Blumberg held up a hand. "Before any charge is made, I request that you question my client. It's my belief that, when you are done, you will see that an arrest is unnecessary."
"All right; do you have any objection to a stenographic record being made?"
"None whatsoever. I'd also like to volunteer my client for a polygraph; you choose the examiner."
"Yes, I saw your press conference," Reeves said dryly. "Shall we begin?"
"By all means."
Reeves dictated the names of those present and started to ask his first question, but Blumberg interrupted.
"I'd like the record to show that my client is here voluntarily and is willing to answer all questions."
"So noted," the D.A. said. "Mrs. Calder, you understand you are here because you are a suspect in the murder of your husband, Vance Calder?"
"I understand it, but I don't understand it," Arrington replied in a calm voice.
"Beg pardon?"
"I mean, I accept your characterization of my visit here, but I don't understand why I'm a suspect."
"That will become apparent as we proceed," Reeves said. "Mrs. Calder, please recount the evens as you recall them on the evening of your husband's death."
"I have only one memory of that evening," Arrington said. "I remember being shown my husband's body as it lay on the floor of the central hallway of our house. Apart from that single image, I have no recollection of anything between midafternoon the previous day and the following morning, when I woke up at the Judson Clinic.*
Blumberg spoke up. "For the record, Dr. James Judson, an eminent psychiatrist, is available to testify that Mrs. Calder is suffering from a kind of amnesia, brought on by the shock of her husband's violent death."
"So you have no recollection of shooting your husband?" Reeves asked.
"I would never have shot my husband," Arrington replied, "but I have no recollection of the events of that evening."
"So you don't know if you shot him?"
"I know that I would never do such a thing."
"But you don't know."
"Asked and answered," Blumberg said. "Perfectly clear."
"Mrs. Calder, is it possible that, while delusional, you might have shot your husband?"
"I have never been delusional," Arrington replied. "My doctor has explained to me that my amnesia ha
s nothing to do with delusion."
"Have you ever threatened to kill your husband?"
"Certainly not."
Reeves took a small tape recorder from a credenza behind him and placed it on the table. "This is an excerpt from an interview with a friend of yours, Mrs. Beverly Walters."
"An acquaintance, not a friend," Arrington replied.
Reeves pressed a button.
"I told Arrington," Beverly Walters' voice said, "that I had it on good authority that Vance, during the filming of his last picture, was sleeping with his costar, Charlene Joiner, on a regular basis. She pooh-poohed this. I asked her if she would divorce Vance, if she found out that it was true. She replied, and these are her exact words, 'I wouldn't divorce him, I'd shoot him.' And this was two days before Vance was killed."
Reeves stopped the machine. "Do you recall this conversation with Mrs. Walters?"