Black Is the Fashion for Dying by Jonathan Latimer Page A

said.
    Walsh shook his head sorrowfully. “Trouble is, it can’t be.”
    â€œIs truth,” Alf said.
    â€œLet’s find out.” Walsh took the lid off the cardboard box. “First thing is to identify the weapon.” He took a pistol out of the box, held it out to Alf. “Webley-Fosbery. Generally comes in .455 caliber, but this is a .325. First one I ever saw.”
    Reluctantly, Alf edged up to the pistol.
    â€œTake it. Been dusted for prints.”
    Alf took it. Gus moved to his shoulder. “Same pistol,” Alf said. “Same scratch on butt. Same serial number.”
    â€œWhich one of you loaded it?”
    â€œWe both load,” Alf said. “Gus give me the blanks, I fill clip, put clip in pistol.”
    â€œYou’re sure it was blanks.”
    â€œAll we got,” Gus said.
    Walsh frowned, very serious now. “This is important. Can you prove you loaded it with blanks?”
    Blake said, “I saw them, Captain. When I went to tell them they’d forgotten the pistol. Blanks.”
    Walsh sighed. “I was afraid of that. So now we got the pistol loaded with blanks. Who put it in the holster?”
    â€œMe,” Alf said. “I run out on set.”
    Gordon said, “I saw him.”
    â€œOkay. Pistol in holster. Now we jump to the fire. Pistol by fire. Same pistol.”
    He paused, bushy brows almost hiding the burlap eyes. Grimsby stopped writing, stared at him expectantly. So did the others.
    â€œPistol by fire,” Walsh repeated thoughtfully. “Don’t prop men generally collect weapons after a scene?”
    â€œScene not over,” Alf said.
    â€œNeither of you touched it?”
    â€œWe don’t go on set.”
    â€œDandy.” Walsh took a clip from the cardboard box. “This was in the pistol.” The burnished metal gleamed in the light. “Take a look at it, Alf.”
    Bending over the clip, Alf said, “Same one I put in pistol.”
    â€œNow these.” Plucking them one by one from the clip, Walsh lined five blank cartridges on the cover of the script he still held on his lap. “Same blanks?”
    â€œSame. Only two missing.”
    Walsh collected cartridges, clip and pistol, put them back in the cardboard box. Then from the envelope he produced two other cartridges. “Found these here, in the tent.” Cupping his hand he dropped the cartridges in it, thrust the hand out at Alf. “What about ’em?”
    â€œ Mama mia! ” Alf exclaimed.
    â€œYes,” Walsh said. “Real bullets. Expended, but real—.325 caliber ammunition.”
    There was a long silence.
    â€œA dilly,” Walsh said finally. “Pistol goes into scene loaded with blanks. Forty or so people watch scene being played. Nothing— but nothing unusual happens. But when the pistol’s fired, out come two real bullets.”
    â€œImpossible!” Blake exclaimed.
    â€œYeah,” Walsh said. “Ain’t it, though.”

Lisa Carson
    If only the man would go away. She wanted to cry. She needed to cry, but the bulky blue-serge back framed by the dressing room doorway made it impossible. She couldn’t cry while he was listening. It was like being in a cell. A death cell, almost.
    Murderess, she said to herself. You killed her. Murderess. She savored the word, feeling the icy bands tighten. But not really a murderess. She hadn’t known the pistol was loaded. But she had wanted to kill Caresse when she fired it. Not as Ahri, but as Lisa. A death wish. Could she have wished the pistol loaded? No, that was silly. It was all so mixed up it seemed a kind of nightmare.
    Yet there was no escaping the three things that kept floating up out of the nightmare. She had wished Caresse dead. And in wishing her dead she had fired the pistol, not from the tent entrance as she was supposed to, but from two or three feet off. And she had killed her.
    Guilty or not guilty? If only the man