Not that it isn't about time she went a little crazy. She can't believe Daddy's been tossed in jail for parking tickets or littering. Not with a five-hundred-thousand-dollar bail."

Her mother was looking around the room, as if applying for some sort of assistance but not knowing whom to ask. And then, much to Maggie's surprise, Mrs. Kelly walked back across the room to sit down beside Maggie.

She covered her mother's hand with her own. "Mom? You okay?"

Mrs. Kelly shook her head slowly. "Fifty-thousand dollars? What did the man do? The officer who called me didn't say. But I assumed ... that is ... I thought it was something minor ... something typically stupid ..."

Maggie looked up at Alex, who nodded to her, and then squeezed her mother's hand. "It isn't something minor, Mom. They say ... um ... they say Daddy killed somebody."

Mrs. Kelly pushed Maggie's hand away and shot to her feet. "That's ridiculous! Evan may be an idiot, but he wouldn't step on a bug. Tate! Someone's made a mistake. Get your father out here this minute."

But Tate was standing with his friends, gesturing nervously, probably explaining that his funds weren't "liquid," or some such drivel.

"Mom, they aren't kidding. They say he killed someone." Maggie got to her feet, put her arm around her mother, then stood with her arm still outstretched as Mrs. Kelly shrugged off the offer of comfort. "Alex? What's the man's name?"

Alex took a pristine white linen handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to Maureen, who was now comforting her mother.

Maggie noticed that Maureen was allowed to do that. How silly she'd been, to try to step out from her typecasting. But, with a new clarity that had come from somewhere, Maggie wondered if that was her problem—or her mother's. And, if it was her mother's, then the woman had to be going nuts knowing that her husband, safely in his assigned "role" all these years, had suddenly stepped out of character.

"The victim's name?" Alex said, frowning. "I don't know that I have that, actually. Give me a moment to confer with Sterling."

He was back in a less than a minute, smiling slightly. "Sterling is now a junior detective, Maggie. He showed me his badge."

Even with her mother beginning to fall apart—a phenomenon Maggie could not remember ever witnessing—she had to smile as she glanced toward Sterling, who was proudly holding up a plastic badge. "Isn't that cute? I'm guessing they give them to all the kids," she said, waving and nodding at the lovable Sterling Balder. "So? The name?"

"Yes, of course. The deceased is one Walter Bodkin."

"Bodkin? There's a name for you," Maggie said, and turned back to her mother. "Mom? Do you recognize the—hey now, how about we sit you back down, okay? You're looking a little pale. Alex?"

Alex immediately guided Mrs. Kelly back down onto the bench, even as Maureen subsided beside her, also looking faintly sick.