Here She Lies

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.

Chapter 7
    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 stillhadn’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. Twenty minutes later we