Proof of Intent

by William J. Coughlin

  “Don’t test me, Mr. Sloan,” Evola snapped.

  I sat quickly.

  Stash smiled. “Very good, Detective. Did Mr. Sloan’s conduct in some manner change or contribute to the totality of your evaluation of the case as it presented itself at that place and time?”

  I rolled my eyes. This was leading the witness at its finest.

  “It did.”

  “Good. Let’s get to the whys and wherefores later. You were about to discuss your conversation with Mr. Dane.”

  “Yes. Mr. Dane indicated that he customarily worked from midnight until four in the morning. He then explained to me that on or around three-fifteen or three-thirty that morning, he’d heard a noise, a suspicious sound that had made him leave his office. He indicated he’d gone upstairs and seen a man fleeing down the hallway adjoining his wife’s bedroom. He added that he was unable to give a description of the man, saying that the lighting was bad. I asked if he saw the man carrying a weapon. He said he wasn’t sure. Mr. Dane then said he chased the man down to the guest bedroom. As he was approaching the room, Mr. Dane said he heard a loud crash, like breaking glass. Upon entering the room, Mr. Dane indicated he had found the room empty and a window had been smashed out. He had then looked out the window whereupon he saw, I believe the exact words he used were ‘a shadowy figure’ fleeing across the lawn toward the road.”

  “That was the entire substance of his story?”

  “Basically, yes.”

  “Let me shift gears a little. How was Mr. Dane dressed?”

  “He was wearing a white robe, white pajamas.”

  “Did he indicate that he’d been wearing them when he discovered his wife’s body?”

  “That was what he claimed.”

  “So he hadn’t changed clothes.”

  “Like I say, that was his story.”

  “Anything to indicate he had had physical contact with his wife after she was beaten? Were there bloodstains on the clothes?”

  “No. None whatsoever.”

  “Okay, let’s turn to his behavior. Was there anything you noted about Mr. Dane’s demeanor that you found worthy of note?”

  “He seemed combative, uncooperative.”

  “As a trained investigator, what did you make of that?”

  “It seemed, on the face of it, inconsistent with a grieving man. Different people react differently to stress, of course. I won’t say it’s an absolute rule . . . but in my experience as an investigator, the family members of a victim generally view police as allies, not enemies.”

  “You mentioned Mr. Sloan’s behavior. Again, we’re not interested in whether you like Mr. Sloan or for that matter whether his presence there seemed to imply anything. I’m asking whether Mr. Sloan acted in a way that seemed significant to you as a trained investigator.”

  I sighed loudly enough for the jury to hear me.

  “Yes,” Detective Denkerberg said. “As I mentioned before, he interrupted the interview in a way that seemed clearly, to my ear as a trained investigator, to be a bogus pretext. He pretended he was choking, so I went to get him a glass of water. When I got back from the kitchen, I found the door closed and locked. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I could tell that Mr. Sloan had a lengthy conversation with his client while I was standing out in the hall.”

  I tried my best. “Your Honor, I have to make a continuing objection to this whole outrageous line of inquiry!”

  “Duly noted.”

  Stash moved quickly forward. “What was your conclusion as an investigator regarding this lengthy conversation?”

  Denkerberg’s answer was pretty well framed under the circumstances. She didn’t want this case tanked on appeal any more than Olesky did. “Again, taken by itself, the conversation wasn’t noteworthy. I’m as much a supporter of the right of every citizen to receive legal counsel whenever and wherever they feel that need or want it. But taking the entire situation in its totality, given the lack of footprints outside the broken window, given the fact that Mr. Dane had not bothered to call the police or an ambulance—well, all of that put my radar up, you might say. And so Mr. Sloan’s presence and behavior . . . well I felt like if you added all that up, a picture was emerging of a witness who was not being entirely forthcoming.”

  Stash seemed to like the answer. And I didn’t blame him. Chantall Denkerberg obviously knew her way around a courtroom. “While you conducted your interview, was there anything in Mr. Dane’s office that seemed noteworthy?”

