The Secret Lives of Dentists

by W. A. Winter

  He calls Mel first and lobs a couple of softballs about his background, education, marital status, and career path.

  “Are you a religious man, Detective?” DeShields wants to know next.

  “Not particularly,” Curry says.

  “You said you’re a married man. May we assume you were married in a Christian church?”

  “The Basilica of St. Mary. My wife and I were both raised Catholic. She takes it more seriously than I do.”

  “Do you believe that the Jews murdered Jesus Christ, Detective?”

  Curry blinks. He has to have expected the question, or something along those lines, but when it comes he flinches.

  “I haven’t given it much thought,” he says. “I guess that’s factually true. The Jews or the Romans back then. Or the Jews and the Romans together. Whoever was in charge. But I don’t know because I wasn’t there.”

  There are snickers in the gallery, which the judge silences with a glance.

  “Were you taught that as a kid, Detective—that the Jews killed Christ?”

  “Well, that’s what people said.”

  “What people?”

  “The priests. The nuns. My parents. My friends’ parents.”

  “You were brought up, then, thinking that Jews are evil. Christkillers. Maybe other things, too. Underhanded, duplicitous, money-grubbing, not to be trusted. Is that true, Detective?”

  “That I was brought up thinking that? I guess so. More or less.”

  “Do you still think that?”

  “Probably not to the extent I might have as a kid.”

  “Do you have any Jewish colleagues, Detective? Are there any Jews employed by the Minneapolis Police Department?”

  “I don’t know of any Jewish detectives in the MPD,” Mel replies. “I’m not sure about the entire department.”

  “Do you have any Jewish friends? Do you and your wife socialize with any Jews?”

  Rudy Blake rises and objects.

  “I don’t see the relevance, Your Honor,” he says. It’s a pro forma objection, of course. Everybody in the courtroom knows exactly what these questions are about.

  “Well, I do, Counselor,” Nordahl says. “Let’s see where Mr. DeShields is going. So overruled. Answer the question, Detective.”

  “My wife might have worked with some Jews when she was modeling, but I couldn’t point to any by name.”

  “Surely you have dealt with Jews in your capacity as a police officer, Detective.”

  “Yes. Bunny Augustine and several of his associates, who we’ve arrested a number of times on racketeering, gambling, prostitution, and assault charges. Bunny Augustine is a Jew, and so is most of his gang.”

  “From your experience dealing with Mr. Augustine and his associates, Detective, and perhaps with another suspected Jewish lawbreaker or two over the years, have you updated your impression of Jews in general?”

  Curry takes a breath. There’s a slick of perspiration on his upper lip that’s discernible from the first row or two of the gallery.

  “The Jews you mentioned are liars, thieves, and murderers,” he says evenly. “Which is why I got to know them.”

  “One moment, please, Your Honor,” Blake interrupts. “I want to make it perfectly clear that the state has not in any way suggested that the defendant has anything to do with the gangster Arnold—aka Bunny—Augustine and his underworld confederates, or that Mr. Augustine and his confederates had anything to do with Mrs. Hickman’s murder.”

  “What I’m suggesting, Your Honor,” DeShields says, “is that Detective Curry and his MPD colleagues have a very narrow and inevitably prejudiced opinion of Jews.”

  “Mr. Blake’s point is noted,” Nordahl says. “The jury will understand that H. David Rose, not Bunny Augustine, is on trial in this courtroom today.”

  DeShields glances down at the table and says, “What do you think about dentists, Detective?”

  Curry smiles.

  “I try to avoid them,” he says, and nearly everybody except the Roses laughs, though from a certain angle there appears to be a slight self-adjustment to Dr. Rose’s blank demeanor. Miles Mckenzie will later describe it as the “faintest hint of a smile.”

  “You’ve had a negative experience with a dentist, then, Detective?” Curry says, “I was scared of the dentist my mother dragged me to when I was a kid. So was everybody else. When I had a couple of teeth knocked out in Golden Gloves, I saw two or three different dentists and had a slightly better experience.”

  At that, several jurors lean forward in their seats, as though to get a better look at the witness’s smile. Judging by a slight discoloration, the two front uppers are not the originals.

