Show of Evil

into the living room. Facing the archway was the sketch of a chair and a distance line between the arch and the chair that measured twelve feet, four inches. There were two Xs marked on the chair, two on the hallway wall opposite the chair, one on the wall next to the arch, and one that measured eight feet, seven inches marked floor to ceiling.

'I show you this sketch, Mr Darby,' Parver said. 'Is this an accurate sketch of the scene of the crime?'

'Strike the word crime,' said Rainey wearily. 'There isn't any crime. Nobody's been accused of a crime.'

'Would homicide suit you?' Parver asked.

'Event. I think scene of the event would be an accurate description.'

'Mr Darby, is this an accurate sketch of the scene of the event?'

Darby studied it for a minute and nodded. 'Yeah. There's some other furniture in the room.'

'It's inconsequential, is it not?'

'You mean did it enter into the shootout? No.'

'Now, Mr Darby, will you please describe for us what happened on January 7, 1993?'

'You mean getting out of bed, taking a shower…'

'You were going hunting…'

'Charlie Waters, Barney Thompson, and me went duck hunting. We go once or twice a week in the season.'

'Where did you go hunting?'

'Big Marsh.'

'What time did you get there?'

'We were in the blind by, I don't know, four-thirty, five.'

'Did you speak to your wife before you left?'

'She was asleep. I never wake her up. She made the sandwiches and stuff the night before.'

'Did you two have a fight or a disagreement the previous night?'

'Not really.'

'What do you mean, 'not really'?'

'We weren't getting along. I told you that before. Things were not exactly peaches and cream around the place, but we weren't yelling at each other, nothing like that. It was just kind of cool between us. Hell, she made my lunch.'

'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.