Proof of Intent Read Online Free Page A

smile on the detective.
    She ignored me, her eyes fixed on Miles’s face. “There was a man in the hallway,” she said.
    Miles nodded. “That’s right. I don’t know if you looked closely, but it’s a curved stairway. So you sort of come around the corner, then you’re in the upstairs hallway. Anyway, I came around and there he was. I guess I just froze.” He frowned thoughtfully. “No, that’s not right. Actually, I ducked back behind the wall. My first thought was, you know, what if he has a gun? Then I heard him running down the hallway, then I heard this smash. Like glass breaking. After that I guess I just got mad and stopped worrying about my own safety, because I came back out and ran after him. But he was gone. I looked out the smashed window in the back bedroom, and I saw—I guess I’d call him a shadowy figure. And he’s hauling ass off toward the road. Then I started shouting my wife’s name. She didn’t answer, so I ran into my bedroom. And there she—”
    Suddenly Miles broke down, put his face in his hands, and began to weep. By this point I had started feeling skeptical about virtually every word he’d said—but his grief looked entirely convincing to me.
    When Miles finally seemed to have collected himself, Denkerberg said, “This man. What did he look like?”
    Miles’s face hardened. “I wish I could say. It was dark up there.”
    â€œBut it was definitely a man.”
    â€œYeah. I could tell by the way he moved. He didn’t move like a woman.”
    â€œIs there anything else you can tell me? Height? Build? Race? Scars? Tattoos? Eye color?”
    Miles shook his head.
    â€œWas he carrying a weapon?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    Denkerberg took some notes, then looked up. “Were you?”
    â€œWas I what?”
    â€œCarrying a weapon?”
    Miles seemed to hesitate. “No,” he said finally.
    â€œYou’re sitting in a room full of weapons. You hear a strange noise, something that you suspect might have been an intruder, you rush toward the noise . . .” She squinted curiously at Miles for a moment. “And yet you don’t take a weapon?”
    Miles’s face was blank for a moment, then his eyes narrowed. “Are you implying something?”
    â€œLike I said before, whys and wherefores. My job is to tie down every single detail.”
    â€œWell I wasn’t carrying a weapon. Like I said earlier, my first thought was that my wife might have slipped and fallen.”
    â€œDidn’t even grab something small? A knife? A stick?”
    Miles shook his head.
    Denkerberg nodded, then pointed her Bic pen at the empty rack on the wall. “What’s usually in that rack?”
    Miles looked up, blinked, then looked slightly confused. “On the wall?”
    â€œThat rack. There’s an empty rack.” Denkerberg stood, walked over to the two wooden hooks, then peered at the label on the small brass plate next to it. “It says it’s a bokken.”
    â€œIt’s pronounced BO-ken, not bock-in. B-O-K-K-E-N. A bokken is a wooden sword used by Japanese swordsmen—kenjutsu practitioners. That one is Gabon ebony, hand-carved by Toshio Nakamitsu, the most famous craftsman of wooden weapons in modern Japan.”
    â€œWhat does it look like?”
    â€œBasically it’s a black stick. A curved piece of wood, shaped roughly like a samurai sword.”
    â€œWhat happened to it?”
    Miles shrugged. “Seems like it’s been gone a while.”
    â€œDid you loan it to somebody? Lose it? Break it?”
    Miles kept staring at the empty space on the wall, a vague expression on his face. “I don’t know where it is.”
    â€œStolen?”
    â€œI don’t know. Hard keeping track of all this stuff.”
    Denkerberg looked skeptical. “You keep the door locked at all times to protect your valuable