Stone Barrington 06-11

Calder kept a nine-millimeter pistol in the same safe where he kept his jewelry.”
    “Thank you,” Durkee replied. “Mrs. Calder, how would you characterize your marriage?”
    “As a very happy one,” Arrington replied.
    “Did you and your husband ever quarrel?”
    “Of course.” She smiled a little. “But our quarrels were almost always good-humored. You might call them mock quarrels. We argued about lots of things, but always with respect and affection.”
    “You say your quarrels were ‘almost’ always good-humored. Did they ever become violent?”
    “You mean, did Vance ever hit me? Certainly not.”
    “Did you ever hit him?”
    She looked down. “I can remember slapping him, once and only once. He’d said something that offended me.”
    “What did he do when you slapped him?”
    “He apologized, and it never happened again. My husband was a gentleman in every possible sense of the word.”
    “When you argued, what did you argue about?”
    “He would give me a hard time, sometimes, about how much shopping I did. Vance had a tailor, a shirt-maker, and a bootmaker; he ordered his clothes from swatches, so shopping was very simple for him. I think it both amused and horrified him to learn how women shop. He could never understand why I would buy things, then take them back the next day.”
    “Any other subjects you argued about?”
    “Sometimes we’d disagree on child rearing. Vance believed strongly in corporal punishment, and I didn’t. He’d been brought up that way by his parents, and in English schools, and he thought if it was good enough for him, it was good enough for his son.”
    “Did he use corporal punishment often with your child?”
    “Rarely, and then only a palm applied to the bottom.”
    “And you disagreed with that?”
    “Yes. I was never struck as a child, and I didn’t want Peter to be.”
    “What else did you disagree about?”
    She shrugged. “I can’t think of anything else specifically.”
    “What about women?”
    “There were one or two of my friends he didn’t like much, but he tolerated them for my sake.”
    “That’s not what I mean,” Durkee said. “Are you aware that your husband had a reputation for sleeping with his leading ladies?”
    Arrington smiled. “That was before we were married. My husband walked the straight and narrow.”
    “And if you had learned that he didn’t, might that have provoked a quarrel?”
    “It might have provoked a divorce,” Arrington replied. “When we married, I let him know in no uncertain terms what I expected of him in that regard.”
    “And what did you expect?”
    “Fidelity.”
    “Were you always faithful to him?”
    “Always,” she replied.
    “Was there any man in your past for whom you still felt … affection?”
    Stone was a little uncomfortable with this, but he kept a straight face and waited for her answer.
    “I feel affection for a number of friends,” Arrington replied, “but I was as faithful to my husband as he was to me.”
    Stone didn’t like this answer, and he saw the two detectives exchange a glance.
    Arrington saw it, too. “What I mean is, I was faithful to him, and he was faithful to me.”
    “Mrs. Calder, are you acquainted with a woman named Charlene Joiner?”
    “Of course; she costarred with my husband in a film.”
    “Were you and Ms. Joiner friends?”
    “No; we met a few times, and our relationship was cordial, but I wouldn’t call us friends. The last time I saw her was when she and Vance cohosted a political fund-raiser at our house.”
    “Would it surprise you to learn that your husband, while he was filming with Ms. Joiner, was spending considerable periods of time in her trailer?”
    “No; I suppose they had lines to read together.”
    Bryant spoke up. “Mrs. Calder, when did you become aware that your husband was having sex with Ms. Joiner?”
    “I was not and am not aware of that,” she replied icily.
    “Come on, Mrs. Calder,” Bryant said impatiently. “While they were filming together, your husband stopped having sex with you, didn’t he?”
    They were good cop/bad copping her, and Stone hoped Arrington had the sense to realize it. He made no move to stop them.
    “My husband and I had a very satisfactory sex life, and I can’t remember any period of our marriage when that wasn’t the case,” Arrington replied firmly.
    “Do you not recall ever telling another woman that your husband had stopped making love to you?”
    Arrington frowned.