A Stillness in Bethlehem(86)

“We don’t know,” Franklin Morrison said quickly. “We just found it.”

“Considering how we found it,” Gregor said, “I’d be extremely surprised if it wasn’t the rifle that killed your mother. I believe in coincidences, Mr. Ketchum, but not in too many of them in the same place.”

“Amateur,” Stuart Ketchum said.

“What?” That was Gregor and Franklin both.

“Amateur,” Stuart Ketchum repeated. “Nobody who knew what he was doing around guns would have stored this rifle without the barrel cocked, not even in a tree. Never mind stored it with the ammunition clip inside it—the only point to that I can see is that whoever had this thing didn’t know how to get the clip out and didn’t want to figure it out. It isn’t hard to know what you have to do if you look carefully enough. And leaving it out there, all ready to fire with the clip still in. You sure you didn’t do anything to it? Take the safety off?”

“I wouldn’t know where to find a safety on a rifle if my life depended on it,” Gregor Demarkian said.

“Franklin would,” Stuart said. “It doesn’t matter. Whoever put it out there was stupid beyond belief. Some animal could have come along and set it off. It wouldn’t have been easy, but it’s been known to happen. Then the bullet flies and who knows what it hits? Or who?”

“Maybe that’s what happened to your mother,” Bennis said cautiously.

“Once is one thing,” Stuart said, “twice is another. I wish I could tell you I don’t know a single person who would have put that gun out there that way, but it isn’t true. It’s incredible what people don’t know about guns. I’ve got a lot of them. I believe people ought to have the right to have them. But dear sweet Jesus, it ought to be like driving a car. They ought to make sure you can operate one before they let you have a license.”

“That’s the kind of thing Stuart doesn’t say in town,” Franklin Morrison said drily, “because otherwise people would say he’s gone over to the enemy.”

“The enemy?” Gregor asked.

“Flatlanders,” Bennis Hannaford said. “I have heard a fair amount about flatlanders since I got here. The man does talk, just not a lot, and not about any subject I bring up.”

“I couldn’t talk to you about the punk aesthetic in science fiction,” Stuart said, “because I don’t read science fiction.”

“He reads histories of the Vietnam War.” Bennis stared at the ceiling. “And he knows who Bernard Hare is.”

Stuart went back to fussing with the gun. Gregor watched him move the barrel up and down, back and forth, and then pick up the clip and examine it. Every once in a while he shook his head. The lack of emotion was disturbing, but not as disturbing as it might have been. Gregor thought it was Stuart Ketchum’s form of self-control. Either show no emotion or go publicly nuts. A lot of men were like that. Gregor leaned over and touched the rifle’s barrel gently, to get Stuart’s attention.

“Let me ask you a few questions,” he said. “Is this a rare gun or a popular one? Would you know who else besides you in town would have one? Are you sure you’ve got all the ones you own here?”

“I was in the gun room when she drove up,” Stuart said, jerking his head in Bennis’s direction. “My guns are all in racks. I could tell in a second if any of them were missing. None of them were missing, except the one you and Franklin have already got.”

“All right,” Gregor said.

“As for anybody else in town who might have one—” Stuart Ketchum shrugged. “It’s a decent rifle for target practice and it’s relatively cheap. And it’s glamorous, if you know what I mean. It makes you look good when you hold it. I know half a dozen people in town who’ve got them. Maybe more.”

“Like who?” Franklin Morrison asked.

“Reggie George,” Stuart said promptly, “although why any society in its right mind would let Reggie George have a firearm is beyond me. Someday he’s going to push that little girl he’s married to just far enough, and she’s going to use it to take off his head. At least, I hope she will.”

“Yeah,” Franklin said. “I hope she will, too. I offered to do it for her once, but she wasn’t interested.”

“Umn.” Stuart ran his hands through his hair. “Let’s see. Carl Herman’s got one. Keeps it behind the counter of the store—he runs a feed-and-grain store, Mr. Demarkian, out on the Montpelier Road—anyway, he keeps it back there just in case somebody wants to steal a sack of chicken meal. And Henry Dearmott’s got one he keeps on his back porch out on the other end of Carrow from Main Street. And there’s Eddie Folier, of course, but I don’t think it could belong to him.”