The Heavens May Fall

by Allen Eskens

  Max thought about his answer and said, “You picked Voss for this case, and I trust you, so I’ll trust Voss . . . for now. That’s the best I can do.”

  Chapter 42

  At the motions in limine hearing, Boady and Dovey hashed out the details of the coming trial. They covered which crime-scene photos and autopsy photos would be admitted and which were overly prejudicial or might lead to an unfair visceral reaction from a jury. They covered procedures for jury selection, limits on voir dire questioning, and foundational issues for some of the State’s exhibits. The last issue to be addressed was Ben Pruitt’s sanction by the Minnesota Board of Professional Responsibility, a sanction that gave an official stamp to the allegation that Ben Pruitt had been dishonest with a tribunal, a sanction that Boady needed to be kept out.

  “Your Honor,” Dovey began, “Mr. Pruitt introduced a document at a previous trial, a letter of reprimand purportedly signed by Detective Rupert’s superior, Commander Walker. This letter suggested that Detective Rupert had been reprimanded for falsifying evidence. It was later determined that the letter was a forgery. May I approach?”

  “You may,” said Judge Ransom.

  Dovey took the sanction document to the bench, had it marked, and entered it into evidence.

  “Mr. Pruitt was formally sanctioned by the Board of Professional Responsibility for permitting a fraud on the court. The State should be permitted to introduce this evidence to show the past relationship between these two men, Pruitt and Rupert, and to show the extent to which the defendant will use artifice to win his cases.”

  Dovey sat down.

  “Your Honor.” Boady stood. “The State wants to introduce Mr. Pruitt’s sanction for one purpose only. He wants to denigrate the character of the defendant in the eyes of the jury. As this Honorable Court is well aware, such character evidence is inadmissible against the defendant. The sanction misrepresents the facts of that case. Mr. Pruitt was given that forged document by his investigator, a man we believe was paid off by Mr. Pruitt’s client. Mr. Pruitt didn’t know it was a forgery until the ethics investigation. Your Honor, the State knows full well that such evidence is prohibited as being improper character evidence.”

  Judge Ransom nodded slowly as he read the sanction document. “Would you agree Professor Sanden—”

  “Your Honor,” Dovey interrupted. “I object to the Court referring to Mr. Sanden as ‘Professor Sanden.’ It inappropriately elevates his status in the eyes of the jury.”

  “I agree with you, Mr. Dovey, but seeing as there is no jury here yet, I’ll note your objection.”

  Judge Ransom turned back to Boady. “Professor Sanden, do you teach evidence classes?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “And in your endeavors to teach the rules of evidence, have you explained to your students the admissibility of impeachment evidence should a defendant take the stand to testify?”

  “I do, Your Honor.”

  “So, I would assume that you would instruct those students that evidence of a lack of veracity, especially specific incidents where that lack of veracity occurs in court, is admissible on the issue of witness credibility?”

  Boady knew that this would be the outcome of the argument, but he had to pull himself over that last line. “Yes, Your Honor, but only if that witness takes the stand.”

  “Precisely,” Judge Ransom smiled. “If Mr. Pruitt takes the stand in his own defense, I will permit Mr. Dovey to introduce the evidence of the sanction. You will, of course, be permitted to explain the specific circumstances of the sanction—if you think that will lessen its impact. But the document will come in if Mr. Pruitt testifies.”

  So there it was. If Ben testifies, the sanction comes in. Dovey would be able to argue that Ben Pruitt had lied to a court before. Committed fraud in order to win a case for a client. How much further would a man like that go if his own skin were at risk? Why wouldn’t he do it again—and more?

  But did Ben need to testify? The State would play the interview that Ben had given to Max Rupert. Ben was unwavering in his claim of innocence, he gave an impassioned plea for Max to find his wife’s killer. And it laid out the details of Ben’s alibi.

  But then again, Boady knew that jurors wanted—needed—to hear a defendant say he didn’t do it. They wanted to look him in the eye and hear those words from the man’s own mouth. “Right to remain silent” be damned.

  PART 3

  The Trial

  Chapter 43

  There’s a certain logic to calling the lead detective as the first witness, the same way it’s logical to spread frosting on a cake before you dash it with sprinkles. The detective can tell the story from beginning to end, giving the jury an overall picture of the State’s case. The rest of the witnesses then fill in their respective bits.

  When Max took the stand, he saw Lila Nash sitting just behind Boady Sanden. Max tried to figure out her presence in the courtroom and remembered that she’d once told him that she wanted to go to law school. He hadn’t seen her in years, and his mind flashed back to that cold winter night when he saw her tied to a barn hoist. The man who was preparing to rape Lila that night was the first man Max had ever killed, and Max never lost a wink of sleep over it.

  Max gave Lila a small smile and nod, and she returned the greeting.

  Dovey began his direct examination and Max recounted the events, starting with the jogger who found the body of Jennavieve Pruitt. By the time they broke for lunch, Dovey had covered the identification of Mrs. Pruitt, the search of the house, and Max’s interview with Ben Pruitt. They played the video and audio of that meeting from beginning to end. Max’s stomach always tightened when he testified at trials, and he didn’t realize how hungry he’d grown until the judge called an adjournment for the lunch break.

