[Marc Kadella 03.0] Media Justice

by Dennis Carstens

  Of the three hundred they had so far from just the Twin Cities metro area, Doyle had them further broken down by height and weight and was able to eliminate about a hundred. Brittany would have to sit down with him and go through the remaining two hundred.

  Shannon softly knocked on the door of Sheriff Cale’s office, opened it and stuck her head in. Cale motioned her in while he listened on his phone. Shannon and Kristin each took a chair in front of the big desk while their boss, who was facing the wall behind his desk, finished his call.

  “Well, Commissioner, I appreciate the offer and I’ll certainly keep it in mind. I’ll let you know as soon as I need something. Thanks again,” he said as he ended the call.

  Cale swiveled his chair around, placed the phone handle in its cradle, leaned back in his chair and said to the two detectives, “This could get out of hand. That was Cameron Philby, the Commissioner of Public Safety and head of the State Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Seems he had a chat this morning with Ted Dahlstrom, the governor. Dahlstrom is offering to have the BCA help us which, of course, means they take over and I don’t really want that. Okay,” he sighed, “what have you two got? Tell me something good.”

  “Wish I could sheriff,” Shannon replied. She filled him in on their day and the fruitless search for the missing Bob Olson.

  “The 800 number hotline has been busy. We’ve had over fifty calls from people who claim to have seen him. Fortunately, every police department and sheriff in the metro area is on board to help us run these down,” Cale said. “What do you think of Miss Riley? Is she credible?”

  Shannon and Kristin looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders. It was Shannon who answered. “I don’t know. At times she seems genuine and other times, not so much. It might be too early to tell.”

  “This business about not calling to report her daughter missing for ten days, that’s total bullshit,” Kristin interjected.

  “I agree,” Cale said as he leaned forward and placed both forearms on the desk. “Paul is running down the Robert Olsons who work for investment firms. Stu can work with Brittany on the DMV photos…”

  “Did you tell him not to hit on her?” Kristin asked only half joking.

  “That’s all I need,” Cale said shaking his head with a weary look. “Going through the photos will probably take the rest of today. I’ve got Patty and Louise plus a couple of uniform deputies working with the Rileys on a public plea for help with the search. We brought in a couple of temp kids to answer phones and Patty and I will handle the press. I’m open to suggestions. Anything else you can think of that we need to do?” he asked his two favorite detectives.

  “No,” the women said in unison. “I can’t think of anything off the top of my head. But,” Shannon continued, “things will come up.”

  “And here’s one of them,” Cale said as he handed Shannon a piece of paper. “This is a list of Brittany’s friends, at least those her mother knows about. I want you two to start interviewing them about their relationship with Brittany and her daughter and anything else you can think of, especially this Bob Olson. Something in the back of my mind tells me this whole thing just isn’t quite right. Talk to each of them and get more names and…well, you know what to do.”

  “Will do, boss,” Shannon answered reading the list of three names while Kristin looked over her shoulder.

  Patty Dunphy was entering Cale’s office as Shannon and Kristin were leaving. She held the sheriff’s office door for the two investigators and the three women exchanged a sincere, friendly greeting. Dunphy closed the door behind her and said, “We’re all set. The Rileys are here and it looks like we’ve got some national media showing up as well. CNN has a truck out in the circle along with all of the locals.”

  “Patty, I’m not going be able to do this every day…”

  “I know, sheriff,” she interrupted. “But at least for the first few days and then, if we have anything significant to report, you should probably do it.”

  “Ok, you’re right,” Cale sighed as he stood. He looked at the clock on his wall and noticed the press conference was set to start at three o’clock, ten minutes from now.

  “Let’s go,” he said as he stepped through his door. “I’m not the President. I don’t need to keep everyone waiting just to remind them I’m more important than they are.”

  Instead of holding the press conference outdoors, Cale had decided to make the media cram into a small briefing room. Cale started off making the announcement that there was nothing new to announce, which each of the reporters dutifully recorded or scribbled into notebooks. The sheriff took a few questions, most of which amounted to no new information. He was again asked about Brittany not reporting to the police that her daughter was missing and again dodged it by making a vague statement that she thought the boyfriend would return her.

  At that point, the Rileys took over or, more precisely, Barbara Riley took over. She stepped up to the podium in the crowded room and asked the media to make a public plea for information about her missing granddaughter. She explained to them that an 800 number had been set up and they were looking for volunteers to handle calls and begin searching for Becky.

  Without waiting to be called on, a local reporter, a man with Channel Nine, interrupted Barbara and asked, “Where is Brittany now? Why isn’t she here?”

  “I’ll answer that,” Cale said as he stepped back to the microphone. “She’s working with one of my detectives to track down this Bob Olson who we believe took this child.”

  There was another ten minutes of questions for the sheriff and Barbara Riley, none of which elicited any new information. Cale called a halt to it and everyone slowly made their way out of the room to make their reports.

  “That wasn’t very enlightening,” Gabriella Shriqui said to her cameraman, Kyle Bronson.

