Read Online Poison Candy: The Murderous Madam by Elizabeth Parker, Mark Ebner - Free Book Online Page A

like this one, when they were coming out of the gym, “we found like an extortion note on the car, asking my husband for forty grand.”
LLOPIS: Wow . . .
    DALIA: And that’s what he owes his business partner is forty grand.
    LLOPIS: What type of business is he in?
    DALIA: He got in trouble for stock fraud, and now he’s doing like an Internet thing, but he’s been getting a lot of complaints lately because, just, you know, some things that are wrong with what he’s doing.
    LLOPIS: All this stuff is good. You give it to them when we get there.
    His encouragement flushes out her first show of vulnerability, which automatically brings out his masculine protectiveness.
DALIA: What I tell you, like, I don’t get in trouble, or am responsible or anything like that, do I?
    LLOPIS: (gently) You’re saying your husband is into shady stuff—it’s not your fault.
    This leaves the opening she seems to be looking for, and she starts crying again. She asks to make a call on her cell phone, and between sobs, she notes that with everything else, Mike had just had surgery. McDeavitt calls in their location, noting they’ll be at the station inside of two minutes, and there are another thirty seconds of her sniffling and breathing deeply. Then something occurs to her.
DALIA: Where did you get my number?
    LLOPIS: Off your husband’s cell phone.
    They ride the last thirty seconds in silence.
    In fact, the items that Dalia left in the Chevy Tahoe—according to the surveillance team, in a public parking lot that was known for its break-ins, where prominent signs warn, “Do Not Leave Valuables in Your Car”—was a $3,000 leather Prada bag with a number of interesting items in it, namely keys to a safety deposit box that Mike didn’t know existed; her cell phone, of course, with its secret life laid out in a latticework of intersecting numbers; and $33,000 worth of jewelry—a $26,000 diamond engagement ring and another $7,500 worth of silver David Yurman bracelets, chains, and a silver topaz ring—which comprised every piece of expensive jewelry she owned.
    According to Mike, all that Dalia ever took to the gym was a towel and her iPod.
    When they arrived at the Boynton Beach police station, Dalia was taken to a small interview room and seated at a table. She was soon joined by Sergeant Paul Sheridan, the senior officer on duty, who had elected to conduct the first phase of the interview himself. Present in the room with him as a witness was Detective Brian Anderson, who along with Detective Alex Moreno was heading up the case. All three had just returned from the “crime scene.” A video surveillance camera mounted in the corner of the ceiling captured the entire interview.
    Sergeant Sheridan, a thick, sedentary Irish cop with a high-pitched, almost patrician voice, takes the lead in the interrogation, even if it won’t reveal itself as such until almost the end. But before they can get started, he has two orders of business. In as offhand a manner as possible, Sheridan begins by covering her Fifth Amendment rights, as required by law, reading directly from the Miranda card he holds in his hand.
SHERIDAN: This is a protocol that we have to do, since you’re the wife. We have to advise you of your rights, so you know. If you don’t understand any of them, you just tell me, and I’ll stop and repeat them. And first of all, let me just tell you, I’m sorry for your loss.
    DALIA: (crying) I just want to see my husband, please.
    SHERIDAN: I understand.
    DALIA: They wouldn’t let me see him!
    SHERIDAN: You don’t want to see him. Believe me, you don’t . . .
    He runs through the familiar litany, instructing her to respond verbally after every one. At the end, he has her sign and date a statement. Then he produces a second piece of paper.
SHERIDAN: Okay, this is something because we’re doing videotape that I need you to sign also. It gives us the right to videotape it. You want to read that?
    DALIA: I don’t want to be