by Parnell Hall
“You said it. You sure you told me everything about the file?”
“Sure. What else is there to tell?”
“That’s what I’m asking you.”
“Nothing. I found it in my room, I don’t know where it came from.”
“Great,” Steve said.
The jury was led in. Judge Hendrick took his place on the bench. When they were all in position, Vaulding made a star’s entrance, walking in from the back of the courtroom, pushing his way through the reporters and photographers gathered there. He strode up to the prosecution table and stood there, almost striking a pose.
Judge Hendrick regarded him with some irritation. “Well, call your next witness,” he said.
“Call Frederick Henson,” Vaulding said.
A middle-aged man with a sad-eyed, droopy sort of face made his way to the witness stand.
Confirming Steve Winslow’s worst fears. Not a cop. A shopkeeper.
As Henson passed by the defense table, Steve heard a sharp intake of breath. He turned to see that Timberlaine had gone white as a sheet. “Smile,” Steve said out of the corner of his mouth.
Timberlaine gawked at him. His lips trembled. His eyes blinked.
“No matter how bad it is, there’s nothing we can do about it now,” Steve said. “Just grin and bear it.”
When the witness had been installed on the stand, Vaulding said, “State your name.”
“Frederick Henson.”
“Mr. Henson, I ask you to look around the courtroom and tell me if you see anyone you recognize.”
“Yes, sir. Him.”
“Let the record show that the witness is pointing at the defendant, Russ Timberlaine. That is correct, is it not, Mr. Henson? It is the defendant, Russ Timberlaine, whom you recognize?”
“Yes, sir. That’s him all right.”
“Where do you know him from?”
“He was in my shop.”
“He was a customer in you shop?”
“That’s right.”
“When was this?”
“On July 16th.”
“Are you sure of that date?”
“Yes, I am.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“When you asked me, I looked it up.”
“I see. And just what was it the defendant bought from you on that occasion?”
“A Colt .45 revolver.”
33.
“WHY THE HELL DID YOU buy the gun?”
“Take it easy,” Timberlaine said.
“Easy, hell,” Steve said. “You lie to me, you hold out on me. I prepare my whole defense on the basis of the fact there’s no way in hell the cops can prove you bought that gun. And what happens? The whole thing blows up in my face because you did buy that gun.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Oh? You mean the witness is lying?”
“No. He’s not lying.”
“How can that be?”
“Well, I bought that gun, but it’s not the one I showed you.”
“What?”
“The gun I brought you in your office—the one I said I found substituted for the real gun—well, I didn’t buy it, and everything I told you was true. I found that gun just like I said.”
“And the one you bought?”
Timberlaine grimaced. “Like I said, I was afraid someone was trying to frame me with the gun. So I pulled a switch.”
Steve looked at him. “You pulled a switch?”
“Yeah.”
“When?”
“After.”
“After what?”
“After I gave you the gun. To test the bullets. When you gave it back to me I substituted it for my gun.”
“Wait a minute. By that you mean—?”
“The gun I bought. The one the witness just testified about.”
“You bought that gun and substituted it for the one you found?”
“That’s right.”
“You bought that gun before you came to my office?”
“That’s right. The day before.”
“You filed the serial number off it and carved the initial R in the handle?”
“Yes, I did.”
“What did you use to file off the serial number?”
“Why?”
“Why do you think?”
“Oh. No, it wasn’t the file found in my room. There’s a grindstone in the tool shed. I used that.”
“The day before you came to my office?”
“That’s right.”
“But the gun you brought me in my office was—?”
“The other gun. The one I found.”
“You had me test the bullets and then you switched guns?”
“That’s right.”
“There’s no chance you switched the guns first?”
“No. I didn’t.”
“There’s no chance the gun you gave me and had me test bullets in was the gun you bought?”
“Not at all.”
“And the bullets I tested are in a safe-deposit box?”
“That’s right.”
“Where’s the gun?”
“In a safe-deposit box.”
“The same safe-deposit box?”
“No, a different one.”
“You rented a different box just for the gun?”
“Sure.”
“So the gun and the bullets are in separate boxes?”
“Hell, they’re in separate banks.”
Steve sighed. “Well, thank God for that.”
“Why’s that?”
“We may have to produce the gun. If so, we may not necessarily want to produce the bullets.”
“Why do we have to produce the gun?”
“Why do you think? Look, here’s the way it’s gonna go. Vaulding’s probably gonna serve a subpoena duces tecum on us, ordering us to produce the gun you bought. Of course, he won’t expect us to do it.”
“Why not?”
“Because he thinks he already has it. People’s Exhibit Four. The subpoena will be just to embarrass us. He orders us to produce the gun. We can’t do it. He smiles and points out to the jury that the gun you bought is identical to the gun that’s been introduced in court as the murder weapon. As far as the jury’s concerned, that will be enough to convince ’em the gun in court is the gun you bought.”
“It is the gun I bought.
“I know,” Steve said. “But only because you switched guns. The jury doesn’t know that. As far as they’re concerned, there’s only two guns in the case, the real gun and the fake gun, and they’re both here in court. They don’t know about your substituting a fake gun you bought for a fake gun you found. As far as they’re concerned, there’s only one fake gun. And it’s the murder weapon, and it’s here in court, and the witness on the stand just testified to the fact that you bought it.”
