Proof of Intent (23 page)

My laugh came out full of scorn. “But there's something rotten about all that supposed evidence showing Mr. Dane as some kind of brawling tough guy. What we will show you in this trial is that all that supposed evidence comes straight out of the boob tube. In this trial you won't hear testimony from a single soul in Pickeral Point, Michigan, who'll show Mr. Dane to be a violent man. The evidence will show that he never got in a fistfight with anybody over at Freddie's Fish Barn. Never wore his gun into Klein's Five-and-Dime down on Main. Never pistol-whipped anybody over in the produce section at Kroger's. Why will the evidence fail to show anything like that? Because there are no TV cameras in Pickeral Point, Michigan!

“No TV cameras in Pickeral Point, you say? What's that got to do with the price of tea in China? What's that got to do with Miles Dane being charged with murder?” I spread my hands. “Sadly—a lot.

“Let me tell you a story.” I walked over to the jury box, with my hands clasped earnestly together, Father O'Reilly about to make a solemn moral point to his boys at the orphanage. “The evidence will show that when Miles Dane was sixteen years old, he dropped out of high school and hit the road. He left the town of Pickeral Point as a short, skinny, dreamy, pimply, despised kid from the crummiest house on the crummiest street in the crummiest neighborhood in Pickeral Point, Michigan. But he left with a dream. And when he came back, he was the man you see before you. A man seemingly transformed. Tough guy, famous writer, barroom brawler, shoulder holster, black cowboy boots.

“But who
is
Miles Dane? Who is he
really
? Is he the man that the prosecuting attorney is about to parade before you, the brawler that this supposed mountain of evidence will portray? Or is he still, when you get down to it, the sweet boy who left this town with the wild, secret, unlikely, ambitious dream of turning himself into a writer? Which one is fact, folks? Which one is fiction?

“You talk about a mountain of evidence, Mr. Olesky? Well I may not have the whole state of Michigan standing behind me. I may not have an army of police investigators and assistant prosecuting attorneys and paralegals and forensic technicians from the state police. I may not have a troop of bureaucrats at my beck and call. Over at that table it's just me and my loyal daughter sitting there next to Mr. Dane. But we've got our own little mountain of evidence. And what we will show you is that the
real
Miles Dane, the one who lives at 221 Riverside Boulevard, is not the same fellow that the world sees through that lens back there—he's not a brawler, not an abusive person, not a crazy man, not a gun-toting, knife-wielding maniac. He is a gentle, loving family man, a man who has suffered the cruelest and most ironic tragedy of all: Not only has his beloved wife, his very soul mate, been snatched away from him—but
he
has been accused of committing the awful crime which removed her from his life.

“Oh, we'll bring out experts with fancy degrees and diplomas and high-sounding titles who will paint a very different picture of the supposed evidence, the
circumstantial
evidence, in this case. But, folks, that will not be the mountain on which this case will ultimately rest.

“Our
mountain will not be circumstantial, folks.
Our
mountain sits right there in that seat—a man of uncommon decency and devotion and loyalty. But to see him, you must look skeptically at all of the fiction and
circumstantial
detail with which Mr. Olesky is about to bombard you. You must try to see it as it is. It is all an illusion. It is Court TV. It is CNN. It is the airy magic of bright lights and camera lenses, of fancy charts and graphs, of complicated scientific words.

“Did Mr. Dane contribute to this fiction? Indeed, he did. The evidence will show that he invented a mask, a fictional version of himself. The evidence will show that as an ambitious and driven young man, Miles Dane invented, quite frankly, a scary mask. Armed brawler in black. Gun-carrying loudmouth. Testy, hot-tempered little tough guy. All that was missing was an eye patch and a hook. And he wore that mask with great discipline for a long time, showing nothing of his real self to the world. That mask is the invention of an ambitious young man, come back to haunt him. But that mask, folks, like the prosecuting attorney's case, is utterly fiction.”

I pointed to the back of the courtroom. “The mask is the camera's lie.”

