Another Day in the Life Ch. 01

"Either arrest me or give me my phone to contact a lawyer." said Ridley.

"I just told you," snarled Joanne, "that you're not getting your cellphone back until we're satisfied with your answers to our questions."

I was on the verge of banging on the window, pulling Joanne out of there, and all but lighting her ass on fire for opening up technicalities, when there was a loud knock on the door on the other side. Sergeant Rudistan opened the door, and Mr. Gibson Stelling of Succup & Payne, P.C. came in.

"I'm here as Mr. Ridley's legal counsel." said Stelling. "What is this about? Why is my client here? With what is he being charged?"

"We want to ask your client some questions, but he is being uncooperative---" started Joanne.

"One more time, people, or I'm taking my client out of here." said Stelling angrily. "And I will take him with me unless you formally arrest him. Why. Is. He. Here?"

"If you'll quieten down long enough for us to tell you," Joanne said, "we'll explain. But first, we want to ask some questions of him."

"No." said Stelling. "I'm not playing your games, Officers. Now show me the warrant under which you brought this man in. Show it to me now." When Joanne and Theo said nothing, Stelling got up and said "Let's go."

"He's not free to go." said Joanne. "You can leave, but----"

"Then show me the warrant under which he's being held!" Stelling yelled. "Now! Or I'm going over to the Courthouse and file a complaint, and I'm calling in the SBI on you!"

Theo brought the warrant out of the papers in front of him and handed it to the lawyer, who sat down and quickly read it.

"I wish to confer with my client. Alone. Now." said Stelling. Joanne and Theo got up and went into the anteroom.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

As Mr. Stelling, who had been Chris Washburn's attorney in the 'Hot Wife Photos' case, talked to his client Dennis Ridley, I was having 'a few words' with two Detectives in my office. I barely need say it was a one-way conversation.

"People," I said, "let me be clear. Don't start playing around the edges with crap like that. If the bastard asks for a lawyer, provide him the means to call one. If he insists upon his own phone, give him his own god-damn phone and allow him to make the call! He's not even under arrest yet! You have no right to deprive him of his property, in this case a cellphone, to call his attorney! I don't care what other Police Departments do; I don't want to give him the tiniest loophole to squeeze through! And you damn near gave him that loophole, Warner!"

I continued: "And when the lawyer comes in and starts demanding the warrant, show it to him immediately! Don't delay, don't just sit there on your thumbs! Gibson Stelling is one of the better attorneys around here, and you royally pissed him off. Come on, guys, you know the limits and you know better than that."

Joanne and Theo just stood and took the asschewing. I suspected Joanne wasn't happy about it. And she had another asschewing coming, as it was... (Author's note: Do you know why?)

My phone rang. "They're ready for the Detectives to return, sir." said the Duty Desk Sergeant.

"All right, guys, get in there and conduct a proper, legal interrogation, if you don't mind." I said. "Go. Move." They went.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Theo and Joanne came back into I-A. They took their time sitting down. Then Joanne read Dennis Ridley his rights from the card. Dennis said he understood the rights.

"Mr. Ridley," said Joanne, "a bottle of Tylenol in your home was found to be spiked with capsules filled with oxycodone, a Schedule II drug, and a cyanate compound that could be lethal if ingested. Your wife almost took one of these capsules, but realized something was wrong. Your child could possibly have taken one of these capsules and been killed. Do you have anything to say about this?"

"I have no idea what any of this is about." said Ridley.

"You have no idea how those poisoned pills got there?" Joanne asked, her voice skeptical.

"No." said Ridley. "I don't know what's going on, at all. That's why I demanded a lawyer when you brought me here: you wouldn't tell me a damn thing."

"And I have problems, really big problems, with the way my client was treated," said Stelling, "and not allowed to call me in a timely nor legitimate manner such as his own cellphone."

"You're here now." said Theo, who then took a more conciliatory voice and said: "Look, Mr. Ridley, we're not accusing you of anything, not yet. But you have to look at this from my perspective. Your wife called in the report. The capsules tested positive for some potent drugs, drugs that are illegal to have without a prescription, and other chemicals that could've been deadly. Your wife says that you and she are on the verge of divorce, and when we find you, we find you having just had an extramarital sexual encounter. And you put up a lot of resistance, immediately called a lawyer----"

"That's his legal right!" Stelling all but shouted. "What's it going to take to get that through your thick skulls?"

