Part 42 (1/2)
”It's called a Llama. An automatic.”
”What's the caliber?”
”I'm not sure.”
”How about a thirty-two? Does that sound right?”
I knew the Llama Blackhawk; it was a woman's gun. Muriel carried one too.
”Yes. It may be a thirty-two.”
”You carry it for protection?”
”Yes, of course.”
”You threw the Smith and Wesson thirty-eight away?”
”No, I didn't.”
”Neil threw it away?”
”Neil did what?”
”I'm asking you, Mrs. Zide. Did Neil throw it away?”
”I don't know.”
”If Neil didn't throw it away, what happened to it?”
”I don't know.”
”It just vanished? Disappeared?”
”I think so.”
”Soon after the death of your husband?”
”I think so. I mean, no. I don't remember.”
”Didn't it vanish the night your husband died? Didn't Neil throw it in the ocean, or the Intracoastal?”
”If she knows.” From behind me I heard Muriel speak quietly, dutifully.
”Yes, excuse me, Mrs. Zide. If you know.”
”I don't know.”
”Neil didn't tell you?”
”No.”
”Did you shoot your husband, Mrs. Zide?”
”No, I didn't, I swear that to you.”
”But on the night of December 5, in the early morning, someone fired your pistol, your Smith and Wesson thirty-eight, isn't that so?”
She didn't answer. Her lips twisted into a skeletal grimace. She had been licking them constantly, and the lipstick was gone, so that they seemed colorless. Her blue-green eyes had sunk deep into their sockets.
”Your husband was in a rage that night, wasn't he, Mrs. Zide?”
She nodded her head up and down, slowly.
”He was angry at me, yes.”
”After the party?”
”Yes, after the party. You were there.”
”I was at the party, I wasn't there afterward. Your husband took your pistol out of your handbag and fired it once, didn't he?”
”No.”
”And the bullet lodged in the Swedish oak paneling on the far side of the living room from the terrace, isn't that so?”
”No, not so.”
There was a half-smile on her bloodless lips and a cunning look in her eyes that at first I couldn't define. But it slowly resolved itself into an expression of superiority. Then I understood. She knew something I didn't know, and she was reveling in it.
”There in the living room, Mrs. Zide, after the party, Solly was in a rage?”
”Yes.”
”At you?”
”Yes.”
”And he screamed at you?”
”Yes.”
”He frightened you?”
”Yes.”
”And then Neil came home?”
Her eyes grew stony, darker. ”I don't remember.”
”You testified under oath, at the trial, that Neil came home from a party while you and Solly were playing backgammon after the musicale. Do you remember that now?”