Page 109 of Defend Me

“No. The letters were unsigned.”

“So it was only when a bullet casing was discovered with Mr. Patterson’s print on it that you suspected he was the murderer?”

“Of course. That’s hard evidence,” the sheriff points out.

“Tell me, did you find Mr. Patterson’s prints in the pottery shed itself?”

“No,” the sheriff admits.

“On the doorknob?”

“No.”

“On the letters?”

The sheriff frowns. “No.”

“Did you find his DNA at the scene?”

“There was no DNA except Marion’s,” the sheriff says gruffly.

“So there’s zero hard evidence linking Mr. Patterson to this crime except one fingerprint on one shell casing,” she says.

“That’s correct.”

“And this shell casing, you suspect it was fired from his gun?”

“Of course. It was the same caliber. Everything matched to him.”

Von glances at me and I shiver with anticipation. She takes a few steps forward. “Sheriff Briggs, Mr. Patterson was only a deputy in training at the time of the murder, is that correct?”

The sheriff looks wary. “Yes.”

“He did not have an assigned duty weapon?”

The sheriff hesitates. “He did not have a duty weapon, no. But hewasassigned a weapon to use for firearms training.”

“Right,” Von says, coming back to pretend to check her notes. “A Glock 22, is that correct?”

“Yes. It uses 9mm bullets—like I said, the same caliber as the casing recovered with his fingerprint at the scene.” The sheriff is starting to look more confident.

“I see,” Von says. “So the assumption you and your investigatorshave made is that he used his own weapon—this training weapon—loaded with his own hand, thereby leaving the print on the casing…he used that weapon to shoot Marion Everton?”

“Yes,” the sheriff says triumphantly.

Von paces toward the jury box, then pivots back to the sheriff. “This gun Mr. Patterson had been assigned for firearms training, did he keep it at his home?”

My fingers twitch. She’s about to hit him with the logbook. I glance back to the gallery and see Stan has come to watch the testimony today, his brows pinched together, his arms folded across his chest.

“No,” the sheriff says. “It was kept in a lockbox at the shooting range.”

“A public range?”

“It is open to the public, yes.”

“So anyone could have had access to this weapon?”

“I don’t know aboutanyone,” the sheriff says brusquely. There’s her opening and I see Von pounce. She stalks back toward the defense table as Grayson smoothly hands her the logbook.

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