Born Innocent by Christine Rimmer

the dispatcher’s station.
    Once inside, they took her valuables and put them in a manila bag with her name on it. Then she was fingerprinted, and they asked her an endless series of questions about her age and birthplace and parentage—questions that had nothing to do with Alan Henson. The answers to those questions were typed into a computer.
    After that, Claire found herself listening to Sheriff Dan, who loved her mother’s pralines, as he read her her Miranda rights.
    “ You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will...”
    Claire thought, with a detached feeling of amusement, that it was just like those true-life police dramas on television. Reality programming taken one step further than any sane person would ever want it to go. It was reality programming that was happening to her.
    Then Undersheriff Leven asked if she was ready to make a statement about her confrontation with Alan Henson.
    As Joe had instructed, Claire said she’d wait to have her lawyer present.
    After that she was taken to a long, gray room with one big cell and four little ones. There were several men she’d never seen before in the big cell. Someone she did know, Polly Flanders, was in one of the small ones. Polly was a big woman who was well-known for her violent streak. Claire assumed Polly’s temper had gotten her in trouble again.
    Deputy Amanda Clark locked Claire in the vacant cell next to Polly’s. Claire sat down on the squeaky, single-spring bed that was bolted to one wall. As soon as Deputy Clark had left, Polly wanted to know what someone like Claire Snow was doing in the town jail.
    Claire rubbed her eyes. “They think I shot a man.”
    “ Did you?”
    “ No.”
    Polly let out a raspy cackle. “That’s what they all say.”
    * * *
    The big institutional clock on the wall outside the cell said it was ten forty-five when Deputy Clark returned and let Claire out of the cell. She was taken to another room where a powerfully built, tired-looking man in a gray suit waited.
    “ I’m Zack Ryder. A friend of Joe’s. And your lawyer, if you want me.” He held out a large, square hand. Claire shook it, thinking that his skin was warm and dry and his grip firm. When she looked into his eyes she saw they were kind.
    She asked, “How much will you charge me?”
    “ Joe will be taking care of it,” he said.
    Claire shook her head. “No. I pay my own bills. How much?”
    Reluctantly he quoted a figure and named an amount that he’d take as a retainer.
    Claire considered, though she didn’t really need to. If Joe thought Zack Ryder was a good lawyer, then he was fine with Claire.
    “ All right,” she said. “You’re hired.”
    “ Good. Let’s get to work.”
    They sat down across from each other in scratched plastic chairs, with a scarred institutional folding table between them. Zack Ryder explained the assault charges that had been filed against her, and what they would mean. Then he asked her to tell him of her relationship with Alan Henson and, step-by-step, everything she’d done from the time she left her mother’s house on the night Henson was shot until she found Henson unconscious the next afternoon.
    Claire told the story slowly and carefully. She told the absolute truth—except for the fact that she’d taken a pregnancy test and learned she was going to have a baby. When it came to that part, she told the same story she’d told Joe: that she’d felt cooped up and gone for a late-night walk.
    In the hours in the cell next to Polly Flanders, she’d had time to think. And she could think of no way that the pregnancy test had a thing to do with Henson. It was her business, and her business alone. She felt wronged and invaded to be arrested for a crime she hadn’t committed.
    And as every hour of this nightmare passed, she found she was more and more bonded to the infinitesimal life within her. She would do anything to protect that life. Right now, that life was her secret. They could accuse