Balance of Power

surroundings without coming to rest. For his part, Nolan seemed tentative, as though handling a bottle of nitroglycerin. His tone was quiet, his demeanor cautious, his questions phrased with care.

    'Prior to this morning,' Nolan asked, 'have you spoken with, or met with, any of the lawyers in this room?'

    Conn touched his temples, fingers grazing his thin red hair. 'Both,' he answered.

    Nolan looked puzzled. 'Both?'

    A glint of malicious amusement passed through Conn's eyes. 'Met with. And spoken with.'

    Quickly, Nolan repressed his annoyance. 'With whom?'

    'Sarah Dash.'

    Though speaking her name, Conn refused to make eye contact. It was as though Sarah was not there.

    'And where did that meeting take place?'

    This induced the briefest of smiles. 'A motel room.'

    'For what purpose?'

    Conn glanced at Schwab. The lawyer inclined his forehead, as though granting permission to proceed. Reaching beneath his chair, Conn placed a battered leather briefcase on the table, and removed a two-inch stack of documents.

    'To give her these,' he answered.

    Nolan eyed them grimly. 'What are they?'

    'The documents Mike Reiner ordered me to destroy.'

    His quiet words were poisoned by an undertone of resentment. Still gazing at the documents, Nolan considered his choices, weighing how best to proceed.

    'In your mind,' he inquired at length, 'what is their significance?'

    'That varies.' The malicious smile returned. 'The common denominator is that they implicate Mr. Reiner in misconduct.'

    With mounting disquiet, Sarah realized how deeply Conn despised his superior—an emotion which, once established, would make him easier for Nolan to discredit. A slightly patronizing tone crept into Nolan's voice. 'Then why don't we go through them, from first to last.'

    For the next fifteen minutes, Nolan directed the court reporter to mark documents as exhibits. Sarah and Harry Fancher watched in silence, more tense for the suspension of the questioning. At last Nolan asked, 'What is the significance of Conn Exhibit One?'

    In response, Conn spread a sheaf of documents in front of him, regarding them with the scholarly satisfaction of a paleontologist sorting prehistoric bones. 'Exhibits One through Twenty-seven are trace requests received by Lexington Arms from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.'

    'And what do they show?'

    'In each case, the ATF gave us the serial number of a Lexington P-2 used to commit a crime, and asked us to identify the distributor or dealer we shipped it to.' Conn's smile contained a palpable spite. 'These documents cover a six-month period. Taken together, they indicate that the P-2 was commonly used by criminals and that Lexington— at least Mike Reiner—knew it.'

    'On what do you base that?'

    Conn's gaze flickered across each document. 'After the First Lady's family was murdered, Mike asked me to destroy them.'

    'Where were you,' Nolan asked with quiet acidity, 'during this supposed conversation?'

    'Mike's office.'

    Nolan permitted himself a faint smile of disbelief. 'Just the two of you?'

    'Yes.'

'Did you consider yourself a confidant of Mr. Reiner?'

'No.'

    The one-word answer, delivered in the flattest of tones, hinted at more. But Nolan—for strategic reasons, Sarah was certain—chose not to pursue it. 'Do you have any explanation as to why Reiner chose to rely on you, rather than destroy these documents himself?'

    'Yes. He didn't know where to look. I did.'

    To Sarah, the answer was mundane, and yet so unexpected, that it had the ring of truth. But Nolan raised his eyebrows. 'While he was enlisting your assistance, did Mr. Reiner explain his motives?'

    'That he remembered seeing the documents, and didn't want Lexington to get in trouble.'

    'Why were Exhibits One through Twenty-seven 'trouble'?'

    Conn looked annoyed at his questioner's opacity. 'Because the P-2 is a crime gun,' he answered stubbornly.

    'That's it?'

    'Not all of it.' Trembling slightly, Conn's right hand flittered across the documents. 'The P-2 is banned in California. But twenty-four of these guns were sold in Arizona and Nevada, mostly close to the California border.' Conn's reedy tone became accusatory. 'Obviously Reiner's marketing plan was to flood Nevada with guns Californians would buy. These documents proved that it worked—that Bowden's buying this gun was no surprise to Mike.'

    'Are you suggesting,' Nolan snapped, 'that Mr. Reiner knew where and how Bowden acquired a Lexington P- 2?'

    The question was a stratagem, Sarah knew. Its obvious answer— 'no'—was intended to keep Conn from overreaching, and, at least tacitly, to expose his bias against Mike Reiner. Conn knew it, too. With a smile of superiority, he fixed his gaze on Nolan, and uttered a soft, surprising, 'Yes.'

    Sarah suppressed a shudder of relief. However well or badly he fared, Conn was now committed. 'Where in any of these documents,' Nolan asked harshly, 'does it show—or even suggest—that Mr. Reiner could have known where John Bowden got his gun?'

    'None of them.'

    'Then what's your basis for that aspersion?'

    The smile vanished. 'I told him.'

    Nolan scrutinized him with disbelief. 'And how did you know?'

    'Two reasons.' Sorting through the documents, Conn rested his finger on Exhibit Twenty-eight. 'This document is a report listing the serial numbers of a shipment of P-2s stolen from a dealer in Phoenix, Arizona. The dealer didn't want to pay us, and Reiner was pressing them. After the murders, we got a trace request, and realized that the serial number of the murder weapon matched one of the stolen guns. Mike asked me to destroy it.'

    'What would his motive for that be?'

    Conn glanced at Schwab, a benign presence at his side. From the equanimity of his lawyer, Sarah could divine how carefully the two men had prepared. 'About two months before,' Conn said in an ashen tone, 'I received a telephone complaint from the owner of a Lexington P-2.

    'He told me the gun kept jamming. When I asked if he'd bought it from a dealer, he said no—at a gun show in Las Vegas. So I asked him if he knew the seller, and maybe could swap guns.' Once more, Conn's gaze darted toward his lawyer. 'The guy just laughed.'

    The answer stopped abruptly, as though its final sentence explained all. 'Did he respond in words?' Nolan inquired caustically. 'Or did he just keep laughing?'

    Conn did not seem to register the sarcasm. Softly, he answered, 'The caller knew the guy from Idaho, he said,