Free The Heavens May Fall by Allen Eskens Page A

threatened all the time, but we never took them seriously.”
    “Anything recent?”
    “No. None that I can think of right now.”
    “Anybody from your side of business have a beef with you?”
    “Like one of my clients? No. You’d be surprised how accepting my clients can be of the trouble they get themselves into. They appreciate anything I can do to lessen that trouble.”
    “Business must be doing well. That’s one hell of a house you have.”
    Pruitt didn’t respond.
    “You two weren’t having any kind of financial issues, were you?”
    Again, Pruitt just stared at Max.
    “No marital issues?”
    Pruitt dropped his head and sighed. “These are not productive questions, Detective. I told you to ask productive questions, questions that might help you find my wife’s killer. I didn’t kill her. I loved my wife, so quit trying to bring me into this. I had nothing to do with Jennavieve’s death. I know you’d love nothing more than to come after me, but you’d better start asking questions that will actually help find her killer, or I’m leaving.”
    “I’m just trying to see a full picture, Mr. Pruitt. I mean, every couple has the occasional disagreement. That doesn’t paint you as a bad husband.”
    “Detective, we’re done.” Pruitt stood up. “I’m still free to leave, am I not?”
    “You are.”
    “Then I’m leaving. And for the record, I’m invoking my right to deal with you through an attorney.” Pruitt headed out, but he stopped halfway through the door and turned to look at Max. “I would have stayed here and talked, you know. I would have done everything I could to help you. But it’s clear why you brought me here. You want this to be on me, and to hell with any other possibility. Well, if that’s the way you want to go, then screw you. My attorney will be in touch.”
    Ben Pruitt walked out of the interview room. After he’d gone, Max looked up at the camera and signaled to shut down the recorder before he slammed his fist onto the table.

PART 2
    The Defense

Chapter 12
    Professor Boady Sanden sat on a rocking chair on his front porch, soaking in the warmth of the late-afternoon sun and listening to the chatter of birds in the two massive oaks in his front yard. Beside him lay a stack of papers, notes, and cases he’d collected over the past year, changes in the law handed down by various courts, sharp-pointed edicts that he needed to add to the syllabus for his criminal-procedures class, a class he’d been teaching for six years.
    He took a break from work to look up and down Summit Avenue to see if anyone else had a job that let them sit on a porch on such a nice afternoon. He saw no one. He propped one foot up on the porch rail and smiled. Summers off. It was one of the best perks of being a law professor. Of course, he could teach summer term—and had in the past—but not this year. The time had come for the meniscus repair in his right knee, and even though he felt he could have been back teaching in time for the summer session, he was under strict orders from his wife, Diana. And Diana was the boss. She assured him that they didn’t need the money, although he noticed that she’d been hinting lately that she might want to stay home for Christmas and not take their usual winter-break trip to the Caribbean.
    She always took care of him like that, and he loved her for it.
    Even back in the day, back when Boady had a private law office in Minneapolis with a small army of law clerks and associates, back when he gave keynote speeches at criminal-defense conferences and brought home paychecks so big that it sometimes made him giggle, it had always been Diana who called the shots at home. It was Diana who orchestrated the numbers so that they could buy a house on Summit Avenue, a stretch of pavement they shared with the governor’s mansion and the Cathedral of St. Paul. Their house was a decent-sized Victorian, bigger than what the two of them needed, but smaller than what the