Posted at 7:45 am on Jun 26, 2015 by:
Derrick Scrivens
Easy Questions
The next couple days passed by pretty uneventfully beyond the drama from Faust at work over Lombardi's murder. Someone found his body just a few minutes after Scrivens drove away apparently. Faust still didn't seem to suspect Scrivens of any wrongdoing. He had no reason to. Scrivens was doing his best to come off as concerned whenever Faust brought the well-being of the employees of the company. Between that and sitting quietly in his office all day, at least outside of the occasional laugh after reading another story related to the murders, there was nothing that Scrivens thought made him seem suspicious.
As a result, it was a great surprise to Scrivens when he arrived home after work to find a police car parked outside of his house. He immediately wondered if he'd left something behind at Lombardi's murder that they'd managed to connect to him. A shoe print or something even more miniscule. He considered just driving right past his house, hiding somewhere else until the cops got tired of waiting for him and left his house. Emily was probably telling them every few minutes that he would be home at any minute.
He ended up deciding to face them directly. When he opened the front door, Emily didn't come to greet him. There was no sign of her at all even though he knew she was home. Walking to the den, he found her sitting quietly with two cops.
Standing up out of the chair, the two cops standing from the sofa, she said, "Derrick, these officers would like to have a word with you." She walked towards him, looking more concerned than he'd ever seen her.
"It'll be okay," he said reassuringly, giving her a quick kiss on the forehead before she left the room, probably to eavesdrop. Normally, he would scold her for that, but at that moment, he couldn't care less.
"Please take a seat, Mr. Scrivens," said one of the cops. "We just want to ask you a few questions."
Scrivens obliged them, sitting in the chair himself. "Okay, shoot."
"What exactly is it that you do at your... job?" asked the second cop.
"I oversee various projects for the military and government." He sat back in the chair to get more comfortable, wishing he'd poured himself a drink before sitting down for this.
"Like your co-workers, I'm guessing you can't go into much detail beyond that?" They both seemed intrigued to know more.
"Nope, I can't." He wondered if any of the others they'd questioned had gone against the company's policy and opened up more about just what they did.
Looking down at his notepad, the first cop asked, "How well did you know Myles Walsh and Riccardo Lombardi?"
"About as well as one can know their co-workers without seeing them ever outside of work." Simple so far. He even added, "So I guess not that well at all. They seemed nice enough though."
"Is there anything you know about the shooting of Mr. Walsh or the... slaying of Mr. Lombardi?" Scrivens liked the way the second cop had to think about what to even called what was done to Lombardi. "Anyone at work who might have held a grudge against them? Anything at all?"
He of course fit the profile of someone who held a grudge against his co-workers, not that the cops needed to know that. "No, I can't really think of anyone who would fit that bill. They were generally well-liked I believe."
Staring at Scrivens intently this time, the first cop said, "On the day of Mr. Lombardi's murder, the records show that you left work not long after he did. Did you not see his car pulled over to the side of the road? He was found on the only road going to and from your job."
A small flaw in his last minute plan. Scrivens had completely forgotten that the building logged whenever anyone entered and exited. "I did see him and his car, but I didn't see anything suspicious at the time I drove by."
"And you didn't stop to help him?" the first cop pressed.
"Regrettably, I don't know a great deal about cars as far as fixing them goes, so I didn't believe I'd be of much help to Lombardi. Besides, I figured he had his phone with him and could call for a tow truck if nothing else." Scrivens wasn't sure they entirely bought his story, but he felt pretty sure that nothing had been discovered to tie him to Lombardi's murder.
After a couple more basic questions, the cops thanked him and left. As soon as they were gone, Scrivens poured himself the drink he'd craved before. They'd seemed grateful for his cooperation and he was pretty sure that if they truly suspected him of having anything to do with the murders, he would be on his way to the station for further questioning. He just had to make sure it stayed that way.
