Daughter's Keeper (12 page)

“That is an issue for your attorney to discuss with you.” Miss Watts-Thompson tapped on her pad with her pencil. “Again, do your parents own a home?”

Olivia nodded. “My mother does.”

The woman made a notation. “Would she be willing to put the house up for you?”

Olivia shrugged. “I don't know. I guess so. What does that mean, put the house up?”

“That means that she signs over the house, and if you don't appear in court when you're supposed to, we take it away from her.”

“You take her
house
away from her?” The tide of panic that she had kept dammed up since the night before now began to fill her lungs.

Miss Watts-Thompson pursed her lips again. “The house would be taken only if you absconded. Is that your plan, Miss Goodman? Is that what you'd like me to inform the magistrate judge? You need to understand something, young lady; we are not required to release you. In fact, since you are a defendant in a ­large-scale drug conspiracy, the presumption is that we
won't
release you. If you have any interest in getting out on bond, I suggest you cooperate.”

The blast of rage Olivia felt at the woman's condescending sneer pushed aside her fear. She drew herself up and narrowed her eyes. “What large-scale drug conspiracy? I don't know anything about a large-scale conspiracy.”

“Again, that is an issue to discuss with your attorney, Miss Goodman. My role is simply to evaluate whether or not you are eligible for pretrial release. Quite frankly, given your attitude, I'm not convinced that you are a good risk.”

“My
attitude
?”

“Your answers to my questions indicate to me that you're a poor risk for bail.”

Olivia drew herself up. “As far as I know, I have a constitutional right to refuse to answer any questions at all,” she said, glaring at the woman.

“Shall I call your mother to determine her willingness to post bond for you, or would you rather just stay in jail?”

The other times she had felt so proud to be arrested; she'd been glad to have the police call Elaine. Olivia had seen those midnight calls as part of her mother's political education; how else would Elaine have learned about the actions of American oil companies in Brazil or the paucity of tenured African-American women on the faculty of the University of California? This time was different. Olivia felt not heroic but filled almost to an unbearable level with shame. She didn't want her mother to know she was here. She couldn't bear to imagine her mother's horror at the sordid drug deal.
This
disappointment would be too much for Elaine to tolerate. At the same time, some part of her was wild to believe that when her mother heard what had happened to Olivia she would come and take care of it, make it all go away. She would walk into the holding cell, give the guard a piece of her mind, unlock the door, and take her little girl home.

“I suggest that you answer me when I'm talking to you,” the pretrial services officer said, sharply.

Olivia wanted to scream “Fuck you!” to the over-made-up little troll and storm out of the room. Instead, she closed her eyes for a moment and willed herself to be calm. She recited her mother's phone numbers at home and work. The woman noted the numbers, gathered up her papers, and left. On her way out, she called out, “I'm done with Goodman, Archie.”

Olivia waited to be taken back to her cell. Nobody came. Through the half-open door on the other side of the Plexiglas she could see only a wall painted in a muddy off-white. Suddenly, a young man with dreadlocks popped his head into the room.

“Hey! Are you Olivia Goodman?”

She nodded.

“Great.” The man came inside. He was no more than twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old. His long dreadlocks were caught at the nape of his neck with a thick black rubber band. His eyes were a startling green in his café-au-lait face. He wore a nicely tailored three-button suit in charcoal gray, with a crisp white shirt and a moss green tie. He flipped the chair around, straddled it, and shot his cuffs. He was wearing gold cufflinks with large stones in the precise shade of green as his eyes.

“I'm Izaya Feingold-Upchurch—that's I-Z-A-Y-A,” he said. He reached into his jacket pocket and waved a business card at her.

“Guard!” he called out. Nobody came. “Hey, Archie! I need you to pass something to my client.”

“Are you my lawyer?” Olivia asked.

“Yup. I'm with the federal public defender. Know what that is?”

