Show of Evil

Vaiclass="underline" 'In her seventies, you say?'

Parver: 'Yes, sir. Anyway, she says she heard the shots very clearly. It was a clear night, very cold.'

Fleishman: 'She sure it was him?'

Parver: 'No question about it.'

Meyer: 'And she's sure about the time?'

Parver: 'Says the news was just coming on the television, which ties in with Darby's story and the phone call to 911, which was at six-oh-six.'

Vaiclass="underline" 'Okay, go on.'

Parver: 'Well, we were doing what you might call a courtesy call just to make sure we covered everything and I said to her, Did you hear all six shots, and she said yes. She knows about guns because Gus - that's her husband, her late husband, he's been dead about six years now - did a lot of hunting and she could tell there were two guns going off. And then she said… '

She stopped a moment and read very carefully from her notes.

'… said, "I know the difference between a shotgun and a pistol, my Gus spent half his life either hunting or practising to hunt, and when I heard that shotgun, then all those pistol shots, I knew there was something goin' on down there and I thought it was maybe a burglar in the house." '

Parver looked at Vail and then around at the group. She repeated her remark.

Parver: ' "I heard that shotgun, then all those pistol shots," that's exactly what she said.'

Vail stared at her as she went on.

Parver: 'So I said to her, "You mean you heard the pistol, then the shotgun," and she said, "Young lady, I know the difference between a shotgun and a pistol. I heard the shotgun, then four pistol shots, then the shotgun again." '

Vaiclass="underline" 'She's saying Darby fired the first shot?'

Parver: 'Exactly.'

Flaherty: 'She's seventy-five?'

Parver: 'Six. Seventy-six.'

Flaherty: 'And the house is eighty yards from Darby's place?'

Parver: 'Eighty-three, but she knows what she heard. I don't think there's any doubt about that. But just to make sure, Abel and I did a test.'

Vaiclass="underline" 'A test?'

He looked at Stenner.

Stenner: 'We set up a tape recorder in her kitchen beside the open window. I went down to Darby's place and went in the barn and fired two sets of shots into some sacks of grain.'

Vails: 'Where was Darby?'

Stenner: 'He wasn't there.'

Vaiclass="underline" 'Uh-huh. Trespassing.'

He scribbled some notes on a legal pad.

Stenner: 'We can go back and do it legal. I just wanted to make sure we had a live one here.'

Vaiclass="underline" 'I know.'

Stenner: 'First I did it the way Darby says it happened. I fired three shots from the pistol, one from the shotgun, another pistol shot, and the final shotgun blast. Then I did it the way Mrs Shunderson says she heard it: the shotgun first, four pistol shots, and the final shotgun. Shana stood beside Mrs Shunderson exactly where she was standing when the event took place and taped both sets of shots.'

Parver: 'She was adamant. She says it was BOOM, bang, bang bang, bang… BOOM. Not bang, bang, bang. BOOM, bang, BOOM. Here's the tape.'

She put a small tape recorder on the desk and pressed the play button. There was silence except for the room tone. Then there were the shots, echoing very clearly in the night air.

Bang, bang, bang… BOOM… bang… BOOM.

'No, no. Not the way it was't'all,' came an elderly woman's firm, very positive voice. 'As I told you…'

Shana's voice interrupted her. 'Just a minute,' she said. 'Listen.'

BOOM… bang, bang, bang, bang… BOOM.

'Yes! That's the way it was. 'Cept there was a little more time between the last pistol shot and the shotgun.'

'You're absolutely positive?' Parver asked.

'I told you, child, I know the difference between a shotgun and a pistol.'

'And you're sure of the sequence?'

'The shotgun was first. And there was that little pause between the last pistol shot and then the shotgun again.'

Parver turned off the tape recorder.

Hazel Fleishman said, 'Wow!' The rest of the group started to talk all at once. Vail knocked on the table with his knuckles and calmed them down.

'Is she a good witness, Abel?' Vail asked.

'A crusty old lady.' Stenner nodded with a smile. 'I think she'll hold up.'

'A woman that age -' Meyer started.

'She's positive about what she heard. And there's not a thing wrong with her hearing,' Stenner assured him.

'You think we can bring a first-degree murder case against Darby on this boom-bang testimony?' Flaherty said.

'This woman knows what she heard,' Stenner insisted.

'This is what I think happened,' Parver said. She acted out her theory again, walking to the middle of the room with her hand down at her side holding the ruler-shotgun.

'He comes home, has the shotgun loaded, walks into the house. His wife is sitting in the living room…'

Parver approached Flaherty. When she was two feet away from him, she swung her arm up, aiming the imaginary gun at his forehead.

'BOOM! He walks right up to her and shoots her in the head point-blank, just like that. Then he takes the .38 - he's still got his gloves on - and he puts it in her hand and bang, bang, bang, bang - he puts the two shots in the hall, one in the wall, and one in the ceiling - then he backs off a few feet and hits her with the second shotgun blast. I mean, he thought of everything. Powder burns on her hand, the long shot that he claims he shot first after she cut loose at him. He covered everything but the sound.'

'It's not just the order of the shots,' Stenner said in his underplayed, quiet manner. 'It's the pauses in between them. Or lack of same. Mrs Shunderson says there was no pause between the four pistol shots. She says it was BOOM… bang bang bang bang… BOOM.

Ramona Darby was dead when he put the gun in her hand and fired the pistol.'

Vail leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling for a moment, then chuckled. 'Nice job, you two,' he said.

'The problem is proving premeditation,' Flaherty offered. 'We'll have to give up Shunderson in discovery so they'll know what we have. Darby'll change his story.'

 'That won't hold up,' Stenner said. 'No jury will believe that he charged into her while she was shooting at him and got close enough to pop her point-blank in the head without getting hit himself. It's that point-blank head shot he has to live with.'

'He could plead sudden impulse,' Dermott Flaherty offered. 'He came in. She had the gun. She threatened him, he shot her. Then he panicked and jimmied up the rest of the story because he was afraid he couldn't prove self-defence.'

'So how do we trap him?' Vail asked.

Silence fell over the room.

Vail went on. 'Unless we have some corroborative evidence, Darby will be dancing all over the room. And Paul Rainey will jump on the strongest scenario they can come up with and stick with it.'

'Which will probably be Dermott's take on it,' Hazel Fleishman said.

Vail nodded. 'Namely that he came in, she had the gun, he freaked out and shot her but didn't kill her, blah, blah, blah.'

'Doesn't work,' Parver said. 'He can't get around the fact that for his story to work, his first shot had to hit her in the side. That shot in the face was from twelve inches, maybe less. It was cold-blooded. That shot put her away instantly.'

'Heat of the moment?' Fleishman suggested. 'The woman throws down on him, he fires in a panic - '

'And runs twelve feet across the room before he shoots again?' Stenner asked. 'No jury'll buy that. If the farm lady's testimony holds up - if Rainey doesn't dissect her on the stand - Darby's stuck with the sequence, he'll have to change his story.'