If Catfish Had Nine Lives(99)

            “You two here for something specific or do you have time to sit a bit and chat?” he said as he placed the chairs in a comfortable triangle.

            Jake looked at me. I still hadn’t told him why we were there.

            “Both,” I said.

            “Good enough. Sit.” Orly signaled someone down a neighboring aisle.

            Gary appeared a second later. He tipped his hat at me and said. “Miss.”

            “Hi, Gary, how are you today?”

            “Right as rain rolling through some mane,” he said with what I thought was a hiccup, even though there was no indication he was drunk or had been drinking.

            “Good to hear.”

            “Gary,” Orly said, “would you grab our guests some breakfast from one of the fires?”

            “Yes, sir,” he said before he turned and walked away. The hitch I’d noticed the night before was still present.

            “You met Gary?” Orly said.

            “I did. Nice man,” I said.

            “He is. So, tell me, friends, what can I do for you?” Orly asked.

            “I have a question, Orly, and it’s a little uncomfortable to ask it, but I hope you’ll forgive me if I offend you.”

            “Of course.”

            “You brought some guns to the convention, didn’t you?” I said.

            “I did, Betts, and I might know what you’re getting at, but I showed them to the police after Norman was shot. They said he hadn’t been killed with any of them, and they chastised me something fierce for bringing the shotgun out yesterday. I didn’t think the police meant ‘shotgun’ when they confiscated all guns. I was under the impression that they meant handguns. I didn’t fire yesterday, though.”

            “Do you know the kind of gun Norman was killed with?” I said.

            “No.”

            “A .38 Special,” I said. I watched him closely. His eyes pinched but only briefly.

            “That’s quite a weapon,” he said.

            Gary reappeared quickly and handed Jake and me each a plate overflowing with bacon, eggs, and sausage, and our own blue tin mugs of coffee. I balanced the plate on my lap and took a sip of the hot and perfect coffee. When the gun had been dropped the night before, I hadn’t allowed myself to think too long or hard about how horrible the outcome might have been. We could easily have had another tragedy on our hands. But later last night, long after I’d talked with Cliff on my back porch, an idea had sprung to my mind. Even though everybody was supposed to turn in their firearms to the police, apparently not everyone had. Orly had the shotgun, and the convention attendee’s gun, even with his good intentions of showing it to the police, had been loaded. He’d dropped it. Guns had been forgotten, accidentally and maybe even on purpose. And I’d come to learn that Orly probably never wanted to be forthcoming with the police. It was partially the way of the cowboy, partially just plain old stubbornness.

            “You ever have one of those? A .38 Special, I mean,” I said after I swallowed.

            Orly looked younger without the hat and the vest, but my question pained him so much that he suddenly looked older than he had in the short time that I’d known him.

            “I was afraid of that,” he said.

            “You brought one with you?”

            “I wasn’t sure if I had or not. I thought I had one in the equipment box of my truck, Betts, but I wasn’t sure.” Orly shook his head. “I’m ashamed to admit that. I should know where every gun is, and whether it’s loaded or not. When Norman was killed and I didn’t see the gun in the truck, I thought there was a chance I hadn’t brought it. There’s no one at home I feel like I can ask to check the gun case. The police wouldn’t tell me what weapon was used on poor Norman, but . . . Well, now I just hope it wasn’t mine. Maybe I should have told them that that gun being here was a possibility, but I thought . . . well, I should have said something.”