Free Poison Candy: The Murderous Madam by Elizabeth Parker, Mark Ebner Page B

about certain things that we have.
    SHERIDAN: Okay. Hang on a second here. I just thought of something.
    Sheridan exits for the second time in five minutes. She asks for a glass of water on his way out, and he returns with bottled water. But his demeanor has changed—he’s neither cagey nor credulous, but more the stern father Dalia presumably was missing during her formative years.
SHERIDAN: The game’s over with, okay? There are no more games with you and I. Now we’re going to get down to serious business. I want to know if you know this guy?
    He opens the door and a black man in cornrows and a black T-shirt, handcuffed in front—undercover agent Widy Jean, playing the hapless assassin—is led in with his head hung low (even though in real life, the wife of a murder victim would never be placed in the same room as her husband’s killer—even if she were a suspect).
SHERIDAN: You know who this guy is?
    DALIA: No.
    SHERIDAN: You’ve never seen him before?
    DALIA: I’ve never seen him before—ever.
    Sheridan addresses the man in handcuffs.
SHERIDAN: Do you know her?
    He shakes his head no.
SHERIDAN: Put your head up!
    DALIA: I’ve never seen him before.
    SHERIDAN: What were you doing coming out of her house?
    When he refuses to answer, Sheridan shouts to get him out of there and concentrates the brunt of his attention on Dalia.
SHERIDAN: You’re going to jail today for solicitation of murder. You’re under arrest. That’s an undercover police officer. We filmed everything that you did. Recorded everything that you did. You’re going to jail for solicitation of first-degree murder of your husband.
    And just like that it’s over. This circular cat-and-mouse game is stopped in its tracks. This would be the point in a courtroom drama at which the culprit would burst into tears, admit her guilt, and submit to the gears of justice and drama, which would downshift to coast into a finish. But not in this tape. Dalia merely digs in and spends the next forty minutes—the next sixteen hours, the next four years—denying what everyone around her has just seen and heard with their own senses, using every tool at her disposal and every figure within her seductive reach to reverse reality, in a kind of brazen miracle of epistemology. One that is still ongoing.
DALIA: I didn’t do anything.
    SHERIDAN: Did you hear what I just told you?
    DALIA: I heard what you said but I didn’t—
    SHERIDAN: Listen to me. Everything has been recorded. You were photographed in the convertible when you sat in his car in front of CVS. What do you want to do?
    Dalia continues to repeat “I didn’t do anything,” the defense of an obstinate child, with the force of a mantra.
    “You’re going to jail!” Sheridan thunders, and she starts to cry, but she refuses to crack. And then—
SHERIDAN: As soon as I’m done, they’re going to come in here and handcuff you and take you to the Palm Beach County Jail and book you for solicitation of first-degree murder on your husband. Your husband is well and alive!
    DALIA: Thank God.
    SHERIDAN: Oh, yeah—thank God?
    DALIA: Can I see him?
    SHERIDAN: No, he doesn’t want to see you.
    He continues to berate her, quoting from the surveillance tapes to bolster his leverage, but all it does is shut her down; she becomes more sullen and unresponsive, punctuating his questions with, “Can I see my husband, please?” Of everyone she’s talked to this morning, Mike is the one she’s had the best luck in manipulating, and he looks like her safest play. When Sheridan has had enough of talking in circles, he asks for someone to come in and cuff her. Detective Midian Diaz enters and places her in handcuffs. As they open the door, she sees Mike standing in the hallway.
DALIA: Oh my God!
    SHERIDAN: (off camera) He’s alive!
    DALIA: Come here, please. Come here. Mike, come here. Come here, please, come here.
    She sounds like she’s commanding a pet.
MIKE: I can’t. You can’t fix it.
    DALIA: (screaming)