Free Safer by Sean Doolittle Page B

I don’t have to stay locked up until Monday morning.
    My bond has been set in the amount of $200,000, the potential amount of my fines if convicted. Because I live next door to the victim, I’ve been ordered to vacate my residence before 1 p.m. this afternoon. I’ve been instructed that if I’m discovered within five hundred feet of Brittany Seward at any time prior tomy pretrial hearing, which has been scheduled to take place a week from Monday, I’ll be arrested again, this time without the possibility of release.
    For showing up stinko, my defense attorney has been found in direct contempt of court. He’s been ordered to pay a fine of his own, and he’s been warned that a second offense will result in mandatory enrollment in an approved substance-abuse program of his choosing.
    The guard leads me through the same door he brought me in, a downcast Douglas Bennett trailing several feet behind. On my way out, I take one last look over my shoulder. First I see Sara, hurrying away toward the big double doors in back, cell phone to her ear. To my knowledge, she has no bail bondsmen on speed dial. I wonder how long this will take.
    That’s when I see Roger Mallory standing silently in the back of the courtroom.
    Sara is so intent on the task at hand that she walks right past without noticing him. He doesn’t stop her. He makes no attempt to catch her attention. His hands are tucked into the pockets of his coat, and his face is passive.
    But I see him. He sees me. Our eyes meet for what seems like a long moment before the guard pulls the door closed behind me.
    Out in the hall, Douglas Bennett comes up on my left. He keeps his own eyes averted. “Tom. I owe you an apology.”
    “My name is Paul, goddammit.”
    “I’m sorry, Paul.”
    “You’re fired, Doug.”
    If Bennett had a tail, it would be tucked. He nods, still without looking at me.
    Watching him shamble away down the corridor, satchel slung over one humped shoulder, I realize that I’m observing a man with problems of his own. For a moment, I almost feel sorry for him. Then I remember that I’m still the one wearing handcuffs.
    I say to the guard, “Know any good lawyers?”
    The guard doesn’t look at me either. He was pleasant enough before, on our way to the courtroom. Now that I’m a pornographer and a pedophile, he seems to wish that he had some other kind of job.
    I almost feel sorry for him, too.

10.
    IT’S A HARD, colorless morning outside. Frost climbs the flagpoles in the courthouse square like fragile bark. The sky is a dark stone ceiling overhead.
    Two uniformed officers escort me home the same way I left twelve hours ago: in the back of a squad car. We pass the downtown branch of the First State Bank of Clark Falls, where Melody Seward works during the week. The time and temperature sign outside the bank is trimmed with all- weather garland and oversized clumps of plastic holly. It’s half past ten in the morning, according to the sign. Twenty- six degrees.
    The streets seem unusually vacant for a Saturday. At the stoplights at Armstrong and Belmont, a white van from Channel Five Clark Falls passes us, pulls ahead in a cloud of exhaust, and disappears over the hill. By the time we turn in to Sycamore Court, the van is waiting for us at the curb in front of my house.
    I see a familiar figure bundled in a sleek, belted winter coat, microphone in hand, apparently running through a quick sound check with the cameraman.
    “Congratulations,” the cop at the wheel says over his shoulder. “You’re famous.”
    “Real celebrity,” the other cop says.
    “Lucky us, right?”
    They seem to enjoy opening the back door and waiting for me to climb out of the car. As I emerge into the frigid air, Maya Lamb gives a go sign to the camera guy and hurries up the sidewalk toward us.
    “Professor Callaway,” she says. “Can you comment on the—”
    “No,” I say.
    She veers from her course, angling for an interception spot several feet ahead of