  “Yes, the office contained a large collection of weapons.”

  “What sort of weapons?”

  “You name it. Various pistols, shotguns, rifles. Various bladed weapons. I later counted and found sixty-seven items in his collection. Everything from a fairly expensive-looking Japanese sword to a crude knife, which was apparently a homemade shiv confiscated from an inmate at a federal penitentiary.”

  “Did anything in particular take your notice?”

  “Well, the collection was obviously carefully maintained. All the objects were hung on the wall from, I don’t know if you’d call them pegs or hooks, but they were made from the same wood as the paneling on the wall. The weapons had been recently dusted, the guns were oiled, and so on. Under each and every weapon in the collection I observed a small brass tag that gave some information about the item—what it was, when it was manufactured, etc.

  “During our conversation we had some general chitchat about the weapons. Mr. Dane seemed proud of the collection and he stated that it was worth over a hundred thousand dollars. At that time he said that as a result of the collection’s value, he kept his study locked at all times.”

  “Did you observe anything else of particular note about the collection?”

  “Yes, I did. There were two empty hooks about eighteen inches apart, with a small brass plate attached to the wall below them.”

  He set another photograph on the edge of the witness stand. “And this photograph, which I’ve just had the clerk mark as State’s 31, is it a true and accurate depiction of that empty rack?”

  “Yes it is. At that time I made some comments about the collection, then I asked Mr. Dane what normally resided in that particular rack. He replied that it was an item called a bokken, that it was a wooden object used by Japanese swordsmen for practice purposes. More specifically, he said that this particular item was made of ebony. He said there are three or four species of ebony and that this particular bokken was made from Gabon ebony, which is the most expensive and rare kind.”

  Stash nodded. “And, Detective, did you inquire what had happened to this bokken?”

  “Yes. At first he indicated that it had been missing from the collection for some while. When I asked what had happened to it, he said he didn’t know; so I called attention to his earlier statement that he kept the door to his office locked at all times due to the value of the collection and asked how this weapon could have gone missing from a locked room. At that point he changed his story and indicated that maybe it had only gone missing that night.

  “So I asked if it was possible that it might have been stolen by this supposed burglar who had allegedly killed his wife. Well, maybe so. How could that have happened with the door locked? He indicated that, well, actually he kept the door unlocked while he was working. So he surmised that he had gone to the bathroom that night, and while he was in the rest room, this alleged burglar had snuck into the room and stolen the stick. So I said, ‘With a wall full of weapons, including several valuable-looking guns and swords, why steal a stick?’ Mr. Dane then indicated that it was possible the burglar had been surprised by hearing the toilet flush in the adjoining bathroom and that he had grabbed the stick—not because he wanted to steal it, but because it was the closest weapon at hand—and that the burglar had then fled from the room to avoid detection. He further surmised that the burglar, fearing that he might be discovered and possibly even attacked by Mr. Dane, had fled upstairs, where he must have then been surprised by or confronted by Mrs.
Dane. In order to silence her—again this was Mr. Dane’s speculation at the time—the alleged burglar had probably attacked her with the bokken.”

  “Detective Denkerberg, in your experience as an investigator are there any sort of rules of thumb about how people behave when in fear of a potential attack?”

  “Yes. Psychology says if you feel threatened, you flee to safety. Generally, people flee inward and upward when in their own homes because they perceive their home to be a safe haven. Burglars or other trespassers, on the other hand, when surprised during an invasion of a home, tend to flee down and out. For them, safety lies in mobility and escape.”

  “So let me be clear,” Stash said. “Mr. Dane said he surmised that the burglar heard the toilet flush in his office, realized somebody in the house was awake, then got scared, and as a result fled upstairs?”

  “Right. Which seemed entirely inconsistent with normal human behavior. If a burglar felt threatened, he would likely head for the nearest door. The front door of the house actually lay between Mr. Dane’s study and the stairs. So a burglar would have had to actually flee past a natural route of escape to go upstairs. All of this seemed logically inconsistent.”

