The Wrong Gun

gives the murderer the idea. Before Timberlaine comes to my office, he gets hold of the gun, fires a bullet through it and saves the bullet.”

“Why before he comes to your office?” Vaulding said.

“Because as soon as he left my office he switched guns, remember? He put the gun I gave him in his safe- deposit box.”

“Which is how you knew it hadn’t committed the murder,” Vaulding said.

“So we know,” Steve said, “that that far in advance the murderer had an idea he might need that bullet. Which would be much more likely if Potter was a coconspirator beginning to show signs of cold feet.”

“Fine. So that’s why they killed Potter. But why frame Timberlaine?”

“Well,” Steve said, “few people like to go to jail for a crime. It’s always better to have a scapegoat in mind. And, you have to remember, Timberlaine suggested it. He kept insisting someone was going to frame him with the gun. Fine. Let’s fulfill his prophesy and frame him with the gun. No one’s gonna believe him, ’cause he’s the little boy who cried wolf.

“Particularly the way they set it up. You have to admit, that was pretty artistic. Kill Potter and leave the original Pistol Pete gun by the body. Timberlaine immediately starts screaming, ‘Frame-up, frame-up, they stole my gun to frame me with it. See, and I can prove it ’cause here’s the phony gun they left in its place.’ And he hands over that gun and swears it’s the gun he’d had with him all day long.

“And indeed he had. Only they framed him with a bullet from that gun and, surprise, surprise, it’s the murder gun.”

“Only it wasn’t,” Vaulding said.

“Right. Because Timberlaine had switched guns. Only that gun barrel had been roughed up so the ballistics expert, taken in by the class characteristics, blows it and identifies it as the murder weapon anyway.”

“But why was the gun barrel roughed up?” Vaulding said. “I mean, the murderer would want the gun identified.”

“Right,” Steve said. “But there’s the moron factor.”

Vaulding frowned. “What?”

“You may have noticed that my client is not the swiftest thing in the world-witness that whole auction thing of having Crumbly bid on the gun. Only the frame-up still has to wash. The murderer wants Timberlaine to say, ‘No, no, no, this is my gun,’ and produce it and have it turn out to be the murder weapon. But that makes Timberlaine look like a total jerk. I mean, in terms of motivation, why the hell would he do that? If he were the murderer, the only way he would turn the gun over would be if he expected it not to match the fatal bullet. If it was the fatal gun, the only way he could expect it not to match would be if he’d altered the barrel.”

“So the murderer alters the barrel to make it look like Timberlaine did?”

“Of course,” Steve said. He nodded at Tracy. “Actually, it was one of the things Tracy said that put me in the right direction.” Steve grinned. “We were discussing the fact you’d just made a damn good case for the fact I was the one who altered the gun barrel. She said if I had, I sure made a poor job of it, since they still matched up the bullet.

“That got me thinking. The murderer really had made a poor job of it. I mean, four lousy scratches. If you want to deface the barrel, you run that file up and down it pretty good. That got me thinking in the right direction. The murderer didn’t want to deface the barrel, the murderer wanted the gun and the bullet to match. The murderer just wanted to make it look like someone had defaced the barrel. That’s why the scratches weren’t that bad. But the barrel had to be scratched up or the frame-up wouldn’t work. Because of the moron factor, you see.”

“Yeah, fine,” Vaulding said. “If that’s true, why was it that gun’s barrel that was scratched up? That wasn’t the murder weapon. Why didn’t the murderer rough up the barrel at the same time he fired the bullet?”

“Because he didn’t come by the plan all at once. It was an evolving thing, you know. ‘If he claims he’s gonna be framed, let’s frame him. I’ll frame him with the bullet.’ So the murderer gets the bullet, he’s ready to make the frame-up. Then he thinks of the moron factor. ‘Hell, how do I take care of that?’ Then he thinks of the file. ‘I’ll rough it up with a file and I’ll leave the file in Timberlaine’s room, and that’ll double-dork him. The file will become a piece of evidence in itself.’ Which it did.”

“I see,” Vaulding said.

“The other thing about the file is, it was planted on Timberlaine on Friday. At least that’s when he found it. The day before the murder. That was a great touch. The guy’s in possession of the file before the murder, so if the gun barrel’s roughed up after the murder, then he must have done it. But in actuality, the barrel of the gun was roughed up at the same time the murderer planted the file. Which didn’t affect the fatal bullet, which had been shot days before that.”

“Before Timberlaine came to your office.”

“Exactly. And the murderer knew Timberlaine came to my office, and knew he had the bullets tested. That’s why it didn’t hurt to pull the stunt with the file. A few light scratches to make it look like Timberlaine tried to alter the gun, then if ballistics can still match the bullet, great, but if they can’t, no big deal. The murderer just tips the cops to the bullets Timberlaine had me test.

“Which he did. That’s why you called Donald Walcott. That was an anonymous tip, right? Telling you to ask him about Timberlaine testing the gun.”

“Yeah, right,” Vaulding said. He was standing between Steve Winslow and the door and sort of teetering back and forth. He put up his hand. “Hang on a minute,” he said, opened the door and dashed out.

“What was that all about?” Tracy said.

“Looked to me like a guy who really had to go to the bathroom,” Taylor said.

Steve grinned. “No, I’m afraid the poor guy’s just torn between the suspects, the press and us.”

“Think they’re talkin’?”

“Not yet. More than likely waiting on their lawyers. Vaulding should be right back.”

He was. Vaulding came in the door, put his hand up, shook his head and said, “Not yet. Crumbly’s lawyer’s here and we’re waiting on Kessington’s. Then they’ll need some time to confer. But the press won’t wait. Veronica’s holding her own, but she’s such good copy if I don’t get out there I’m gonna find out she’s aced me out of the whole front page.”

“Go to it,” Steve said.

“You’re really not coming?”

“It’s your show, Vaulding. That was the deal.”

“Yeah, I know. But under the circumstances, I’d almost feel better with you there. There’s gonna be questions I can’t answer.”

“Yeah, but there’s others you can. You lay on a general line of bullshit-there’s certain things you can’t discuss until the suspects talk-then you give ’em whatever you want.”

“Yeah, but what? I need some hard facts. Right now the main thing I got on ’em is they tried to run and flight is an indication of guilt. Aside from that, I got nothing. That adapter Veronica held up in court wasn’t the one they used, that was just a bluff.”

“Yeah, but one that worked. Without that you got no flight. But you want hard facts, you got hard facts. There’re the substituted guns. That backs that theory. And you remember the bump on the head? The one the medical examiner photographed? There’s your other theory. The guy was coshed on the head and then shot. It’s a nice theory, ’cause it had to be that way. You can whip out a pistol and shoot a guy in the head, but no one’s gonna stand there waiting to be shot while you fit a bullet in an adapter into a shotgun and aim it at him.”

“Yeah,” Vaulding said. “That helps. Would you happen to know who did it? I can charge ’em as coconspirators, but odds are, when they sing one of them’s gonna rat the other out. It would be nice to name the shooter.”

“Which you can easily do,” Steve said. “You said it yourself. The adapter Veronica held up in court was not the one used in the murder. She couldn’t find the one used in the murder. Why? Because the murderer had gotten rid of it. But when she held it up in court, someone ran. Who? Crumbly. Why? Because he wasn’t the shooter, so he didn’t know this couldn’t be the adapter used in the murder because he wasn’t the one who disposed of it.”

“Kessington ran too.”