  “How long have you been partners with Sergeant Anderson?” DeShields asks.

  “Two years, a little more,” Mel says. The smile disappears. “Closer to three.”

  “Are you friends as well as partners, Detective?”

  “I would say so.”

  “You see each other when you’re not on duty? Maybe in the company of your wives or girlfriends?”

  Curry frowns, unsure where DeShields is heading.

  “We get together sometimes for lunch or drinks after a shift, the two of us,” he says. “A couple times we’ve brought our wives along to dinner or a movie, though Arne isn’t married right now.”

  “So now it’s just you and the current Mrs. Curry and Sergeant Anderson enjoying an evening together?”

  “Arne had a girlfriend for the past couple of years.”

  “‘Had’?”

  “They broke up this summer.”

  “Would that have been a woman named Lily Kline, Detective?”

  “Yes.”

  “Kline is a Jewish name, is it not?”

  “In her case, I believe it is.”

  Rudy Blake rises slowly and objects. The trial finally seems to be wearing him down, straining his back and knees, making him appear even older than he is.

  “This can’t possibly be relevant, Your Honor,” he says.

  “Sustained. Get to the point, Mr. DeShields.”

  “Do you trust Sergeant Anderson?” DeShields asks Curry, who stares at the lawyer.

  “Yes,” Mel says finally. His forehead is wet, and he continues to sit a moment after DeShields says he may step down.

  A few minutes after one, Arne Anderson faces DeShields again.

  DeShields’s questions to Mel about the absence of Jews in the MPD and his attitude toward Jews in general weren’t surprising, but the queries regarding Lily and Janine definitely were. What does DeShields know about him and Janine? That question, at least for the moment, nettles Arne more than the prospect of the lawyer’s attack on the detectives’ case against Rose.

  As he did with Curry, DeShields asks Anderson to take a cursory (and redundant) run through his personal history. Then:

  “You were raised a Lutheran, Sergeant. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, I was,” Arne replies. “Swedish Lutheran. Augustana Synod.”

  “Tell us, please, what a Swedish Lutheran boy learns about Jews in the course of his religious education?”

  “That Jesus was a Jew.”

  “Okay. But so were the Pharisees and the other officials who hated Jesus and eventually put him to death. Isn’t that correct?”

  This time it’s Scofield who’s on his feet.

  “Objection, Your Honor. That question is irrelevant.”

  “Sustained,” Nordahl says. “To the point, please, Counsel.”

  “Did you grow up believing that the Jews killed Jesus Christ?” Anderson stares at DeShields. There’s no mystery what the defense is attempting to establish. Arne is more worried about what might be coming.

  “I was brought up believing what the Bible said was correct—that the Jews were responsible for Jesus’s death.”

  “Did any Jews live in your neighborhood when you were a boy, Sergeant?”

  “Not that I was aware of. On our block there were only Lutherans, Catholics,
and a large house full of Baptists.” Arne manages a slight smile. He has mainly fond memories of Twenty-first Avenue South.

  “Did you know any Jews in the Army?”

  “A few. Good guys, mostly. Good soldiers.”

  “Good friends, Sergeant?”

  “One or two, maybe.”

  “How about now? Any Jewish friends among your colleagues, friends, and neighbors?”

  Okay, Arne thinks. Here it comes.

  “I lived with a Jewish woman for a couple of years, until earlier this summer.”

  “Lily Kline.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re not together now?”

  “No.”

  “Who initiated the breakup?”

  “Objection!” Scofield cries.

  But before Nordahl sustains, Arne says, “She did.”

  During a brief recess, Arne, told by the judge to remain on the stand, decides that DeShields knows about his affair with Janine Curry. The lawyer’s investigator has done his dirty work and provided the attorney with a list of dates and places and maybe photographs as well. Arne also decides that DeShields won’t use the information because it is irrelevant and Nordahl won’t allow it. DeShields’s intent, Arne figures, is to shake him up, take a bite out of his confidence, make him look wobbly and unreliable on the stand. He wonders how exactly Mel reacted—Mel didn’t mention the reference to his wife when they briefly spoke during the lunch break—and, more to the point, what inferences Mel might have drawn from that line of questioning, or what Mel might have been told about DeShields’s snooping.