I looked sadly at my client and then walked across the courtroom, my back to the jury. When I finally turned toward them, I said, “So I ask you to examine the evidence as adults, not as credulous children. I ask you to pierce through all the Hollywood magic, all the New York folderol. Because if you look hard enough, you will not only see through this illusory mountain of
circumstantial
evidence, but you will also see through the somewhat unappealing mask that an ambitious, callow Miles Dane created many, many years ago as a means to keep food on his table while he pursued his craft, his calling, his passion. Look hard, and you will see through to this man's warm and decent heart.”

I walked slowly across the courtroom again, savoring the sound of my footsteps on the hard old marble floor. I'd been keyed up for weeks about this trial, fearing it. But now that I was here, now that I was finally working, I felt like a man who'd been allowed to breathe after being held for a long time underwater. I'd been talking about masks, about reality, about being the person you really are, and it struck me in that moment that whoever Charley Sloan is, I guess I am most him when I'm standing up there trying to save a client's bacon. When I reached Miles Dane, I put my hands on his shoulders and squeezed him hard enough to make him wince.

“Inside this man,” I said, “you will not find the heart of a killer. You simply will not.

“So as you examine the evidence, don't let that camera back there sell you the same lie it has sold to Mr. Olesky and his bureaucratic minions. Just look at the facts.

“Fact.” Another squeeze of the shoulders. “If
your
hearts are clear, then your eyes will see the truth. I beg you. Open your hearts to this man, and the
fact
of who he really is will blossom before you like a flower.” Okay, a little cornpone, maybe. But Hallmark Cards doesn't stay in business because the American public is afraid of a little schmaltz. I looked scornfully toward the electronic eye in the back of the room, then let my face soften as I looked back down at Miles Dane. “
This
man.”

I gave him a last hard squeeze. And damned if a tear didn't appear at the corner of one of his eyes and run down the side of his face. It was a moment of transcendent courtroom beauty, a moment I will never repeat, not if I stand before the bar for another thousand years. I could have jumped up in the air and shouted hallelujah.

Instead, however, I inclined my own face a few degrees toward the jury and put two fingers up to one eye as though stanching a few tears of my own. Then I sat and buried my face in my hands. I know, I'm a shameless ham. But this is my job. And let the record reflect that, like his client, Charley Sloan loves his work.

Perhaps, beyond all reason.

Stash Olesky's first witness was the responding officer, a young kid named Jerry Ingram. He wore his dress uniform, and although the linen was crisp and the leather spit-shined, there was something vaguely bedraggled about him. He was fair, blond-haired, with the last vestiges of adolescent acne still clinging to his pale cheeks. After the clerk swore him in, Officer Ingram set his hat next to the microphone, then sat down nervously.

After asking Ingram a few questions about his training and his work assignment, Stash Olesky said, “Now Officer Ingram, directing your attention to October 21 of last year, during your shift did you receive a radio call from 911 dispatch?”

“Yes sir.” The kid's voice was nervous and squeaky.

“Could you tell us about that?”

“Well, I got one about a cat stuck in a tree . . .” Ingram looked puzzled when some of the reporters tittered in the back of the courtroom.

“Okay,” Olesky said patiently. “So maybe you got several 911 calls. But is there one that sticks out in your memory? A particularly important one.”

Ingram blushed. “Oh. I see. I'm sorry.” He cleared his throat, then spoke as though he'd memorized the next line with great struggle and effort. “Yes sir. At approximately 4:11
A.M
. in the morning, this officer responded to a Code 3 at 221 Riverside Drive.”

“Just tell it in your own words, son,” Olesky said. “You ion't have to say it like it was written down in your report or anything. Just tell me what happened like you were telling your girlfriend.”

Ingram swallowed. “Um. I don't, currently, right now I'm not seeing nobody.”

Olesky nodded patiently. “I know you swore to tell the whole truth. And I appreciate your honesty on the subject. You have a mother?”

“Yes sir.”

“Terrific. Tell the folks in the jury what happened just like you'd tell your mother.”

