The Heavens May Fall (30 page)

“Jennavieve’s bedding,” Niki said.

“Where did you . . . ?” Max looked at Niki, who pointed to the man in the khakis.

“This is Curt Priem,” Niki said. “He manages properties for Anna Adler-King. And this . . .” she pointed at the man in the dirty clothes. “This is Joe Brumble. He owns Brumble Heating and Air-Conditioning.”

“I called him,” Mr. Priem interrupted. “As the administrator of Mrs. Pruitt’s estate, Anna is responsible to make sure that this house doesn’t fall into disrepair. She asked me to take care of it. Well, I stopped by the other day and noticed that the furnace wasn’t working, so I called Mr. Brumble to figure out what was wrong.”

Max looked at Mr. Brumble, a man in his late sixties with thick, pickle fingers, two of which were bent unnaturally across the palm of his left hand. He wore a stained denim shirt over stained denim pants, and a hat that read “Brumble HVAC.”

“You found this?”

“Yes, sir,” he said. “These old houses, they have furnaces older than you. I spend a lot of my days fixing ’em, especially when fall comes around.”

“Where’d you find this?” Max pointed at the sheets.

“Well, you see, a furnace draws in air from the house through this cold-air return.” He nodded toward a square shaft at the bottom of the wall in the front room. A black metal grate leaned against the wall next to the hole. “The furnace pulls air in, heats it, and pushes it back out through those registers.” He pointed at a vent near the front door. “If the furnace can’t pull the air in, it won’t work.”

“Those sheets were in the heating duct?” Max said.

“Yes, sir,” Brumble said. “I started the furnace to test the air flow, and damned if there was none to be found. Sometimes critters will find a way into these old ducts and build a nest. That’s what I figured, rats probably. So I started digging around and . . . well, I found this. I knew about the murder that happened here. It’s been in the papers, so I called Mr. Priem here.”

“We didn’t touch it,” Mr. Priem said. “I put a call in to Mrs. Adler-King, but she’s apparently out of the country, and I couldn’t reach her. When I couldn’t get ahold of her, I called the police.”

“You did the right thing,” Max said. “If you wouldn’t mind, could I have both of you step into the kitchen while my partner and I have a look?”

“I think I should stay here,” Mr. Priem said. “As Mrs. Adler-King’s representative, I—”

“Mr. Priem, we’re not going to have a debate about this.” Max looked the man in the eyes and spoke in a calm tone. “It’s either the kitchen or it’s my squad car. It makes no difference to me.”

Mr. Priem considered his choices for a couple seconds, more for show than anything else, Max suspected. Then he and Mr. Brumble left the room.

Max squatted down on one side, and Niki on the other. “We’ll need Crime Scene here,” Max said.

“I already called Bug. He’s on his way.”

“Get pictures?”

“Yep.”

“Then let’s take a peek.” They each pulled latex gloves out of their pockets and snapped them on their hands. Then they carefully peeled back the edges of the sheet, its creases stiff with the dried blood. As they opened the center of the bundle, a glint of silver flickered and they saw the blade of a dagger.

Niki looked at Max. “Murder weapon?”

Max paused to nod. Then he carefully peeled loose another fold of the sheet; when he did, a used condom fell out. Max closed his eyes and whispered, “God dammit.”

Chapter 51

As Boady Sanden waited in the reception area of the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office, he again contemplated the cryptic request that brought him there, a voice message from Frank Dovey that merely stated that it was important that they meet before the motion hearing on Boady’s request for a new trial. Boady had called back and left three messages for Dovey, hoping for an explanation, but he heard nothing back.

Boady, in his day, had filed hundreds of motions for a new trial. It was
pro forma
, a Latin term that meant “as a matter of form.” It just as well could have meant “a waste of time.” Trial attorneys were asked to give a trial court the opportunity to correct their own mistake with a post-verdict motion before appealing up the ladder. However, very few judges had the backbone to admit they had made a mistake.

Boady didn’t understand why Dovey wanted to meet before the hearing, which was scheduled for that next morning.

Frank Dovey stepped into the waiting area and invited Boady back. They walked to a conference room. On the conference-room table lay a single folder. Closed. Dovey went to the chair where the folder lay and pointed Boady to a chair across from him.

When Boady had taken his seat, Dovey slid the folder to Boady. “As part of my continuing duty to provide you with discovery,” Dovey said, “I thought you should see this.”

