at that time, I had two concerns. My first concern had to do with the broken window I had observed on the second floor of Mr. Daneâs house. I had been advised by Mr. Sloan, Mr. Daneâs attorney, that he understood an assailant had jumped out that window. There was glass scattered in the yard beneath the window indicating it had been struck from the inside and broken outward. That was consistent with someone escaping the house there. Naturally I examined the ground underneath the window with a great deal of care. It was moist soil from the rain the previous day, with only patchy grass thanks to the fact, I guess, that thereâs not a lot of sunlight there. At any rate, given the condition of the soil, I would have expected to find footprints under the window. I didnât find any. I mean not so much as a dent in the soil. So that raised a serious concern in my mind.
âSecond, I examined the body of the deceased. Normally when a person is attacked, they will defend themselves. The result of this is that the person sustains injuries on their hands and arms as they attempt to ward off the initial blows. Diana Daneâs body showed no evidence of that sort of injury, which indicated either that she was asleep when she was attacked or that she knew her attacker and was therefore unprepared for the assault.
âSo, these two things concerned me a great deal as I went into my interview with Mr. Dane. I was hoping his story would explain these two facts to my satisfaction.â
Stash Olesky nodded. âAnd did it?â
Chantall Denkerberg glanced briefly at Miles Dane. âNo, it did not.â
âWhy not?â
âThere are two areas that you evaluate when youâre an investigator. One area is the factual circumstances of the case. Thatâs the old Jack Webb just-the-facts-maâam side of the case. The other thing you evaluate is the demeanor and actions of the witnesses and parties involved in a crime. And as a trained and experienced investigator itâs my job to take both of those things into consideration. In my view, Mr. Dane came up short on both counts.â
Stash Olesky interrupted. âLetâs stick with the Jack Webb issues first.â
Detective Denkerberg nodded. âGiven the facts I had gleaned up to that point, his story just flat-out didnât make sense. In a nutshell, this is what he said: He told me that he was working in his office; he said he heard a noise that concerned him; he was a little vague and evasive in describing the noise, but he said it made him nervous. Thatâs a direct quote. âIt made me nervous.â So he went upstairs to see what it was. I have to mention at this point, by the way, that his office contains a huge weapons collection. Guns, knives, coshes, swords, you name it, all of them hanging on the wall.
âNow I donât know about you, but if Iâm sitting in a room full of weapons and I hear a spooky noise inside my house, Iâm going to grab something. A stick, a gun, a butter knife,
something
. But Mr. Dane said he didnât do that. He just went up the stairs unarmed. Okay, fair enough. So, according to his story, when Mr. Dane reached the top of the stairs, he saw a man in the hallway. The man fled into a bedroom at the end of the hall. Mr. Dane heard breaking glass, he gave chase, he arrived in the bedroom, the window was broken, he looked out, he saw the man fleeing across the lawn toward Riverside Boulevard.
âI should note here that my investigation of the top floor of Mr. Daneâs home demonstrated clearly that if somebody had exited from the second floor without going down the stairs, then he would have had to jump out a window. There were no dumbwaiters, no back stairs, no doors, no fire escape.â Chantall Denkerberg shrugged. âHad to be the window. But if somebody jumped, where were the footprints? It didnât add up.
âThat was probably the most important thing. But
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