Capitol Offense

by William Bernhardt

  Ben took the cross-examination. “Let’s make a few things clear. You didn’t see who pulled the trigger, right?”

  “True.” He paused. “But there were only two people in the room. And the door was locked.”

  “From the inside. It locks automatically, does it not? So anyone could’ve exited the room and left the door locked behind them.”

  Babbitt was a natty dresser, especially for a police witness. He was actually wearing a suit, rather than the usual sports coat and slacks. He wore a bright tie that appeared to be silk and even sported French cuffs. “I suppose. But the other officers didn’t see anyone.”

  “The other officers themselves could’ve gotten in and out of the room, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you. So the truth is, we have many potential suspects. In fact, we have no reason to exclude anyone, since the door was not monitored and anyone could’ve left without being observed, right?”

  “If you say so.”

  “Did you see any signs of a struggle?”

  “Not really. One chair was overturned.”

  “Would you expect more mess from a murderous man on a rampage?”

  “Or a crazy man.”

  Touché. This witness was stylish and smart. Ben would have to be more careful.

  “Have you ever participated in an undercover operation?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it typical to allow civilians into the stakeout room?”

  “Well … no.”

  “So how did Dennis get in?”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t there.”

  “Do you think Dennis overcame Detective Sentz with brute strength?”

  “He didn’t have to. He had a gun.”

  “Detective Sentz also had a gun, did he not?”

  “True enough.”

  “Why would Detective Sentz let him in? This man had allegedly assaulted him only a few days before.”

  “I don’t know. It’s possible he let himself in.”

  “There doesn’t seem to be very tight security on this stakeout.”

  “Objection, your honor,” Guillerman said wearily. “Is this relevant to anything? It sure doesn’t seem so. We’re trying a murder, not questioning departmental stakeout procedures.”

  Judge McPartland nodded. “I would appreciate it if you could move things along, Mr. Kincaid. This trial will likely be long enough just sticking to the issues that actually matter.”

  Ben took the hint. “I don’t believe you mentioned the state you found Dennis in when you entered the room, Officer.”

  “I said he was lying on the ground.”

  “Was he conscious?”

  “I’m not a doctor.”

  “Did he appear to be conscious?”

  “His eyes were closed and he did not respond when I spoke to him. But that doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Did he show any signs of consciousness?”

  “Well …”

  “Did he blink?”

  “His eyes were closed.”

  “Did he move?”

  “No.”

  “Did he do anything that would suggest to you that he was conscious?”

  Babbitt shrugged. “I’ve seen fakers before.”

  “I didn’t ask you about your past experience, Officer. I asked you about Dennis Thomas. Did he do anything that suggested to you that he was conscious?”

  “I guess not.”

  “In your experience, do murderers normally remain at the scene of the crime?”

  “No.”

  That was as far as Ben could take it. If he asked if there was any reason for Dennis to remain, Babbitt would suggest he was faking to set up an insanity defense. He’d established the fact of unconsciousness. He’d let the psychiatric witness connect the dots.

  “Did you remain with Dennis when he was taken to the hospital?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were the medical experts able to get a reaction out of him?”

  “Not for about two hours. Then he came around.”

  “Did you question him?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Not much. He claimed he couldn’t remember what happened after he got to the hotel.”

  “Thank you, Officer. No more questions.”

  After court recessed for the day, Ben huddled with Christina.

  “How did you think that went?” he asked.

  “About as well as possible.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means you’ve got an impossible case. You can’t expect to be winning, especially not while the prosecution is still putting on their evidence.”

  “You think we’re losing?”

  She dodged the question. “I’m hoping your expert is really good.”

  “He’s written a book.”

  “Well, that makes him an expert. I wonder if that’s why Dennis chose to see him in the first place.”

  “Christina …”

  “Dennis is going to have to be good, too.”

  Ben glanced back at his client. He had been well behaved during these first two days of trial. No overt reactions. No overt scheming. No meddling in the case. But he was still a cause for concern. “You think we should put Dennis on the stand?”

  “Only if you have to. But …”

  “You think we’ll have to.”

  She gave his shoulder a squeeze. “We’ll make that decision when the time comes. After this next witness.”

  “You think this witness will be important.”

  She nodded. “I think if this goes badly for us, we’ll need a lot more than Dennis Thomas on the stand to make it right again.”

  19

  As soon as Dennis entered the courtroom the next day, Ben could tell he was worried.

  “Do you think we’re winning?”

  “I have no idea. And unless you’re a psychic, neither do you.”

  “I don’t like that woman at the end of the front row of the jury box. The young one. She keeps staring at me like I remind her of her old boyfriend. The one who had an affair with her best friend and then dumped her.”

  Ben smiled a little. “Maybe you do. But she won’t convict you for that.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  “Yes.” He was sure she would have much better reasons to convict him if she was so inclined. “Just keep doing what you’re doing. The jurors are watching. They’ll see that you’re a good person. That will go a long way.”

