The Wrong Gun

37

Tracy Garvin looked up from her desk in the outer office when Steve Winslow came in the door. “Did you get it?” she asked.

“Yeah, I got it. Any calls?”

“Just Mark. He’s in his office waiting for reports, but nothing much is coming in.”

“At this point, I don’t know whether that’s good or bad.”

“Yeah, I know. Right now you’ve got your hands full, don’t you?”

Steve Winslow looked down at the briefcase he was holding. He grinned. “That I do.”

Steve went into his inner office, put the briefcase on the desk, popped it open. He reached in, took out the test tubes containing the bullets.

Tracy, who had followed him in, said, “Now where have I seen those before?”

“Yeah, really,” Steve said. “Boy, that seems a long time ago, doesn’t it?”

“I’ll say.” Tracy jerked her thumb at the briefcase. “What else you got in there, mister?”

Steve shrugged. “Papers. Books. A few odds and ends.”

“You wouldn’t happen to have a Colt.45 with the initial R carved in the handle, would you?”

Steve reached in and pulled it out. “Doesn’t everybody?”

“Everybody in this case,” Tracy said. “So what are you gonna do with this stuff?”

“I thought I’d put it in the safe.”

“That safe there?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Isn’t that where the other gun and bullets are?”

“Is it? It’s been so long, I don’t remember.”

“Take my word for it.”

Steve shrugged. “You could be right.”

“So you’re gonna put ’em in the safe?”

“Yeah. Listen, why don’t you give Mark Taylor a call, tell him to come down here?”

Tracy took off her glasses, folded them up, put her hands on her hips and grinned. “Nice try,” she said.

Steve raised his eyebrows. “I beg your pardon?”

“Sure, play innocent,” Tracy said. “You’re going to switch guns, aren’t you?”

Steve looked at her. “Whatever gives you that idea?”

“Why else would you have it?” Tracy said. “Vaulding didn’t ask you for the gun, just the bullets.”

“Well, Timberlaine wants me to produce the gun to match the bullets.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. He was most adamant. I managed to talk him out of it, but he’s not happy. I know he’s going to ask me again.”

Tracy nodded. “Which is why you have to switch the gun.”

“I don’t quite understand. You have no reason to suspect I would be switching a gun.”

“Oh, yeah?” Tracy said. “I happen to know it for a fact.”

“How could you know that?”

She looked at him, smiled. “Moron,” she said. “You’re happy.”

“What?”

“The first time since this case started, you’re feeling good. You know why? It’s ’cause you’re gonna be a bad boy and switch the gun, and you love it. You know how I know? I know from what happened in court today.”

Steve frowned. “What are you talking about?”

Tracy waved her hand. “No, not the witnesses or the case or the evidence or anything. I’m talking about before that even started. Judge Hendrick’s opening remarks-when he held up the newspapers and bawled Vaulding out about the headlines?”

“What about it?”

“I was watching you when it happened. Considering the prosecutor was getting himself reprimanded by the court, that should have been just fine. But you were not happy at all. And suddenly I knew why. It’s not the fact that Vaulding’s young or good or that all the evidence is going against you or your client’s lying to you or the whole bit-what really got to you was that Vaulding had reversed fields on you. He was the bad boy, pulling all the quasi-legal shit and pissing off the judge. Having the judge reprimanding him and protecting you was more than you could bear.”

Steve looked at her, grinned. “Tracy, I’m not saying you’re wrong, but what the hell has all this got to do with the gun?”

“It’s got everything to do with it. You’re happy now. Why? Because you’re about to switch guns and be the bad boy again.”

“That’s very interesting, Tracy. But as it happens, no one has asked for this gun. So I’m not switching it with anything. I’m merely locking it up in the safe.”

“In which there happens to be an identical gun, which happens to have fired the bullets you have there on your desk.”

“Well, isn’t that a coincidence?”

“I know it’s been some time,” Tracy said, “but aren’t there also duplicates of those bullets in your safe?”