Boady opened the folder. In one sleeve was a stack of photographs. In the other was a police report. Boady lifted the photos from their sleeve. He saw Detective Max Rupert standing in the front room of Ben Pruitt’s house. At his feet lay a bundle of material. As he flipped through the photos, the camera moved in on the bundle as hands in blue gloves peeled away layers. At the heart of the bundle, someone had secreted away a dagger.

“Is this . . . ?” Boady tried to wrap his head around what he was seeing. “Is this the knife that killed Jennavieve Pruitt?”

“It could be. It fits the incision that caused her death.”

“Is that Jennavieve’s blood on the knife?”

“We’ve had it tested and, yes, it’s her blood.”

“You’ve had it tested? How long have you had this evidence?”

“Only a week, we—”

“A week?” It took everything he had for Boady not to launch out of his seat. Instead, he let his voice rise for the occasion. “You’ve had this for a week? We have a motion for a new trial scheduled for tomorrow morning—and you’re just getting this to me now?”

“We wanted to test the DNA. We wanted to make sure it was Jennavieve Pruitt’s blood.”

“Damn it, Frank, that’s not your call. You know it’s not.”

“It doesn’t change the case.”

“Again, Frank, not your fucking call.” Boady’s anger had moved into contempt and indignation. “You don’t get to dictate what is important and what is not. You’re supposed to give me everything you get, when you get it. Now I have one night to rewrite my motion. It’s new evidence. It completely changes the case.”

“We’ll just have to agree to disagree.”

“No, we won’t, Frank. You’re wrong. If you want me to cite case law, I can. You have the murder weapon, and I assume those are the sheets from the victim’s bed?”

“Possibly.”

“Cut the crap, Dovey, you know damned well they are. Where’d they find this?”

“Pruitt stuffed it into the cold-air return in his house before he left to dump his wife’s body. A repairman working on the furnace found it.”

“Did you test the knife for prints? DNA?”

“The only DNA on the knife was the victim’s blood. No prints.”

Boady shuffled through some more pictures and stopped cold. In his hand, Boady held a picture of a condom—used. He looked at Dovey, so angry he could barely get the words out. “A condom? You found a condom and kept that from me? Are you kidding me?”

“Again, we wanted to have it tested first.”

“And?”

“It was not a match for Ben Pruitt.”

Boady sat back in his chair as a hundred doors in his mind flew open. “Jennavieve Pruitt was having an affair.”

“That’s one possibility. But even if that were true, it doesn’t mean that Ben Pruitt didn’t kill his wife. In fact, it bolsters the State’s case.”

Of all those doors that opened, not one led to the conclusion that this would be good for the State. “In what universe does this help the State?” Boady asked.

“It reinforces Pruitt’s motive to kill his wife. Not only did he do it for the money, but he did it because his wife was cheating on him.”

“Now I’ll grant you that we can agree to disagree. What it does is introduce a lover into the picture who may have had his own reason to kill Mrs. Pruitt, or maybe it was the lover’s wife who killed her.” With those two words, two cogs in Boady’s brain clinked together and replayed the strange glances that Kagen and his wife shared during Everett’s testimony. Suddenly, it made sense. “Have you obtained a sample of Everett Kagen’s DNA?”

“Kagen? No. Why would I?”

Boady eyed Dovey carefully, trying to understand if he was positioning his case in light of this new evidence, or if he actually believed that he had no reason to test Kagen’s DNA. Finally, Boady said, “You’re joking, right? They worked together—lots of late nights. He was the last person to see her alive. I bet he drives a red sedan too.”

“As a matter of fact, he does. A red Impala. But there are a great many red sedans in this state. I drive one myself. Am I a suspect?”

“Quit being an ass, Frank. You had to see how he acted during his testimony.”

“What I saw was the testimony of a close friend. I saw that Jennavieve’s death hit him hard—harder than it hit your client, who never dropped a single tear throughout the trial.”

“Ben did plenty of grieving in jail—and quit deflecting. Are you going to get a warrant for a sample of Kagen’s DNA?”

“I will not,” Dovey said with an air of finality. “I don’t have probable cause. You know I don’t. He testified that he hadn’t been to the Pruitt house on the day of the murder.”

“Of course he’d say that. His wife was in the courtroom, and she looked angry.”

