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#657 – News From the Michael Craig Desk, Part III – Mio Dia Comence a Las 5:30 AM
[My Day Starts at 5:30 AM]
When I heard the ringing – I thought it was coming from my dream – I woke up and checked my watch. 5:33 AM. It was the telephone on Jo Anne’s nightstand. Sleepily, she rolled over and looked at the caller ID. “I don’t recognize the number.”
“Wrong number,” I grunted, and turned back to sleep. Paul Bunion Junior was making his long, slow, lumbering walk to the ring. I hung behind, lugging the step-stool.
Another bell rang, again rousing me from sleep. Was that the doorbell?
At the same moment I thought that, Jo Anne said it. Who would ring our doorbell at 5:30 in the morning?
“Maybe,” Jo Anne said, “it came from the TV in Val’s room.” Valerie’s bedroom was above ours and sometimes she fell asleep with the TV blaring.
I tried once more to return to Paul Bunion Junior’s side but without success. Harpo began barking and howling, loud and non-stop. As hard as it was to believe that the dog would be tricked by the television, we persisted in that idea and tried – though not very hard – to fall back asleep.
A minute later, with the dog still barking, the phone rang again. This time, Jo Anne picked it up.
“Hello … Yes, this is Jo Anne Craig … Yes, I live at that address … OK, give me a minute.” Then she hung up.
I followed her as she got up. It was the Scottsdale Police Department. An Officer Stanley said only this: “We need to talk with you, Mrs. Craig. Could you please come to your front door?”
In unison, we both threw on some clothes. I know, from my research into several crime-related stories, that the police will sometimes use a ruse to lure a dangerous criminal out of his or her home. Many criminals will follow their instinct to run or, worse, fight when caught. The cops may come up with an innocuous story, such knocking on the door and explaining that a car parked in front has out-of-date license plates. The bad guy comes out either because his guard is down or because his lack of cooperation could arose suspicion where none otherwise exists. Once outside, in the light, in the open, the police are able to surround the fiend. That’s the first time he sees their superior numbers, their weaponry, and their work in cutting off possible escape routes.
For some reason, I couldn’t get it out of my head that Officer Stanley’s vagueness meant that we would be apprehended by a huge force as soon as we exited our “lair.” What the police were doing on the trail of a pair of former lawyers who now taught high-school history and wrote books, however, was unclear.
Was this somehow about online poker? Were they going to charge me with some form of illegal gambling, possibly claiming my blog was an inducement to encourage others to gamble? Could this be a way from them to pressure me to give up Uncle Tilty, get me to squeal about the details of Full Tilt’s operations? Would they want me to wear a wire to gather further incriminating evidence in exchange for a ticket to the Witness Protection Program?
Or was Jo Anne’s terrible secret about to entangle us in an intractable web?
It turned out we were both safe – for now. But that didn’t stop me from worrying that the boot of suspicion was moments away from stomping me and my lovely wife into oblivion.
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