Proof of Intent

by William J. Coughlin

  Eighteen

  I drove back to the office feeling irritated. Was Leon for real or not? I just couldn’t tell. But my irritation deepened into a distinct sense of unease as I saw the TV trucks: There were five of them parked in the street outside my office, aerials sticking up in the sky, three from local stations, plus one from Court TV and another from CNN. When you’re a defense attorney, five TV trucks is never a good sign.

  I hopped out of my Chrysler and here they came, heading across the parking lot like an onrushing thunderstorm, microphones extended.

  “What about the book?”

  “Do you know about the book?”

  “What are your comments about the book?”

  “Which book would that be?” I said.

  They got a little quieter. The CNN reporter said, “You haven’t heard? They just reissued a book that Miles published back in the seventies. They drop-shipped six hundred thousand copies of it today. Nationwide.”

  I smiled blandly. “And?”

  “It’s called, How I Killed My Wife and Got Away with It.”

  I blinked and stood there for a moment, looking, I’m sure, like everybody’s picture of somebody caught flatfooted. Things were just getting better and better.

  “Oh that book,” I said finally, giving them my best attempt at a smile. “You may recall it says on the cover that it’s a work of fiction. It has nothing to do with this case.” Then I turned and walked up the stairs to my office, trying my best not to look like someone had kicked me in the stomach.

  I had never heard of the book before.

  Nineteen

  I met with Miles in the jail. He was sitting at the grimy table, hands flat on the Masonite surface, fingers splayed. He didn’t speak when I entered the room, or when I asked him how he was doing.

  “Okay, two things,” I said. “First, Stash Olesky laughed at me when I brought up the possibility of a plea.”

  Miles continued to stare at the back of his hands.

  “Did you hear me, Miles?”

  He shrugged almost imperceptibly. “It was probably a bad idea anyway.”

  “Any interest in telling me why the sudden suggestion that you’d take a plea?”

  “I just want this whole thing over with.” His voice was soft, weary.

  “I know,” I said. “But you’re just going to have to keep it together. There’s no other choice.”

  He nodded.

  I tapped my fingers on the table a couple of times. “You might have warned me about that book,” I said finally.

  “Book?”

  “How I Killed My Wife and Got Away with It. Apparently they’re getting all cranked up to sell it by the boatload.”

  Miles looked up for the first time. “Charley, I’ve written forty-seven novels in my life, of which thirty-three have been published. Every one of them involves murder. Honestly? They all start to run together after a while. That particular book just didn’t spring to mind.”

  “So tell me about it.”

  “I wrote it as a paperback original for Elgin Press back in the early seventies. That was when Dan Rourke, my editor, was still at Elgin. He moved over to Padgett Press soon after that, and I followed him.” He blew out his breath disconsolately. “I have to tell you, I don’t even remember the book all that well. It’s pretty much like the title says: It’s about this guy who kills his wife.”

  “Why does he kill her?” I said.

  He hesitated. “Basically? For the money.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Great.”

  “What can I say?” Miles said. “I invent murders for a living. There’s just no way to make that convenient in a situation like this.” He leaned forward. “I assume they can’t admit it into evidence?”

  “That’s not the issue,” I said.

  “Then what is?”

  “You’re a smart guy,” I said. “You tell me.”

  He studied me with his sad gray eyes, then leaned slowly back in his chair again, a humorless smile appearing on his lips. “Public opinion.”

  “You get the gold star,” I said.

  They talk about the court of public opinion. There’s no getting away from it these days: A high-profile case gets on TV, and it’s contaminated forever. You can change venue, you can excuse nine-tenths of the jury pool, you can make the jury suffer under a draconian sequestration regime. But the truth is that if a case turns into a media feeding frenzy, you’re just going to be stuck with a certain number of jurors whose judgment will be affected by things they read in the papers or hear on the radio or see on the idiot box. Any lawyer who says it ain’t so is kidding himself.

  How I Killed My Wife and Got Away with It. I’m no humorist, but given about fifteen minutes, I could have written enough jokes for every talk-show monologue on TV that night. “Did you hear about that famous writer in Michigan who killed his wife?” Jay Leno raises his eyebrows, looks at the camera. “Allegedly . . .” And then the crowd dies laughing.

