Q: Yes, sir, but my understanding is that boxes generally are thrown back someplace and accumulated.  Is that right?

A: Right.

Q: So these boxes could have been given to someone else for the purpose of putting their weapons in a box somewhere along the line between 1972 and —

A: No.  I don't think that happened.

Q: You don't think so?

 A: I'm positive that it didn't.

Q: Now, my understanding further is that Mr. Walker of your firm is the one who actually handled the transaction.  Is that right?

A: Right.

Q: So, he would be the one to place the guns in any boxes, is that correct?

A: Right.

Hadley let the matter drop.  He did not ask how Ussery could be so positive about which particular empty boxes Zeigler had randomly received.

*

Eagan's next witness was Frank Smith, the friend of Edward Williams and key link between Zeigler and the two RG revolvers.

Smith was a tall, slim young man who had served as an Air Force MP.  After driving a cab in Orlando, he now was attending college on the GI Bill.

According to Smith, he had bought the weapons the previous June, after speaking by telephone to a man who Williams said was Tommy Zeigler.  According to Smith, the man on the telephone told him that he wanted two "hot" (untraceable) pistols, and gave him a telephone number where he could be reached.  Smith said he used his own money to buy the two new RG revolvers at a pawn shop in Orlando.  He called Zeigler at the number he had been given and told him that he had the pistols.  (He did not remember what this number was, and had thrown away the slip where he wrote it down.)  The next day Edward Williams brought him a sealed envelope containing $150, and Smith gave Williams the two pistols in a bag.

Smith said that the two RG pistols in evidence seemed to be the same ones he had bought, except for the bent trigger guard on one of them.

He admitted to Hadley that Edward Williams had initiated the transaction.

Q (HADLEY): I'm talking about June at the time of this alleged telephone conversation.  It was Edward Williams who contacted you at this time, wasn't it?