Timberlaine thought that over. “Shit,” he said. “So what do we do now?”
“We wait and see if they try to subpoena the gun.”
“You think they will?”
Steve shrugged. “It’s a tossup. As I say, Vaulding can try to embarrass us with it. On the other hand, he may not make an issue of it at all. He’s got the murder weapon in court; as far as he, the jury and everyone else in the courtroom are concerned, the murder weapon is the gun you bought, and if we’d like to dispute that, it’s going to be up to us to prove differently.” Steve nodded. “No, the more I think of it, he’s more likely to let it go at that.”
“Is that good?”
“In a way.”
“Why?”
“Because it gives us time to figure out what the fuck to do about the damn gun. And the damn bullets.”
“What about ’em?”
“Well,” Steve said, “if you’re telling me the truth—and frankly right now that’s a big if—but if you are, then those test bullets were fired before any gun was defaced. So if you hadn’t swapped guns, those test bullets would now be significant in that they could be compared to the fatal
bullet. Since you did swap guns, that is no longer true.”
Timberlaine’s face lit up. “But those bullets prove the guns were swapped.”
Steve frowned. “Yes and no.”
“They do,” Timberlaine said. “Those bullets didn’t come from the gun I bought, they came from the gun I found. The one in my safe-deposit box. If we produce that gun and we produce the bullets—still in the glass tubes, all marked and dated so we can prove when they were fired—we can prove that that’s the gun I brought you that day.”
“Yeah,” Steve said, “but so what?”
“What do you mean, so what?” Timberlaine said. “It substantiates my story.”
“Yeah,” Steve said. “Well, that’s like ‘I shot a deer by a big oak tree, and if you don’t believe me I’ll show you the tree.’”
“What?”
“The bullet and the gun prove nothing except that you had them on that day. They prove the existence of the other gun and that’s it. They don’t prove your story that you found a gun substituted for your real gun. See what I mean?”
“Not really.”
“Trust me on this. Yeah, it’s good, but it’s not hold-the-phone-you’re-suddenly-free type good. We’ve still gotta figure out how we want to play it.”
“And how is that?”
“The way it looks now, we probably withhold all of this stuff until we get you on the stand. Then you tell your story, and then we start introducing this evidence so fast it makes their heads spin. That’s how it looks right now, but it really depends on how things go. We got a bunch more body blows to take. So far they haven’t even hit you with the file.” Steve gave him a look. “You sure you didn’t buy that file?”
“Swear to God.”
“You found it in your room?”
“Yeah.”
“Just like you found the gun?”
“Absolutely.”
“You didn’t happen to go out and buy another file any time recently, did you?”
“No.”
Steve stood up. He exhaled, shook his head. “Christ, I hope not.”
34.
“I’M NOT SURE I wanna hear this,” Mark Taylor said when Steve and Tracy got back to the office later that afternoon and called him down to fill him in.
“You have a bad attitude, you know it?” Tracy said.
“Oh, yeah? Well, I’m sure it has nothing to do with this case. My life’s been living hell ever since I bought that gun.”
“I haven’t been too happy myself,” Steve said.
“Yeah, well lay it on me,” Taylor said. “I wanna get back to the office so I can coordinate the stuff that’s coming in.”
Steve leaned back in his desk chair and exhaled. “The stuff that’s coming in is basically irrelevant. Just wait’ll you get a load of this.”
“Of what?” Taylor said. “Come on. Give.”
“O.K. Well, it’s good news/bad news time again. The good news is the gun in court is not the gun you bought me.”
“What?” Taylor said.
“That’s right. Timberlaine switched guns.”
Mark Taylor blinked. He looked at Steve. “Time out. Flag on the play. Let me be sure I understand this. You’re saying the cops got the wrong gun?”
“That depends on how you look at it. They got the murder weapon. It just isn’t the gun we thought it was.”
Taylor blinked again. “There’s another gun?”
“I know,” Steve said. “It’s a fucking nightmare.”
“Wait a minute. You mean the gun the witness says Timberlaine bought really exists and it’s the gun in court?”
“How would you feel about that?”
“Well,” Taylor said. “I’ll be really happy if the gun in court isn’t my gun. But how the hell am I gonna prove that?” His eyes widened. “No, wait a minute. I can prove it with the bullet.”
“What bullet?” Tracy said.
“The test bullets you had me fire. You got ’em in the safe, right. All marked, nice and legal. The bullet can prove the murder weapon wasn’t that gun.”
Steve frowned. “Well, that’s a ‘maybe’ there, Mark. You gotta remember the barrel of that gun was tampered with.”
“Right,” Taylor said.
“Yeah, but after the murder,” Tracy said. “The fatal bullet itself wasn’t affected.”
“That’s true,” Steve said.
“So if the fatal bullet doesn’t match the test bullet from the gun Mark bought, it proves his gun wasn’t the fatal gun.”
“That’s right,” Taylor said.
“That’s true,” Steve said. “If we ever get that far. But hang on a minute. Can you seriously imagine me explaining all this to Vaulding? Let alone the jury?”