  How I Killed My Wife and Got Away with It. Ten words. Ten words, and everybody in America would know the guilty bastard did it. Didn’t matter that the book would probably never be admitted as evidence at trial, didn’t matter that it was a work of fiction, didn’t matter that the crime in the book would most likely have no resemblance to the real crime at hand. Those ten words would infect the air, and there’d be no getting rid of the stink.

  As it happened, my meeting with Miles preceded an appointment for Lisa and me to go to the prosecutor’s office, where we would cull through their documents and examine their proposed exhibit list.

  Stash Olesky was waiting for me in his conference room, a grim look on his face, the list of documents in his hand.

  “Let me see it,” I said.

  He handed me the list. At the top, Proposed Exhibit 1, there it was: “How I Killed My Wife and Got Away with It, a novel by Miles Dane.”

  “You knew about this already, didn’t you?”

  Stash looked away.

  “All this time, I knew you guys had something else hiding back there, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.”

  “I’m disclosing it in a timely fashion,” Stash said, his face taut. “That’s all I’m obliged to do.”

  “Well, you’re dreaming if you think it’s going to be admitted at trial,” I said. “Not even a judge as biased and prosecution-friendly as Evola is dumb enough to think he can let a work of fiction into a court of law and not get dinged on appeal.”

  “You haven’t read the book yet,” Stash said.

  I figured that was just gamesmanship on his part. But still, there was something in his voice, a note of calm self-assurance, that made me nervous.

  Twenty

  That afternoon I had to go down to Detroit to handle a case in Recorder’s Court. When I got back into the office late that evening, Lisa was standing next to Mrs. Fenton’s desk. In her hand she held a shiny new paperback. “I stood in line at Borders for an hour and a half.” Lisa looked like she had just been force-fed a piece of three-day-old fish. “I’ve been reading it all afternoon.”

  I studied her face. “Don’t tell me it’s that bad.”

  “Worse.”

  “It’s a work of fiction, Lisa. They can’t admit it into evidence.”

  “Listen.” Lisa opened the book and said, “Page one.” Then she began to read.

  “Last night I decided to kill my wife.

  “I had been considering the matter for a long time, of course, but now I am finally resolved. If this sounds heartless, do not abandon me yet. She is a vile, heartless creature—a monster, in truth—and deserves what I am about to give her. Oh, naturally I tell people how marvelous our love is, how deep the river, how wide the sea, how strong the current. And she plays her part in public. People, after all, are fools. They will believe anything. But the truth is, I fear and hate her, and she despises me. But as I say, please do not abandon me yet. Once you know her as I do, you shall cheer for me as I beat her to death.”

  I sat do
wn heavily. “Ouch.”

  “It gets worse.”

  “Evola can’t allow it to be admitted. He just can’t.”

  “Oh, yes he can. And he will.”

  I studied her face. Lisa looked pretty sure of herself. “Why?”

  Lisa pulled out a volume of Michigan’s criminal statutes, opened it, tossed it on the desk in front of me. “It’s all right there,” she said.

  I glanced at the book. “I’ve read the statute. What’s in there that I’m not seeing?”

  “Michigan law says there are five conditions you have to meet in order to convict on first-degree murder, right? Condition three is the trickiest one.” She picked up the book and read from it. “ ‘Third, that this intent to kill was premeditated, that is, thought out beforehand.’ ”

  “Which has what to do with this?”

  She tossed me the book. “I’ve stuck bookmarks in there in a few places, underlined various passages. Check it out.”

  I opened the book and began to read the parts she had marked. When I was done, I set the book delicately on my desk, much like you might treat a bomb, and then I looked up at the ceiling. A numb, cold feeling had settled on the base of my neck.

  “Oh my God,” I said. “Oh. My. God.”

  “I better go to New York,” Lisa said. “Don’t you think?”

  I breathed out heavily. “Yeah,” I said. “Get on the phone to Shearman & Pound.”

