Show of Evil

'How long were you hunting?'

'We left Big Marsh about three P.M. We always stop on the way home and have a couple of beers, brag about who bagged the most birds, like that.'

'And it was on the way home from one of these hunting trips that you first met Poppy Palmer at the Skin Game Club, isn't that right?'

'Sure, I told you all that before.' He looked at Rainey and held his hands out and shrugged.

'Do you have anything new to ask?' Rainey said with irritation.

'There are several points we need to clear up,' Parver said quietly. Vail was impressed by her control. 'How soon after you met Poppy Palmer did you first have sexual relations with her?'

'In minutes or hours?' Darby smirked.

'Hours will be fine,' Parver answered coolly.

'Like I told you, we went into the Skin Game and she was workin' that day and we had a couple of beers and then Charlie asked her to have a beer with us only she wanted a champagne cocktail. That's the way it works, they put Coca-Cola in a glass or something and you pay five bucks for it and that's what they call champagne. So we fooled around talking until seven and she was getting off work, so I said, How about it? You want to stop somewhere, have a real drink? One thing led to another and we finally went to the Bavarian Inn and got a room.' He leaned across the table towards Parver and said, 'You want all the details?'

'That won't be necessary.' She looked down at her notes. 'Not now, anyway.

Nice shot, thought Vail. Let him think this isn't going to be the end of it. Throw him off.

'Did you have sexual intercourse with Miss Palmer on that occasion?' Parver continued.

Darby looked at Rainey, who waved off his concern.

'Sure.'

'How many times after that did you and Miss Palmer meet?'

'I dunno, four or five. I don't remember exactly.'

She checked her notes. 'Miss Palmer says she met you at the Bavarian Inn six times. You have said five. Then six. And this time four or five. Which is it?'

'Look, what's the dif? I had a fling with her. I never tried to say I didn't. I told the cops that the first night they talked to me.'

'So was it four, five, or six?' she asked calmly.

'I just told you, I don't remember. Okay, six. Hell, it was six if Poppy says so. I don't mark my calendar, maybe she does.'

'But you always had sex with her?'

'Yeah. Why, does it turn you on hearing about it?'

'That's enough of that, Darby,' Vail snapped.

'Look, what I did was in self-defence. How many goddamn times do I have to repeat it to you people? Why don't you go out and bust some drug dealers, do something for the community?'

Vail turned to Rainey. 'This can go on forever if that's what he wants,' he said.

'Just answer the questions, yes or no,' Rainey said, still staring at Vail.

'Let's go back to the day you shot your wife,' Parver said. 'Did you to to the Skin Game Club that day?'

'No. We stopped in a beer joint out on 78. I don't know if it's got a name. The sign in front says cocktails.'

'Did you see Poppy Palmer at all that day?'

'Nope.'

'Talk to her?'

'Not before the shooting.'

'At any time?'

'I called after the police came and I found the paper with her number on it by the phone.'

'Why did you call her?'

'I wanted to tell her what happened and I wanted to know about the phone number. Where Ramona got it because Poppy's number isn't in the book and she told me Ramona had called her about four-thirty, five o'clock and went crazy on the phone. Said she was gonna fix me. You know all that, you talked to Poppy.'

'What did she tell you exactly?'

'Just that. Ramona called her and was all outta shape. And, like, blamed Poppy for what happened. And Poppy couldn't get a word in edgewise, Ramona was crying and screaming so. Said she was gonna fix my wagon. That's exactly what Poppy told me, that Ramona said she was gonna fix my goddamn wagon.'

'What time did you leave the bar on 78?'

'I don't know, about five-thirty. I wasn't watching the clock.' He chuckled. 'Usually my old lady didn't take a shot at me when I came home late.'

'Roughly what time was it?'

'It takes about a half hour to drive home and the news was coming on when I got there. I could hear Dan Rather talking on the TV when I walked in. It was just starting.'

'Show us on the diagram exactly what happened when you entered the house.'

'Damn!' He grabbed a pencil and traced his steps into the house on the diagram. As he told the story, he began talking faster. 'I come in the house here and I walk to the doorway to the living room that's, I don't know, five feet maybe, and as I look into the living room, she's… Ramona's… sitting in the easy chair here and she's aiming my .38 target pistol at me and she cuts loose! Just starts shooting! So I dive straight ahead to the other side of the arch and I'm against the wall here and she puts a shot here where this X is, and another one here, and I panic and I shove two shells in my shotgun and just then she shoots again and the bullet goes through the wall here and misses my head by a gnat's ass and I just thought, She's gonna kill me! So I charge around the corner and fire once and it kind of knocks her back in the chair and her arm flung up and she put another shot into the ceiling and I was charging right at her and I shot again. It all happened in, like, less than a minute.'

'What did you think after all the shooting was over?'

 'What did I think? I was out of breath. I was scared. She almost killed me.'

'But what did you think while this was happening? Did you call to her, try to reason with her?'

'Hell, no, it all happened just like that. Bang, bang, bang, bang. Bullets flying through the wall. I wasn't thinking. I was trying to stay alive.'

 'Did you warn her?'

'A bullet just flew that damn close to my head. Warn her about what? "Hey, Ramona here I come, ready or not"? I just panicked and I figured it's her or me and ran into the room shooting.'

'So now it's over. Your wife is lying there with two wounds, one in her head. What went through your mind?'

'At first I got choked up. I almost puked, I never shot a human being before. And she was bleeding. And I dropped the gun down and felt for a pulse in her wrist, but I, y'know, I was confused and upset, so I went in and called 911. That's when I saw where she broke into my gun cabinet and that's when I found the phone number beside the phone.'

'Was the phone number in your wife's handwriting?'

'Hell, I dunno, you think I was analysing handwriting? The cops talked to me for three, four hours that night. They took the note and I haven't seen it since.'

'But you didn't write it?'

Vail sat back in his chair and concentrated on Parver. She was doing a superb job. The handwriting of the note had not occurred to Vail - or to anyone that he was aware of. She was cool, quiet but not soft, very direct, and she was beginning to rattle Darby. She was totally focused. For a moment, she reminded Vail of Jane Venable, the prosecutor who had preceded him as chief prosecutor.

'Hell, no,' Darby snapped. 'I told you, she wasn't listed, you think I wanted my wife to call her up?'

'Do you have any idea where she might have found that number?'

 'No.'

'Who else knew the number?'

 'How the hell do I know?'

'Is it possible that you wrote the number down and forgot it and she found it? In a drawer or something like that?'

'I… didn't… write… the goddamn number. Is that clear?'

He turned to Rainey and said plaintively, 'It's the same damn questions as last time. They know the answers, what the hell is this?' He turned back to Parver. 'I killed my wife, okay? She shot at me, I shot at her. That's it. I got nothing more to say.'

'He's right,' said Rainey. 'It's the same ground you ploughed last time.'

'I just want to make it clear to you, Mr Darby, that we have two strong motives for murder here,' Shana Parver said. She counted items off on her fingers. 'Money - a $250,000 insurance policy, and you're about to go into bankruptcy - and infidelity. They're the biggies, Mr Darby. It's also a hard story to come to terms with, this shootout scenario. Your wife wasn't a violent woman from everything we've been told. And she also hated guns. Isn't it true that you wanted her to take shooting lessons and she refused to touch a gun?'