Taylor frowned. “I see your point.”
“Exactly, Mark,” Steve said. “It’s not like we want to prove the gun you bought had nothing to do with the murder. We’re not at the point here where we want to concede you bought a gun.”
Taylor nodded. “I’m with you there.” He scratched his head. “So what the fuck does this mean? I mean, Jesus Christ. You’re sayin’ the gun they claim Timberlaine bought he admits he bought and claims he substituted for mine. Is that right?”
“That’s it in a nutshell.”
“Then where’s mine? Pardon me for asking, but where the hell’s my fucking gun?”
“Well, Mark, right now there are two possibilities.”
“I don’t want to hear this, do I?”
“One, Timberlaine’s telling the truth and your gun is in a safe-deposit box Timberlaine rented and we can produce it at any time.”
“That’s not so bad. What’s the one I don’t wanna hear?”
“Two, Timberlaine is lying. In which case there never was any other gun. The gun he bought from that witness is it. He bought it, filed the numbers off it, carved the initial R in the handle and brought it to my office to have you fire test bullets through it. If that is true, then that gun is not in a safe-deposit box, it’s in my safe right here in the office. Which means Timberlaine didn’t switch guns after he left here. And the gun in court is the gun you bought. And not only does the fatal bullet match up with test bullets fired through it, but the fatal bullet will match up with our test bullets. Which incidentally, Mark, would elevate our test bullets to the position of prime evidentiary value, since they would have been fired from the fatal gun before the barrel was altered and therefore would match up with the fatal bullet absolutely, thereby clinching the identification of the gun.”
Mark Taylor looked sick. “Oh, Jesus Christ.”
“Exactly,” Steve said. “And that’s not the half of it. Right now, the worst of it is Timberlaine doesn’t know I switched guns. I’m sure as hell not gonna tell him. It’s not that I don’t want him to know—well, actually it is—but more than that, the son of a bitch just can’t keep his mouth shut, and I sure as hell don’t want Vaulding to know. Anyway, Timberlaine doesn’t know I switched guns. So he thinks—assuming he’s telling the truth—he thinks that the gun he gave me, that I fired the test bullets through, is the gun in his safe-deposit box, and will therefore match the test bullets. So all we have to do is give all of that to the cops. He’s not bright enough to figure out why, even from his perspective, that wouldn’t be that smooth a move, and he’s already pushing me to do exactly that. I’m resisting to the best of my power without actually telling him why.”
Mark Taylor ran his hand through his hair. “Good lord.”
“Yeah. So I’m stalling the issue as long as I can. Vaulding can force it by subpoenaing the gun.”
“Shit. Will he do that?”
“I’m hoping not. There’s a good chance he won’t, since he thinks he already has it. If he does, then I gotta deal with it. Right now, I don’t. This is becoming one of those cases where stalling is the best tactic.”
“You gonna ask for a continuance?”
Steve grimaced. “Well, there’s stalling and then there’s stalling. I’m stalling o
n specific points. The gun, for instance. But the case, no. I want to rush the case along before they start finding all these fucking guns.”
“Yeah, right.”
“And there’s another thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Right now Vaulding’s just happy to be hitting us with the shit. The file, the gun Timberlaine bought, the whole bit. Shock after shock, embarrassment after embarrassment. He’s so happy springing the witnesses and piling on the evidence, I’m not sure he’s stopped to figure out what it all means.”
Taylor frowned. “I don’t get you.”
“I do,” Tracy said. “You mean he hasn’t explained any of it.”
“Exactly,” Steve said. “None of this stuff was in his opening statement. The jury’s getting it fresh, just like we are. They don’t know what it means any more than we know what it means. Even less, because they don’t know what we know. Vaulding hasn’t explained any of it, and he’s got to ’cause it’s his case.” Steve spread his hands. “I mean, look at this shit. There’s another gun just came down the pike. Now, Vaulding doesn’t know it’s another gun. He’s gonna claim Timberlaine bought it and used it in the murder. If that’s true, Jesus Christ. Timberlaine buys a gun, substitutes it for his own gun and claims somebody else did. He gets pissed off over Burdett’s bid at the auction, so he kills Jack Potter thinking Potter tipped him off. Kills him with a gun that he bought and substituted for his own gun, the genuine Pistol Pete gun. And he leaves that genuine gun that he’s claimed was stolen next to the body. Then he takes the murder weapon, roughs it up with a file and leaves it on his bedside table. He leaves the file somewhere in his apartment for the police to find it.”
“Right,” Taylor said. “It’s the moron factor. It’s the how-could-he-be-that-stupid.”
Steve held up his hand and shook his head. “No. No, that’s true, but besides that. There’s a huge problem with all that. A huge glaring flaw in the theory that Vaulding’s gonna have to deal with.”
Tracy’s eyes widened. “Son of a bitch.”
“What?” Taylor said.
Tracy snapped her fingers. “Motivation. That’s it, isn’t it? Vaulding’s laid out the motivation that Timberlaine killed Potter for giving Burdett the tip. That doesn’t jibe with this new gun.”
“Why not?” Taylor said.