Travails of a Trailing Spouse

by Stephanie Suga Chen

  On the cab ride over, Sarah called a friend of hers, Olivia Lim, with whom she had gone to undergrad and who was now married to a Singaporean. She apologised about bothering her so early, but said that she needed the number of Olivia’s husband’s brother, who was a criminal defence lawyer, a fact that Sarah had remembered from when the two friends had met for lunch when Sarah first arrived. Her friend assured her not to worry, she had already been up, and she passed her the number and asked if everything was all right.

  In her haste, Sarah disconnected the line without even answering her friend, punching in the lawyer’s number as fast as she could. She wasn’t licensed to practise law in Singapore, nor was she even a criminal attorney back in the US, but she knew that there were very few situations, in any country, in which having a lawyer as early as possible would be detrimental. To her dismay, the lawyer did not answer his phone (clearly not hurting for clients, Sarah thought bitterly), so Sarah left a somewhat incoherent message as she had limited details to provide; at the end of the message, she just asked him to call her back as soon as possible.

  Sarah arrived at the Central Police Division building, the headquarters of the Singapore Police Force, just after 6.30am. She had spent the rest of the cab ride over cursing herself for not insisting that Jason come home with her. He had been like this as long as she’d known him – never able to know where the line was between slight intoxication and full-out drunkenness. She knew he was a completely different person after he had crossed that line, and she simply could not even guess what might have happened last night.

  Carys had messaged her to tell her where she and Ian were waiting, on the second floor of the main building. Sarah ran up the large spiral staircase and saw them, seated in a row of connected chairs, Ian looking like a lost puppy dog. Carys, still in last night’s clothes, stood as Sarah approached.

  “Where are they?” Sarah asked breathlessly.

  “We haven’t seen them yet,” Carys said, eyebrows furrowed with anxiety. “I think there is a back entrance, but I’m not sure. We tried asking at the desk, but their names aren’t in the system yet.”

  Sarah walked to the long desk where two uniformed men were sitting, one looking intently at the computer screen in front of him.

  “Hi, I’m looking for my husband, I believe he was taken in here?” Sarah asked, slowly and politely, cognizant of her American accent.

  “Last night?” the man asked. “IC?” He held his fingers over the keyboard, ready to take in the number.

  “Well, this morning, I guess. He’s a foreigner,” Sarah clarified, reciting Jason’s foreign identification number – FIN – out loud.

  The keys clicked as the number was entered.

  “No record,” the man said to her.

  “What does that mean?” Sarah asked, nervously.

  “Could mean that it has not been entered yet,” the man replied. “Please take a seat and wait for a while.”

  As far as Singlish expressions went, “wait for a while” was one of Sarah’s least favourite; normally she would have responded, “How long is ‘a while’?”, but she bit her tongue and walked back to Carys and Ian, shaking her head. Ian’s face had grown a 5 o’clock shadow and he was rubbing his eyes. Sarah asked Carys if she had called Ashley. Carys replied, yes, she had tried her multiple times, but Ashley had not answered her phone.

  “I’m so sorry for leaving you with all of them,” Sarah said to Carys and Ian.

  “No, it was completely my fault for not keeping a good enough eye on them,” Carys insisted.

  Sarah sat down, took out her notepad and a pen, and asked them to tell her the whole story in as much detail as they could remember.

  The four of them left the club after the band’s last set, Carys said, walking down the escalators as they had already been turned off. As they reached the street level, they noticed a man and a woman fighting quite loudly, near the entrance to Henry’s, a popular pub located across the pedestrian lane. A small crowd had gathered around the couple, and Carys said she tried to guide their group around the periphery to avoid getting involved. However, the fight escalated before they got around, and Carys saw the man reach out and grab the woman by the face with two hands. In a matter of seconds, it seemed to her, four or five people from the crowd jumped in to intervene, leaping on the original man and on each other, all the while fists swinging.

  Carys then turned around and saw that Chad and Jason had fallen quite a bit behind her and Ian, and then suddenly, she saw a man fall towards Chad, knocking him down onto the concrete. Jason, who was walking behind Chad, tripped over him and they both tumbled to the ground, making it appear that they were part of the brawl. Seconds later, the police were on the scene, summarily handcuffing everyone with plastic ties.

  “I don’t know how the police got there so fast,” Ian said.

  “Were Jason and Chad hurt?” Sarah asked worriedly.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Carys said. “They just looked confused; it happened so fast.”

  “Did you see them throw any punches?” Sarah asked. Her husband wasn’t a fighter; as far as she knew, he had never hit anyone in his life, but she wasn’t so sure about Chad.

  “No, definitely not,” Carys answered.

  “Were they resisting or otherwise saying anything to the police officers?” Sarah asked, again worried about stupid things that men did and said when they were drunk.

  Carys said all four of them had tried to explain to the officers that Jason and Chad had not been involved at all; they were just heading home, but their pleas fell on deaf ears.

  “A lot of people were shouting and yelling; it was mayhem,” Ian said.

  “Well, it’s a good thing you two didn’t also get arrested,” Sarah said, trying to remain calm.