  When Arne’s testimony resumes, DeShields says, “You have more than once been accused of using excessive force—of brutality, in plain language—when dealing with suspects, have you not?”

  “Yes, I have,” Arne replies. “Twice.”

  That much is on the record. And, like the references to the women, not relevant to this case.

  “You had occasion to question Henry Montgomery—Bud Montgomery, as he’s called—about Teresa Hickman’s murder, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “More than once.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you recall a particular interaction with Mr. Montgomery one evening a week or so after Mrs. Hickman’s death, in the alley behind the Montgomerys’ apartment building?”

  “Yes.”

  “That was the evening you and Detective Riemenschneider beat Mr. Montgomery so severely he required medical attention. Burst an eardrum, cracked a rib, knocked out some teeth, and opened several wounds requiring stitches. Do you recall those details, Sergeant?”

  “Yes.”

  “You and Detective Riemenschneider beat up Mr. Montgomery that evening because you believed Mr. Montgomery murdered Mrs. Hickman. Isn’t that correct?”

  “That’s correct. We thought we could persuade him to confess to killing her.”

  “Why did you think he murdered Mrs. Hickman?”

  “Because he repeatedly beat up Mrs. Hickman’s sister and raped Mrs. Hickman. He’s a violent man, and Mrs. Hickman was living in his apartment. His alibi for the night of her murder was weak, and the man who supplied it, an alcoholic coworker, had disappeared.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant. That will be all.”

  Homer Scofield cross-examines Anderson. It may be Arne’s imagination, but the county attorney seems to be exhibiting a confidence he didn’t have a few days earlier, wearing it like a handsome new suit.

  “Do you still believe that Bud Montgomery murdered Teresa Hickman, Sergeant Anderson?”

  “No, I don’t,” Arne says.

  “Isn’t it a fact, Sergeant, that several persons who you at one time or another considered suspects in Mrs. Hickman’s murder have been investigated and, for one reason or another, been eliminated as suspects? I’m talking about, besides Bud Montgomery, Anthony Zevos, Michael Ybarra, and Kenneth Landa—all of whom have credible alibis and are no longer suspects. Is that correct, Sergeant?”

  “Yes. But, like I said, Bud Montgomery’s alibi was and still is questionable.”

  “Is Julius Casserly a suspect, Sergeant?”

  “No.”

  When Scofield is finished, DeShields quickly rises to redirect.

  “Why isn’t Julius Casserly a suspect, Sergeant?” he asks.

  “He never was,” Arne says. “He’s not even a credible witness. There’s no reason to believe what he said about Teresa Hickman riding away that night with two strange men. I believe it’s possible, given his familiarity with that part of town and his predilection to hang around lovers’ lanes after dark, that Casserly happened upon Mrs. Hickman and Dr. Rose in Rose’s parked car that night. But Rose already told us that she was in his car with him that night, at least until she wasn’t. Rose told us they’d been parked at Lake of the Isles and then drove off together.”

  “Have you or your colleagues questioned Mr. Casserly since his testimony?”

  “No.”

  “Have you or your colleagues questioned Robert Gardner since his testimony?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because we don’t believe that either man had anything to do with Teresa Hickman’s murder. We believe that Dr. Rose murdered Mrs. Hickman.”

  “Do you believe that Dr. Rose blacked out with Mrs. Hickman in his car the night of her murder?”

  “I think it’s possible, but—”

  “Thank you, Sergeant. That will be all.”

  Stepping down, Arne looks around the room on the chance that Mel might be there, but his partner is nowhere in sight.

  CHAPTER 14

  A clear majority of the reporters present this afternoon believe the detectives’ testimony to be a victory for the defense. DeShields has used his putatively hostile witnesses to shine a bright light on both the city’s historic anti-Semitism and a universal loathing of dentists to explain why an upright citizen has been arrested and prosecuted for a crime he did not commit. The canny lawyer had already trotted out another half-dozen individuals whose possible involvement in the Hickman murder could summon reasonable doubt about Rose’s guilt, while establishing beyond doubt that the victim was a promiscuous woman who made herself available to dangerous men.

