[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

.. I shot him, you know. I pointed the gun, you know. As soon as he
turned his back right here in his left shoulder.... As he turned, I shot
him in the shoulder, high in his left shoulder. Okay, well, it happened
he turned and stumbled, but then I guess I hit him low and then that was
it. I just left and took the gun back to my cousin." Turfy Pleasant made
a point of releasing his cousin Loretta from any complicity in Gabby's
death. He stressed that she knew nothing at all about it. Henderson
believed him. It was odd, he thought, the points of honor in the
delicate dance around the crime of murder. The detective did not
believe, however, that he had heard the true version of Gabby's death.
Turfy had waffled too much over the sequence of events. He offered him
another cup of coffee, and they changed the tape on the machine. There
is a rhythm to an effective interrogation. Henderson fell back now into
simple questions and answers. The emotion in the room was about to choke
them both. He would have to back off and let Turfy build up to the
actual killing again. Bob Brimmer sat back, silently, he could see that
Vern Henderson was doing a good job of drawing out Turfy's confession.
"Okay, Angelo," Vern said, "going back to the beginning of your story.
You were talking about being over there Christmas Eve, the
twenty-fourth. You were at Mr. Moore's address on Eighteenth Avenue,
Page 88
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
right?"
"Yes."
"How did you get there?"
"My car. I drove."
"Where did you park?"
"I parked out front on the street."
"The reason I ask you this is isn't it kind of normal that everybody
comes around and parks in his backyard? Is that right?"
"Yeah."
"A lot of people?"
"Yes."
"Students?"
"Yes."
"Now, during the time that you were sitting there talking to Mr. Moore,
did anybody else come and go from there?"
"Yes, my brother Anthony and Stoney Morton."
The story was already changing slightly. Vern Henderson's voice betrayed
no surprise. "About what time were they there?"
"I would say they were there between nine-thirty and ten thirty."
Turfy said that he had stayed on visiting with his coach after the other
two left. "Now had you already gone and got the gun by the time your
brother and Stoney got there? Was the gun in the house at that time?"
"Uh. .. yes."
"Where did you put it?"
"It was on the other side of his davenoin back of it."
"Okay. Now then, did you go out in your car and toot the horn or had you
already done that?"
"That was already done. It was supposed to come down after I honked the
horn twice. I was supposed to wait five minutes and then knock on the
door, and he was supposed to come to the door and then I was supposed to
shoot him."
"Okay. Now what happened in the kitchen?
There was a curtain pulled loose and the screen door was propped open by
a cement block. How did this all come about?"
"He did it."
Page 89
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"He wanted to make it look like a big deal?"
"Yes, he did that himself."
"Did he ever say he had made any phone calls to himself or to his
relatives about being threatened. Did he ever tell you anything?"
"Yes," Turfy said. "He told me he had. There were a couple of phone
calls about threats being made on his life." But Turfy said he really
didn't know if Gabby had made the calls himself or not. On Christmas
Eve, Turfy thought there had been a phone call for Gabby about 10:15.
Vern knew that would have been Gabby's daughter, but believed she had
called him a little later. They were approaching Gabby Moore's horrific
death again, and the room crackled with tension. "Okay then," Vern
began, "did you go over and pick up the phone after you shot him?"
"No. He took the phone off the receiver."
"He did? This was before you shot him? Why? So there wouldn't be any
phone calls or something?"
"I don't know. I don't know," Turfy said, distressed. "But I think it
was because that way it was off the receiver and all he had to do was
dial the number like he planned. He could take the shock and just crawl
to the phone and just dial with one hand. That way he wouldn't have to
fumble with the receiver...." It wouldn't have worked, of course. After
twenty seconds or so, the phone would have lost its dial tone and Gabby
would have had to hang it up. That would have been harder for him than
to leave it on the hook all along. It sounded crazy, but maybe he didn't
want the sound of a phone jangling as he braced himself for the bullet
he had apparently ordered Turfy to fire into his body.
But Vern knew that Gabby had done one more thing before he prepared to
stop a bullet. He had turned on his stereo, set the needle on his record
of "Lay Your Head Upon My Pillow," and turned the volume up high. Ray
Price's words of lost love had floated through his apartment long after
he died until the needle wore a groove it couldn't get out of. "The
whole plan revolved around the fact that he wanted Jerilee to come
back?" Vern asked again. "Is that right?"
"Jerilee." Turfy Pleasant made the name sound like a swear word.
"Yes. He wanted to prove the fact that he had nothing to do with Morris
Blankenbaker's death and that he wanted her that bad enough to go all
the way."
"After you shot him and he fell to the floor, how did you leave the
place?" Henderson asked. Turfy looked down at the floor. Then he gazed [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]