Ridley Pearson - Middle Of Nowhere

"Ansel," he corrected a little too quickly.

"You're somewhat new to the system," she said. He winced; he didn't want to be told that. "We've seen your file. First offense, light sentence. They were lenient with you. You're lucky in that regard, as I'm sure you found out once you took up residence here."

"You have a little over a year left to go," Boldt reminded him. "So why add ten to twenty to that?"

"Our point is," Daphne continued, "that going the attorney route is your legal right, and even if we could help you out here, we can't do anything to stop you from exercising that right. And, in fact, you've already invoked that right, which is perfectly acceptable to us, though in my opinion not in your best interest."

In a calm voice, he answered Daphne. "But you are in my best interest? A couple of cops? I don't think so."

"Ten to twenty," Boldt informed the man.

Daphne echoed, "You need to be thinking about turning fifty here at Etheredge."

Boldt reached across the table and forced the man's hands up in plain view.

Flek said, "I was scratching, is all," still not breaking his eye contact with Daphne.

Daphne allowed the facility's forced air system to account for the only sound in the room. It swallowed the three of them. She asked, "Maybe you want to put the idea of an attorney aside for a moment and at least listen to our offer."

"What can it hurt to listen?" Boldt asked.

"So talk," Flek said.

Boldt felt a minor victory. He knew from the man's file that Flek had graduated from junior college, and decided to approach him in a businesslike manner. Boldt informed him, "We'd like to start with the phone solicitations you made and then continue on to the sub sequent pay phone calls made to the cell phone based in Washington."

Daphne added, "The more details you provide… the more they prove out for us… the stronger voice we'll have in your sentence recommendation, which for you translates to fewer years the judge tacks on to your time here."

"No matter what, you hold out on us and you're looking at more time," Boldt explained, "including the possibility of accessory charges to a felony assault. So the smart money says cooperate before the attorney arrives and screws it all up."

"Wasting your time," Flek told him, his words spitting across the table. He motioned toward Daphne, "I enjoy the scenery. But all the small talk I could do without. I don't have a clue what you're talking about." What she knew about his background didn't jibe with the man in that chair, making her psychologist side immediately suspicious. He was hiding behind his inmate persona. Why?

"We have the phone logs," Boldt countered. "The phone solicitations are all tracked on computer. The pay phone calls to the cellular number-we've got those too. Are you dumber than you look, or what?"

"I'm represented by a public defender," he said. "All inquiries should go through her."

"What happens in places like this," Daphne said, meeting eyes with him, "is you get tunnel vision. You get so you can only think like everyone else thinks. And the everyone else I'm talking about are not exactly the cream of the crop, you know? They're losers. You start to think like a loser. Don't be a loser, Ansel," she said, switching names. "We're talking about adding twenty years to your time in here. You'll be forty-nine years old before you're eligible for parole."

The man's nostrils flared and his eyes shone wetly. He repeated, "All inquires should go through my public defender."

"You don't win anything," she pleaded, "by playing tough."

Flek shook his head.

Boldt asked the man, "Why would you willingly add twenty years to your time here? You answer a half dozen questions and maybe we just walk out of here as if none of this ever happened? You can't be that stupid."

"We wait for my attorney."

Boldt stood from his chair. Daphne followed his lead. "Wrong answer," Boldt said.

The events of the next few hours unfolded in a way that he never would have expected.

Boldt's official complaint, which he filed with the Colorado Department of Corrections, clearly touched off a nerve. It took the spotlight in news reports-politicians quickly attempting to distance themselves from state-sanctioned phone solicitation programs involving inmates. At first it seemed nothing more than electionyear candidates seizing an opportunity to grandstand. How else could Boldt's one-page report have mushroomed into a media feeding frenzy? No doubt some clerk had leaked the complaint within minutes of its filing. That leak had spread through media, and the media's subsequent outrage had caught fire when combined with the ulterior motives of politicians seeking reelection.

By the time Boldt and Daphne returned to the hotel at mid-day, a half dozen press and radio reporters were already waiting for them in the lobby.

Boldt and Daphne issued, "No comment," pushing toward the elevators.

When they returned to the lobby thirty minutes later to check out, the reporters had been joined by two television crews, three state representatives, the staff of a United States senator, and two mayoral aides. The hotel had requested and received crowd control from the Denver police-two of whom pressed through the reporters to help Boldt and Daphne reach the registration desk.

The shouting from the reporters was nearly all the same: "Is it true that inmates at Etheredge's Jefferson County facility were engaged in a phone sales campaign?" "Do you know who authorized such a campaign?" "Has the governor had any comment, to your knowledge?" "Is it true that inmates conducted crimes from within the privately operated prison?"

It amused Boldt that neither he nor Daphne answered these questions, but instead the various politicians and their assistants. Facts surrounding the private commerce program at Etheredge unfolded. According to a congressman's aide, the program had been approved by a handful of politicians and had been kept quiet these many months under the pretense of it being a test program. As such, a statement had been made to the voting public that Etheredge Corporation was paying both the county and the state substantial fees on a commission basis-no mention that certain influential state politicians had been generously entertained, and their campaign coffers padded, prior to the subcommittee's closed-door vote that had authorized the program in the first place.

Boldt's letter of complaint to the state's Department of Justice lit a fuse that would burn for many months to come, finally destroying more than a few in the hotel lobby.

"Is it true this program was initiated under the guise of prison reform?" a reporter shouted.

"What was David Ansel Flek's role in your investigation?" a well-informed woman called out from the crowd. Boldt and Daphne met eyes. How had that leaked? "And what does your trip here, to Denver, have to do with your ongoing investigation of the tragic assault of Seattle police officer Maria Sanchez?"

Daphne grabbed him by the arm, stopping him. "We need to deal with this. We need to head it off. If the Flek investigation leaks home, we lose our jump on his possible accomplice."

"Agreed!" Boldt said. He assumed this reporter had searched the Times' Internet archives for one or both of their names and had uncovered their participation in the Sanchez investigation. A guard or someone in the warden's office had Flek's name.

Daphne spoke up loudly, and as she did, the crowd quieted down for the first time. "Ladies and gentlemen! Please! Thank you! Lieutenant Boldt and I are with the Seattle Police Department, investigating a string of bur glaries." She looked this woman reporter in the eye to drive home her point. "We came to Denver to follow up on possible leads that may or may not be connected to the Etheredge facility in Jefferson County. We spoke to a variety of individuals at the facility, including inmates and administrative personnel, none of whom has been charged with any crimes. I want to stress that point: To date, no one in Colorado has been charged with any crime associated with our investigation. This was, and is, a fact-finding mission and nothing more. The lieutenant and I are returning to Seattle now to follow up on what we've learned here. Any forthcoming charges or connections to our investigation will be released to the press in a timely fashion. We are working in cooperation with the Colorado Department of Corrections, and the justice department. That is all we have for you at this time. Thank you."