  “So taken in totality, using your judgment and experience as a trained investigator . . .”

  “I smelled a rat.”

  Stash Olesky strolled over to the defense table and laid his hand on the defense table in front of Miles Dane. “You smelled a rat.” He let the phrase reverberate in our minds for a while, then turned to the witness again. “What else did you discuss during this interview, Detective?”

  “Nothing of substance. Mr. Sloan more or less brought the interview to a close, saying that Mr. Dane was tired and distraught, etc. etc., and that he could be interviewed further at a later time.”

  “Did such an interview ever take place?”

  “No.”

  Stash then held up a red-covered paperback book. “Detective, have you ever read this book?”

  “Your Honor!” I said in my most wounded tone. “I must object to the admission of this work of fiction as both irrelevant and entirely prejudicial. Fiction has no place in a court of law.”

  Evola looked at me coldly. “Mr. Sloan, you made a motion on this subject in pre-trial, and I ruled quite unambiguously. Your objection is noted. I do not wish to hear from you any further on the subject.”

  I sat—to all appearances, grudgingly. Once again, this was performance art: Evola had ruled. The objection was purely a play for the jury.

  “Detective?” Stash said.

  “Yes. This is a book called How I Killed My Wife and Got Away with It.”

  There was a soft rumble from the back of the courtroom.

  “How did this book first come to your attention?”

  “An old copy of the original book was dropped off anonymously at the station right after Mrs. Dane was killed. I read through the book at that time.”

  “Did you feel it was germane to your investigation?”

  “In certain respects, yes.”

  “Tell us about that.”

  “Well, the book is about a man who murders his wife in order to get her money.”

  I stood. “Objection. Once again, Your Honor, this is precisely the problem I’m talking about. This is a nuanced work of fiction in which the main character’s motives are never entirely clear, and here comes Detective Denkerberg, a person with no literary training or expertise, who’s trying not only to characterize the entire novel in one sentence, but then to suggest that the motives of this made-up character are the same as those of my very real client.”

  Evola didn’t even look at me. “Overruled.”

  I scowled, gave the jury a look, then shook my head in disgust.

  “Detective. You were saying?”

  “At the time I was focusing my efforts in the case on trying to gather evidence. In particular, we had not yet found the murder weapon. So I was particularly struck by something in the novel How I Killed My Wife and Got Away with It. The character in the book kills his wife with a bokken. And then he frames another character, a close friend, for the murder. He does this by planting the murder weapon in his friend’s boat. I saw this and sort of went, ‘Ah-hah.’ ”

  “Why did you go ah-hah, Detective?”

  “Because Mr. Dane lives on the river. He had four or five neighbors within a quarter mile who had boats docked behind their houses. So I went up and down Riverside asking Mr. Dane’s neighbors if I could examine their boats. They all gave consent. On the morning of October 23, I searched a boat owned by a Dr. and Mrs. Roy Beverly who lived at 233 Riverside Boulevard. In the forward life preserver locker, I found a set of black clothes and a curved stick made of black wood.”

  Stash proffered the black clothes. “Are these items the ones you found in Dr. Beverly’s boat?”

  “Yes, they are. One pair of black boots. One black shirt. One pair of black pants. Upon examination, I noted that all of these items were covered with copious amounts of what appeared to be dried blood.”

  “Could you take that pair of boots out of the evidence bag for me?”

  Denkerberg pulled the boots out of the plastic bag.

  “Is there anything written or printed on them?”

  “Yes, inside the left boot, right here, is an inscription printed in ink. It says, ‘Handmade by Royce Daniels, bootmaker of Harlingen, Texas, for Mr. Miles Dane.’ ”

  Stash then took the ominous black weapon out of a paper bag and held it up in the air. “And this?”

  “That’s the other item I found on the boat.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s what martial artists call a bokken. A wooden sword.”

  “What did you do once you’d found these items?”