“Well, this angry wife backs up Kagen’s alibi. He was at home with her. You’re a defense attorney, Sanden. If I got a search warrant on probable cause this flimsy, you’d be the first one to demand that it be thrown out. No judge is going to sign a warrant on the basis that the man drives a red car and cried because his friend got murdered.”

Boady suspected that Dovey was right, but he would rather drive a spike through his hand than admit it. “I’m going to add that to my motion. I’m going to ask Ransom to order you to obtain that DNA sample.”

“Knock yourself out. You get him to order it, I’ll be happy to get it for you. But it won’t matter. Kagen didn’t kill Jennavieve Pruitt. He was home with his wife. Ben Pruitt killed her. Even if you get that warrant and it turns out to be Kagen, all you’ll have proven is that Jennavieve Pruitt had sex with Kagen. It won’t change the fact that he was at home when she was murdered. Your boy is still on the hook for that part of it.”

Boady stood and picked up the folder. “Are these my copies?”

“They’re yours. Enjoy.”

“If you’ll excuse me, I have a motion to amend. I can see myself out.”

Boady headed out of the conference room, pausing at the door for one last thought. “Hey, Frank.” Boady leaned back into the conference room. “I hear you got named to the short list for Judge Katowski’s vacancy.” Boady gave Dovey a wink and a thumbs-up. “I guess having the Adler name behind you can work miracles.”

With that, Boady turned and left.

Chapter 52

When Boady filed his amended motion that day, he also filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, an order that would require the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office to deliver Ben Pruitt from the prison in Saint Cloud, Minnesota, to the hearing. He requested the writ for two reasons: first, he wanted Ben’s strong legal mind to evaluate the new evidence and hopefully provide some insight as to whom Jennavieve’s lover might be. If they could find the match for that DNA, the new trial and acquittal would be almost assured.

The second reason Boady requested the writ was to gauge Judge Ransom’s interest in the new evidence. If he sided with Dovey’s theory, then there would be no need to transport Ben to the hearing. It would be the pro forma hearing that Boady had been expecting before the new evidence. If, however, Judge Ransom sent for Ben Pruitt, it indicated that the judge saw purchase in the discovery of the sheets.

At nine o’clock on the morning of the motion hearing, a sheriff’s deputy led Ben Pruitt into the jail interview room. The skin of Ben’s face clung to his cheeks like wet tissue, and seemed just as pale. Whiskers peppered his chin and neck, with splotches of gray spreading below the corners of his mouth. He had a bruise, the size of a fist, on the side of his neck, and dark smudges that angled down from the bridge of his nose—the fading remnants of two black eyes.

“Holy hell,” Boady said. “What happened to you?”

Ben smiled, but his eyes remained flat. “Turns out, I have a couple enemies in prison.” He sat down across from Boady and propped his elbows on the table to help hold himself upright. “I had a client a few years back who got out of a first-degree drug case by flipping on a very bad man named Rodrigo. My client had the good sense to get out of Dodge after he testified. I think he’s in South America now. On the other hand, I end up in St. Cloud, at the very prison where Rodrigo sits on a throne. He remembered me, and not too fondly.”

“What’d he do to you?”

“Oh, it’s not him. It’ll never be him. He just gives the order. As I understand it, I have a bounty on my head. They have me in segregation, but that’ll end as soon as I’m transferred to another prison. I have no doubt the bounty will follow me wherever I go.”

Boady reached out and put his hand on Ben’s wrist. “I’m going to get you out of there. I promise.”

Ben shook his head. “No, Boady, I don’t think that’s in the cards. In a way, I’m okay with it. If it’s a choice between watching my daughter grow up in pictures or getting a blade across my throat, I think I prefer the blade.”

“Don’t talk like that. I’m getting you out, and this motion for a new trial is the key.”

“Boady, we both know this is a waste of time. When’s the last time you had a judge grant a new trial? Ever? It’s a pipe dream, although I thank you for getting me out of prison for a day.”

“It’s not a pipe dream.” Boady slid the folder of new evidence across the table to Ben. He opened it, and Boady watched Ben’s eyes as he tried to make sense of what he saw.

“Is this . . . ?” He turned the photograph of the bed sheets sideways and back. “Are these our sheets?”

“Yes,” Boady said. “A repairman found them stuffed into the cold-air return of your ductwork.”