“You could be right.”

“In addition to the third test bullet, fired from the gun Mark bought. The gun you carved the R in the handle and filed the serial number off of. The gun you gave to Timberlaine.” Tracy pointed to the gun on the desk. “The gun that is presumably that gun.”

“‘Presumably’ is well advised, Tracy,” Steve said. “After all, we have only Timberlaine’s word for the fact that he did switch guns.”

“Imagine if he didn’t,” Tracy said.

“Yeah? What then?” Steve said.

“Well, in that case,” Tracy said, “this gun is the gun Timberlaine bought. And the bullets from it won’t match anything. Not the bullets in court. Not the bullets in your test tubes. Nothing.

“In that case, the gun in court, the murder weapon, will be Mark Taylor’s gun. In which case, you would have a test bullet in your safe that would match absolutely with the fatal bullet, which was fired before the gun barrel was altered.”

“Right,” Steve said. “Unless Timberlaine switched guns on me before he came to my office.”

“There’s always that,” Tracy said.

“If so, what’s the situation then?”

“Well, then we have two more possibilities. One, when Timberlaine left the office he switched guns again. Or at least thought he did, since he didn’t know you’d switched guns with the one Mark Taylor bought. Anyway, in that case he’d switch guns again, switching Mark Taylor’s gun with the gun he originally found substituted. In that case, this gun, the gun he put in the safe-deposit box, would be Mark Taylor’s gun, and the gun in court would be the gun he originally found, from which you had never fired any test bullets. The gun you had fired test bullets from, the gun in your safe, would then be the gun Timberlaine bought.

“Same thing if he didn’t switch guns again. I mean about the gun he bought being in the safe. As to the other guns, if he didn’t switch back, then this gun here is the gun he found. Which we can’t prove, because no test bullets were ever fired from it. And in that case, the gun in court, the murder weapon, is Mark Taylor’s gun, and the test bullets in your safe will match it.”

“Right,” Steve said. “So that covers all the eventualities.” He ticked them off. “One, Timberlaine brings me the actual gun he found. I switch it for Taylor’s gun. Timberlaine switches it for the gun he bought. The gun he bought is the murder weapon in court, Taylor’s gun goes into the safe-deposit box and is therefore the gun on my desk, and the gun he found is the one in my safe.

“Two, Timberlaine brings me the gun he found, I switch it for Taylor’s gun, he doesn’t switch it, in which case Taylor’s gun is the murder weapon, and the gun he bought is this one and the gun he found is in my safe.

“Three, Timberlaine switches guns before and after coming to my office. In that case I have the gun he bought in my safe, he had Mark Taylor’s gun in his safe-deposit box, and the gun he found is the murder weapon.

“And four, Timberlaine switches guns only before coming to my office. I have the gun he bought in my safe, Mark Taylor’s gun is the murder weapon, and this is the gun he found substituted.”

Tracy exhaled, shook her head.

“Yeah,” Steve said. “Through all that, there is only one constant.”

“What’s that?”

He pointed to the bullets on the desk. “This bullet. The one marked RT-SUB. Whatever gun Timberlaine may have brought me, either the gun he bought or the gun he found substituted, whatever gun that was, this bullet came from it. That we know for sure. This bullet came from it, and therefore had absolutely nothing to do with the murder. Absolutely nothing to do with any of the exhibits in court. Because the gun it came from-whichever gun it is-is in my safe, and has been ever since Timberlaine first came to my office.”

Steve pointed. “So this bullet-which Vaulding has made such a big deal of and which I’ve been ordered to produce in court-is the one thing in this case that is utterly meaningless and has nothing to do with anything.”

Steve smiled. “So you talk about me being happy. If it weren’t for Timberlaine pressing me to turn over the gun, turning over these bullets would be an absolute pleasure. Because Vaulding’s going to choke on ’em. He’s gonna compare ’em and come up empty. Be left with egg on his face. And it will be all his own doing.”

“I can see you’re crying all over.”