  The best cafeteria in the area sits in the basement of the Government Center. Max went there and ordered a cup of chili and a Reuben sandwich. He took a table as far out of the way as he could find. In his head he went over his testimony from that morning, looking for anything he may have left out or needed to clarify. He’d testified in hundreds of cases in his career, everything from speeding tickets, back when he was on patrol, to murder. He felt comfortable with his morning’s work.

  As he was about to finish off the first half of his sandwich, he sensed someone watching him. He looked up to see Lila Nash standing over him with a tray in her hand. Max smiled.

  “Want to join me?” he said.

  “I do, but I’m not sure I’m supposed to. We’re kind of on opposite sides.”

  “I’ll tell you what, we’ll make it a rule that we don’t talk about the case at all. Will that work?”

  “Works for me,” Lila said. She put her food on the table, a fruit bowl and a cup of yogurt.

  “I see you’re working for the defense. I had no idea.”

  “I’m just helping out—researching and such.”

  “So I take it you made it into law school?”

  “Just started my second year.”

  “Won’t your boss want you to eat with him? Where is he anyway?”

  “Not during trials. He wants to be alone with his thoughts, so he brought a ham sandwich and a can of Pepsi. I saw him heading out to the courtyard, to one of the benches outside.”

  “Are you and Joe . . .”

  “Still a couple? Yeah, we’re still together.”

  “And what about Joe’s autistic brother . . . I can’t remember his name.”

  “Jeremy. Yes, he’s with us and we have a dog named Shadow. We’ve become quite the little family.”

  “Jeremy’s lucky to have you and Joe.” Max dabbed a napkin to his mouth as he talked, a tick that only showed itself when he ate a meal with a female. “And what’s Joe doing these days?”

  “After he graduated, he took a job with the Associated Press.”

  “It’s good to see that things are going well for you both. You deserve a happy future after . . . well . . .”

  “I’ve been
meaning to send you Christmas cards over the years, but I don’t have your address, and you’re unlisted.”

  Max pulled his wallet out and withdrew a business card. “You got a pen?”

  Lila found one in her purse. Max wrote his home address and personal cell-phone number on the back and handed it to her. “Now you have no excuse,” Max said.

  “I figure a Christmas card is the least I can do for the man who saved my life.”

  Max saw Lila pull the sleeves of her blouse down to cover the scars on her wrists. “Just doing my job, ma’am.” Max tipped the brim of an imaginary hat and smiled, hoping the conversation might steer away from the darkness of that night.

  “Professor Sanden told me that you saved his life too.”

  “Well, that might be a stretch. I pulled his client off of him, but the bailiff would have taken care of it, had I not been there.”

  “Not the way he explains it.”

  Max’s eyes softened into a faraway look as he remembered. “I haven’t thought about that in years.”

  “I would think that if someone was going to cross-examine me in court and try to make me out to be wrong, I’d hold a grudge.”

  “Wait, Boady’s going to try and make me out to be wrong?” Max exaggerated the words to show his sarcasm. Then he shrugged. “Boady has his job. I have my job. We understand that. We don’t make it personal. That’s just how it’s been with us.”

  “I don’t think I could ever cross-examine you—not after everything that happened. It would be like kicking my dog.”

  “So I’m a dog in this scenario?”

  “Yeah, but I really love my dog.”

  Chapter 44

  Dovey didn’t finish his questioning of Max Rupert until just before lunch on the second day of the trial. After lunch, Dovey turned the witness over to Boady.

  Before Boady could ask his first question, a strange wave of panic washed over him. He paused to let it pass. He recognized the residue from those days when the death of Miguel Quinto filled his hands with a tremble so severe that he could barely hold a pen. His insides churned and his chest worked to pull in the next breaths. But it was more than the ghost of Miguel Quinto that gripped him, and he knew it. He had prepared a blistering cross-examination for Max Rupert, one that would inflict wounds on the State’s case—and on Max himself. Boady had been preparing that cross for weeks, and now the time had come.

  Boady started his cross slowly, asking Max about what the State did not have in the way of evidence. The State had no evidence to explain how Ben Pruitt would have gotten back from Chicago. The State had no forensics to tie him to his wife’s dead body. And other than Malena Gwin’s statement, the State had no evidence that Pruitt didn’t spend the night at the Marriott. That was the thing about cases built around circumstantial evidence; the defense could spend hours talking about what was not there—and Boady did.

  Boady spent the afternoon getting Max to say “it’s possible” to alternative interpretations of each key piece of evidence. He led Max through the tollbooth footage, underscoring for the jury that Max had examined each possible lane of travel, looking for that red sedan, and found nothing.

  “You and your partner did a forensic search of Mr. Pruitt’s computers, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “His computers contained no Internet searches for tollbooths or maps to Chicago.”

  “We didn’t find any.”

  “And you had the hard drives examined so that any searches that may have been deleted could be found, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  Boady nodded and flipped to the next page of notes. He took a drink of water, cleared his throat, and stood up at his table to ask the next question.

