A Case of Virga

Clues that solve a crime can be as evanescent as virga: rain that falls in the desert which the desert's rising heat evaporates before the rain has a chance to reach the ground. Using Zen's pragmatic approach to discover the complexity of a crime that had been regarded as 'cut and dry,' Beryl Tilson and Sensei Percy Wong of Wagner & Tilson, Private Investigators, apply their skill and intuition to free a man who has been wrongly accused of murder.

The biggest clue to solving this mystery is in the false evidence that was submitted at trial. A gun which was alleged to have lain in the Sonora desert for 5 hours in July was apparently picked up without "pot holders" - directly in the hand and shown to a covering TV camera. This cannot happen.

But the defense attorneys are not desert people and know only Hollywood versions of desert life. Beryl Tilson has lived in the Mojave and understands sun and heat. Nobody can pick up metal that has been lying in the sun for half an hour much less 5 hours. (Also you can never see sweaty shirts in the desert. Perspiration evaporates as fast as you can produce it.)