  “Not surprising,” Kyle replied. “We’ll know when they have some news and…” he stopped as Gabriella answered her phone.

  “Hey, Melinda,” Gabriella said as she and Kyle continued to walk toward their van.

  “Anything new?” Melinda asked.

  “No, nothing at all. And still pretty vague about why the kid’s mother didn’t report her missing for ten days. Are you thinking about going live today?”

  “No,” Melinda answered. “Listen, is the family still there?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Good, get to them. I want them on my show. And the mother, what’s-her-name…?”

  “Brittany,” Gabriella said.

  “Her, too. But separately. Not on the same show as her parents. Can you swing it?”

  “I’ll see if I can find them. I’ll get back to you.” Gabriella ended the call.

  “I’m going to go back inside and see if I can track down the Rileys for Melinda,” she said to Kyle. “Wait for me by the van. Set up for a remote back to the station.”

  “I’ll write up a script for you too,” he answered her as Gabriella turned to go back into sheriff’s office.

  Not wanting to go through the main entrance and be stopped by a locked door in the waiting room, Gabriella went to the door the deputies used. When she was ten feet from the entrance, two male deputies came through it.

  “Would you hold it for me, please?” Gabriella said as she flashed a brilliant smile at the younger one.

  “Um, yeah, sure,” he stammered gaping at her with his mouth hanging open.

  “Thank you,” she politely said as she quickly walked past the two officers and into the building. The two men stared at her as she walked down the hallway into the off-limits part of the offices.

  “Was she supposed to…” the older one finally said.

  “Oh, shit, probably not.”

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  Gabriella hurried away from the deputies who she knew were watching her. She turned a corner and found Stu Doyle coming out of a men’s room.

  “Stu,” she quietly called out as she hurried after him. Doyle turned toward the sou
nd of his name and saw her.

  “How did you get in here?”

  “Never mind that. I need to find the Rileys. Do you know where they are?”

  “Jesus Christ, Gabriella, you can’t just come wandering back here.”

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” she said dismissing him with a wave of her hand. “Is Brittany with you? I need her too.”

  “For what?”

  “Melinda Pace wants to do a live interview with the family. Brittany separately.”

  Doyle swiveled his head about, checking to see if they were being overheard, thankful there were no security cameras.

  “Tell you what,” Doyle began, “Let me see if I can set it up for you. But you gotta get out of here and if I do this, we’re square.”

  Gabriella suppressed a laugh and said, “Not even close.”

  Thinking quickly, she continued, “Here’s what I want: I want you to take me to their home later and introduce me. You talk to them now and I’ll meet you at the Rileys’ around eight tonight.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “No! Get it done. You don’t need to set up the interview. Just get me inside.”

  A couple minutes later, having retreated the way she came in, Gabriella was on the phone to Melinda. She explained the situation and her plan then hurried back to the station’s van to report on the press conference.

  Gabriella turned onto the street the Rileys lived on, found the house and parked her car. Before she got out of her car, Doyle pulled up behind her and the two of them walked across the lawn to the Rileys’ front door. When they were about halfway there, Floyd Riley opened the door and stepped onto the front steps to greet them.

  Doyle had called ahead and all four family members were present and waiting for them. Doyle introduced Gabriella who shook hands with each of them and they all found a place to sit, more or less facing each other in a circle in the living room.

  “The reason I’m here,” Gabriella began believing she would have to sell them on the idea, “is to…”

  “We’ll do it,” Barbara said, cutting her off. “The more publicity, the better. It can’t hurt.”

  Oh, yes it can, Gabriella silently thought before answering. “Okay. Let me call Melinda’s producer and set it up and ah, we’ll get back to you.”

  As Gabriella stood to leave, she noticed Doyle sitting next to Brittany, their knees touching. “Is tomorrow too soon?” she asked the group.

  “No that should be fine. We’ll make ourselves available,” Barbara quickly answered. “I don’t know about a separate interview with Brittany. We’ll see how it goes.”

  Gabriella and Doyle said goodbye to the Rileys and as they were nearing their cars, Gabriella said to him, “What the hell is the matter with you?”

  “What?” Doyle said.

  She turned to him, glared at him and said, “You’re hitting on Brittany Riley? What kind of a sick twist are you? Get yourself some therapy!” With that, she hurried off leaving the detective standing on the grass with a stupefied look on his face trying to act innocent.

  ELEVEN

  The four sheriff’s investigators waited patiently in Conference Room A for Sheriff Cale to join them. Because of the importance and publicity being generated by this missing little girl, Cale had decided he wanted a briefing every day, at least as often as practicable.

  Paul Anderson, who had picked up pastries and coffee was always available. Doyle was on his third chocolate doughnut when the sheriff, followed by Patty Dunphy and Cale’s personal assistant, Louise Shaffer, came in and took their seats at the rectangular conference table with Cale seated at the head. The sheriff took a quick peek at the clock on the wall, noted it was 9:15 A.M. and apologized for keeping everyone waiting.

