Proof of Intent (26 page)

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.”

Judge Evola scowled. “I'll give you a few questions. But if you start playing games, I'll cut you right off.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Miss Denkerberg. Detective, I mean. When you reached the scene of the crime, you spoke to me almost as soon as you got out of the car, correct?”

“I've testified to that, yes.”

“Did you know who I was prior to meeting me?”

“I'd heard of you.”

“What's my reputation in the law enforcement community?”

“You're tricky.”

“That's all? Just . . . tricky?”

“I heard you were a drunk.”

“Guilty as charged, officer. Just got my seven-year chip, seven years of sobriety down at AA. Ever heard the word ‘shyster' used to refer to me?”

A long pause. “I couldn't say. Maybe.”

“Ever heard of Angel Harwell?”

“Of course. She was accused of murdering her father several years ago. You got her off.”

“Oh, now you're being coy. What else did you hear about that case?”

“Based on some things that came out after the trial, it's generally believed that she was in fact guilty of the crime.”

“So when you saw good old Charley Sloan standing out there in front of Miles Dane's house, it's fair to say you thought something to the effect of ‘Oh, there's that shyster who gets all the guilty guys off'? Am I right?”

The detective pursed her lips for a moment. “Every case is an individual case. I looked at this as—”

“I didn't ask you about every case. I asked you about what you thought when you saw me that morning. Charley Sloan is the guy who slithers in and gets guilty slimeballs off the hook. Isn't that what you thought?”

“That seems unlikely.”

“I'm not making book here, Miss Denkerberg. I'm asking a yes-no question.” I made my voice as sarcastic and insulting as I could. “Let me make this simple: What was your impression of me when you drove up there that morning?”

The gasket finally blew: “What do you want me to say, that I think you're an unethical shyster and that you represent guilty scumbags?” Her jaw was clenched, her skin slightly pale, and small red spots had appeared on each cheekbone. “Okay, that's what I think. So what?”

Perfect. I looked at the jury and shook my head sadly. Then I counted silently to ten, giving them plenty of time to let her admission sink in.

“Isn't it true, Detective, that the minute you drove up to 221 Riverside Boulevard and saw my smiling face, this is what you thought to yourself? You thought:
Okay, I get the picture. If Charley the scumbag-loving shyster is standing there, then Miles Dane killed his wife
. Right? Hm?
There's Charley. Miles Dane did it. Case closed
.”

Denkerberg's pallor deepened, and the red spots on her cheeks got brighter. “That's absurd. I did what I always do: I examined the evidence.”

“Mrs. Rathrock,” I said to the court reporter, “could you read back Miss Denkerberg's earlier testimony? I believe I pointed out a particular passage before court went into session.”

The court reporter flipped through the steno tape to a section she'd marked with red pen. “Detective Denkerberg: Quote. ‘Taking the entire situation in its totality, the lack of footprints outside the room, some inconsistencies in the story, and 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.' Unquote.”

“Mr. Sloan's
presence
,” I said. “In your testimony earlier, you said that not just my behavior but my very presence was significant. Now you deny this. Were you lying then, or are you lying now?”

Stash objected.

“Question withdrawn.” I walked closer to the witness stand. “Miss Denkerberg, what was your initial impression of Mr. Dane? Was he likable?”

“I didn't think so, no.”

“From the get-go, you didn't like him?”

“That's fair to say. But that didn't influence my judgment as an investigator.”

“Of
course
not.” I laughed sarcastically. “However, let me ask you this. As a trained investigator, who, in your experience, is the most likely suspect when a married woman gets murdered?”

Detective Denkerberg grew somewhat more composed. “When a married woman is found to have been murdered, statistically speaking, the husband is the most likely person to have killed her.”

“The husband is the most likely suspect.”

“Statistically speaking.”

“This was an intensely brutal crime, was it not?”

Denkerberg nodded. “Yes.”

“How did you feel when you saw the shattered body of Diana Dane lying on the floor that morning?”

Denkerberg thought for a moment. “I wanted to do my duty and find the perpetrator.”

I let my eyes widen in disbelief. “Come on! Are you some kind of robot?
I
saw that poor woman, too. I'll tell you how I felt. I felt sick. I felt outraged. I felt angry. Are you telling me you didn't feel that, too?”

“Of course, but—”

“You felt angry.”

Denkerberg flushed slightly. “Certainly I felt angry.”

“Drawing on your experience as a trained investigator, isn't it true that anger has a way of diminishing rational thought, of driving people to take precipitous, sometimes thoughtless action?”

“Spare me the dime store psychology. I—”

I could feel her starting to turn my way. I interrupted: “Excuse me, Miss Denkerberg, but your job here is not to offer up commentary on my questions. I asked you a simple question. Doesn't anger make people stupid?”

“This case was a lay-down,” Denkerberg snapped. “It was obvious from the minute I walked in there. But that doesn't mean I'm stupid. I—”

“How many times do you intend to weasel out of my question, Detective?” I was pressing in, pressing in, not letting her finish a thought. “Does anger make people do stupid things or not?”

“It can, but—”

“And you
were
angry.”

“Yes, I was angry.”

“Thank you,” I said sardonically.

“I carefully and methodically built a case. And I made no final conclusions until I gathered the evidence. And every shred of evidence I found pointed unambiguously at one man. Him.” She pointed a long finger at Miles Dane. It shook with anger. “He did it. He killed Diana Dane. I had evidence.”

