Proof of Intent Read Online Free PDF Page A

do a thing like this to your wife, sir? Enemies, anything like that?”
    Miles looked at me incredulously, then gave me a sardonic, angry smile. “Enemies? Jesus H. Christ, lady! She’s not some goombah from the Gambino crime family. A scumbag thief broke in and killed her. This is not a mystery.”
    â€œIs there anything else really pressing, Detective?” I said quickly. “As you can see, Mr. Dane is having a tough time keeping it together. I may need to get a physician to take a look at him, maybe give him a little something so he can get some rest.”
    I had the impression that if Detective Denkerberg had been carrying a prayer book, she’d have given me a good lick in the back of the head.
    â€œOne last question, Mr. Dane. How long between the time you discovered your wife and the time you called Mr. Sloan?”
    â€œTen minutes? Five? Two?”
    â€œAnd he got here . . .”
    â€œLike twenty minutes later.”
    â€œAnd the police got here . . .”
    â€œTen minutes after that. Around four.”
    â€œSo from the time of her death until the time we got here was less than forty-five minutes?”
    Miles Dane looked at her for a moment, then looked away. “Could have been longer,” he said vaguely. “Could have been longer.”

Three
    As I eased Miles into the cab I’d called to take him to a room over at the Pickeral Point Inn, I said, “From here on out, you don’t talk to the police outside of my presence. Understood?”
    â€œAbsolutely. I understand.”
    â€œAnd absolutely no talking to reporters.”
    â€œSure.”
    â€œDon’t even discuss the case with your best friend. Given who you are, this thing is likely to go nuts in about five minutes. We’ll need to manage it very, very delicately. Okay?”
    â€œI heard you the first time.” He was sounding testy now.
    â€œGood. Mouth shut. We’ll talk later.”
    Pickeral Point, Michigan—where I’ve made my home for the better part of a decade—is a small town about an hour north of Detroit. It’s the county seat of Kerry County, a small, axe-head-shaped jurisdiction that hugs the St. Clair River, reaching from some of Detroit’s easternmost suburbs up into farm country. Keep driving north and you end up in the “thumb” of Michigan that sticks out into Lake Huron. Pickeral Point has a row of big houses on the river, mostly owned by people who made lots of money working in Detroit and are now taking it easy; it has a salt factory, a boat factory, a mile-long boardwalk, and the usual collection of civic buildings befitting its place as county seat; and it has a view of the river only slightly spoiled by the row of oil refineries and chemical plants on its Canadian bank. When the wind is right, we don’t smell Canada.
    The big freighters on the river—like most everything else—pass us by. That’s why I came here. When I left Detroit a few years back, I’d had about enough excitement for one lifetime. Pickeral Point is a quiet, pleasant, solid, modest, earnest little town—the kind of place where nothing much happens. But it’s close enough to Detroit that word of things gets out pretty quickly. I suspected that within a few days Miles Dane was going to be a big red pushpin on the map of newsrooms all over America.
    I just hoped Miles wouldn’t chum the waters.
    After the cab had taken Miles off to the hotel, I caught up with Detective Denkerberg, who was talking to the forensic technician outside the house. “Did you find the missing stick?” I said pleasantly. “The bokken or whatever it’s called?”
    Detective Denkerberg eyed me for a moment. “We’re still looking, Mr. Sloan,” she said finally.
    I gave her my card. “If you need to chat with Mr. Dane again, call me first.” I gave her a big smile. “Just for efficiency’s sake, of