A Reasonable Doubt by Susan Sloan (free novels .txt) 📕

way he could let this testimony stand without challenge.

“Chief McAllister, is it possible that this firearm episode went unreported because Detective Scott chose not to report it?”

“Yes, I suppose that’s possible,” the chief of police conceded.  “Of course it is.  Anything’s possible.”

“Thank you,” the prosecutor said.

. . .

“Chief, does your department have any backup procedure in place for reporting firearms incidents?” Lily asked on redirect.

“We count bullets,” McAllister replied, glaring at John Henry.  “At the end of every shift, every officer is required to turn his firearm over to the duty sergeant for a bullet count.  We also require the duty sergeant to check to see if the weapon has been discharged.”

“And these checks of guns and bullets are all duly recorded somewhere, are they?”

“Yes, they are.”

“When did this procedure go into effect?”

“Three years ago,” McAllister stated.  “We had an unfortunate series of incidents, involving an illegal use of a firearm and an officer who is no longer with the department, and, as a group, we devised this procedure to make sure it would never happen again.”

“Is there a way to cheat the procedure?”

“I suppose there could be.  But I wouldn’t know how.”

“And did Detective Scott’s service weapon ever come up short in this examination?”

“No, it did not.”

“Chief McAllister, if I were to present to you a case where one bullet was missing from a murder weapon and yet another bullet fired from that same weapon was found at a crime scene, what would you, as a seasoned law enforcement officer, think had happened?”

The chief of police was clearly uncomfortable.  “I’d first think it had been fired at a previous time,” he said.  “However, if there was no record to confirm that, then I’d have to say it would be reasonable to conclude it was fired at or around the same time.”

“Now, you’ve testified that this procedure of counting bullets went into effect three years ago,” Lily continued.  “Is it possible that the bullet found in the defendant’s bed was fired prior to that?”

“No, it’s not.”

“Oh?  And why is that so?”

The police chief shrugged.  “We didn’t start using the Sig Sauers until last January.”

. . .

Carson Burns was seated in front of the television set in the library.  He had been listening to every word of the testimony, weighing, evaluating, putting himself in Lily’s place -- although he had never been in private practice -- and trying to figure out what it was that had been bothering him.  And then he had it, and he smacked his left fist down on his recliner with such vehemence that it knocked the chair over, sent him sprawling, started him howling, and brought Diana Hightower running.  But he wasn’t howling because he was hurt.  He was howling because it was so obvious he couldn’t believe it had taken him this long to see it.

“Got to get Lily on the telephone,” he gasped, as Diana struggled to get both him and the chair upright.  “Got to tell her -- she needs to look closer to home.”

. . .

“Our newest, our latest, and our best theory of the case,” Lily announced, hanging up from the conversation with her father.

“Lay it on us,” Megan said excitedly.

“Jason stumbles out of the bar a little before midnight, tosses the garbage into the dumpster, and heads for his box.  Dale and his killer come into the alley, fight, and Dale gets shot.  The killer spots Jason in his box, is afraid he might have been seen, so he follows him.  Then he realizes that Jason is drunk and passed out, so instead of killing him, he decides to frame him.  He puts Jason’s hands around the gun to get his prints on it, and fires the second bullet into the bed to get the GSR all over him.  Then he replaces the spent shot with a fresh one, so the cops won’t go looking for it, tosses the gun into Jason’s box, and takes off.”

“It’s a great theory,” Megan said, “but how will you ever prove it?”

“I may not have to prove it,” Lily said.  “I may just have to muddy John Henry’s waters a little.”

“Actually, it is a pretty good theory,” Joe said.  “Remember what Jason told us about his dream -- that the last thing he remembered was hearing the bell go off so loud?”

“I remember,” Lily said.

“Still, that leaves us with one question left to answer,” Joe said.  “Where did the replacement bullet come from?”

Lily nodded.  “The very same point my father just raised.”

“Okay, what am I missing?” Megan wanted to know.

“Only one bullet was missing from the magazine,” Joe explained.  “That means there were twelve bullets, eleven accounted for.  Someone replaced the second bullet.  So where did it come from?”

“Doesn’t every officer carry a backup magazine with him?”

“When he’s on duty,” Joe replied.  “But I checked.  Dale didn’t have his backup on him.  It was in his car, parked a block away, and it was full.”

Suddenly, Lily was staring at the investigator, because the whole thing now made perfect sense.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” she breathed.  “It’s been there all the time, right in front of our noses, and we just didn’t see it.”

“See what?” Megan persisted.

Lily didn’t respond.  Instead, she was searching through the files in her briefcase, plucking out the one she wanted, opening it, and flipping through it until she found the page she was looking for.  Then she grabbed a pen, circled something on the page, and handed it to Joe.

“Find out who that really was,” she told him.

. . .

“Defense recalls Fletcher Thurman to the stand,” Lily declared at nine o’clock on Friday morning, and the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab analyst returned to the witness box yet again.

“Mr. Thurman, you previously testified that a gunshot residue test had been performed on the hands and clothing of the defendant, is that correct?”

“It is.”

“And the results were positive, indicating that Mr. Lightfoot had indeed fired a gun within a few hours of the test?”

“Yes.”

“Can you tell us what the results were for