  Carys nodded, saying that all she managed to get from the officers was that everyone would be brought here, to this building, and questioned; if Carys and Ian wanted to, they could wait for Jason and Chad to be processed and get an update from the officer-in-charge.

  After hearing the account, Sarah put down her pen and placed her hands over her face, closing her eyes. It was bad, really, really bad, to be arrested in Singapore, and being intoxicated made matters so much worse. She prayed that Jason or Chad had not done anything stupid while being brought in.

  She ran through the possible scenarios, starting with the worst, imagining how she might handle each.

  Jason would be charged with rioting and be sentenced to prison, and possibly caning – that would be the worst outcome, she thought. Singapore did not look lightly on people who disturbed the peace, she knew. What would she tell the kids, her parents?

  Next worse would probably be that he be deported from the country and never allowed to return. She supposed that wouldn’t be so bad; they would just return to the US with their tails between their legs. It would probably be hard for him to find a job, though. Sarah would probably have to go back to work, for sure. Would her old firm hire her back if her husband was a convicted criminal in another country?

  Or, she considered, he could jump bail and they could move to a country without extradition to Singapore. She wasn’t sure which countries those were, but she was pretty sure Thailand was on the list.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by her phone ringing; it was Chew Soon Lee, the lawyer.

  “Hello, thank you for calling me back,” Sarah started talking immediately, at the same time he introduced himself. Not wanting to waste any time, she relayed all the information she had learned so far and waited for his response.

  He was a professional, cutting right to the point. “It’s good that you called me, but the police generally will not allow a lawyer to be present during preliminary questioning, unless there are extenuating circumstances, like a minor being involved. In Singapore, the accused has the right to legal counsel, but this is usually only granted after the initial investigation.”

  He continued, saying that the police could hold Jason and Chad for up to 48 ho
urs, then they would be either charged or released. Most likely they would be questioned, then released on bail. The Bail Centre filing hours only extended until noon on Saturdays, though, he said. If she did not get their application in before then, Jason and Chad would have to stay in a holding cell through the weekend.

  Sarah looked at the clock hanging on the wall behind the counter; it was 7am.

  Further, he said, she would need a Singaporean citizen or permanent resident to stand as a surety for them, in addition to posting the bail in cash. Sarah mentally ran through the Singaporeans or PRs that she knew – not many. She’d have to call Olivia again, the friend who had referred her to this attorney, she thought.

  The lawyer explained that the Investigating Officer, the IO, would conduct an investigation and decide whether or not they should be charged, assuming they had not been charged already. This investigation could take anywhere from a few days to months, or longer. During this time, as they would be out on bail, they would have to surrender their passports, he said. Sarah thought about the trips they had planned in the coming year.

  What race is your husband and what were the other people, he asked her. She answered that Jason was Asian but an American, Chad was a New Zealander, and her friend had thought the other men were mostly expats – Caucasians. Was that important, she asked. “Could be,” he answered. “In my experience, the police often will not trouble themselves over ang moh on ang moh incidents,” using the Hokkien term for Caucasian. “It will depend on the extent of the injuries.”

  “So what happens after they’re charged?” Sarah asked, sighing.

  There was a pause.

  “If you want to avoid any trouble, it is critical,” he said, gravely, “that they not be charged.”

  chapter 11

  RELEASE

  AFTER THANKING THE lawyer, Sarah hung up the phone and checked at the counter again, this time asking the man if he could look up Jason by name rather than FIN. The man assured her that if he had been entered into the system, all his details would be there. There was nothing to do but wait.

  Sarah was about to tell Carys that she and Ian, who had nodded off in his chair, could go home, and she would update them later, when the windowed door behind the desk opened. Out walked a uniformed officer, who exchanged a few words with the men at the desk, gave Sarah a brief glance, then turned around and walked back through the door.

  One of the men at the desk gestured for Sarah to come over.

  “Your husband and his friends have been brought in. You can submit a bail application at the Bail Centre. Just provide his FIN there,” the man said calmly, giving her the address.

  “Can you tell me what crime he has been arrested for?” Sarah asked anxiously.

  “All the information will be on the bail form. Please proceed to the Bail Centre,” the man replied.

  “How much is the bail amount?” Sarah asked.

  “Please proceed to the Bail Centre,” the man said again. “But it doesn’t open until 9,” he added.

  Sarah looked at the clock: It was 8.15am.

  Sarah exhaled, clarifying, “So I go to the Bail Centre and then come back here?”

  The man nodded, “Yes, once the bail application has been approved, and the bail agreement signed, they will be released from here.” He gestured to the door behind him.

  Sarah thanked the man and starting walking away; seeing Carys and Ian, she turned back and asked, “Can my friends make a statement about what they saw?”

  The man rooted through a set of drawers that were located behind the desk, fished out a form, and replied that they could write down their names and contact information; the IO on the case would contact them if required. Sarah motioned for Carys to come over. After quickly putting down the requested information on the form, Carys handed it back to the man.

  “I’m going to go to the Bail Centre and figure out what I need to do. You guys should go home and get some rest,” Sarah said to Carys, apologising again for what a mess the night had turned out to be.