  No one, not even Oscar Rystrom of the Star, will say the following in so many words, but the journalists’ personal admiration for Dante DeShields is obvious. If readers were able to eavesdrop on the scribes over their whiskey and short ribs at Smokey’s, the latter’s hero worship would be embarrassingly clear.

  “Intellectually, the guy is head and shoulders above everyone else in the room, maybe in the building,” says George Appel, hoisting his lowball glass, and no one disagrees.

  Adds a Tribune copy editor named Jimmy Hilliker, “Damn me if I don’t just love to say the guy’s name: Don-tay Duh-Sheee-ulds.” Heads nod, people laugh. No one calls Hilliker a fairy.

  By contrast, the press has little good to say about the prosecution, whether in Smokey’s boozy din or on the clotted pages of their publications.

  After this week’s proceedings, Appel writes, “It is the consensus of the courthouse cognoscenti that the prosecution has lost its way.” Rystrom writes, “Court-watchers agree that Scofield is overmatched and Blake has seen better days. They’ve let the defense inject the names of too many suspicious characters, making the idea that someone other than David Rose killed Teresa Hickman seem plausible. It may be that DeShields believes Rose’s ‘blackout’ defense isn’t going to be enough, so he’s putting his chips behind the suggestion that there’s another killer.

  “Wisely, he will keep Rose off the stand.”

  In a dispatch filed for the outstate Sunday papers, Miles Mckenzie argues that “Teresa Hickman’s devil-may-care social life made her susceptible to several horrible possibilities. It’s not out of the question, given the woman’s proclivities as enumerated by defense witnesses, that she jumped from one man’s car to another that fateful April night, had intimate relations in one or both,
and died in the last one—which may not have been Rose’s Packard.”

  Robert Gardner’s testimony is mentioned in all of the weekend accounts, though only in passing. Of all the “alternative possibilities,” writes the AP’s Martin Rice, “tall, skinny, and myopic as he is, Gardner must surely be the least likely. And, even given our profession’s lowly status a mere peg or two above used-car dealers and dentists, the young reporter would fit nobody’s image of a back-alley killer.”

  On the Saturday following his testimony Robert plods up the narrow stairs to the bureau the way his younger self would have approached a dental appointment. Once upstairs, he slips into the bureau and as unobtrusively as possible makes his way to an empty desk. (He still doesn’t have one of his own.) “All hands are on deck,” as Miles likes to say—even Meghan, whom Robert hasn’t seen in weeks—but no one gives him more than a passing glance. Miles has not asked him to be part of the case coverage since his subpoena.

  “You’re the news today, buddy,” the chief said when it became clear that Robert was going to testify. The chief didn’t tell him what his job might be when the trial is over. In fact, in the office this late Saturday morning, Robert isn’t sure he still works here. He can’t be the first Uni-presser compelled to testify in a criminal case, but he might be the first to do so in such an ambiguous role—witness, possible suspect—in such a high-profile trial. He wonders if Mckenzie, when the weekly staff meeting adjourns, is going to let him go.

  In fact, now that he’s here, he’s more curious about Meghan’s presence and her role in the Rose trial coverage than his own. Robert can see her long, shiny hair, the bones of her skinny shoulders, the delicious swerve of her ass and graceful taper of her left leg as she stands, hip cocked, in the group surrounding her father-in-law’s desk. As usual, Miles is doing most of the talking, but Robert can hear her voice, when she joins the discussion, and her sunny laughter at something Tommy says. Not invited to take part, Robert pretends to find the past week’s entries in St. Peter’s Log interesting.

  When the meeting breaks up, Meghan is the first one out of the chief’s cubicle. She grabs her bag and heads for the stairs. She gives Robert a fluttery wave and a little smile over her shoulder, gestures he’d expect more from a colleague than a lover, or ex-lover. She is in a hurry. Probably on her way home to make a baby with one-eyed Howie, Robert muses darkly.