“Okay.” Ingram blinked. “Well. What happened is I had gotten the Code 3. That's the radio code for an emergency deceased person call. So I rolled up at 221 Riverside. I knew it was Mr. Miles Dane's home because he's like the most famous guy in town. So I got out of my cruiser and I went up and I knocked on the door with my baton. That's how they tell us to do it in training. With the stick? So if anybody inside is deaf or asleep or whatever . . .” He cleared his throat uncertainly. “So anyway the door opens and there's a gentleman standing there. He tells me his name's Charley Sloan.”

“Did you recognize Mr. Sloan?”

“Yes sir. He's pretty well known in law enforcement for getting criminals off around here.”

I hoisted myself out of the seat. “Your Honor!” I did my best to sound grimly aggrieved. “I have to protest that spurious characterization.”

Judge Evola scowled. “Officer Ingram, I'd ask you to limit your testimony to your direct observations.” He turned o the jury. “Mr. Sloan is a criminal defense attorney. He has represented a variety of individuals, some of whom have been found guilty, some not. His extensive track record on that score is of no concern to this trial, and you should disregard anything suggesting otherwise.”

“Thank you, Your Honor.”

Olesky smiled at the officer. “I know you're fairly new to the courtroom, Officer Ingram, but you're doing fine. Continue with your story if you would.”

“So Mr. Sloan tells me that he's representing the owner of the house, Mr. Dane. And then he says for me to follow him upstairs and he'd show me the, um, the decedent.”

“When you say ‘decedent,' Officer, you mean a dead person.”

“Yes sir.”

“So he indicated at that time that he was aware there was a dead person up there.”

“Yes sir.”

“He didn't say, Officer Ingram, there's a woman upstairs in need of medical attention, somebody's hurt upstairs, anything of that nature?”

“No sir.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“He asked me if I had ever been involved in securing the scene of a murder before. I told him no, and he said that he'd help me out.”

Olesky raised his eyebrows slightly. “Well, wasn't that kind of him.”

“He seemed pretty friendly, yes sir.”

“I bet he did. What happened then?”

I stood and said, “Your Honor, could I have a brief word with you and Mr. Olesky?”

Judge Evola squinted malevolently at me. “Mr. Sloan, are you currently engaged in examining a witness?”

“Why, no, Your Honor,” I said, all innocence and confusion.

“Well, just because you have the urge to butt in and start making demands doesn't mean this court will allow you to do so. If you have something to say in this courtroom while Mr. Olesky is engaged in this examination, it had best be in the form of an objection.”

I tried to look hurt. My main goal in objecting was to show the jury that Judge Evola despised me. It was all part of my general plan to paint Miles as the innocent dupe, steamrolled by callous functionaries and factotums of a careless and heartless judicial machine. “Okay, then, I must object to the hearsay portion of this witness's testimony as regards my role at the scene of the crime. Naturally his observations relating directly to the crime are relevant—”

“Good. Thank you,” Evola interrupted me. “Mr. Olesky, do you wish to address that issue in any way?”

“Officer Ingram's testimony as to anything Mr. Sloan may have said goes to the officer's investigatory observations, which, as Mr. Sloan is well aware, are bright and clear exceptions to the hearsay rule.”

“What this goes to,” I bellowed, waving my finger, “is a general and transparent attempt by Mr. Olesky to smear my client based upon strange and bizarre allegations and insinuations as to
my
conduct.”

“Denied. Sit down, Mr. Sloan.”

I sat down slowly, slumping a little and looking terribly dejected. Poor ol' Charley, taking an unfair beating from The Man.

“Continue, Officer Ingram,” Olesky said.

“Well, Mr. Sloan, he said that there had been a break-in and that somebody had been killed by a burglar. Then we went upstairs, and he showed me the decedent. I asked him if there was anybody else in the house and he said that the only other person there was the decedent's husband and that he was pretty distraught, so he told me that while I was securing the scene he would take care of Mr. Dane, and that I didn't need to talk to him. He said a detective would take care of that later.”

“At that time did Mr. Sloan identify who the victim was?”

“Yes sir. He said her name was Diana Dane, that she was Mr. Dane's wife.”

“So what happened next?”