"Did you sell him the TV set?"

"No.  He said he'd be back for it."

"Did he say when?" Machler asked.

"No."

"Did you believe he'd be back that day or some other time?"

"I thought he'd be back that night or late that afternoon."

Near the end of the interview, Machler asked Zeigler when he had last seen Edward Williams.

"Edward was backing his truck up to the bay door," Zeigler said, and again he picked up his narrative of what happened in the store: "I opened the hall door.  I tried the light switch but it didn't work.  I tried the next light switch....I walked into the store and I was hit on the side of my head....I tried to fire Ficke's gun....I fired [the magnum] but they were on me so close that I started swinging it...they threw me up against a rug rack.  This third blur shot me."

"What did you see?"

"Just fire.  It looked like a house on fire."

The session had lasted more than forty-five minutes.  Machler ended it by telling Zeigler to sleep, and suggesting that when he awoke he would remember as much or as little of the session as he wished.

Machler believed that the interview was genuine.  Zeigler's confusion, his indistinct speech, and his tendency to repeat minor details were all signs that the drug was having its effect.  The fact that Zeigler reverted to the past tense was unsurprising.  Only rare patients were able to recount events as if they were actually happening.  And Zeigler's emotionless manner didn't bother him: Machler thought that was in character.

Next morning Machler and Zeigler watched the videotape together.  Zeigler apparently had retained no memory of the interview; as the tape played he leaned forward in his chair and began nodding.  He took off his glasses, and Machler thought that he was on the verge of tears.

"What are your feelings?" Machler asked.

"My God, that is it," Zeigler said.  At the mention of leaning against a stool, he said, "And it fell with me," as if it were something he had just discovered.

The tape ended, but Zeigler went on talking to Machler.  He seemed to need to keep talking.  He described the trip to the hospital and how it had felt: the bumps in the road, the pain, the burning and the chill and his thirst.

"How do you feel physically?" Machler said, meaning now, at this moment.

Zeigler held his head up.

"It is going to be all right," he said.

__________________________________________

4    The price of the TV was disputed.  The state, based on Mattie Mays's testimony, claimed that Zeigler offered Mays the set at $128 in order to entice him to the store.  Zeigler claimed that he quoted Mays a price of $350 cash.