“I guess so,” she said. She was ashamed of herself for noticing that he didn't sound like a black man, or at least like what she would have expected from a black man with dreadlocks. He spoke like her, or for that matter, like many of the black and biracial kids with whom she'd taken honors classes at Berkeley High School. But by the time they'd all started college, those students had adopted the homeboy accents of their fellows from the less rigorous academic programs. Olivia had almost forgotten what it was like to speak with a black person who sounded as white as she.

“I'm a public defender in the federal court.”

The guard stuck his head in the door of the lawyer's side of the interview room. The lawyer handed him the business card and a sheaf of papers. “Give these to her, okay?” he said.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Feingold-Upchurch. Right away, sir,” the guard said, and laughed. He leaned ostentatiously against the wall in the room.

The lawyer shook his head and laughed, ruefully. “Okay.
Please
give those to my client.”

“That's more like it.”

The guard disappeared through the door and a moment later appeared in Olivia's cubicle. He handed her the card and the papers and walked out, shutting the door behind him with a bang.

“So our first order of business is to figure out how to get you the hell out of here,” the lawyer said.

Olivia sighed with relief. Finally. “I didn't do anything. I have no idea why they arrested me. I mean, I know why they did, but I didn't have any part of any of it.”

“Right. We're going to have a lot of time to talk about all of that. And I even want to hear some of it right now. But first let's fill out some forms that will get me appointed as your lawyer, and then we'll figure out how to get you out on bond.”

At the word
bond
, Olivia's heart sank. She knew it was unreasonable, but somehow she'd expected him to unlock the door and let her out. For good.

“I already talked to someone about bail.”

“Was Cruella DeVil here already? Damn, if I've told that bitch once I've told her a thousand times to lay off my clients until I've talked to them.”

Olivia felt a rush of gratitude toward her lawyer for so obviously and vociferously taking her side. “Does she work for the prosecutor?” she asked.

Izaya shook his head. “No, but she might as well. She's with pretrial services. They give a bail recommendation to the court, and then, if you're released, they supervise you while you're out. Did she get the name of any possible sureties from you?”

Olivia recounted her conversation with the unpleasant woman, and Izaya jotted down her mother's name and numbers.

“I'm going to call your mom myself. If Cruella hasn't convinced her otherwise, maybe I can get her to post bond for you. Okay, now, I'm going to ask you a bunch of questions, okay?” He flipped open a folder in front of him and began jotting down her answers to his questions. They got through the basic biographical information pretty quickly, then he asked, “Did you finish high school?”

“Yeah.” She nodded.

“Where?”

“Berkeley High.”

“Really? Me too.”

They looked at each other for a moment, not sure what else to say. Finally he said, “Any college?”

She nodded. “UC Santa Cruz. But I dropped out in my second year.”

“Okay,” he said, making a few final notes in his folder. He lay his pen down. “Now, do you want to tell me a little bit about what's brought you to my humble place of employ?”

Olivia sat silently for a moment. She liked Izaya. She liked his dreadlocks and the way he had seemed to take utterly for granted that they were on the same team. She even liked his clothes. They were obviously expensive, and on a white boy with floppy hair and a prep-school accent they might have looked too slick. But they gave him an air of competence, of being so good at his job that it was only right that he should dress the part.

“This drug dealer convinced my boyfriend to carry a box for him. That's all. The cops must have arrested them, and they came and searched our apartment. They found the money under our mattress, and I guess that's why they arrested me.”

“So you're basically just an innocent bystander here, right? The girlfriend. That's it.”

She smiled with relief. “Exactly.”

“Once we figure out who's who and what's what, we'll decide our next steps. But one thing we're probably going to need to consider is the possibility of trading information for a reduced sentence, or in your case, a walk.”

“I don't have any information. I don't know anything.”

“I understand, but you might surprise yourself. You've met some of the parties involved, right?”

“I suppose.”

