So Charlie does all that.
"Delaney Hammond, you are under arrest," Charlie says, while Joshua puts on cuffs and Terry makes sure the chauffeur isn't going to interfere. "You have the right to remain silent..." The Miranda rights just pour out, like they're all one word; Charlie doesn't really think about them. He doesn't even skip the part about how this ridiculously rich person could be provided a public defender if he cannot afford one.
He called her. She asked if he was all right, if he'd heard the news, if he was going to come home. She sounded somewhere between triumphant and distraught.
He did, in fact, come home.
And then... this happened.
Also, she is no longer wearing her wedding and engagement rings. Alice can't help thinking that is a really good sign.
[...This is weird,] Bella opines. [She can't claim she didn't know what was going on and this is a sudden burst of sympathy, so I don't know what could be happening in her mind.]
And needless to say, Judith herself is not a font of useful and coherent information right now.
She's winding down a little on the tears now, and smoothing her hand down over his hair repeatedly, although she has to reach up some distance to do it.
It's... okay. Still a little confusing, but okay.
[Right.] Bella has no other input on the subject, but she leaves the read on out of inertia and goes back to designing a hypothetical telekinesis power in all its tiny and important details.
"Oh, ick," she says with a tremulous smile, "look what I did to your shirt."
"It'll wash," he assures her. "Seriously though, what's up with you?"
She looks down at her unadorned left hand and sniffles again.
"I'm afraid I've been a terrible mother," she says.
"...Yeah, kinda," says Alice. "But hey, you're nowhere near as bad as Dad, so good for you?"
Judith snorts despite herself. "I don't know where you got that sense of humour," she says. "It certainly wasn't from your father."
[Do either of your parents have senses of humor? Besides, not all traits are inherited,] comments Bella.
After a moment's silence, his mother sighs and twists her hands in her lap. "I never knew he was going to be like that," she says helplessly. "And once I found out... it sounds so inadequate, but I didn't know what to do about him."
"And now somebody else did it for ya and you're cutting the bastard loose?" Alice fills in.
She bursts into fresh tears and nods repeatedly.
He hesitates for a moment, and then hugs her.
[What do your and her finances look like, after the divorce is through?] Bella asks.
And yet here he is, comforting her.
A pentagon disappears.
[Well, that's the work of a pentagon,] she reports.
[I'd curse your dad too, but he's already locked up. I guess I'll do it if he bails himself out.]
[...I dunno how good an idea that'll be,] says Alice. [I mean, he's already gonna be pissed off to hell and back. Maybe wait and see how well it works on the lawyer first? 'Cause if it's just gonna piss him off more...] then maybe it would not be such a great plan.
[He can't get you in your lair - but I guess he might lash out elsewhere. The idea is to have him not thinking straight, but I guess in any case I'll postpone it till closer to the court date. He'll probably have bail set tomorrow.]
[Yeah, I'm kind of thinking that for once I'm not the only one he's mad at,] says Alice, and hugs his mother some more.
[Dunno. She'd probably squawk a little. I mean, he hasn't ever hit her before, but—] a mental image of her ring finger absent its rings.
[I can have him recommend it, I guess, or he can suggest that she go stay with a friend - has she got friends in town?]