  “Okay, Shannon, why don’t you start us off?” Cale said as Dunphy and Shaffer began to take notes.

  Shannon Keenan spent about fifteen minutes summarizing the previous day by explaining their search of the apartment buildings. When she finished that she checked her notes and talked about the interviews they had done with Brittany’s friends.

  “We were only able to get together with the two of them,” she said. “A Kathy Franz and Annabelle Oslund. The third one we got from Brittany’s mother, a Julia Day, we got her on the phone and will see her later today.

  “The first one, Kathy Franz,” she continued, “is a bright, pleasant, attractive young woman.”

  “Very cooperative,” Kristin Williams interjected.

  “As was Oslund,” Shannon concurred. “Franz was very concerned about Becky and said she had trouble sleeping because of this.”

  “Did you ask about Brittany?” Cale wanted to know.

  “Casually. In a roundabout way,” Kristin answered. “Not directly.”

  “And?”

  “She had nothing but good things to say about her,” Shannon said. “Loving mother, always took care of the child. And according to both Franz and Oslund, Becky was a delight. Bright, happy, bundle of joy. Both said they adored her and claimed Brittany did as well.

  “As to Brittany’s relationship with her mother,” Shannon continued, “they are both of the opinion that Barbara is a total control freak. From what they’ve been told by Brittany, Barbara is absolutely in charge of that family and Brittany is scared shitless of her.

  “Also, and this is an interesting part, neither of them or anyone else as far as they know, ever met this mysterious boyfriend, Bob Olson.”

  “Seriously?” Paul Anderson said. “She dated this guy for what, two to three weeks at least and none of her friends ever met him?”

  “Yep. At least that’s what these two said and they were as close to her as anybody,” Shannon replied.

  “Especially Oslund,” Kristin added. “They grew up together and went through school together.”

  Anderson leaned forward with his elbows on the table, swiveled his head to look at Cale, arched his eyebrows and said, “Curiouser and curiouser.”

  “Isn’t it?” Cale said. He turned back to look across the table at Keenan and said, “Anything else?”

  “We got a couple of names of ex-boyfriends to check out and we’ll go online and look at social media. Facebook, Twitter, stuff like that to see what’s out there about her,” Shannon answered her boss.

  “So, Brittany is an official suspect?” Doyle asked.

  “Right now, everyone’s a suspect until we can eliminate them. That is not to leave this room,” Cale said as his eyes looked directly at each of them.

  “Where are you two?” Cale asked Anderson and Doyle.

  “Brittany went over a couple hundred photos of the Robert or Bob Olsons that we got from the DMV. We looked at those that fit the profile and are in the Metro area. We haven’t gone outstate or any other states yet,” Doyle said. “She found fourteen who, with glasses and the right facial hair, could be him.”

  “We called all of the investment firms in Minneapolis and faxed over a subpoena to get the information they have on employees,” Anderson said. “We should be hearing back from them today.”

  “There’s no way we’ll be able to keep all of that quiet,” Patty Dunphy said. “The press is going to get wind of it.”

  “That might not be so bad,” Paul said. “If our guy is out there, he may do something. He might not show up for work or he might try to take off. If so, we should hear about it. There aren’t that many of them that we won’t be able to keep track.

  “Stu and I will start tracking down our list of Bob Olsons. In the meantime,” Paul continued turning his attention to Louise Shaffer, “We’re going to need someone to enter the data about these guys into a computer, including the ones we get back from the investment firms. We have to cross check them and start eliminating them.”

  “And the information we’re getting off of the 800 number hotline,” Cale added.

  “No problem,” Shaffer said. “I’ll get right on it.”

  The meeting broke up and the four detectives went into their squad room
to get back to their investigation. While Anderson and Doyle conferred about chasing down their lists of Bob Olsons, the two women went to Shannon’s desk. The room itself was a basic, standard, lifeless government office with standard, lifeless government issued desks, chairs, file cabinets and the normal office paraphernalia. The one exception being their computers. Those were relatively new desktops and each detective was also issued their own laptop, an advantage of being in the sheriff’s department of a fairly affluent, suburban county.

  “Let’s check some social media and dating sites to see what we can find out about Brittany. Why don’t you take the dating sites and I’ll do the Facebook and Twitter,” Shannon said to her partner.

  The two women spent an hour and a half searching online for Brittany and what she had out there. Shannon found her on Facebook on which Brittany was active and current. It was mostly chatting with other women her age about the usual nonsense. Shannon also came across a Myspace page for her that was not very active and a little old. On it, Brittany had posted several pictures of herself in various stages of undress. There was nothing nude except for a shot of her slightly bent over “mooning” whomever it was that took the picture. Neither site had anything seriously offensive or shameful, at least as far as Shannon was concerned. Being a cop, she had certainly seen more than her share of postings far worse.

  “What did you find?” Shannon asked Kristin. The two women’s desks were back-to-back so they could face each while working. “She’s on three sites, Match, Zoosk and ClickandFlirt, nothing out of the ordinary except one thing.”

  “Which is?”