“Where did he get it?”
“I don’t know. I asked him and he said something about carrying it in Vietnam, but I don’t believe he brought it back with him. I think he may have had one like it over there. My guess is he found this one or bought it on the street. I don’t know if it was loaded or if he even had any bullets for it. The cops turned up people from the neighborhood who said he used to carry a gun and he’d take it out and show it around. Maybe he did. Life he led, I can see him carrying a gun for protection, even using it to defend himself. But why would he have to defend himself from a man making a phone call? And anyway, you can’t shoot nine-millimeter bullets out of a forty-five, can you?”
“What happened to the gun?”
“The one I saw? You got me. It wasn’t on him when they picked him up. They didn’t find it when they searched his room. They say George told them some story about throwing it off a pier into the Hudson. They sent divers down and came up empty, but who even knows if they had the right pier. You want to know what I think happened?”
“What?”
“George threw his gun in the river months ago. One reason or another he decides it’s not safe to carry it and he ditches it, and then when they pick him up and ask him what happened to the gun, he says he tossed it. He can’t say when because he doesn’t have that kind of memory. Or here’s another possibility — he gets worried after the murder, after he picks up the cartridge casings, and decides he better get rid of the gun, so he goes home and finds it and tosses it. Or here’s another way it could have happened—”
He went on working out scenarios to fit the evidence while leaving his brother innocent of all charges. Finally he ran out of theories and looked at me and asked me what I thought.
I said, “What do I think? I think the cops arrested the right man. I think your brother showed you a nine-millimeter pistol and said it was a forty-five because they look similar and that was the type of semiautomatic handgun he was familiar with. I think he probably found the gun in a garbage can while he was searching for redeemable cans and bottles. I think there were bullets in the clip when he found it. I think the previous owner used the gun in the commission of a felony and got rid of it afterward, which is generally how guns find their way into garbage cans and Dumpsters and the river.”
“Jesus,” he said.
“I think your brother was nodding in a doorway when Glenn Holtzmann went to make his phone call. I think something roused him out of a dream or reverie. Something he saw or heard, on the street or in his dream, convinced him that Holtzmann was a threat. I think he reacted instinctively, drawing the gun and firing three times before he really knew where he was or what he was doing. I think he put the fourth and final bullet in the back of Holtzmann’s neck because that’s how you executed people in Southeast Asia.
“I think he picked up the casings because he was taught to, and also because they might tie him to the shooting. I think he got rid of the gun for that reason, and I think he would have thrown the casings in after it if he hadn’t forgotten they were there, or that he was supposed to get rid of them. I think he has no memory of shooting Holtzmann because he was only partially aware of what he was doing at the time. He was in a dream or a flashback.”
He sat back, looking as though he’d just taken a stiff right to the solar plexus. “Whew,” he said. “I thought… well, never mind what I thought.”
“Go ahead, Tom.”
“Well, see, I figured on having to spend a few thousand dollars on a lawyer for George, and it turned out they’d already appointed an attorney, and on account of him being an indigent person the attorney’s fees are paid out of public funds. And the lawyer was as good as anybody I could hire, plus he’d already seen George and had some rapport with him.” He shrugged. “So I’ve got this money I thought I was going to spend, and I thought, you know, maybe I could hire somebody to do a little detective work, find out if maybe George is innocent. Soon as I thought ‘detective’ I thought of you. But if you’re stone certain the man is guilty—”
“That’s not what I said.”
“No? That’s what it sounded like.”
I shook my head. “I said I think he’s guilty. Or that he did it; words like ‘guilty’ seem ill-chosen when the person involved may have thought he was executing a sniper somewhere north of Saigon. But that’s just what I think, and it’s an opinion based on the existing evidence. I could hardly think anything else, given the data available to me. There may be more data that neither of us knows about, and if it was brought to my attention I might have to revise that opinion. So yes, I think he did it, but I also think it’s possible I’m wrong.”
“Say he didn’t do it. Is there a way to prove it?”
“You’d have to prove it,” I said, “because I don’t think you could get him off by discrediting the prosecution’s case. Even if you impugned some of the eye-witness testimony, the cartridge casings are solid physical evidence and the next best thing to a smoking gun. Since they’ve got enough to prove him guilty, your only defense is to provide actual proof of innocence, probably by establishing that somebody else did it. Because Holtzmann sure as hell didn’t commit suicide, and if George didn’t kill him somebody else did.”
“So you’d have to find the real killer.”
“Not quite. You wouldn’t have to identify him or develop a case against him.”
“You wouldn’t?”
“Not really. Say a flying saucer descended from the skies and a Martian hopped out, put four bullets in Holtzmann, got back in his saucer, and took off for outer space. If you can substantiate that, if you can prove it happened, you don’t have to produce the saucer or subpoena the Martian.”
“I get it.” He got out a cigarette, lit it with a Zippo. Through a cloud of smoke he said, “Well, what do you think? You want to go looking for that Martian?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I may be the wrong person for this,” I said. “See, I was acquainted with Glenn Holtzmann.”
“You knew him?”
“Not well,” I said, “but better than I knew your brother. I was up to his apartment once. I’ve met his wife. I talked to him a few times on the street and I had coffee with him once a block from here.” I frowned. “I wouldn’t say we were friends. As a matter of fact, I can’t say I liked him much. But I don’t think I’d be comfortable trying to get his killer off the hook.”
“Neither would I.”
“How’s that?”
“If George did it,” he said, “I don’t want him off the hook either. If he pulled the trigger then he’s a danger to himself and others and he belongs in a locked ward somewhere. I only want him cleared if he didn’t do it, and if that’s the case where’s your conflict? You’d only be helping George if he turns out to be innocent. And you just said it yourself, if he didn’t do it then somebody else did. If George goes away for it, then the real killer’s getting away with it.”
“I see what you mean.”
“The fact that you knew the victim,” he said, “to my mind that makes you the perfect man for the job. You knew Holtzmann, you know George, you know the neighborhood. That gives you a head start, the way it looks to me. If anybody’s got a shot at it, I’d say you do.”
“I’m not sure that means much,” I said. “I think the chance that your brother didn’t do it is slim, and the likelihood of establishing it is slimmer still. I’m afraid you’d be throwing your money away.”
“It’s my money, Matt.”
“That’s a point, and I guess you’re entitled to throw it away if you want to. The thing is, it’s my time, and I don’t much like to throw it away even if I’m getting paid for it.”