Chapter 13: The Six-Shooter Killer

"‘Jack the Knife.' That's what the media started calling him. ‘The Six-Shooter Killer.' As unforgiving, deadly, and cold as a blade. And how cold. How cold a man would have to be, to do something like this to a fellow human being. How cold... to do it to his own wife."

It's twelve years in the past, and the district attorney's voice has the measured and practiced tone of a stage actor. He turns from the jury. He presses a button. A picture appears onscreen. The air in the courtroom grows thinner, sucked down by a collective inhale of shock and disgust.

Another push of the button, and the image is replaced by a new one. Disgust turns into despair. The DA keeps quiet, letting the pictures do the talking.

I try not to look. Even after seeing those pictures a hundred times, having hard-copy prints waved in my face, seeing black-boxed, edited versions flash across the news, and seeing the real-life, unedited versions plastered to the backs of my eyelids there to meet me with every blink... Even after all that, it hurts. Hurts just as much as the very first time I saw her lying there.

Sitting at a table in the front of the courtroom, I turn away because I know which picture comes next. The jury does, too. They've seen them all a dozen times or more throughout the course of this trial. But familiarity does nothing to soften the blow for them, either. In a way, it only makes it worse. Knowing what's coming has them curling their lips in anticipation, flinching preemptively, like a dog about to get smacked. There's fear and regret in their eyes, but there is something else: a morbid fascination. Why? Because here is something truly irredeemable, justifiably despised. And over the course of two and a half months, about nine Jannix nights, the prosecution has been chipping away at a barrier, blurring the line between the crime and the defendant. Shifting the hatred for the act, and redirecting it onto the individual. Placing Jack Tarelli in the line of fire.

And the scary part is, it's working.

The DA flips to the last picture. Somewhere in the courtroom, a woman cries out. Grown men turn their heads.

I hold no animosity toward the people of the jury. They can only react to what they are shown. It's the prosecution who's to blame. It's not enough that I lost my wife. It's not enough that my life has been ruined. They just keep pouring salt into the wound. They just keep twisting... the knife.

"I'd like to return, for a moment, to the issue of the weapon," says the DA.

Of course he would. The lack of evidence against me has his team rehashing the same old stuff.

"No weapon was recovered from the scene of the crime," says the DA. "As stated, the Blacksparrow City Ballistics Lab determined the weapon in question to have been a powder-based firearm, possibly a large-caliber revolver. Laymen will know this better as the celebrated ‘six-shooter' of untamed frontier days. Today, I have brought with me a similar model for the benefit of the jury's deliberation."

I sit up a little straighter. This is new.

With an air of prestidigitation, Mr. District Attorney retrieves his attaché case from the prosecutor's table, opens it, and draws out a weapon: a giant, chrome-plated revolver.

Distress ripples through the courtroom at sight of the weapon, with its long, thick barrel and heavy-duty, skeletal frame. It's almost a foot long from hammer to nose, and it takes two hands just for the DA to hold it. His fingers are wrapped tightly around the carved, wooden handle.

"A Grantz-Stillitz Double-Action Model 9," he says. He flips open the swing-out cylinder for a view of the large, empty chambers within. "Holds six rounds, and fires a 50-caliber bullet via smokeless powder. I've never seen one fired, myself, but I'm told that when discharged in darkness, this weapon can turn night into day. A single blast can cause temporary hearing loss."

He sits the six-shooter down on the table with a gut-shaking thud.

"A powder-based firearm is an uncommon choice of weapon," the DA says, massaging his wrist. "Less than 3 percent of violent crimes committed since the incorporation of the city of Jannix involved powder weapons, and because they are not well-matched to the needs of military or law enforcement, consumer demand is low. Grantz-Stillitz is one of the few specialty manufacturers still making powder-based weaponry products. Those they sell go mostly to collectors and sport shooters."

I find myself barely listening. My eyes are instead locked on the giant chrome revolver on the table. All I can hear is what I imagine the blast of that gun must sound like: thunder on earth, exploding in my head. Over and over. Over and over. And over and over again.

Six shots.

"The bizarre choice of weapon calls into question the killer's motives," the DA is saying. "Some sort of calling card, maybe? Or a sick, twisted joke? Jack, here, is no stranger to firearms. On the night Maria Tarelli was murdered, Detective Tarelli was carrying standard issue Amber PD weaponry: a 38-caliber accelerated slug sidearm. He is certified in its use and has discharged it several times in the line of duty. As an infantryman in the war, Jack would have become quite familiar with the popular 30-caliber ‘Sandblaster' carbine. He would have also been highly trained in the use of fully automatic particle beam assault rifles and other varieties of weapons with which soldiers of the day were expected to be proficient. In addition, investigation of the premises of Detective Tarelli revealed a small arsenal of personally owned firearms-from handguns to shotguns and one particle rifle. Jack claims these were all purchased legally for home defense and sport shooting. I will concede to the defense that no 50-caliber revolver was found to be in Jack Tarelli's possession, nor among his collection. Nor are there any records that Jack did, at any time, legally purchase a powder-based firearm of any kind. However. His collection tells us a lot about him."

The district attorney waves a disgusted hand at the table and continues, "No petty criminal is carrying one of these things. A weapon like this is, arguably, only of interest to a gun enthusiast. A collector. And as for the defense's claim to the murder being a possible hit, somehow linked to local organized crime... First off, I ask you: To what end? And second: What is a lowlife, scum-of-the-world hitman for the mob doing with a weapon like this-a valuable collector's item that is practically an antique?"

The district attorney turns to lock eyes with me. Or at least it will appear that way to the jury. The truth is, even he can't look me in the eye for what he's doing to me. Instead, his gaze is firmly planted at the top of my head, where a little bit of hair yet remains. It'll be gone soon.

"This wasn't mob violence," he says. "It was an isolated incident, committed by a paranoid and overworked individual who has spent so long on the front lines, here and abroad, that he's become desensitized to death. A husband who thought he could get away with murder by using an unregistered weapon from his personal collection because, as an officer of the law familiar with criminal investigations, he knew it would be practically untraceable. He did this thing, ladies and gentlemen. Jack Tarelli is Jack the Knife. He is the Six-Shooter Killer."