I want to begin by thanking Joe DeMarco for inviting me to write a column for Mysterical-E. It is a great honor to be here. The purpose of this column will be to address police procedural questions by fiction writers. There are countless books written on the subject and many of them are thorough and informative. However, there will be times when writers have specific questions or scenarios to which they cannot find answers or solutions. This is where I hope to be of assistance. Some writers have access to people in law enforcement who can potentially answer their questions, some do not. All are invited to submit questions to qandaproject@bjbourg.com and I'll do my best to answer them. Answers will be submitted to the author privately and in a timely manner, as most questions require an immediate answer. Some of the questions and answers will be selected to appear in this quarterly column. So, kick back in your chair, kick off your shoes, and enjoy!

The question for this issue is from a writer who posed a scenario about a detective making a death notification to the wife of a murder victim. The detective is being nice, but the wife is nervous because of past dealings with cops and the detective misinterprets her nervousness as a sign of guilt.

Q. Will the detective stay nice, or will he start responding to her behavior?

A. It can go either way and it depends on the detective. Personally, I wouldn't change the way I treat her in any situation. I'm a firm believer in being nice all the time. I can't even begin to count how many confessions I've obtained from suspects and I can't remember a single time when I raised my voice. The old adage, "You can catch more bees with honey…" is a real animal.

Now, I've arrested people for everything from First Degree Murder to Theft and from Child Rape to Criminal Damage to Property, so you can imagine there have been occasions when some of them have developed a seriously bad attitude. When they curse me, or try to get loud with me, I simply say, in a firm and quiet voice, "Look here, I haven't cursed you, so you're not gonna curse me," or "I haven't disrespected you, so you're not gonna disrespect me." When I say it, my eyes let them know I'm deadly serious. They always respond with an apology and they concede the fact that I had been treating them with respect. After that point, I continue to treat them with respect -- even the rapists; especially the rapists. It's hard to admit to committing rape, especially if it's against a child, so I know I have to make it as easy as possible for them to tell the truth. If I get ugly with them, it'll only encourage them to stay quiet.

A lot of police interrogations get loud, both on television and in real life. It might be fun to watch and it might look cool, but it's not very effective. It works on a few people, but very few (it can also potentially lead to false confessions). Most people respond negatively to the infamous "bad cop" routine and the interview will usually deteriorate to the point where it becomes a screaming match, or an ass-whipping, or the suspect requests a lawyer -- none of which are good to the successful resolution of the investigation. Think about how you would feel if a cop started screaming at you, or insulting you, or just being a smart ass. On the flip side, imagine if he treated you with respect, was cordial, and you could tell that he sincerely wanted to find out the truth of the matter. Who would you talk to?

You know how to spot a bad interview? The one where the detective is doing all the talking. When I'd break in new detectives, I'd always tell them, "Watch the way I interview. It ain't pretty and it ain't cool. I just ask questions and let the suspect do all the talking." The more the suspect talks, the better your chances of getting the truth. It doesn't matter if he's lying -- lies are hard to remember. Get them to commit to a story filled with a lot of details. If he says he watched TV, you want to know what he watched, when he watched it, what happened in the episode, how many times he got up to go to the bathroom, where he sat when he watched it, what lights were on in the room, who else was in the room, did he receive any phone calls while he was watching TV, and on and on. What might not seem important at the time of the interview may become a pivotal part of the trial a year down the road. I worked a murder case once where the wife killed her husband while he slept. She later told her lawyer in a statement that she got home from shopping, watched a movie (I forget what movie she said) on VHS, and then halfway through the movie she found her husband dead. Lucky for me, I had checked everything in the house when I processed the crime scene. I documented that her TV was on channel 2, which is a commercial channel here, and that there was a VHS tape in the VCR -- but it was an aerobics tape. At the time I didn't think it was important, I was just documenting everything I could think of.

In closing, it is very realistic for your protagonist to be nervous around the cops because of a past history of dealing with them. It's also realistic that the detective might misinterpret her nervousness as the manifestation of a guilty conscience. You could then have your detective do whatever you wanted with her. He could become an ass after thinking she's lying, or he could continue to be nice, depending on his character. When I write mysteries, most of my characters don't do what I would do in reality, because I try to do everything by the book -- and that's boring.

Well, folks, that'll wrap up this issue's segment of “The Q & A Project”. Thanks for reading and I hope you'll return next issue, where I'll address questions about one of the most effective less-lethal weapons available to law enforcement – the TASER.