Chapter 20 Chapter Twenty

The power company guy said, "Okay, the power is on." Trager flipped a switch, instantly turning on the lights in the store and office. Mason looked around, then moved to the other end of the room to start a detailed search. Trager, Hamilton Berger, and the two plainclothes policemen looked at their watches from time to time, obviously tired of the whole search operation, and they looked around occasionally, waiting for Mason to complete the search. "Okay, Trager," Mason said. "I found the first thing to check." "What is it?" Mason pointed to the beam on the door. "There's probably something up there. There's a little hole with a new crack in the wood."

Trager was about to say something, then changed his mind, and said only to his staff, "See if there's a ladder here." "It's just an old-fashioned trick," Berger said. "The house was not sealed, and it's likely that someone has been here, deliberately laying out all kinds of suspicious evidence." Trager said nothing. Mason climbed up the ladder, Trager gently pulled him back and said, "Perry, if you don't mind, let me check." Trager climbed up and inspected the hole in the beam, then he pursed his lips, looked down at Berg and said, "I think it's a bullet."

Berger blushed and said, "Okay, at 2:30 this afternoon, Mason will be charged with contempt of court, maybe we can charge him with another charge. Let's take out the bullets, so we can perjury trick." "If you had done an exhaustive search earlier, you would have found it. Then there's no way anyone could come here and give false testimony," Mason said. "Can't we tell when this bullet was fired?" "I can tell," Berger said. "And I know whose pistol it is." "Are you going to make a statement in front of this group of witnesses to take responsibility for your words?" Mason asked.

Berg turned and walked away. "When the bullet was removed," Mason said. "Please be very careful, don't hurt the bullet pattern or..." "You don't have to teach me how to take a bullet," Trager said. Trager cautiously poked a knife into the bullet hole, and then said to a plainclothes: "You can't detect the depth of the bullet with this knife, so you go to the car and take out the tool box of the boring machine so that you can remove a piece of wood. piece." Plainclothes officers retrieved from the car a corkscrew, a device used to cut round holes out of blocks of wood.

"Once you go up, as carefully as you can, confirm the path of bullet penetration that you have, and cut out the area where the bullet is attached," Trager said. The man climbed the ladder and came down a few minutes later with a fragment of the beam. Trager carefully pushed the block away and poured the .38 caliber bullet into the palm of his hand. "Okay," he said. "We found the bullet, what's next?" "Let Radford examine that sample," Mason said. "Okay," Trager said. "Let's go. I trust you will have Radford's report by two-thirty."

"Someone please send the bullets," Mason said. "Let's not make the same mistake again, and stop searching just because we found something. Let's take a closer look." "Okay," Trager said. "Let's go check out the warehouse." When they came to the warehouse, Trager turned on the switch, and the dark and damp room was suddenly brightened. "Let's take a look around," Mason said. "Ask your people to open each large cardboard box and see what they can find." "Fifty cartons all together," Trager said. "Okay," Mason said. "If we can't go through the cartons one by one before 2:30, I will call the judge and ask for a delay in the hearing."

"Oh, let's do it then," Trager said. Trager and a police officer each shook, moved, and inspected each cardboard box. Suddenly, a police officer said something to Trager, looked at him meaningfully, and turned away. "What's the matter?" Mason asked sharply. "We are conducting the search by order of the court and we have a right to know everything." "Someone was standing in here," the officer said. "You could see the shoe prints from the rubber heels, the heels had been stained with oil, so they had shoe prints on them." "That's not a big deal," Berger said. "You can't tell when these shoe prints were left. They may have been there a month ago," he added meaningfully: "Or they may have been left last night."

"Anyway," Mason said. "They're there. That's the evidence. Let's take the carton and test it." "Okay," Trager said wearily. "Take it with you." "At the same time I'm going to collect fingerprints on the carton." "You can't get fingerprints from paper—oh, never mind, do it your way. Save the cardboard until the techs come and get the fingerprints. What else do you want, Mason." "I don't know," Mason said.He moved slowly around, checking the nooks and crannies of the house. Suddenly Mason said, "Hey, wait a minute, this window was thrown open before."

"I should have guessed that," Berger said. "That's how the shooter broke in and then fired a bullet into the beam afterwards." "The window was opened from inside the house," Mason said. "Look, the cobwebs had been ripped off, the window was opened and then pulled down. It wasn't locked." "It's an inside-out, inside-out game," Berger said. "Another old trick." Trager examined the windowpane carefully. "Hey, wait a minute," Mason said. "what is this?" "What?" Trager asked. Mason pointed to a corner of the house and said, "I caught a glimpse of the reflection of the steel plate."

Trager moved over and exclaimed, "Wow! It's a pistol!" Berg seemed to be about to say something, but he seemed to hold back, saying, "Well, that's a gun, put it in evidence, officer, we're going to have a closer look at it in court and see whose gun it is. Fingerprints remain on it—although the perjurer probably discreetly acted with gloves on." Mason said, "Officer Trager, be careful. I'm going to use that gun for a ballistic test. You must have noticed that it's also a Smith & Wesson .38?" "Of course it is," Berger said. "You mean, is this also a deliberate perjury?" Mason said casually.

"That's deliberate perjury," Berg said exasperatedly. "At two-thirty in the afternoon, I expected to point out the person who fabricated the evidence." "You're not going to make any charges until then?" Mason asked. "I have my idea." Berg finished, turned and walked away. "Have you got everything you need?" Trager asked. "I'm not sure," Mason said. "I'm going to seal this place up and have a police officer stay there until we can identify the evidence we've got so far." "All right, all right," Trager said. "I would like to see if there are any fingerprints left on the pistol, although we rarely get fingerprints on pistols. Sometimes, you may get thumbprints on the shell casings, but it is extremely rare to get fingerprints from pistols some." "Well, we've got guns," Mason said. "I want Radford to do a ballistic test on the gun. I want him to bring the microscope to the court so we can do the test in court." "Another old drama," Berger said. "You never forget to throw a theatrical trick, but it's just sideshows, and I'm so sick of it. We've got cases that are just old tricks." Mason looked at his watch and said, "If you're quick enough, Hamilton, you might get lunch, or at least a cup of coffee. I think that might change your mind."