The Elusive Smoking Gun

The Elusive Smoking Gun (03) Chapter Three

The Elusive Smoking Gun

A Short Story

By

Dutch Rhudy

Chapter Three

Two weeks elapsed since the last time Brett Kallum required information that brought him to the police station. Notified about some new evidence, related to a minor case he was working, he stopped to view the items.

The morning desk sergeant, often slow at finding things, dawdled in the evidence room longer than usual. To wile away the long wait, Brett began to peruse the cards posted on the bulletin board.

Brett chuckled when he read the sergeants verbose messages about the gloves. In a loud voice he exclaimed.

“But what's this, both powder burned gloves were found in Bluff Park. My gosh; what an idiot! Could he not see this? It's as plain as the nose on your face!”

Brett ran to the desk and began hollering to the back room.

“Sergeant, sergeant, bring me the gloves, bring me the gloves;” yelling out the bag numbers.

“Here ya go Mr. Kallum,” the clerk said.

“Great, great, yes, these are what I want; I need to check them out immediately.”

“How about the other bags sir,” asked the sergeant.

“When, and if,” Brett added sarcastically, “you ever manage to find them; put everything in my slot. I shall send the secretary over for them later this afternoon. I now have more important things I must work on.”

Brett drove straight out to Bluff Park and located the tree where the gloves were found. He glanced at the photographs before exiting his car. Obtained from a different, more recent case, the pictures are of no use to him, so he tossed them aside.

After a search of the picnic area, he returned to the police station and asked the desk sergeant to pull the files on the senators' case. The clerk responded.

“They are no longer kept at this location sir, but are now stored in the courthouse archives. Oh, Mr. Kallum, here are the other evidence bags you requested.”

Brett snatches them from him, then leaves for the government center.

While waiting for the clerk to locate the file and box number in the unsolved cases list, Brett examined the gloves. He observed other curious residues and fragments on them. After receiving the folders from the sergeant, he dropped the evidence off at forensics for analysis and returned to his office to study the case.

When the results became available, Brett telephoned the lab to hear their findings. Bird droppings, remnants of eggshells, feather fragments, rodent fur, gun oil, tree sap and termite traces.

“I'll bet this left glove has sat in a nest for years,” Brett thought to himself.

Brett studied the report further, and noted the elapsed time from hearing the gunshot to the police reaching the suspect was under three minutes. After completely scouring the park, the officers patrolling the grounds, found no perimeter breaches nor evidence of another person. Not enough time for someone to have vacated the area.

“Where is that smoking gun?” he said aloud.

Brett rose from his desk to leave the office, grabbing his binoculars from the bookcase as he shot past. Bounding through his door, he slowed enough at the exit to inform his secretary of his destination, Bluff Park.