“Yes. I went back and took time enough to eliminate all evidence that could point to Stephanie.”
“What did you do?”
“I am kicking myself for overlooking the one real golden opportunity I had. I had that other gun of mine in my shoulder holster while I was in Stephanie’s apartment that second time. I should have simply made a substitution, then and there. But I was too shocked to think clearly.”
Mason, his face only a matter of inches from the other man’s, regarded him with steady concentration. “You’re not lying to me, Homer? You didn’t switch guns?”
“Definitely not. I tell you, Mason, that gun had been fired between the time I left it with her and the time I returned.”
“So what did you do in Casselman’s apartment?” Mason asked
“I did the only thing that could be done. The blood that outlined the print of Stephanie’s shoe had dried. At first I thought of trying to scrub it up, but I was afraid there would still be traces they could find and I was afraid of being caught in there with the murdered man. I knew I had to work fast. I put my own foot in the puddle of blood and pressed down enough to get blood all over the sole of my shoe and particularly on my heel. The blood was thick and sticky by that time. I pressed my own bloodstained shoe directly over the print that had been made.
“I decided to take the heat off Stephanie in every way I could. I left several clues that would point to me. I wanted to be a red herring. Then I left the State, intending to keep out of the way of the police here so they couldn’t question me. However, after this other matter came up, Junior was destroying your work. I felt I had to see him personally and tell him to sit tight.
“I thought I had eluded the detectives who were shadowing me in Las Vegas. Evidently, I played right into their hands. They waited until my chartered plane landed, and then they picked me up and brought me here for questioning. I refused to make any statement until you were present, and that’s the story to date.”
“All right,” Mason said, “let’s go back and face the situation. You follow my lead. I’ll do most of the talking. Don’t tell them anything unless I give you an okay. You’re going to have to take the newspaper publicity. That’s the weapon they’re holding over you to make you talk. Under the circumstances, you can’t avoid it. Come on. Let’s go.”
Mason opened the closet door, turned out the light, led the way across the secretarial office and back to Hamilton Burger’s office.
“Well?” Hamilton Burger asked.
“What do you want to know?” Mason asked.
Burger said, “Mason, I’m calling your attention to a photograph. You’ve seen a reproduction of this photograph in the press. I want you to study a glossy print of the original photograph. You can see some things on there you can’t see in the newspaper reproduction.”
Burger handed Mason the glossy eight-by-ten print showing the pool of blood on the floor and, quite plainly, the print of a foot.
“Go ahead,” Mason said. “What do you want to know?”
“Now this information,” Burger said, “we would like to have come from your client rather than from you, Mr. Mason. We want to know if that is the print of your shoe, Garvin?”
Garvin looked at Mason. Mason smiled and shook his head.
“Now wait a minute,” Hamilton Burger said, his face coloring. “We’re in this thing in good faith. Garvin at least intimated that he would tell us his story straight from the shoulder if we gave him an opportunity to get in touch with his attorney. Either you folks talk or you don’t talk!”
“And suppose we don’t talk?” Mason asked.
“Then you’d both be sorry.”
Burger said, “I’m going to ask you, Garvin, if you went to a shoe shop at 918 Mowbray Street and had a pair of rubber heels put on a pair of new shoes about three weeks ago?”
“Answer that,” Mason said.
“I did,” Garvin admitted.
“I’m going to show you a pair of shoes and ask you if those are the shoes on which you had those rubber heels installed?”
Burger opened a drawer in his desk, took out a pair of shoes, and handed them to Garvin.
“Where did you get those?” Garvin asked with some surprise.
“Never mind,” Burger said. “Are those yours?”
Garvin looked them over. There were several peculiar bluish stains on the sole of one of the shoes.
“Yes,” he said.
“For your information,” Burger went on, “those shoes have been given a benzidine test for blood. Those purplish stains you see are where there was a reaction indicating the presence of blood on that left shoe. Now in view of that, do you have any statement you want to make as to how that blood got on that shoe?”
“I don’t think I care to make any statement on that at this time,” Garvin said.
“All right,” Hamilton Burger said with ponderous patience, “I’m now going to show you a color photograph,” and handed it to Mason.
“Look that over carefully, Mason,” he said. “Tell me what you see.”
Mason said, “I see a footprint.”
“Look it over carefully.”
Mason studied the photograph.
Hamilton Burger said, “If you study that photograph carefully, you will see something quite plainly which you could only barely detect on the black and white photograph, but which nevertheless is shown here. It’s another footprint, the print of a woman’s shoe directly under the print of Homer Garvin’s shoe. You can see the imprint of the heel plate on the very tip of the heel.
“Now then, Garvin, I’m asking you if you didn’t go out to George Casselman’s apartment after he had been killed, knowing he had been killed, for the purpose of leaving evidence there that would confuse the issues. I am asking if you didn’t deliberately step in the puddle of blood and then place your own footprint over this Woman’s footprint with the deliberate intention of obliterating and concealing that footprint?”
“Just a moment,” Mason said, “as I understand it, that would be a crime.”
“Permit me to congratulate you upon your knowledge of the law,” Burger said sarcastically.
“Under those circumstances, I advise my client to refuse to answer the question,” Mason said.
Burger took a deep breath, “Garvin, I am going to show you a fingerprint which was recovered from the knob of the back door. I may further state that someone had evidently wiped the knob of that back door clean of fingerprints. There was only one fingerprint on it, and that was a very plain, legible fingerprint of the ball of a thumb which had obviously been deliberately placed in the exact center of the knob after the surface had been wiped clean of any other fingerprints.
“That thumb print is yours, Garvin. There can be no mistake about it. I am going to ask you the circumstances under which you made that print on the doorknob?”
“Just a minute,” Mason said, “if your contention is correct, and if Garvin was the one who wiped off the doorknob and then left his fingerprint on it, he would be guilty of a crime?”
“He would be guilty of a crime,” Hamilton Burger said.
“Then I advise him not to answer,” Mason said.
Hamilton Burger turned to Mason. “You yourself made an elaborate switch so you could juggle the murder weapon around in this case, Mason. I’m going to give you one chance to come clean. I want you to tell how that murder weapon came into your possession.”
“And if I tell you the truth, you won’t prosecute me?”
Hamilton Burger thought that over, looked at Mason with suppressed hatred in his eyes. “I’m trying to be fair about this thing, Mason. I’m not going to come out and make a lot of specific promises, but what you say now will greatly affect the attitude of the District Attorney’s office.”