"It's his right, but that doesn't mean it makes him look good in the way he handled all this." Joanne fired back. "But back to the point: Mr. Ridley, why shouldn't we believe you tried to kill your wife?"

"Look, what am I supposed to do?" Ridley said, quietly and in control, but with an edge of frustration and desperation in his voice. "How am I supposed to prove I didn't do something?"

"Can you give us any other reason for those capsules being in that bottle?" asked Theo.

"Yeah!" replied Ridley. "My wife put them there, then called you. She's trying to set me up."

"Oh, come on." Joanne said, dismissively and skeptically.

"You seem to be willing, if not eager, to blame me for this." said Ridley, keeping control but using hand gesticulations as he talked. "Why won't you even consider that she might be trying to set me up? You said yourself she said we're on the verge of divorce, which is news to me: we both fool around, and we both know it. That's been going on practically since the day we got married. She's the one talking divorce, not me. So maybe she wants me charged with this... drug thing... and that makes it easier for her in the divorce, at least she'd think so."

"Flip side of that." Joanne said. "You find out she wants a divorce, and is going to clean you out and take your child away, then bleed child support out of you. Divorce destroys men, Mr. Ridley. It's definitely a motive for attempted murder."

"Divorce law may be the most unfair and one-sided process in our Justice system," said Ridley, "but it's not like I would just take that without a fight. If you'd do your jobs, you'd find out that there are a lot of reasons I don't expect to lose any divorce contest."

"And what are those reasons?" Joanne asked.

"Do your jobs, and find out for yourself." said Ridley. "Then you might believe the evidence of your own findings. You've shown times over that you're not going to believe a word I say."

"Not necessarily, Mr. Ridley." said Theo in a reassuring voice. "We're looking for the truth, here, and we need you to help us find it. So... what is your occupation?"

"Sales." said Ridley. "Medical device sales."

"Does that include sales of pharmaceuticals or chemicals?" asked Joanne.

"No." said Ridley. "Hardware. Furniture for doctors offices. Instruments, stuff like that."

"What is your wife's occupation?"

"Now she's the one in chemical sales." said Ridley. "Straight chemicals to labs, pharmaceuticals to pharmacies, lab equipment, including things like syringes. She could get to heavy drugs. I can't."

"So who was that woman you were having sex with when we caught up to you?" asked Theo. "And don't try to not answer; you're a person of interest in an attempted murder."

Ridley looked over at Stelling, who whispered something to him. Ridley then said "Her name is Susan Carrera. I met her at the new medical technology conference at the University a couple of years ago."

"She sells medical devices, also?" Joanne asked.

"Not really." said Ridley. "She makes presentations at those conferences for medical device companies. More like a marketing and P.R. person for them."

"Do you have a life insurance policy on your wife, Mr. Ridley?" Joanne asked, her voice sounding cold and harsh.

"We have life insurance on each other." said Ridley. "It's not all that much; $400,000."

"That's a lot of money, Mr. Ridley." said Joanne.

"It's not all that much, either," said Ridley, "especially in today's economy. And it's to take care of the kid until he gets to adult age."

"The kid." said Joanne. "Tell me about Zack. Who would get him if you and your wife divorced?"

"She probably would, knowing the legal system and divorce law." said Ridley. "Not that I wouldn't try to keep him, of course, or at least get split custody..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

4:10pm, Monday, April 16th. Jerome Davis and Teddy Parker came into Coltrane Sports at the Mall, dressed in plainclothes as they normally did. "Ah, hello Mr. Coltrane." Jerome said as they came up to the counter.

"Gentlemen," said Steve Coltrane as he finished with two customers. "How can I help you?"

"We just came by to see if you'd found anything out of place since we last talked." said Davis.

"No, not that I can find." said Steve. "My assistant Paul ought to be here within a few minutes, if you'd like to talk to him."

"Sure, we can wait a few minutes." said Jerome. He and Parker looked at the fair-to-middling selection of disc golf frisbees. One starter set had a 'Panther', causing the Detectives to remember and discuss the 'Pink Panther' case.

As the time went on, Steve Coltrane began looking at his watch more and more, Jerome noticed. "Teddy," he said quietly, "let's go talk to Mall Security." Teddy agreed, and addressed Steve Coltrane.

"We'll be back in a few minutes." said Teddy Parker. He and Jerome Davis walked into the mall and down the corridors.