  “I took them into custody, logged them in, sealed them. Then I transported them personally to the state crime lab in Lansing. They never left my person between the time I found them and the time I delivered them to the lab.”

  “What sort of tests were performed there?”

  “The items were tested for the presence of blood. As I had anticipated, they were covered with blood. The crime lab was under instructions to perform a DNA comparison on that blood.”

  “Let me now give you something that’s been marked as exhibit 46. Can you identify this?”

  “Yes, it’s the DNA report. According to the report, the blood found on the clothes was a DNA match with that of Diana Dane.”

  “Any other tests performed on that ebony stick by the state crime lab?”

  “A wood identification test was performed. According to the report the wood found in the bokken was Gabon ebony.”

  “Any other tests?”

  Chantall Denkerberg nodded. “Yes. They fumed the bokken with cyanoacrylate ester and were able to lift two latent prints from the wooden surface.”

  “Can you explain the difference between a latent print and an impression print?”

  “A latent print is a fingerprint left by the natural oils and amino acids in your body. An impression print is a print left with some other substance not naturally found on the skin. Ink, paint, blood, that sort of thing.”

  “I’m going to proffer to you what our fine clerk, Mrs. Wilson, is marking as exhibit number 58. Thank you, Mrs. Wilson. Can you identify this?”

  “Yes. It’s the fingerprint report from the state police. It identifies the prints found on the bokken as being of the latent type.”

  “And according to this report, was the crime lab able to match the prints to any known person?”

  “Yes they were.”

  “And whose fingerprints were they?”

  “Miles Dane’s.”

  “What happened then?”

  “I had a murder weapon, I had a suspect, I had prints, I had the suspect’s clothes with the victim’s blood on them. As such I believed I had probable cause for an arrest. So a warrant was drawn up by your office, and I placed Mr. Dane under arrest for the murder of his wife.”


  Thirty-seven

  My cross-examination of Detective Denkerberg had to wait until the next day.

  Most lawyers get a fresh haircut and wear their best suit for important days in court. Not me. Back in my heyday as a hotshot lawyer in Detroit, I was a silk-suit-and-Gucci man, not afraid to pay eighty dollars for a pair of socks or eight hundred for a pair of shoes. But that man has, in a sense, died; and so instead of wearing the mask of courthouse big shot, I try to go the opposite route and play the underdog. My opponents like to portray me as a calculating and manipulative shyster, but it’s a charge that’s hard to make stick against a pleasant-looking, rumpled, slightly dumpy fellow who seems—at first glance, anyway—barely competent to get his tie on straight.

  For the cross-examination of Chantall Denkerberg, I’d worn my worst, most rumpled blue suit, a polyester tie that had never looked even vaguely fashionable, and a pair of twenty-year-old Johnston & Murphy wing tips that, to put it mildly, were a little down at the heel.

  I began by saying, “Detective Denkerberg, I was glancing over the transcript. When you told us about your qualifications, did you forget to mention that you were the president of my fan club?”

  The courtroom was briefly filled with laughter.

  Denkerberg looked at the judge. “This is a joke. Do I have to answer that?”

  “I’ll rephrase the question,” I said. “Because, believe me, a man’s life and reputation and freedom are at stake right now, and I don’t find that to be at all humorous. Here’s my question. Do you dislike me?”

  “I guess you could say that.”

  Stash Olesky stood. “Your Honor, come on. I object to this line of questioning as entirely irrelevant. Mr. Sloan complained in his opening harangue that I was making this trial about him—which is, of course, not the case—and now he’s about to launch right into the very issue I have tried very diligently to steer around.”

  “Your Honor,” I said, “I wouldn’t question Mr. Olesky’s diligence in a million years. However, it’s my contention that Miss Denkerberg’s dislike of me colored this investigation from the very beginning, blinded her to other suspects, and led her up the path toward a gross miscarriage of justice. The state has opened the door to this issue on numerous occasions, and my client, therefore, has a right to cross-examine this witness on the subject.”