  “You’re familiar with Anna Adler-King?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s the deceased’s sister?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you interviewed Mrs. Adler-King?”

  “I did.”

  “She told you in that interview that she and her sister, Mrs. Pruitt, were the heirs to a massive family-owned business enterprise?”

  “She explained that your client and his wife had a prenuptial agreement that—”

  “Your Honor, I would ask that the witness be instructed to answer the question that I put to him.”

  “Detective?”

  “Sorry, Your Honor. Yes, Mrs. Adler-King mentioned that her father was in failing health and that control of the company might soon pass to her.”

  “And it would have passed to the two daughters together had Jennavieve Pruitt not been murdered.”

  “They would have shared control of the company, yes.”

  “Mrs. Pruitt, being the older sister, would have held one voting share more than Mrs. Adler-King, so in fact Mrs. Pruitt would have held control of the company.”

  “That’s my understanding.”

  “Don’t you think that gaining control of a billion-dollar company is relevant in a murder investigation?”

  “Anna Adler-King had an alibi. We cleared her.”

  “That’s right, she was at an opening-night party at the Guthrie Theater. Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  Boady looked at his notes. The time had come to draw blood. “Detective, I’ve gone through your investigation, and I found something that I don’t quite understand. You have your reports in front of you?”

  “I do.”

  “Let me refer you to the first page of your report, written on the day you found Jennavieve Pruitt’s body. Do you have that page?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many times on that page alone did you refer to Mrs. Pruitt by name?”

  Max paused to count. “Twelve.”

  “Now how many of those twelve times did you refer to her by the name Jennavieve?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “How many times did you call her Jennavieve?”

  “Um . . . nine.”

  “And what did you call her the other three times?”

  Max looked up at Boady with either concern or confusion pulling lines across his forehead.

  “What name did you write in your report instead of Jennavieve, Detective?”

  “I wrote Jenni.”

  “Your Honor, may I approach the witness?” Boady asked.

  “You may.”

  Boady picked up a stack of transcripts and walked to the witness stand next to Max. “Detective, these are statements taken by you and your partner, Detective Vang? Would you be so kind as to go through these witness statements and find a single occurrence when a friend or relative of Jennavieve Pruitt ever referred to her as Jenni?”

  Boady walked slowly back to the table, listening to Max shuffle through the pages in a halfhearted manner. Boady turned at his table and remained standing, staring at Max, who was fumbling through page after page, looking for anyone who may have called her Jenni. Boady knew that Max would find no such reference, and when Boady felt that the point had been made, he spoke. “Detective, isn’t it true that no one, not one family member, not one business associate, not one neighbor, not one friend, ever referred to Jennavieve Pruitt as Jenni?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Detective, you received a reprimand last week—”

  “Objection!” Dovey was already rounding the table and on his way to the bench before Judge Ransom gave a two-fingered wave to approach.

  “Your Honor,” Dovey huffed. “This reprimand is completely irrelevant to the matter at issue in this case. Counsel is using it to smear the reputation of an otherwise-stellar detective, a Medal of Valor recipient. That kind of character assassination has no place in this trial.”

  Judge Ransom turned to Boady, who spoke next.

  “First off, I’m surprised to hear that my esteemed colleague is even aware of the reprimand, because it wasn’t disclosed as part of my ongoing discovery demand. We came across it by chance when we served a request directly on Detective Rupert’s supervising commander earlier this week.” Boady
had kept an accusatory stare on Dovey as he spoke.

  “Second,” Boady continued. “The defense theory of the case is that this investigation was flawed from the very beginning, that Detective Rupert ignored alternative suspects. Detective Rupert was reprimanded for not following instructions, disobeying his superiors, and, most importantly, violating department policy in conducting an unauthorized investigation that distracted him from his job. It goes to the heart of my case and is absolutely admissible.”

  Ransom turned back to Dovey. “You knew about this letter of reprimand?”

  “I learned of it last week.”

  “And you didn’t disclose it to defense counsel?”

  “It has no relevance to the case.”

  “Mr. Dovey,” Ransom said with impatient rigidity. “You don’t get to determine what evidence is relevant. That’s my job. The letter comes in.”

  Boady returned to his standing position behind counsel table and continued. “Detective, you were given a letter of reprimand just last week, is that correct?”

  “Yes.” The words hissed through Max’s teeth.

  “That reprimand was because you disobeyed your commander’s orders not to take part in a certain investigation?”

  “Yes.”

  “And, not only did you take part, you snuck the case file out of City Hall and took it to your home?”

  “I carried it to my home, yes.”

  “And this happened over the same period of time that you were supposed to be investigating the murder of Jennavieve Pruitt?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what is the name of the person whose case you were investigating in violation of orders?”

  “Her name . . .” Max looked at Dovey, who wore an inexplicably smug look on his face, the kind of look that said, “You made your bed, now lie in it.” Boady saw a charge of tension pass between the two men. “Her name was Jenni Rupert.”

  Boady paused for a beat or two to let the name resonate with the jurors. Then he said, “Jenni . . . Rupert . . . your deceased wife?”