Patrick Redding was a sixteen-year veteran of the Port Charles Police Department. He was what other cops termed ‘a lifer'. Redding was very content to be a beat cop for the entirety of his stay with the PCPD.

He loved walking a beat out among the various neighborhoods. At just over six feet tall and an ounce or two over the minimum weight limit, Redding's long, lanky build was a familiar fixture among the people. The old ladies of the neighborhood baked sweets to fatten him up. The old men fondly chided him over his seeming lack of ambition.

It wasn't that promotion was an impossibility for Officer Redding. He had twice been shot in the line of duty. His record of arrests and convictions was among the highest in the entire state of New York. But when confronted by the unyielding determination of one Florence Taggert, Redding had been about as powerless as the greenest rookie on the force.

For about the fifth time in as many minutes, Redding glanced toward the back of the station where prisoners were housed before transfer to a more permanent facility. In violation of every rule that had been laid down, Florence Taggert was back there ‘visiting' Port Charles mobster Sonny Corinthos.

Redding sighed and dropped his head. Things were bad for him now and in the next few minutes they would definitely only get worse. Detective Marcus Taggert was on his way.

Officer Redding involuntarily flinched when he recalled the outraged roar Detective Taggert let loose over the phone. Redding had been forced to jerk the phone away from his ear or risk a major loss of hearing. He'd tried – in vain – to explain to the detective that his mother refused to acknowledge Redding's authority and simply swept blithely by him. The veteran cop's additional attempts to point out that Mrs. Taggert had apparently made her way through three other checkpoints before reaching him also fell on deaf ears. Still, Redding considered that he would rather face a hundred Marcus Taggerts than go up against just one Florence Taggert again.

The electronic hum of the security doors as they opened gave Redding barely enough time to scramble back to his post at the desk. Before he could blurt out his hastily prepared explanation, Marcus stalked impatiently past.

“Detective!” Redding awkwardly waved an official-looking ledger. “You need to sign…” His voice trailed off. If the irate glare Marcus Taggert leveled his way was any indicator of the muscular detective's mood, then Redding wouldn't push the issue.

“Never mind.”

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