Show of Evil

'Oh, come on! I saw the handcuffs, the leather straps, the whips, the corsets, the garter belts. How long were you in sexual bondage to Delaney?'

Stoddard turned away from Venable.

'Do they have to know?'

'Who? Vail? Parver? The police? It's significant evidence in a murder investigation, I can be disbarred if I don't report it. And even if I didn't tell them, somebody's going to tumble across that closet just like I did, carpenters or painters redoing the room. How did this start, Edith? Did he make you do these things in order to keep your job?'

'They don't have to know,' she said, turning to Venable and pleading. 'They don't have to know you found out.'

'What about the gun?'

'The gun? Oh yes, the gun…'

'Would you like me to throw it in the lake? Hell, Edith, I'm your lawyer, not your accomplice.'

Stoddard slumped in her chair. 'Why didn't you mind your own business?'

'This is my business. What do you fear, Edith? Are you worried about what your husband and daughter will think? You were a bonded slave, for God's sake. You think I can't make hay out of that? We can beat this rap, Edith.'

'Never!' Edith Stoddard glared at her angrily. Venable stared back at her just as hard.

'If you think I'm going to let the state put you away for twenty years to life, you're out of your mind. I have a responsibility to you and the court.' She sat down facing Stoddard and reached for her cuffed hands, but Stoddard pulled them away. 'Edith, listen to me. Even if we don't go all the way to trial, I'll be able to bargain very strongly in your favour with this information. Martin Vail is a very smart lawyer. He'll see the possibilities, too. But I must tell them, do you understand that?'

'Not if I fire you.'

'Even if you fired me, I'd have to give up this knowledge.'

'So the whole world will know…'

'The police and the district attorney will know. And, yes, it will make the press - there will be a police report. So what do you have to lose? Let me fight the good fight, Edith. I don't want you to go to jail at all.'

Stoddard stared at her for several long moments, then said, 'You don't understand. At first it was humiliating, but then...'

'Yes?'

'But then I began to look forward to it. I wasn't a slave. I began to look forward to the times I'd go over there and he'd come out of that closet in that garter belt and hand me the handcuffs and I would hook his hands over his head to the headboard and do whatever I wanted to him.'

'You don't have to tell me this, Edith—'

'I want to tell you,' Stoddard said, cutting her off. 'Don't you understand, I haven't had sex with my husband for more than ten years. Ten years! There were no other men, I didn't cheat on him. I… I just considered… it… part of my job. One of my duties. And when it was over, I whipped him. I whipped him. 'You bad boy,' I'd say, and I'd take the whip and he would bend over and I would give him several hard lashes across his backside. It was like getting even for all the humiliation. You understand what I'm saying, Ms Venable? I enjoyed it. What do you think the prosecutors are going to think about that?'

'The prosecutor will never know,' Venable said emphatically. 'You don't have to tell them anything. We will bargain this out. You will never testify.'

Edith Stoddard stood slowly and walked to the door and tapped on it. Officer Williams opened it. As she left, Stoddard turned to Jane and said, 'You betrayed me, Ms Venable.'

Rudi Hines had manipulated the clean-up schedule so as to arrive at the billing office in City Hospital at five minutes to three. The billing office worked from six-thirty to two-thirty on weekends and usually everyone was out of there before three o'clock. Nobody ever worked overtime. But on this day the manager of the department, Herman Laverne, was still in the office on the phone. Hines immediately panicked but decided to go ahead with the usual procedure.

God, get out of here before three.

Laverne looked up as Hines shuffled in. Hines, wearing coveralls,