I strolled slowly to the bench, eyeballed her finger, then looked at the jury. “Months later and she's still so angry she's shaking.”

Before Stash could object to my commentary to the jury, I turned back to Denkerberg. “You just mentioned evidence,” I said. “Let's turn to some actual evidence for a moment.”

“By all means,” she said, lowering her shaking finger.

“When you found these bloody clothes, who was with you?”

“I was alone.”

“
Were
you?” I smiled knowingly at the jury.

“Yes.”

“That was three days after you examined the crime scene, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And during your search of Mr. Dane's home, looking for a weapon, you would have had access to Mr. Dane's closets, wouldn't you?”

“Yes, but—”

“Thank you. Were you at any time alone in Mr. Dane's home?”

“Of course. But it's ridiculous to imply that—”

I cut her off again. “And were you ever alone with the bloody corpse of Mrs. Dane?”

After a long pause. “I suppose.”

“How far was Mr. Dane's closet from Mrs. Dane's body?”

“This is ridiculous.”

“Answer my question!” I shouted. “How far were Mr. Dane's clothes from his wife's dead, bleeding corpse?”

Denkerberg glared at me. “Ten feet,” she whispered finally. “Maybe fifteen.”

“So an unethical officer of the law, someone in an angered and agitated state of mind, could easily have picked out some clothes from Mr. Dane's closet, smeared them with blood, and taken them away for further use—just in case, at a later date, the evidence against Mr. Dane seemed a little light. Yes or no?”

She glared at me.

“Let the record reflect the witness's refusal to answer that question,” I said.

“I did not smear blood on Mr. Dane's clothes.”

“Thank you for your honesty. And were you alone when you conducted the initial examination of the soft ground under the window that Mr. Dane said the burglar smashed out and jumped through.”

“Initially. But then the crime scene technician arrived.”

I sighed like I was schooling a recalcitrant child. “Once again you're weaseling out of my question, Miss Denkerberg. Were you by yourself when you examined the area beneath the broken window at 221 Riverside Boulevard?”

“Yes.”

I handed her a photograph. “Could you identify this photograph, which has been previously marked as State's Exhibit 11?”

“It shows the area underneath the broken window.”

“Could you tell me what this is?” I pointed at what looked like a couple of indentations in the ground.

“Those are, ah, those are depressions in the soil.”

I looked confused. “Wait, wait, wait. Earlier you testified that you found absolutely nothing in the soil under that window.”

“Well, naturally in order to thoroughly examine the area, I had to get close. And in doing so, I left two depressions in the soil.”

“Depressions?
Come on! You're being coy again. These are footprints, aren't they?”

“That's what I just told you.”

“No, it's not. You said depressions. I said footprints. Miss Denkerberg, what size shoes do you wear?”

She looked at me for a long time. “Size twelve.”

I looked surprised. “Size twelve! My goodness. No offense, but those are some pretty big feet you have.”

She glared at me. I suspected I'd hit a nerve, that she was embarrassed about the size of her feet. “I'm a tall woman,” she said primly. “My feet are proportionately large.”

“Big enough to step on the impressions left by a man's foot?” I said. “Big enough to cover them?”

“That's ridiculous.”

“I didn't ask for an editorial, Detective. My question is quite simple, are your feet big enough to cover the impressions left by those of a normal man? Yes or no?”

“There were no impressions. There were no footprints. If someone had jumped from that height, he almost certainly would have pitched forward and left hand—”

“What are you afraid of?” I snapped. “Just answer my question.”

She sighed loudly. “Okay. Yes. I suppose my feet are about the same size as a man of normal stature. So yes, if I were crooked and a liar, I could have stepped on a shoe print and obscured it. But I'm not, and I didn't.”

I smiled. “That's your testimony. Would you not agree that from a forensic perspective, putting aside all vague and nebulous theories and smelling of rats and feminine intuitions and so on, that there were only three pieces of evidence in this case that matter?”

“No, I wouldn't agree with that.”

“I'm going to object to that question,” Stash said.

“I'll rephrase: If you hadn't found that bokken with my client's fingerprints and the blood on them, if you hadn't found my client's clothes with the blood on them, and if you hadn't determined that there were no shoe prints under that window, would Mr. Dane be on trial today?”

“That's irrelevant. We
did
find them.”

“Not
we
, Miss Denkerberg.
You. You
found the bokken.
You
found the clothes.
You
examined the ground.
You
left your own footprints.”

“Your Honor, is Mr. Sloan intending to ask a question sometime today?” Stash Olesky said.

“I'll move right along, Your Honor,” I said. “I just have a few more questions. Isn't it true that you were so angry about this murder that you were willing to do anything to make a case? Even manufacture fake evidence?”

“I would never, ever, ever manufacture evidence.”

“Well, you've done it before, haven't you?”

“No.”

I gave her a look of surprise. “Wait, are you telling me that in January of 1993, while serving as a robbery squad detective on the Detroit police force, that you
weren't
accused of having planted evidence? I've got the records right here if you'd like me to refresh your memory.”

Denkerberg's face was blank for a moment. “I was accused by a drug-dealing, lying pimp with a record as long as his arm, yes. And the accusation proved to be one hundred percent false.”