  Carys shook her head. “No, it’s fine, Ian’s already fallen asleep anyway. Do you want me to come with you?”

  Sarah insisted, “I really think it’s fine if you go home.” But after seeing that her friend really didn’t want to leave, she suggested, “OK, I’ll head over there, why don’t you stay here and keep trying to see if you can reach Ashley?” They only had a few hours before noon.

  Carys nodded, turning back to the seats as Sarah rushed down the stairs to catch a cab. On the short ride over to the Bail Centre, which was located in the State Courts building at the edge of Chinatown, she called her friend Olivia again.

  “Hey, is everything OK?” Olivia said, answering the call after one ring.

  Sarah sheepishly apologised for hanging up on her earlier, and gave her the rundown of what had happened – that Jason had been arrested, and she needed a PR to stand for him, and possibly for their friend Chad, if she couldn’t get in contact with Chad’s wife. Olivia replied that she was on her way, and Sarah gave a mental thanks that she had kept in touch with her friend all these years since college.

  When Sarah arrived at the Bail Centre, which was co-located with the ominous-sounding Crime Registry, the counter still had not opened, so she paced back and forth for half an hour in the empty waiting room, hoping for someone to appear soon.

  At 9am on the dot, a woman with a tight ponytail walked out from a back room up to the counter. Sarah thought for a second that she was going to make Sarah take a queue number, standard procedure in Singapore, but instead she addressed Sarah politely, asking, “Yes, may I help you?”

  Sarah recited Jason’s FIN as fast as she could; the woman entered the information in the computer, then printed off the Bail Application and Agreement, which she handed over to Sarah.

  “Do you have a Singaporean to stand as a surety?” she asked.

  “My friend, who is a PR, is on her way,” Sarah responded.

  The woman nodded and said, “The bail amount is $1,000; the surety will have to sign this agreement, and you will have to surrender your husband’s passport.”

  Realising that she did not have Chad’s passport and therefore could not bail him out even if Olivia agreed to stand for him, Sarah messaged Ashley herself, trying to keep the long story short but giving her all the necessary information. She then headed to the ATM, which was located just down the hall, and withdrew the required cash. As she was walking back to the counter, she saw Olivia entering the building.

  Olivia Lim, now Chew, Sarah reminded herself, also from the Midwest like Sarah, was tall and refined, having upped her fashion game after marrying a “Singaporean financier”, as their wedding announcement had called him, and moving here a few years ago. She didn’t have children and wasn’t working any more, but she sat on the board of several charity organisations and Sarah usually had to plan at least two weeks in advance to get on her calendar for lunch. They were old friends, though, thankfully of the “I knew her when…” type, so although Sarah felt a little bad about asking her this favour, she knew she would have done the same for Olivia.

  They went back to the counter, Sarah handing over the cash and Jason’s passport, and Olivia signing the form. The woman stamped it and issued Sarah a receipt and a copy of the Police Bail Agreement. It stated that Jason had to be available for questioning by the IO assigned to the case when contacted, and that he was not permitted to leave the country until the investigation was over unless specifically agreed to by the court. At the top of the Agreement, it said in bold faced letters the crime that he had been arrested for: Misconduct in Public by a Drunken Person.

  Sarah sighed, looked over at Olivia, and said, “Please tell me this isn’t happening right now.”

  Olivia smiled supportively and said, “And you thought you had married a boring scientist.”

  Olivia departed, wishing Sarah good luck. Sarah thanked her, promising that Jason would not jump bail and ruin her good name. Sarah was about to hail a cab
to head back to the police building when her phone buzzed.

  Ashley, finally awake, had sent her a message: “OMG, what did I miss last night??”

  An hour and a half later, Sarah, Ashley, Carys and Ian, the latter two not having left the police building all morning, waited at the desk on the second floor, which was now being manned by different people, after a change of shifts earlier that morning. Ashley, after getting the download on what happened, was furious at her husband, Carys’s insistence that he and Jason were innocent notwithstanding.

  She had made it down to the Bail Centre in record time, managing to convince her landlord to stand as a surety for Chad. By the time she got down there, however, quite a few people were already in line ahead of her, requiring her to take a queue number and wait for hers to be called. Ashley had encouraged Sarah to go and get Jason out first, but Sarah had waited patiently with her and her landlord, a middle-aged Singaporean who was very deferential to Ashley (clearly the Sanderses were paying too much in rent, Sarah thought), saying that a couple more hours in the slammer would do Jason some good.

  Finally, back at the Central Police Division, at almost 11am, the windowed door behind the desk opened. Out walked Jason and Chad, rings around their eyes, shirts untucked, hair dishevelled. They were both rubbing their wrists slowly.

  “Oh, thank goodness,” Carys said, as Sarah ran up to Jason.

  Sarah stopped short of giving her husband a hug, asking instead, “Are you all right? What happened in there? Did you hit anyone?”

  Before he could answer, Chad jumped in.

  “Complete rubbish,” he said. “Damn fools had no reason to take us in in the first place.”

  Before he could continue, though, his wife said sharply, “Well, they sure thought they had enough reason to arrest you, and take your passport and a thousand bucks from me!”