Show of Evil

her notes.

'Make it quick and to the point,' Venable said edgily.

 'When did you first hear that Delaney was dead?'

Parver asked softly.

Stoddard looked at her for several seconds, then said, 'I heard it on the radio on my way to the office.'

Bang! Parver's strategy had paid off. She turned to Shock Johnson's notes.

'I'd like to read something from Lieutenant Johnson's report of his first meeting with you at Delaney Enterprises last Friday, Mrs Stoddard, and I'm quoting, 'Mrs Stoddard, Delaney's executive secretary, was obviously very upset over the death of Delaney and was dressed in black and had a mourning ribbon on her sleeve.' Unquote.

'If you had just heard about Delaney's death on the way to your office, Mrs Stoddard, why were you already dressed in mourning clothes?'

Twenty-Three

As Tony guided the Cadillac up to the main building of the Daisy, Vail saw a tall man sitting on a wooden bench beside the stairs to the administration office. He was filling a pipe, tapping the tobacco down with a small silver tool with a flat, circular tamper at the end of its stem. He seemed totally engrossed in the task, twisting the pipe between his fingers, stopping to study the tobacco, then packing it even tighter.

'That's the chief of staff, Dr Samuel Woodward,' Tony said. 'Big muckety-muck. He's waiting to greet you officially.'

'No band?' Vail said.

Tony laughed. 'They only let them out on Fridays,' he said.

As Vail got out of the car, Woodward stood. He was taller than Vail had guessed, six-three or four, and was dressed casually in dark brown corduroy slacks, a pale blue button-down shirt, open at the collar, and a black alpaca cardigan, one of its side pockets bulging with a packing of tobacco. He was a lean man with the gaunt, almost haunted face of a long-distance runner. His close-cropped, dark red hair receded on both sides to form a sharp widow's peak and he wore a beard that was also trimmed close to his face. He dropped the pipe tool in the other pocket of his cardigan and held out a hand with long, tapered, aesthetic-looking fingers.

'Mr Vail,' he said, 'Dr Sam Woodward. It's a pleasure. Sorry I wasn't here to take your call the other night.'

'My pleasure,' Vail said.

'It's such a pleasant day I thought we might stroll around the grounds and chat,' he said in a soft, faraway voice that sounded like it was being piped in from someplace else. 'No smoking inside the buildings. I quit cigarettes about six months ago and thought I'd taper off with a pipe. Instead of getting lung cancer, my tongue will probably rot out. You smoke?'

'I'm thinking about quitting.'

'Ummm. Well, good luck. Ferocious habit.'

He took out a small gold lighter and made a production of lighting his pipe. The sweet odour of aromatic tobacco drifted from its bowl. Vail lit a cigarette and tagged along with Woodward as he walked down the pavement that bounded the broad, manicured quadrangle formed by several buildings.

'I must say I'm curious as to why, after ten years, you should suddenly come back into Aaron Stampler's life,' Woodward said. 'You never have been to visit him.'

'I don't make a practice of seeing any of my old clients when a case is over. It's a business relationship. It ends with the verdict.'

'That's rather cold.'

'How friendly are you with your patients, Doctor? Do you go to visit them after they're released?'

'Hmmph,' he said, laughing gently. 'You do go to the point, sir, and I like a man who goes to the point, says what he thinks, so to speak. That's rare in my business. Usually it takes years carving through all the angst to get to the baseline.'

'I suppose so.'

'So why are you here?'

'Curiosity.'

'Really? Having second thoughts after all these years?'