"Not the mall it used to be." said Teddy. "It's hanging on, doing okay. But it used to be really high-class, all the great shops."

"Internet." said Jerome. "The Southpoint Mall on the south side of Town is only half full. They shut down a full wing of it."

They went through some double doors that were marked "Authorized Personnel Only", and down a dimly lit corridor. They knocked on the door to the security area, showed their badges, and were admitted.

"Oh yeah, you guys called about Coltrane Sports." said a tall, heavy-set black man in a Security uniform that was not very well pressed, and would not look inspiring to Mall patrons. "We've been keeping an eye on their entrances to the inside and outside, but nothing seems out of the ordinary."

"What about last night?" asked Jerome. "Closing time."

"We pulled the digital files so you can review them." said the Security man. "But I didn't see anything on them. They closed early and the employee left right away, but no one came in, or anything like that."

Jerome and Teddy reviewed the digital recording. About ten minutes before closing time, the metal mesh pull-down door to inside the mall was brought down by a man with dark hair and an Eastern European look about him, who the Detectives knew to be Paul Escandes. Then the lights went out. The next file showed Paul Escandes pretty much running out the door, flipping it shut behind him.

"I'll bet he didn't lock it." said Jerome. "He was in a hurry to get out of there."

"We'll have to see if we can get the phone records for the store," said Teddy Parker, "and maybe for his cellphone, and see if we can figure out what lit that fire under him."

They sent the digital recordings to Police Headquarters for processing into evidence, then thanked the Security people and headed back to Coltrane Sports.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

At 4:15pm, Joanne and Theo came out of I-A into the anteroom, where Cindy and I had been watching the questioning. We all went on out into the hallway.

"Patricia Ridley is in Interrogation-Bravo." I said. "Any questions you'd like to ask her?"

"You bet, sir." said Theo. "She didn't tell us earlier she was in chemical sales, just in 'medically-related' sales.

"Make sure you read her her rights." I said. "And if and when she asks for an attorney, trip over yourselves making sure she gets one."

"Yes sir." said Theo.

He and Joanne went back inside and went down the anteroom Interrogation-B. Officer Lydia Green was the Uniformed Officer attending Patricia Ridley.

"What's this about?" Patricia asked. "My son is still at school in their daycare, they charge a boatload, and I still have to pick him up by 6:00pm."

"Hopefully this will not take that long." said Joanne. She read Patricia the rights from the card. "Do you understand the rights, Mrs. Ridley?"

"Why are you reading me my rights?" Patricia asked with a sharp tinge to her voice.

"To protect you and your rights, ma'am." said Theo. "We need to ask you some serious questions about this Tylenol bottle incident."

"I... I... I... Do I need a lawyer?" asked Patricia, almost wailing.

"It's your right to have one, if you wish." said Theo. Joanne was saying nothing.

"Yes..." Patricia said, getting her wits about her. "I want to call a lawyer."

"There's a phone on the wall.' said Joanne. Patricia went to it, dialed '9' to connect to the outside, and dialed a number. "We'll be back when your lawyer arrives." said Joanne.

Once they were in the anteroom and the door was closed, I said "Captain Ross, let's send someone to pick up Zack and bring him here. He can stay in the Pastor's Room."

"I'll go get him myself." Cindy said. I told Joanne to go in and tell Patricia that we were sending someone for Zack.

Part 6 - Missing Persons

At 4:55pm, Jerome and Teddy returned to Coltrane Sports. Steve Coltrane was now looking visibly distressed as they came up to him.

"Guys," he said, "Paul has not showed up. I've tried calling his cellphone, but got no answer; it rang and then went to voicemail."

"What is Paul's home address, and his cellphone number?" asked Davis...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

4:55pm. Bernadette Rosalyn Gillem of the Madison & Ives Law Firm (MILF) came into Interrogation-B. "Captain Ross of the Police picked up Zack from school, and is bringing him here. They'll look after him." A lot of the tension in Patricia's face left her.

After ten minutes of discussion, Bernadette picked up the phone and said they were ready. Joanne and Theo came in.

"We've already read Mrs. Ridley her rights." said Joanne. "We have some follow-up questions in this case regarding the poisoned Tylenol capsules."

"Do you have a copy of that lab report I can see?" asked Bernadette Gillem. Theo quickly handed her a stapled paper report. "Wow, oxycodone. I don't know what this cyanate compound is, but it sounds bad." She handed the report back to Theo, knowing she'd be getting her own copy soon. "So why are you bringing my client in, and reading her her rights? What has she done?"

