Show of Evil

'BOOM! He walks right up to her and shoots her in the head point-blank, just like that. Then he takes the .38 - he's still got his gloves on - and he puts it in her hand and bang, bang, bang, bang - he puts the two shots in the hall, one in the wall, and one in the ceiling - then he backs off a few feet and hits her with the second shotgun blast. I mean, he thought of everything. Powder burns on her hand, the long shot that he claims he shot first after she cut loose at him. He covered everything but the sound.'

'It's not just the order of the shots,' Stenner said in his underplayed, quiet manner. 'It's the pauses in between them. Or lack of same. Mrs Shunderson says there was no pause between the four pistol shots. She says it was BOOM… bang bang bang bang… BOOM.

Ramona Darby was dead when he put the gun in her hand and fired the pistol.'

Vail leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling for a moment, then chuckled. 'Nice job, you two,' he said.

'The problem is proving premeditation,' Flaherty offered. 'We'll have to give up Shunderson in discovery so they'll know what we have. Darby'll change his story.'

 'That won't hold up,' Stenner said. 'No jury will believe that he charged into her while she was shooting at him and got close enough to pop her point-blank in the head without getting hit himself. It's that point-blank head shot he has to live with.'

'He could plead sudden impulse,' Dermott Flaherty offered. 'He came in. She had the gun. She threatened him, he shot her. Then he panicked and jimmied up the rest of the story because he was afraid he couldn't prove self-defence.'

'So how do we trap him?' Vail asked.

Silence fell over the room.

Vail went on. 'Unless we have some corroborative evidence, Darby will be dancing all over the room. And Paul Rainey will jump on the strongest scenario they can come up with and stick with it.'

'Which will probably be Dermott's take on it,' Hazel Fleishman said.

Vail nodded. 'Namely that he came in, she had the gun, he freaked out and shot her but didn't kill her, blah, blah, blah.'

'Doesn't work,' Parver said. 'He can't get around the fact that for his story to work, his first shot had to hit her in the side. That shot in the face was from twelve inches, maybe less. It was cold-blooded. That shot put her away instantly.'

'Heat of the moment?' Fleishman suggested. 'The woman throws down on him, he fires in a panic - '

'And runs twelve feet across the room before he shoots again?' Stenner asked. 'No jury'll buy that. If the farm lady's testimony holds up - if Rainey doesn't dissect her on the stand - Darby's stuck with the sequence, he'll have to change his story.'

'He's in a panic. He's exhausted. He's been out in a blind for five hours.' Flaherty lowered his head, miming Darby: 'I was cold and tired. I came in and suddenly this crazy woman's blazing away at me. I duck behind the hall wall. She keeps shooting. Finally I just charged into the room and fired. It all happened so fast. I don't remember firing that last shot. All I remember is the noise and the smoke, one of those shots coming so close to my cheek that I could feel the heat. It was over just like that.' He snapped his fingers.

Vail said, 'Very good, Dermott. You ought to be defending him.'

The group laughed except for Shana Parver, who glared at Flaherty. He smiled at her and shrugged. 'Just doin' my job, Counsellor,' he said. 'I think nailing that witness was a stroke of genius.'

'No question about it,' Vail said. 'The questions we have to decide are: One, do we arrest him yet? And two, do we go for murder in the first or second?'

Shana Parver said, 'It's cold-blooded murder. We can prove premeditation. He did it the minute he walked in the door.'

'So do we arrest him?' Stenner asked. A hint of a smile played at the corners of his mouth. He watched Vail go to the urn and draw another cup of coffee. The old master, playing all the angles in his head.

Vail walked over to Shana and toyed with the ruler and said, 'How about Betty Boop? Did you talk to her about the phone call?'

Parver smiled. 'She flew the coop.'

'She did what?'

'We went by the club and her boss told us she left town yesterday afternoon,' Stenner said. 'Told him her sister in Texarkana is dying of cancer. We checked it out this morning, that's what we were doing on the phone. Her sister lives in San Diego. In perfect health. Last time she heard from Poppy Palmer was five years ago.'

'What do you know,' Vail said to Parver. 'Your ploy may have worked.