William Bernhardt - Capitol Offense

“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-”

“I don’t care who you are. If I see another outburst like that, your co-counsel will be finishing this trial.”

“Yes, your honor.”

“I will allow this witness to answer questions about what he saw and heard. And that is it. Do you both get that?”

They answered in the affirmative.

“Then get out there and finish. I’m ready for the weekend.”

Ben returned to his place before the witness box. “Officer Conway, you had the rare opportunity to witness Mr. Thomas over a long period. A week. Did he seem to change during that time?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Was he more agitated the second time he came to the station than he had been the first?”

“Yes, definitely. He became more and more upset as the week passed. And tired, haggard. Wrung out.”

“I would imagine so. When you saw him at the scene of his wife’s accident and death-”

“He was a totally different person.” Ben saw his eyes dart to the prosecution table. “I mean, I’m not saying he’d, you know, lost it or anything. But he was definitely more upset.”

“Upset enough to do things he would not normally do?”

“Yeah.”

“Or to say things he would not normally say?”

“Probably so, but that doesn’t mean he was crazy.”

“Are you a psychiatrist now?”

“No, but I looked into the man’s eyes. Right there, at the scene, and that’s something not even your expert can claim to have done. I looked into his eyes and I didn’t see a crazy man. I saw a murderer.”

“Objection!” Ben shouted.

But the witness continued. “I looked into those eyes and I saw someone who wanted Detective Sentz dead. At any cost.”