  Twenty-one

  On the way to take Lisa to the airport down in Detroit, I stopped off at the jail and requested a meeting with Miles. He had asked me to bring him a battery-operated radio, a couple of books, some wool socks, a few other odds and ends.

  Lisa and I went in and sat down with him in the interview room.

  “How about some music?” Miles said. “Every kid in here has a radio, and they’re all playing this goddamn rap music from dawn till dusk.”

  Lisa turned on the radio. There was something wrong with it and after a good deal of fiddling it became clear that it only picked up one signal—a Canadian station with a French-speaking announcer, as it happened.

  “This book,” I said, after Lisa finally gave up on the radio. “It’s very bad news.”

  Miles blew some air out of his mouth, puffing out his cheeks. “Yeah,” he said. “I got to thinking about it. About what’s in that book, I mean. I haven’t read it probably in twenty-five years. But once I started going over the story in my mind . . . Well, there’s an awful lot of coincidence there, isn’t there?”

  “Maybe more than coincidence,” Lisa said.

  “That’s what I mean,” Miles said. “Coincidence in the sense of not really being coincidence at all.”

  “Can you think of anybody who would have read this book?” I said. “Somebody who might have tried to manipulate the death of your wife to make it look like . . . well . . .”

  “You’re talking about somebody framing me,” Miles said.

  I was silent for a moment. “I’ve been a criminal defense attorney for over twenty years, Miles. I’ve never even heard of a successful frame-up. Or even an unsuccessful one for that matter. Frame-ups are for the movies. Too complicated for real life. But I am thinking maybe somebody nudged the facts around a little, knowing that there were some parallels with this book.”

  “Will the judge admit it?”

  I cleared my throat. “I hope not. We’ll go to the mat on this one.”

  Miles stared across the room for a while. The woman jabbering away in French on the radio finally shut up and started playing some music, an old French waltz with a sweet and wonderfully maudlin fiddle part.

  “No,” he said. “I’m at a total loss here. That book’s probably been out of print since we left New York. I just, I just . . .” He sighed a long, racking sigh.

  We sat silently for a while, Lisa and I looking at Miles, and Miles staring gloomily at the floor.

  After a minute or so of this dismal scene Lisa stood, took Miles by one manacled hand and pulled him to his feet. She slid herself inside the circle of his arms and rested her head against his shoulder, then led him into an awkward dance around the room to the sound of the plaintive fiddle. His ankle chains clinked softly in waltz time as they dragged on the floor.

  As their dance continued, Miles slowly relaxed, as though all the tension and horror of the past weeks had begun slowly to drain away. The initial awkwardness of their movements disappeared, and soon they were dancing smoothly, despite the chains, as though both their bodies were under the control of a single mind. By the end of the song, Miles was beaming as he danced, eyes closed, seemingly lost in some other place.

  After the song ended and the French announcer began talking again, we packed up and left without saying another word, leaving Miles standing in the middle of the room, eyes still shut, lips upturned slightly at the corners, rocking gently back and forth to the music in his head.

  Twenty-two

  How do I hate expert witnesses? Let me count the ways.

  In a case like this one, you need experts. It’s a given. Somebody to undermine the blood evidence, the hair, the fiber, the blood spatter, whatever. Maybe a psychologist to say that Miles Dane was incapable of doing what the prosecuting attorney says he did. A defense attorney can’t live without them. But boy oh boy do I hate them.

  The first call I made was to James D. Meriwether, MD, from Chicago, the retired medical examiner of Cook County and a legendary expert witness forensic pathologist. His expertise was in finding fault with autopsies. He combined all the traits you want in an expert: a bulletproof résumé, first-rate knowledge of the field, brass balls, the instincts of an actor, a firm jaw, and a lovely head of hair.

  Here’s how the phone call went.

  “Charles, marvelous to hear from you.” He had a big, radio announcer’s voice, well modulated, oozing charm. “I’ve been following your case with a great deal of interest.”

  “Wonderful, Dr. Meriwether. I go by Charley. I’ve heard great things about you.”

  “All true.” Ha ha ha. Big laugh, a man not afraid to enjoy his own sparkling wit. “I’m due at the skeet range in a few minutes. Shall we cut to the chase?”