Steve shrugged. “Hey, those are the breaks.”

There came a crash of the outer office door flying open and Mark Taylor burst into the room, wide-eyed and breathing hard.

“Shit’s hit the fan!” he gasped out.

“What the hell?” Steve said.

Taylor held up his hand, waved it while he caught his breath. “I just got a call. That reporter.”

Steve’s mouth dropped open. “Vaulding held another press conference?”

Taylor waved his hand. “No, no. Not him. Timberlaine.”

“Oh, good lord.”

“Right. He spilled the beans.”

“About what?”

“Everything. You name it, he said it. About testing the bullets. About buying the gun. Once he got started he just couldn’t stop.”

“Shit. What, specifically, did he say?”

“Well, first he confirms everything Walcott said. About finding the gun and bringing it to you and having the bullets tested. Then he confirms everything that other witness said. About buyin’ the other gun.”

“And grinding the number off and carving an R in the handle?”

“Yeah.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Hey, I don’t make the news, I just bring it.”

“Yeah, I know,” Steve said. “But what else? Did he say he switched guns and put the one I tested in a safe-deposit box?”

“Oh, sure.”

“Did he say he wrote me out a power of attorney and told me to get it?”

“Yeah. The way I hear it, he was really worked up over that.”

“Shit,” Steve said. “Then we haven’t much time.”

Taylor frowned. “Time? Time for what? I don’t want to-Say! Is that my gun?”

“Is what your gun? Oh, good lord!”

There came a sound from the outer office.

Steve whirled around as if at a gunshot, lowered his voice and barked out orders. “Someone’s here. Tracy, get out there and stall him. Mark, go with her, but whoever it is, just keep on going. If it’s the papers, no comment. If it’s the cops, same deal; if they hold you, I’ll be there. Now go.”

Taylor turned, found Tracy was already out the door before Steve had finished. He hurried after her into the outer office, closing the door behind him.

The moment the door was closed, Steve whirled and grabbed the gun and the bullets. He rushed to the safe. Felt a moment of panic when he realized he didn’t have the combination. Then he remembered where Tracy had left it written down for him. He jerked open the drawer of his desk, looked up the combination, spun the dial. He jerked open the safe, thrust the gun and bullets in, slammed the door and spun the dial again.

Steve straightened up and hurried away from the safe, expecting the door to burst open at any moment. It didn’t. He crossed to the door, pulled it open.

The outer office was not, as he’d feared, full of cops. A lone man in a suit and tie stood next to Tracy’s desk.

The man turned to face him. “Steve Winslow?”

“Yes.”

The man thrust a paper into his hands. “Subpoena duces tecum. You’re a lawyer, you know the drill. It’s all in there. Don’t blame me, I’m just doing my job.”

The man nodded to Steve, nodded to Tracy and walked out.

“What do you make of that?” Tracy said.

Steve held his finger to his lips, pointed to the door.

Tracy got up from her desk, went to the door, opened it and looked out. “No, he’s gone,” she said. “A process server, just like he said. So what is it?”

“Just what I thought it would be. The natural consequence of Timberlaine’s interview. A subpoena duces tecum, ordering me to produce the gun in court.”

“Then why are you grinning?”

“Because of the wording.”

“What about it?”

“Listen to this,” Steve said. He read, “‘… hereby ordered to produce the gun described by your client, Russ Timberlaine, to wit, the Colt.45 revolver with the serial number ground off and the initial R carved in the handle, given to you by him for the express purpose of testing and identifying bullets from said gun.’”

“Son of a bitch,” Tracy said.

“Do you get it?”

“Yeah, I get it. But in legal terms, what does it mean?”

“Legal terms, hell,” Steve said. “What it means is I’m off the hook. In terms of switching guns, I mean. It’s the best of all possible worlds. He doesn’t ask for the gun from the safe-deposit box, he asks for the gun Timberlaine gave me to check. And do you know what that means?” Steve grinned and pointed to the subpoena. “Vaulding just switched guns.”