Chapter Nineteen

Dee clung to Richie’s hand as they entered the West LA Community Police Station on Butler Avenue. Because of who he was he hadn’t been handcuffed but had been photographed many times by the numerous paparazzi who’d had access to a police radio scanner and had caught the fact that he’d been arrested on suspicion of the manslaughter of Denise Richards.

‘Fuck,’ he thought as they were directed to a side room, ‘H ain’t never gonna let me see Ava now.’

Larry had also gone with them, leaving Jon and Simon back at Richie’s house.

Dee sat as close to her man as she possibly could, feeling bitter that life had just brought him to her and now it seemed he would be taken away.

Finally Richie was called in with Larry into the interrogation room.

Dee sat outside drinking cup after cup of really bad coffee. After about an hour she had to go outside for a cigarette or risk snapping and beating someone to death with a club made out of paper cups. Richie had left his baseball cap and sunglasses with her and she pulled it low over her face and put the glasses on before braving the outside. Thankfully the paparazzi had left; maybe Britney Spears was opening an envelope somewhere, and she sat down outside the station and smoked. Another hour went by and Dee got into a routine of drinking piss poor coffee inside followed by a cigarette outside.

After three hours and ten cigarettes she was on her eleventh when a voice behind her made her turn around,

“They’ll be the death of you. Can I pinch one?” It was Jon.

Dee smiled and handed him the packet. He took one, grimacing that they were menthol, and lit it.

“I didn’t know you smoke.” she said as they sat on the steps in the afternoon sunshine.

“Yeah, well PR thinks it’d be bad PR if people saw me smoking so I do it on the sly and at home. Tico on the other hand gets to smoke every frickin where. Really pisses me off sometimes, ‘specially when I’m out with friends. But anyway, I’m sorry about earlier, you understand tho?”

“Yeah, I’d be the same for Simon.” she said, smiling at him.

His famous mega watt smile was conspicuously missing.

“He won’t go down for this you know. He says he didn’t do it and I believe him.” she said, putting her hand on his arm.

Jon looked at her small hand on his arm and placed his hand over hers, giving her hand a squeeze.

“I know. It just sucks that’s all. I warned him about her before they even hooked up but did he listen? Did he fuck!”

“I’m sure he did!” she retorted, making Jon smile, albeit briefly at his choice of words, “look, Rich told me why he chose her; he wanted a bit of eye candy but she turned into a psycho. He just wanted someone to fuck, someone sexy, and he thought that’s what she was but she was a woman who turned out to have more problems than he wanted or needed to handle. Look, Jon, I know you’ve known him a hundred times longer than I have but I can feel that there’s a good man inside of him, kind, generous and loving, and I KNOW he didn’t kill her.” she finished her cigarette and getting up, held her hand out to him to help him up.

“Thanks Dee. In a way I’m glad he’s met you.”

“Though if it wasn’t for all this mess we probably wouldn’t have.”

“yeah I guess.” he said, quietly as they made their way back into the station.

Dee smiled as she saw Richie and Larry making their way towards them.

Richie caught her up in a big bear hug.

“I missed you babe, I came out and you were gone, where’d you go?”

“For a smoke with me man” Jon replied.

“So what happened?” she asked, anxiously.

“Nothing at the moment. They wanted to question me officially so had to arrest me on suspicion as I could’ve just got up and walked out if they hadn’t.”

Larry motioned for them all to go outside and get into the car. Once they were seated, Jon and Larry in the front, Richie and Dee in the back, Larry turned to them.

“Ok, as it stands they have no evidence and no proof that you did anything. The only thing they have is your skin cells on her arms but you’ve explained that you grabbed her to stop her from scratching at you when you were on the stairs. I would say they really have nothing to charge you with or they would’ve done that already.”

“Do you know which kind of toxicology screen they ran?” Dee asked, suddenly.

“I’m not sure. Why?” Larry asked, looking at her properly for the first time. Having known Richie for years he was used to him hanging about with air heads and this was a new thing. Richie having a woman who could ask a decent intelligent question.

“Well, if they were looking for a drug overdose they would test for the obvious ones, heroin, meth, cocaine, amphetamines, alcohol, etc but what if she took an overdose of something else?. Something that wouldn’t be that obvious at first glance.”

“Such as?”

“I don’t know. What other drugs are there? I mean Rich, you did say she was weaving all over the place and couldn’t focus on you. Sounds like she was on something.”

Richie leaned over and kissed the top of her head with gratitude.