Theo said "As I was saying, we want to follow up on our previous conversation with Mrs. Ridley, and we're Mirandizing her for her protection and ours. So, Mrs. Ridley... what is your occupation again?"

"As I told you before, sales." said Patricia.

"What kind of sales? Exactly what kind?" asked Theo.

Patricia hesitated a second, then said "Medically-related pharmaceutical sales, as well as paraphernalia such as syringes."

"Sales of chemicals and pharmaceutical drugs themselves?" asked Theo.

Patricia hesitated a second, then said "Yes."

"So you have access to powerful drugs like the ones found in those capsules." said Theo, almost as a statement.

"No." said Patricia. "I'm not a pharmacist nor a medical doctor. I make product sales, take orders, have them delivered. But I don't have personal contact with any of those drugs, especially not controlled substances."

"Before we go further, Mrs. Ridley," said Joanne, "is Ms. Gillem here the attorney to whom you gave those photos of your husband?"

"No." said Patricia. "That was my divorce attorney, Virginia Madison."

"Okay, that's good." said Joanne. "Mrs. Ridley, you said you also had had extramarital affairs. With whom, and I need names, are the persons with whom you are currently having relations, and also anyone within the last year or so?..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Zack Ridley, called 'Bubba' by the other kids in the daycare, was in the backseat of Captain Ross's Police SUV, playing a video game on device that looked too large to be an iPhone but too small to be an iPad. Most twelve-year-olds would be looking around an equipped Police SUV with at least some level of fascination, but Bubba didn't seem to care at all; he was glued to his game.

Zack was a bit portly, like a young Rudistan, but Zack was not in poor health. His light brown hair was relatively sparse on his head, which was somewhere between triangle- and egg-shaped. His face seemed devoid of interest in anything. He was the quintessential and prototypical latch-key kid.

They got to Headquarters, and Cindy took Zack to the Pastor's Room, which had a vending machine with some snacks. Zack bought a Coca-Cola and went back to his game. Father Romano was also in the room, and said he'd stay with Zack.

"I've got a few questions for him first." said Cindy. To Zack, and with as nice a voice as she could muster, she said "Zack, how are your parents getting along?"

"They don't." said Zack, still watching his game.

"Why don't you pause that game and look at me for a second." Cindy said. Zack looked up at her through his eyebrows, and seemed to realize that her next course of action would be to take the game away. So he paused the game and put it aside.

"Do your parents argue a lot?" asked Cindy.

"No." said Zack. "They just don't talk to each other much."

"What about you?" asked Cindy. "Does you play ball with your dad? Do you do things with your mom? Homework?"

"No." said Zack. "They make me do my homework, but they're too busy doing their work stuff. They just leave me to my games."

"Has your dad ever threatened your mom?" asked Cindy. "Or hit her, or hurt her in any way?"

"No." said Zack. "He's more afraid of her hitting him. She doesn't say a lot to him, but when she does she really lights into him, and yells at him."

"Do your mom and dad talk about divorce?" asked Cindy.

"Sometimes." said Zack. "But not much in front of me."

"If your parents separated," asked Cindy, "would you live with your mom or your dad? Or both?"

"Probably my mom." said Zack. "My dad doesn't really care. He would rather hang out with his girlfriend."

"You... you know your dad has a girlfriend?" Cindy asks.

"Sure." said Zack. "I've stayed with my dad at her house a couple of times. She tries to talk to me and be nice to me. And Mom has a boyfriend, but she doesn't say anything about him."

*BZZZZ!*

A text appeared on Cindy's iPhone, asking her to come to Commander Troy's office. She told Father Romano she had to go. As she got to the door, she looked back... and saw Zack looking up at her through his eyebrows from over his game. A chill ran down her as her vibe overtook her... the boy's eyes seemed to be emanating evil at her...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

5:25pm. Jerome and Teddy arrived at the apartment of Paul Escandes. Patrolmen Statler and Waldorf were already there.

"Did you knock?" asked Davis.

"No sir." said Statler. "We were waiting for you."

"Go ahead." said Davis. Everyone took up defensive postures as Statler knocked on the door. "Town & County Police!" he called out after knocked.

After several knocks, there was no answer. "I don't hear any movement inside, either." said Statler.