  Dennis looked down at the table. “Ben … I know we kind of got off to a rocky start, but I appreciate what you’ve done for me.”

  “I know. You’ve said that.”

  “And I hope you also know that even if I come off a little … cold, or … calculating, it’s just my way. I can’t show what I’m really feeling inside. If I did, it would destroy me. I’d fall apart. Totally.”

  “Please don’t. We need you here. One hundred percent.”

  “Did I ever tell you Joslyn could sing? Like an angel. She studied opera in school. Thought about doing it professionally, then decided to go into medicine. But sometimes, late at night, just for me, she’d sing.” His voice caught. “Sweetest thing you ever heard.”

  Ben saw that his client’s eyes were watering.

  “I loved my wife so much.”

  Ben laid his hand gently on his back. “I know you did. Do.”

  Ben expected Guillerman to rest his case soon, but before they could get to that blessed moment, he knew they would have to endure the man Guillerman considered his smoking gun—the “death threat” witness. Ben had interviewed him before trial and wasn’t all that impressed, but it was impossible to know how something would play at trial until you observed the expressions on the jurors’ faces when they heard it. Ben had no doubt the man had been woodshedded for days, rehearsed over and over again until he was just where Guillerman needed him to be.

  Officer Oliver Conway was dressed in a sports coat and a bolo tie—O
klahoma chic. He worked at the downtown police station. He was what they called a triage officer; after the front desk clerk took the preliminary information, Conway helped decide whom, if anyone, the complainant would see. Consequently, he was on duty and watching most of the times Dennis had come to the station, pleading for help.

  “Unfortunately, we couldn’t assist him. It wasn’t just Detective Sentz. We all knew the rules. We get too many of these complaints that turn out to be some kid who went over to a friend’s house or a wife who got mad and moved in with her mother. We all felt sorry for him—me, Detective Sentz, Shaw, Officer Torres at the front desk. But there was nothing we could do.”

  Something he said triggered a lightbulb over Ben’s head. He rustled through some papers to confirm what he already knew. There was no Officer Torres on the prosecution witness list.

  Why not? If this man had seen it all, including everything Conway was about to describe, why wasn’t he on the list?

  Ben didn’t have any problem with most of Conway’s testimony. In fact, he thought it helped his case, letting the jury hear once again the story of this desperate man begging the police to act while they refused. Even the hardest heart would have difficulty not sympathizing after hearing that woeful tale.

  Unfortunately, Officer Conway was also part of the team that was finally dispatched on the seventh day to find Joslyn Thomas.

  “She must have been traveling at an extreme speed on those winding country roads,” Conway explained, “because she didn’t just go off the side. She plummeted down a steep ravine and then careened through some thick blackberry bushes. As a result, her car was entirely invisible from the road.”

  Guillerman nodded. “But you still managed to find her?”

  “Yes. One of the officers suggested that we try to trace her cell phone. We got lucky. Her phone was on—it’s a miracle the battery hadn’t gone dead—and her position was only a few miles from the nearest signal tower. We were able to narrow her location down to a relatively confined area. We deployed several cars and a helicopter to get an aerial view. As a result, we were able to locate her in just over three hours.”

  Like all police officers, Conway had been trained to make his testimony precise and unadorned. Tell the facts and be quiet—don’t leave the defense attorney any ammunition to use against you. Still, it was impossible not to notice that he was trying to portray the police department as making a heroic effort to find Joslyn Thomas—perhaps to compensate for the fact that they did nothing for so long.

  “Unfortunately, she was almost dead when we found her. We had medics with us, but there was not much they could do. They eased her pain, primarily. And we allowed her to see her husband one last time. I’m glad for that.”

  “How did Mr. Thomas react?”

  “He was angry. Very angry.”

  “Irrational? Crazed?”

  “No, he was as rational as anyone. Just mad. Furious. He blamed Detective Sentz. I couldn’t figure out why. Sentz didn’t write the regulations. All he did was enforce them.”

  “Objection,” Ben said quietly.

  “Sustained,” Judge McPartland replied. “The witness will avoid editorializing. Just testify about what you saw and heard.”

  “Sure,” Conway said, with apparent aw-shucks good nature. “Anyway, Mr. Thomas was angry. He threw himself at Detective Sentz, shouting mean, threatening words. Sentz didn’t know what to do. He tried not to hurt the man, but Thomas just kept coming. Finally, Sentz was forced to physically push him away. That’s when his face was scraped up.”

  Guillerman showed the jury a photo of Dennis with the right side of his face bloodied and scabbed. Of course, the photo he chose was the mug shot taken after Dennis was arrested. Because no one looks good in a mug shot.

  “Two officers took him away on a charge of assaulting a police officer. We didn’t want to press charges, and we dropped them after he’d had a weekend to cool off. Of course we felt sorry for him. But we couldn’t let him go nuclear on a police detective.”

  “Of course not,” Guillerman said, nodding. “Tell me, Officer. Did the defendant say anything as the police were taking him away?”

