Last week Lindsay Davis brought in an apple asking CSU investigator, Jeff Mallard, to test it for her. Jeff was surprised when he found arsenic in the apple. That caused us to meet with the Plaza Hotel security people to find out who the mystery lady was that had been handing out free fruit in the hotel.
It turned out to be a 50 year old woman named Stella Grimes. I obtained a search warrant from Judge Helen Gamble for her 10th floor hotel suite and permission to arrest her if we found evidence that linked her to the crime.
Jeff Mallard went with me and he searched the suite while I questioned Mrs. Grimes. Jeff found rat poison under her kitchenette sink that included arsenic. When he headed for the bathroom looking for a possible syringe that might have been used to put arsenic in the apple given to Lindsay Davis, Mrs. Grimes piped right up saying her syringe was in her bedroom.
She led Jeff and I in there where we found a syringe and medications for sugar diabetes in her dresser drawer. We brought her into the 5th Precinct for questioning. I left her in a interrogation room with a phone and a telephone book so she could call for a lawyer.
Jeff took the bagged evidence down to the CSU lab to test it. He also talked with his boss, Elspeth Wise, who came up and took a soda in the interrogation room to just speak with the suspect. I watched outside through the one way mirror.
Elspeth, after convincing Mrs. Grimes that she wasn't a prosecutor, was able to learn quite a bit. Stella's husband had passed away a few months ago, leaving the widow quite wealthy, but lonely. She said she sold their big mansion home and rented the suite in the Plaza Hotel so she could be around people. She started buying fruit from Tim's Fresh Fruit stand a few blocks away from the hotel. She would then select a floor and go door to door telling people who she was and handing out a fresh piece of fruit.
Jeff showed up as I was watching El work with the woman. He said there was no evidence of arsenic ever being used in Stella's syringe, but the arsenic found in her rat poison did match what he found in the apple Lindsay brought in for testing. Of course, that rat poison is a standard type purchasable in almost any hardware store in the city.
It was then that Denny Crane arrived saying Mrs. Grimes had hired him as her attorney. His firm had represented her husband for years and he demanded her immediate release, saying they might be filing an unlawful search and seizure civil case on her behalf.
Since Mrs. Grimes did admit giving that apple to Lindsay Davis, we did have the right to book her, but based on the lack of proof that she poisoned that apple, we released her. We did advise Denny that her hotel suite was still yellow taped as a crime scene, she would have to find another place to stay Wednesday night while the Jeff completed a more thorough search.