  “I’d be interested in using you for the Miles Dane case.”

  “Marvelous. Based on what I’ve read, I think I could be of great value to you. FedEx me a copy of the ME’s report, the police file, all pleadings in the matter, and a retainer in the amount of $20,000, and I’ll get started on it tomorrow. My rate is $750 an hour and my total bill including prep, expenses, and testimony will likely run between forty and sixty K. I bill by the month, and if payments aren’t up-to-date as of trial, I don’t testify.”

  Like I said, let me count the ways. Reason one: greed.

  “I’ll be honest with you, Doctor,” I said, “I just don’t have that kind of budget. Of course I can offer a great deal of exposure and—”

  “Exposure doesn’t heat my pool, Charley.” The big self-congratulatory laugh again. “Were I you, I’d instruct your client to dig around in the sofa for a few more nickels. Call me again when Mr. Dane can afford the best.”

  So much for phone call number one. Phone call number two went to the Right Reverend Doctor Bobby Ray Armitage III, MD, JD, MDiv, a professor who taught at Emory University in Atlanta in the schools of law, medicine, and divinity. Given all the time he’d spent earning degrees, I figured he’d spent a good fifteen minutes in the actual practice of law, medicine, or the ministry. But that was alright. He had a hugely impressive résumé, and I thought the divinity part would play well on the stand. Plus, I’d heard his rates were reasonable.

  “Mr. Sloan, I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to talk to you. Really. I’ve been following your case and it really looks like a travesty, a terrible injustice.”

  “Well, I certainly think so.”

  “What can I do for you, sir?” He had the accent of a rich Southerner of the old school, but dripping with the sort of exaggerated concern that I associate with pointy
-headed liberals of the Eastern university genus.

  I gave him an outline of the case, buttering him up about his qualifications and his good judgment. Then he told me about several cases involving poor, downtrodden innocents whom he’d represented after getting out of Yale Law back in ’71.

  Finally—reluctantly—he broached the subject of fees. I told him that I could spare $7,500 plus T&E, cash on the barrelhead, take it or leave it.

  After thinking about it for a minute, Bobby Ray Armitage said, “Okay. What do you want me to say?”

  My heart sank. Reason two: dishonesty. I hate guys like Meriwether for their arrogance and greed. But at least Meriwether is honest. It’s the whores who really bother me.

  I floated a trial balloon: “I want you to testify that the autopsy is flawed, that the ME is a scoundrel and an incompetent, and that my client could not possibly have committed the crime.”

  “Make it ten grand even, I’ll testify the pope’s a Southern Baptist,” the Right Reverend Dr. Armitage said. Apparently his pool cost a good deal less to heat than Dr. Meriwether’s.

  People like Armitage make my skin crawl. I told him I’d be in touch if and when I needed him.

  After that it was more of the same and more of the same and more of the same. It took almost thirty calls to assemble a team of experts whom Miles Dane could afford and who didn’t make me feel like taking a shower when I was done speaking with them. Thirty phone calls and I’d already blown well over half my budget for the trial.

  I once drew a grid onto the back of a napkin to describe the qualities you might find in an expert. Here’s how the thing came out:

  The perfect witness is an honest brilliant good-looking person, well educated and with a masterly command of the field, who has the acting instincts and skills of a Jack Nicholson and who is willing to testify, not for money, but for the sheer love of doing good. Such a person, for all practical purposes, doesn’t exist. So you make do.

  For my blood spatter expert I had to settle for a cheap, honest woman of modest credentials. She was also gorgeous—which is more important in the courtroom than we’d like to admit. For my autopsy expert I found a forensic pathologist with middling credentials, who seemed reasonably ethical in his approach. I had never met him so I wasn’t sure how he’d be on the stand . . . but he sounded okay on the phone. There’s no such thing as a cheap doctor, but under the circumstances, his fees were pretty darn fair. My psychiatrist—in case I ended up needing one—was a close friend, Bob Williams, who came cheap as a personal favor to me. And last of all, since it seemed like a long shot that I’d need a tool mark expert, I broke down and went with the expert witness version of a truckstop whore.