It could have been a carrot under the man’s sweatshirt, prosecutor Shelley Diehl said in court Tuesday. It could have been his fingers.

Whatever it was, it doesn’t matter, Diehl said. It looked like a gun.

The question of whether a 49-year-old Topeka man threatened to have a gun on April 25 when he robbed Bath & Body Works, 3102 Iowa, was a central issue of the man’s trial, which ended Tuesday. Jurors continue deliberations this morning to decide whether Michael L. Sudduth is guilty of aggravated robbery — which involves use or threat of a dangerous weapon — or the lesser charge of robbery.

Sudduth admits he robbed the place. He even stood up in court Tuesday to demonstrate how he held his left hand over his face when he approached two female clerks outside the back door of the store.

But Sudduth testified he told the young women, “I don’t have a gun,” and he denied threatening them in any way.

Diehl, the deputy district attorney, reminded jurors in her closing argument that the clerks told a different story. They testified that he told them, “I have a gun,” held his hand under his sweatshirt, and told them if they complied they wouldn’t get hurt, Diehl said.

Sudduth’s attorney, Shelley Bock, responded in his closing argument that the two clerks might have been too scared to perceive the events clearly.

In addition to two counts of aggravated robbery, Sudduth faces two counts of kidnapping. To prove the charge, the prosecution had to show that Sudduth confined the women by force or threat to further the commission of the robbery.

But Bock said he thought the kidnapping charges were extreme. After all, he said, when Sudduth took the women in the store he didn’t take them anywhere they wouldn’t otherwise have gone.

Sudduth testified Tuesday that before the robbery, he had smoked a cigarette dipped in PCP and embalming fluid.

He left the store with a bank bag. Lawrence Police Officer Mike McAtee stopped Sudduth’s Chevrolet Suburban shortly afterward on westbound U.S. Highway 40. Sudduth stopped, then fled, leading officers on a high-speed chase that ended in Shawnee County.

Sudduth also is charged with fleeing to elude a police officer, a charge he doesn’t contest.