'I just want it to end.'
'I understand that, Edith, but let me do my job, too. Okay?'
Stoddard's shoulders sagged. She took several deep breaths.
'Good,' Venable said. 'You'll do just fine.'
Shana Parver, dressed in a teal silk pant suit, her black hair cascading down her shoulders, arrived a few minutes later with a stenographer, a tall, slender, pleasant-looking woman from the courthouse named Chorine Hempstead. There were pleasant 'Good mornings' and offers of coffee from Hempstead, which everyone but Edith Stoddard gratefully accepted. She sat beside Jane Venable and across the table from Parver, her hands folded in front of her. She reminded Parver of a frightened bird.
Parver dropped a bulging shoulder bag on the floor, opened her briefcase, and took out a legal pad, a sheaf of notes, several pencils, and a small Sony tape recorder, all of which she placed on the table. Hempstead brought back the cups of coffee and sat at the end of the table with a shorthand tablet and waited.
'Are we ready?' Shana asked pleasantly, arranging in front of her her notes and those taken by Shock Johnson the day Stoddard had suddenly blurted out that she killed John Delaney.
'Let's get on with it,' Venable said tersely.
'For the record,' Parver began, 'I would like to state that this is a formal interrogation of Mrs Edith Stoddard, who is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Mr John Farrell-Delaney on February 10, 1994, in the city of Chicago. I am Shana Parver, representing the district attorney of Cook County. Also attending are Ms Jane Venable, representing Mrs Stoddard, and Chorine Hempstead, a clerk of the Cook County Court, who will transcribe this meeting. This interrogation is being conducted in the courthouse annex, 9 A.M., February 16, 1994. Mrs Stoddard, do you have any objection to our tape-recording this meeting?'
Stoddard looked at Jane Venable.
'No objection,' Venable said.
'Good. Please state your full name for the record.'
'Edith Hobbs Stoddard.'
'Are you married?'
'Yes.'
'What is your husband's name?'
'Charles. Charles Stoddard.'
'How long have you been married?'
'Twenty-six years.'
'And where do you live?'
'At 1856 Magnolia.'
'Do you have any children?'
'I have a daughter, Angelica.'
'How old is she?'
'Twenty-one.'
'Does she live at home?'
'She goes to the university. She lives in a dorm there, but she has a room at the house.'
'Is that the University of Chicago or the University of Illinois?'
'Chicago. She's a junior.'
'And you support her?'
'She has a small scholarship. It covers part of her tuition and her books and lab fees, but I - we - pay for her room and board and other necessities.'
'How much does that run a month?'
'Five hundred dollars. We give her five hundred a month.'
'And you have a full-time nurse for your husband?'
'Not a nurse. We have a housekeeper who attends to Charley, cooks meals, keeps the place clean.'
'Do you have separate bedrooms, Mrs Stoddard?'
'What's that got to do with anything?' Venable asked.
'A formality,' Parver answered casually.
'We have adjoining bedrooms,' Stoddard answered wearily. 'I keep the door cracked at night in case he needs something.'
'You work at Delaney Enterprises on Ashland, is that correct?'
'I did,' Stoddard said with a touch of ire.
