Show of Evil

The question you asked Darby about the phone number could have spooked her.'

'Something did,' Stenner said.

'You want to go for an indictment now?' Vail asked Parver.

She nodded.

'Fleishman?' Vail said.

'Yeah, we bust him. It'll hold up the insurance payoff and that could shake him up. And maybe Rainey, too.'

'Good point. Meyer? Indict him?'

'Pretty risky. Our whole case hangs on Shunderson's testimony. Maybe we need something more.'

'There's plenty of strong circumstantial evidence to go with it,' Parver countered.

'Abel?'

'If it gets that far.'

Vail smiled. The young lawyers looked at one another. 'What's that mean?' Parver said.

Vail stood up and circled the desk slowly. He finally lit a cigarette, then returned to the corner near the exhaust fan and blew the smoke into it. 'What we're after here is justice, right? Here's a man who killed his wife in cold blood for greed and another woman. He planned it, even down to putting the gun in her dead hand and using gloves to fire it so she'd have powder burns on her fingers. That's planning. No way around it, he didn't even have time to think about it if we believe Mrs Shunderson's testimony. He knew exactly what he was going to do when he walked into the house. That's what we have to prove to get a first-degree conviction. Flaherty's right, the whole case will hinge on whether the jury believes Shunderson and the time element involved. If they don't, he could walk off into the sunset with his jiggly girlfriend and two hundred and fifty thousand bucks. So, do we go to the wall with this guy? Or maybe try an end run?'

'You mean a deal?' Parver said with disbelief.

'Not a deal,' Vail said. 'The deal.'

'And what's that?' she demanded. She was getting angry.

'Twenty years, no parole.'

'Part of our case is that he premeditated this,' Parver said, defending her plea for a murder-one indictment. 'Twenty years, that's a second-degree sentence.'

'No, it's a first-degree sentence with mercy. Think about it, Shana. If we go to trial and get a conviction, but the jury brings in second-degree instead of first, he could get twenty years to life and be back on the street in eight.'

'You think you can manoeuvre Rainey into twenty, no parole?' asked Flaherty.

'If we can shake his faith in Darby. Right now, he's sold on his client. Look, most defence advocates don't give a damn whether their client is guilty or innocent. It's can the state make its case and will the jury buy it. Rainey's a little different. If he finds out he's been lied to, then it comes down to whether he thinks we can prove our case. It's really not about guilt or innocence, it's about winning. If he thinks we've got him, he'll make the best deal he can for his client.'

'You think the tape will do that?'

'I don't know,' Vail said. 'But I don't know whether we can win a trial with this evidence, either. If we put the SOB away for a flat twenty, he'll be fifty-six and dead broke by the time he's back on the street.'

The room fell silent for a few moments. Vail put his feet on the edge of his table and leaned back in his chair. Stenner could almost hear his brain clicking.

'Shana,' Vail said finally, 'get an arrest warrant on James Wayne Darby. Murder one. Tell the sheriff's department we'll serve it. Naomi, set up lunch with Rainey as soon as possible. Flaherty, check with your pals in the audio business, see if you can get the sound on that tape enhanced a little.'

'Ah, the art of the deal…' Stenner said softly, and smiled.

Eleven

The section known as Back of the Yards sprawled for a dozen square blocks, shouldering the stockyards for space. Its buildings, most of which were a century old, were square, muscular structures of concrete,