  Conway took a deep breath. “I’m afraid so,” he said, as if it really pained him to bring up such unpleasantness. And who knows? Ben thought. Maybe it did.

  “He kept shouting, ‘There will be a reckoning. You haven’t seen the last of me. There will be a reckoning.’”

  “A reckoning. Hmmm.” Guillerman picked up a forensic photo of Detective Sentz in the coroner’s lab. His suggestion was obvious. “Anything else?”

  “Yes. He said, You’ll pay for this. You’ll pay! And he was looking right at Detective Sentz when he said it.”

  Guillerman nodded, a grave expression on his face. He laid the autopsy photo on his table, in full view of the jurors. “No more questions.”

  “You were present, were you not, when Dennis Thomas came to the police station asking for help?” Ben decided not to mess around with this witness. The impression he had left was too damaging. Ben had to get right to the heart of the matter.

  “I was.”

  “And you saw Detective Sentz refuse, time after time.”

  “He had no choice.”

  “Answer the question,” Ben said sternly. Wimps ask the judge to direct the witness to answer. Macho lawyers like Ben could handle it for themselves. Or at least that’s what he told himself.

  “Yes, I was there.”

  “And in fact, Detective Sentz did have a choice, didn’t he?”

  “The regulations strictly state that, absent special circumstances, such as the involvement of a minor or evidence of foul—”

  “I’m not asking you to recite the regulations to me,” Ben said forcefully. “Both Dennis and I have heard enough about the regulations. I’m asking you whether Detective Sentz had a choice.”

  “In my opinion, no.”

  “You’re saying he had no discretion at all.”

  “Well …”

  “Of course he has discretion. He’s a detective. I know detectives, and I know that for the most part they call their own shots, right?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “True or false, Officer. If Detective Sentz wanted to open a missing persons investigation, did he have the power to do it?”

  Conway shrugged. “If you put it that way … yes.”

  “But he chose not to.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he take his cues from anyone else?”

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  “Did anyone else participate in Sentz’s decision not to help?”

  “Chris could make his own decisions.”

  “You’re sure? He didn’t look to anyone else for permission?”

  “Chris Sentz was a full detective. The only person he answered to was the chief, and Chief Blackwell doesn’t get involved in issues like this.”

  Ben let it go, though he still had a feeling he hadn’t gotten all there was to get. “So finally, on the seventh day, Sentz saw the light and decided to authorize an investigation.”

  Conway’s head tilted to one side. “Well … no.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “As I understand it, Sentz was out and Officer Torres took the complaint to another detective. That’s why there was an investigation.”

  Torres. Again. Who was this mysterious man who’d finally showed the heart that the others had not?

  “But Detective Sentz was at the scene. When Joslyn Thomas was found.”

  “Eventually, yes. He heard that he had been effectively overruled in his absence, and he—” Conway stopped short.

  “Yes? Finish your sentence.”

  “No, that was all I had to say.”

  “It was not. What were you about to say regarding Detective Sentz?” Ben leaned closer. “That he was not pleased that someone else ordered an investigation?”

  “You know how it is. No one likes it when people go around them. Or over their heads.”


  “So Sentz was angry when he arrived at the scene?”

  “I wouldn’t say angry. A bit perturbed, perhaps. He just wanted to know what was going on.”

  Ben continued to press. “He was angry, and Dennis was angry, and they began to fight. Isn’t that what happened?”

  “Not at all.”

  “You told the jury that they fought.”

  “I told the jury that the defendant attacked Detective Sentz.”

  “With no provocation at all?”

  “Right. Just seeing Sentz was enough to set him off.”

  “Does that strike you as a rational reaction?”

  “Objection,” Guillerman said. “Officer Conway is not a psychiatric witness. Although,” he added in a lowered voice, “I’m sure there will be one.”

  “Sustained.”

  Ben didn’t miss a beat. “How would you describe Dennis Thomas’s demeanor at this time?”

  “As I said, he was very angry.”

  “The man had just seen his wife die in his arms.”

  “Yes.”

  “He had just been told by the medics that she had been in extreme pain for days.”

  “I know, it’s horrible.”

  Ben’s voice rose. “And then he saw the man he believed was responsible for that pain, for his wife’s death. Don’t you think you might go a little crazy?”

  “Objection!” Guillerman shouted, rising to his feet. “Not a psychiatric witness.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ben said, not bringing his tone down at all, “but this man testified that Dennis made statements that we all know the prosecutor will try to turn into a threat. I want to show where those statements came from. They were not the statements of someone cold-bloodedly planning a murder. They were the words of a man driven to the brink of insanity by the relentless refusal to investigate by the Tulsa police department!”

  Judge McPartland pounded his gavel. He looked angry. “Approach the bench, counsel.” They did.

  He leaned close to Ben’s face. “I will not have this grandstanding in my courtroom, Mr. Kincaid. Do you understand me?”

  “Your honor—”