“But it wasn’t that I didn’t aim right,” Bennis said. “The rifle moved.”
“Exactly,” Stuart Ketchum said.
“Why did it do that?”
“Because you aren’t used to firing rifles and because you have the upper-body strength of a gnat.”
“Thanks a lot,” Bennis said.
Franklin Morrison was beginning to get restless. Gregor didn’t blame him.
“Now see here,” Franklin said. “What is it you’re getting at, Stuart? So Ms. Hannaford’s never fired a gun before. So she’s not good at it. So what and who cares?”
“You should,” Stuart Ketchum said. “Look, it only makes sense. I’ve thought it from the beginning. That’s why I’ve never believed all those rumors that Jan-Mark Verek killed Tisha.”
“Do you know Jan-Mark Verek?” Gregor asked. “Do you know he knows how to fire a rifle?”
“I don’t have the faintest idea if Jan-Mark Verek has ever seen a rifle,” Stuart said, “but I do know that if he had some kind of characteristic trouble firing one, this isn’t the kind it would be. The man is built like a bull. You do realize it, don’t you? All this business with throats and shoulders. It’s not what our man is aiming for. It’s what the rifle is making him hit.”
“Stuart—” Franklin was sounding a warning.
Stuart Ketchum turned back to Bennis Hannaford. “Do it again,” he commanded. “Only this time, aim for the head.”
Bennis hesitated only a moment. Then she raised the rifle’s barrel, aimed at the head and pulled the trigger. When she put the gun’s nose down, she was looking confused again.
“It happened just the same way,” she said.
“Yes, it did,” Stuart told her, “and it will go on happening the same way unless you get enough experience to correct for the rifle’s action or you start lifting weights. You got him right in the shoulder.”
“I think I’m beginning to understand,” Gregor said slowly. “Our man, or woman, is really aiming at the head and the heart, say, but because he isn’t used to handling a rifle, he doesn’t know how to correct for the weapon’s kick. Therefore, every time he aims at the head, say, he hits the throat, and every time he aims at the heart—”
“—he hits the shoulder,” Stuart said. “Our guy goes to the right just like Bennis here goes to the left. He also jumps around more than Ms. Hannaford does, but that doesn’t matter. It can’t be Verek because Verek has too much strength in his shoulders and his arms. He wouldn’t need to correct for the rifle’s action the way Ms. Hannaford has to because he’d be strong enough to hold the gun steady under any conditions. Unless, of course, the two of you are right and he actually wants to be hitting people in the shoulder and the neck, which I think is rank impossible.”
“Mmm,” Gregor said.
“I’m getting a headache,” Franklin said.
Stuart Ketchum stood with his arms folded over his chest, looking triumphant. He had never put his jacket on. He had it tied around his waist where it couldn’t do him any good. He didn’t look cold.
“The other thing this proves,” he said, “is that all three of the shootings had to be done by the same person. I’m not saying there couldn’t be two people in the world with the same reaction to a rifle kick. I’m just saying that as coincidences go, it’s—”
“What’s that?” Gregor asked.
That was a loud echoing noise, like a Brahma bull bellowing into a bullhorn, and it seemed to fill the air like a sudden hard rain. Stuart Ketchum was looking disgusted. Franklin Morrison was looking resigned.
“That,” he said, “is Jan-Mark Verek himself, calling for help. He’s probably dead drunk and can’t find his way to the bathroom.”
Part Three
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight
One
1
IN ONE WAY, JAN-MARK Verek was more of a traditional artist than a contemporary one. He believed in doing the meet and seemly thing, and it was with an eye to doing the meet and seemly thing that he had built his house. Gregor Demarkian saw it right away, as soon as Franklin Morrison’s car pulled into the Vereks’ driveway. There was that great expanse of redwood and glass, staring out across the snowed-over front lawn to the line of tall trees that shielded the property from the road. There was the purity of line, the integrity of form, the perfection of detail that spoke of a project pursued for its beauty at completion. There was the expense, too, that spoke of a project pursued by a man who did not have to wonder how his children would get through college. Gregor found something particularly satisfying about the expense. It wasn’t a large house—not so large as a four-bedroom colonial in a decent Boston suburb—but Gregor was willing to bet that every square foot of it had cost triple what would have been spent on a more conventional place. Redwood had been chosen over clapboard. Glass had been custom designed and special ordered. Cabinets had been individually and locally made. Gregor knew about the cabinets because he could see them. He could see everything there was to see, through those windows, except the bed, which he guessed was up on the second level behind the partial wall on which hung a red-and-grey Navajo blanket. It was an exposed and vulnerable house, except that, hidden behind the trees like this, there was nothing for it to be exposed and vulnerable to. Still, Gregor didn’t like it. He always thought first of security, just in case. There was never any way to tell if your next-door neighbor was a saint or David Berkowitz. Not even if you’d known that neighbor for the past forty years.