against the Ski Mask bandits, the gang of armed thieves who at the time were robbing businesses throughout central Florida.  This was the pistol found near Perry Edwards.

The .22 Smith & Wesson Escort, which Zeigler said he had fired once before it jammed, was on loan to Zeigler from Don Ficke.  Zeigler carried this little semiautomatic at his belt.  It was one of the two guns found near Charlie Mays's feet.

The .38 Burgo derringer, also found near Mays's feet, was normally kept under the cash register at the counter.  Zeigler could not explain how it ended up on the terrazzo floor with an expended shell in the top chamber.

The Securities Industries .38 also was used for Zeigler's personal protection.  He said he usually kept the pistol and a shoulder holster in the custom metal writing desk built into the dashboard of his pickup truck, which he used for making collections on rent and furniture accounts.  This was the gun the Edward Williams brought to the Winter Garden police after Zeigler apparently had tried to kill him.  Zeigler did not explain how it had ended up in Williams's possession.2

The .38 Smith & Wesson belonged to Zeigler and normally was kept against a file cabinet in the store's customer service area.  Zeigler did not explain how it had ended up in Curtis Dunaway's car, in Zeigler's garage, where Jimmy Yawn found it on the night of the 24th.

The .22 Beretta belonged to Zeigler, and had been found where he usually kept it, in his desk drawer.

According to Hadley, Zeigler had never seen and could not explain the two .38 RG revolvers found near the head of Charlie Mays.

Early in January, Thomas showed Frye and Martin the remote orange grove where he said Zeigler had driven them and they had shot the revolvers.  Martin and a second deputy, James Lee Bryan, brought a crew of trusties from the Orange County Jail and began to dig for bullets in the earth.  On January 12, after two days of sifting dirt and sand, Bryan reported that they had recovered a single .38 slug.

If that bullet could be matched to any of the guns from the store, it would lend great substance to Thomas's story.  Without ballistics testing, though, the slug meant next to nothing.  The OCSO shipped it to Washington, where it was added to the earlier submissions.  The chance was nil that it might be tested before the preliminary hearing.

As the date of the hearing approached, only one set of results came back.  These were the test swabs for gunshot residue, taken from the hands of the four murder victims.  The swabs had been submitted to the state's Sanford Laboratory rather than to the FBI.

__________________________________________

2    The Securities Industries .38 was chrome-plated.  The .357 Colt found near Perry Edwards was stainless-steel, and also bright.  All the other Handguns were black or dark blue.