“Well, we'll have to keep all that in mind. The first thing I'm going to do is get you out on bail. After that, we'll talk to the Assistant United States Attorney and see if we can't convince him that you shouldn't be here to begin with.”

“I shouldn't be. I didn't do anything.”

“Right. Let's keep that as our party line for the time being at least.”

Olivia opened her mouth to object. It wasn't a
line
. It was the truth. Izaya smiled at her before she could speak.

“We're going to talk a lot more about this later. Now I want to get cracking on your bail. Those papers I had the guard give you are a copy of the complaint against you. Why don't you read that while you're waiting? I'm going to make some calls. I'll try to get your mom down here for a bail hearing this afternoon. Just hang in there until then, okay?”

Olivia nodded. He reached out a hand and laid it flat on the Plexiglas. His fingers were long and tapered at the tips. They looked both strong and delicate. She put her hand up to meet his. He winked at her and left the room. A breath expanded Olivia's chest, and she imagined that she could feel her ribs nearly cracking with the force of the air filling her lungs. It was, she thought, the first real breath she had taken since her sleep was shattered all those long hours before. All she had to do was hang on for a little while longer. Izaya would talk to the AUSA. Once the prosecutor understood what had happened, she would be released.

***

Afterward, Elaine would often recall that her immediate reaction on learning of Olivia's arrest was a flash of annoyance. It wasn't the first time she'd gotten a call from a court clerk or police officer telling her that Olivia had been booked on some charge or other. At one time it had seemed as if the University of California campus police had an entire division devoted exclusively to arresting Olivia Goodman.

Elaine had arrived at the pharmacy, coffee in hand, a good half-hour before its 8:00 opening time. It gave her a deep sense of satisfaction to start the day with a clean desk, all the previous evening's prescriptions filled and ready for pickup, the paperwork filed, and the claim forms sent out to the insurance companies. It was as she stood, contentedly sipping her coffee and looking out over the clean-swept aisles and tidied display cases, that the telephone rang.

“Is this about the union?” Elaine asked the woman on the other end of the line.

“Excuse me?”

“Did Olivia get arrested for organizing a union? Is that why you're calling?”

The woman didn't answer, and Elaine thought she could hear the scritch-scratch of a pen on paper.

“Hello, are you still there?”

“Yes, Mrs. Goodman, I'm still here. This has nothing to do with any union. As I told you, my name is Priscilla Watts-Thompson, and I am a pretrial services officer with the United States Federal Court. I'm calling in regard to your daughter, Olivia Goodman.”

“Yes, I understand. I was just asking what she got arrested for this time. Was it the union?”

“This time? Does your daughter have a history of criminal conduct, Mrs. Goodman?” There was the sound of flipping papers. “I have here a record of two prior arrests by the sheriff's department in Santa Cruz County and a misdemeanor disturbing-the-peace conviction in Humboldt County. Is there anything else I should know about?”

The woman's officious tone sent a prickle of anxiety skittering up Elaine's spine. “I don't think so. I'm sorry, if this isn't the union, then what was she arrested for?”

“Your daughter was arrested for conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.”

Elaine felt her legs give way under her. “One moment,” she whispered. She pressed the hold button on the phone and gently placed the receiver in its cradle. She set her paper cup of coffee on the counter with a shaking hand. A wavelet jumped over the side of the cup. For a moment she stared at the small pool of pale brown liquid. Then the bells on the front door jangled, and she raised her head.

“Good morning!” her assistant, Warren, called out, as he unlocked the door and flipped the
Closed
sign around.

“I'll be in the back,” she said, wincing at the tremor in her voice. She walked quickly to the storage area in the back of the store, sat down on a stool, and took a long, unsteady breath before she picked up the telephone again.

“Uh, yes,” she said.

“Well, my goodness, I thought you had hung up on me.”

“No. I'm sorry. I was just…” her voice trailed off.

The woman seemed not to notice. “Mrs. Goodman, it is my job to determine your daughter's eligibility for bail. Are you willing to post bond for her?”