Nolan eyed them grimly. "What are they?"
"The documents Mike Reiner ordered me to destroy."
His quiet words were poisoned by an undertone of resentment. Still gazing at the documents, Nolan considered his choices, weighing how best to proceed.
"In your mind," he inquired at length, "what is their significance?"
"That varies." The malicious smile returned. "The common denominator is that they implicate Mr. Reiner in misconduct."
With mounting disquiet, Sarah realized how deeply Conn despised his superior—an emotion which, once established, would make him easier for Nolan to discredit. A slightly patronizing tone crept into Nolan's voice. "Then why don't we go through them, from first to last."
For the next fifteen minutes, Nolan directed the court reporter to mark documents as exhibits. Sarah and Harry Fancher watched in silence, more tense for the suspension of the questioning. At last Nolan asked, "What is the significance of Conn Exhibit One?"
In response, Conn spread a sheaf of documents in front of him, regarding them with the scholarly satisfaction of a paleontologist sorting prehistoric bones. "Exhibits One through Twenty-seven are trace requests received by Lexington Arms from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms."
"And what do they show?"
"In each case, the ATF gave us the serial number of a Lexington P-2 used to commit a crime, and asked us to identify the distributor or dealer we shipped it to." Conn's smile contained a palpable spite. "These documents cover a six-month period. Taken together, they indicate that the P-2 was commonly used by criminals and that Lexington— at least Mike Reiner—knew it."
"On what do you base that?"
Conn's gaze flickered across each document. "After the First Lady's family was murdered, Mike asked me to destroy them."
"Where were you," Nolan asked with quiet acidity, "during this supposed conversation?"
"Mike's office."
Nolan permitted himself a faint smile of disbelief. "Just the two of you?"
"Yes."
"Did you consider yourself a confidant of Mr. Reiner?"
"No."
The one-word answer, delivered in the flattest of tones, hinted at more. But Nolan—for strategic reasons, Sarah was certain—chose not to pursue it. "Do you have any explanation as to why Reiner chose to rely on you, rather than destroy these documents himself?"
"Yes. He didn't know where to look. I did."
To Sarah, the answer was mundane, and yet so unexpected, that it had the ring of truth. But Nolan raised his eyebrows. "While he was enlisting your assistance, did Mr. Reiner explain his motives?"
"That he remembered seeing the documents, and didn't want Lexington to get in trouble."
"Why were Exhibits One through Twenty-seven 'trouble'?"
Conn looked annoyed at his questioner's opacity. "Because the P-2 is a crime gun," he answered stubbornly.
"That's it?"
"Not all of it." Trembling slightly, Conn's right hand flittered across the documents. "The P-2 is banned in California. But twenty-four of these guns were sold in Arizona and Nevada, mostly close to the California border." Conn's reedy tone became accusatory. "Obviously Reiner's marketing plan was to flood Nevada with guns Californians would buy. These documents proved that it worked—that Bowden's buying this gun was no surprise to Mike."
"Are you suggesting," Nolan snapped, "that Mr. Reiner knew where and how Bowden acquired a Lexington P-2?"
The question was a stratagem, Sarah knew. Its obvious answer— "no"—was intended to keep Conn from overreaching, and, at least tacitly, to expose his bias against Mike Reiner. Conn knew it, too. With a smile of superiority, he fixed his gaze on Nolan, and uttered a soft, surprising, "Yes."
Sarah suppressed a shudder of relief. However well or badly he fared, Conn was now committed. "Where in any of these documents," Nolan asked harshly, "does it show—or even suggest—that Mr. Reiner could have known where John Bowden got his gun?"
"None of them."
"Then what's your basis for that aspersion?"
The smile vanished. "I told him."
Nolan scrutinized him with disbelief. "And how did you know?"
"Two reasons." Sorting through the documents, Conn rested his finger on Exhibit Twenty-eight. "This document is a report listing the serial numbers of a shipment of P-2s stolen from a dealer in Phoenix, Arizona. The dealer didn't want to pay us, and Reiner was pressing them. After the murders, we got a trace request, and realized that the serial number of the murder weapon matched one of the stolen guns. Mike asked me to destroy it."
"What would his motive for that be?"
Conn glanced at Schwab, a benign presence at his side. From the equanimity of his lawyer, Sarah could divine how carefully the two men had prepared. "About two months before," Conn said in an ashen tone, "I received a telephone complaint from the owner of a Lexington P-2.
"He told me the gun kept jamming. When I asked if he'd bought it from a dealer, he said no—at a gun show in Las Vegas. So I asked him if he knew the seller, and maybe could swap guns." Once more, Conn's gaze darted toward his lawyer. "The guy just laughed."
The answer stopped abruptly, as though its final sentence explained all. "Did he respond in words?" Nolan inquired caustically. "Or did he just keep laughing?"
Conn did not seem to register the sarcasm. Softly, he answered, "The caller knew the guy from Idaho, he said, but that he wasn't easy to find, or the kind to worry about customer relations. Then the caller asked me if I'd heard of an organization called 'the Liberty Force.' "
Sitting across from Sarah, Harrison Fancher stopped scribbling notes, staring at the witness with his pen suspended in midair. With an air of renewed caution, Nolan asked, "How did you respond?"
"That I hadn't. So he told me that Liberty Force was a group of white supremacists, and that this guy was more likely to blow his head off than give him another gun."
"What did you do then?"
"I asked him for the serial number. When I checked our files, it matched with one of the stolen guns." Briefly, Conn's mouth pursed. "I went to Reiner and said it looked like some paramilitaries were peddling them, and asked if we should call the ATF."
Nolan grimaced. "How did Mr. Reiner respond?"
"He said no—that he didn't like the aroma it gave us." The bitterness seeped back into Conn's voice. "I didn't 'like the aroma,' either. Only the stench was coming from Reiner. So I wrote him a memo confirming what I told him." Pausing, Conn added with lethal quiet, "After the Costello murders, I reminded him of that."
Nolan shot him a cynical glance. "For what reason?"
"At first, I thought maybe the shooter was a member of Liberty
Force. Whatever, it was pretty clear to me that the murder weapon had passed through the hands of these paramilitaries, and that we ought to tell the ATF."