“Okay,” Lula said. “That sounds fair.”
“I can live with it,” Brenda said.
According to my paperwork, Susan Stitch was twenty-six years old, unmarried, and worked nights as a bartender at the Holiday Inn. She had no priors. And she lived alone.
I rang the bell and a young woman answered the door. Shoulder-length brown hair, brown eyes, slim. Susan Stitch. She looked just like her booking photo.
I introduced myself and gave her my card.
“I'm here to bring you to the courthouse so you can get rebonded,” I told her.
And that was partially true. The part I neglected to mention was that she would have to go through the arrest process again and that it wasn't a given she would be released.
She looked over my shoulder at the cameraman and sound guy and Brenda and Lula. “Who are all these people?”
“This is your lucky day,” Lula said. “You been selected to be arrested by Brenda. And these are the guys who follow her around and take pictures.”
“Freeze, bitch,” Brenda said.
Susan squinted at Brenda. “Omigod! Is it really you?”
“Yep,” Brenda said. “In the flesh.”
“Omigod. Omigod!” Susan said. “I've got goose bumps. The lady at the bonds office didn't tell me. I would have worn something different. Omigod, you have to come in so I can get my camera. No one's going to believe this.”
Susan ran off to get her camera, and we all shuffled into her small apartment.
Her furniture looked a lot like mine. Inexpensive and without personality.
Neither of us was a nest-builder. I always had good intentions of buying throw pillows and arranging pictures in frames and maybe getting a houseplant, but somehow it never happened.
“Hey,” Lula yelled into the bedroom at Susan. “Did you really give your boyfriend a ride on the roof rack?”
Susan came in with her camera. “He's not my boyfriend. He used to be my boyfriend, but he's a total jerk. I'm just sorry all I got was his leg. If he hadn't gotten up so fast, I would have run over him like he was a speed bump.”
She focused the camera and took everyone's picture. “Now one of me with Brenda,” she said, handing the camera to Lula. “This is so cool.”
“Why'd your boyfriend jump on the car?” Lula wanted to know. “Guess he didn't want you to go?”
“Had nothing to do with me. It was that I took Carl. He just wanted his precious Carl.”
“Isn't that tragic,” Brenda said. “You have a little boy. A split is always so hard on the children.”
“Actually, Carl's a monkey,” Susan said.
Lula snapped her head around. “He isn't here, is he? Nothing personal, but I hate monkeys.”
“I have him in the bathroom. He gets excited when strangers come into the apartment.”
“I have to see this,” Brenda said, crossing to the closed bathroom door. “What kind of monkey is it?”
“Don't open the door!” Susan said.
Too late. Brenda yanked the door open, and the monkey launched himself out at her and draped himself over her head.
Everyone in the room went rigid and sucked air.
Brenda rolled her eyes, trying to see through her skull. “What the heck?”