Free AS THE SPARKS FLY UPWARD by Gloria Dank Page A

opposite Bernard and unveiled a long cloth-covered object with a flourish. It was a rifle.
    “Do you know what this is, Mr. Woodruff?”
    Bernard gazed at it in silence for a long time. “A space ship.”
    “No.”
    “A champagne fountain.”
    “No.”
    “A ticket for me and my wife for a free trip to Paris.”
    “It’s a rifle, Mr. Woodruff. Is it yours?”
    “No.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Positive.”
    “You’ve never seen it before?”
    Bernard hesitated.
    “Aha!” said Bentley in triumph. “You
have
seen it. Where?”
    “Wait a minute,” said Bernard. “Where did you find it?”
    “It was in the woods, not a hundred yards from the body. No fingerprints on it, of course. No footprints anywhere, because of the snow. But once I find out who it belongs to, I’ll know who killed Bobby Fuller. We also found Fuller’s car parked by the woods, on the road into Lyle. He must have left it there when he went for his little walk. Clear as glass, isn’t it?”
    “Are you sure?”
    “About what?”
    “That whoever owns that rifle killed Bobby with it?”
    “Of course I am. And even if the owner didn’t do it, it narrows the field, doesn’t it? Now tell me, where have you seen it?”
    “I don’t know,” said Bernard. “I can’t tell one gun from another. I’m not a gun expert.”
    “Come on, Mr. Woodruff. You recognized it, didn’t you? It’s a Winchester 30-caliber, used for hunting. And it has this scratch here.” The detective indicated a deep wavering line along the stock. “Where have you seen it?”
    Bernard hesitated. He said slowly, “I’m not sure, but … Roger Halberstam had a gun like that.”
    “Roger Halberstam?”
    “When I met him in the woods. He was carrying a rifle … it could be the same one. I can’t say for sure. All guns look alike to me.”
    “Thank you, Mr. Woodruff,” said the detective. He stood up, smiling. “Thank you very much.”
    “Good-bye, Detective.”
    “Good-bye.”
    After Bentley had left, Bernard turned to Maya. “I may just have implicated an innocent man,” he said heavily.
    “He may have done it, sweetheart.”
    “Maya, if you were going to murder someone, would you use your own rifle and then throw it away less than a hundred yards from the body, for anybody to find?”
    “Maybe,” said Snooky. “To throw everybody off. It’s obvious that it’s a stupid thing to do, right? So maybe it would confuse everyone.”
    “It doesn’t seem to have confused Detective Bentley. He’s sure it’s Roger Halberstam who did it.”
    “No proof,” said Snooky.
    “He thinks the gun is proof.”
    “He can think whatever he wants. He doesn’t have any real proof. Even if it
does
belong to Roger, anybody in the family could have taken that gun.”
    “And someone probably did,” said Bernard dryly.
    “Damn it,” said Roger a quarter of an hour later. He was sitting in the living room of Hugo’s Folly. The light glittering off the snow outside made the silver frames, mirrors and shiny gewgaws painfully bright. “Damn it. I mean,
damn
it. Yes, it’s my rifle. But anybody could have taken it. I mean, I haven’t seen it for
days.
I haven’t been out hunting.”
    “Where do you usually keep it?” asked Bentley.
    “In my hall closet at home, near the front door.”
    “You haven’t used it? For how long?”
    “Oh, at least three or four days. Since that dinner at the cabin. Everyone made such a fuss about my hunting, I decided to lay off for a while. Besides, it’s been damn cold. Damn cold.”
    “I see.”
    “That’s the truth, I’m telling you. The truth. Ask Dwayne. He knows I haven’t been out in the woods. Actually, he’s been there himself, shooting.”
    “
Shooting
?”
    Roger let out a shaky wuffle of laughter. “Sorry. Shooting pictures. He’s by way of being an amateur photographer.”
    “You say anyone could have taken the rifle?”
    “Yes, damn it. Nobody locks their houses around here. Anyone could have come in