A Catered Fourth of July (3 page)

She had just located her lying in the grass under the Rose of Sharon bush when Marvin yelled, “Ready.”

“Ready,” Devlin echoed.

“Aim,” Marvin called.

“Aim,” Devlin repeated.

“Fire,” Marvin ordered.

“Fire, lads,” Devlin yelled. “Into the breech,” he added for good measure.

“What is a breech?” Bernie asked Libby.

Her sister shrugged. “I'm guessing some kind of opening, but if you really want to know you'll have to ask Marvin.”

The redcoats fired their weapons. A thick cloud of smoke and the acrid smell of gunpowder filled the air. It was difficult to see anything for the moment.

Then Bernie and Libby heard Jack Devlin scream.

The smoke cleared. They saw Devlin's musket fall as he let go of it and clutched his face. Then he fell to the ground and began to writhe.

“Bravo,” someone on the hill yelled. “Great dying. Can you do it again?”

Devlin didn't answer.

Libby leaned over and confided to Bernie, “This is a little too realistic for me.”

Marvin began speaking. “I will avenge you in this life or the next.” Then he got a good look at Jack Devlin and stopped talking.

Libby could see blood seeping through Devlin's fingers.

For a nanosecond, Libby and Bernie thought
wow, great special effects, great acting!
Then they realized that everyone had turned quiet. No one was making a sound. No one was moving. Everyone was frozen in place.

They looked at each other. Along with everyone else standing there, they had the same thought at the same time.
This isn't an act. This is real.

That's when all hell broke loose.

“O
h my God,” Libby cried as she ran down the steps and plunged into the crowd of people below.

Bernie was right behind her.

The scene was pandemonium. The reenactors, plus the spectators and the Wiccans, were gathered around Jack Devlin. Marvin was yelling, “Someone call 911, someone call a doctor,” while Rick Evans was repeating, “I don't understand,” over and over again. Three colonists and four Wiccans had whipped out their cell phones and were talking on them.

Libby and Bernie heard snippets of their conversation as they made their way through the crowd. Phrases like, “You're not going to believe this,” “You should come down and take a look, seriously,” and “I'm surprised it took this long,” peppered the air as they elbowed their way to where Jack Devlin lay. By the time they reached him, Elise Montague, former commodities trader and putative EMT, was kneeling down next to Devlin and feeling for his pulse.

“So?” Bernie asked her. But she knew the answer before Elise shook her head.

It was obvious to her as well as to Libby that Jack Devlin was going to be needing Marvin's services instead of a doctor's.

Rick Evans pointed to Devlin's musket, which was lying on the ground beside him. The barrel had melted from the heat. He bent over and touched it, then drew his hand back quickly. “Hot,” he cried, waving his finger in the air.

Bernie squatted down to get a better look. The musket barrel wasn't glowing, but the top part of the barrel was peeled back. The metal reminded her of the skin of a half eaten banana. Obviously, the thing had misfired.

“I wonder what would cause that,” she murmured to herself as she straightened up and took a quick look at the other muskets the men were holding. They all seemed fine.

Rick ignored Bernie and turned to Marvin. “Didn't you have charge of the guns?” he loudly demanded.

Libby snorted. She'd always thought that Rick lived by the principle assign blame early and often. This just proved it.

Marvin nodded and blinked. “Y-You know I did,” he stammered. He looked as if he was going to cry.

Libby wished there was something she could say that could make things better as Rick pointed to the musket.

“So what happened?” he asked. “Why did it do that?”

“I-I don't know.” Marvin's lower lip began to tremble.

Rick put his hands on his hips and jutted his jaw out. “How can you not know? You must have done something to it.”

“I didn't do anything,” Marvin protested.

“You had to have,” Rick insisted. “Something like this doesn't just happen by itself.”

Everyone stopped talking and crowded in closer so that they could hear Marvin's answer.

Marvin waved his hands around. A bead of sweat dripped down his face and fell on his shoulder. He didn't like being the center of attention in the best of times and this situation certainly didn't qualify as that.

He started to speak. “It's . . . I . . . the guns . . . sorry. It's just . . .”

Libby leaned over and patted him on his shoulder. “It's okay. Take your time.” Of course, what she really wanted to do was tell Rick to go to hell, but that would just make things worse, so she didn't.

Marvin stopped, gave Libby a grateful smile, and took a big breath. After a moment, he started over again. “The guns—”

“Muskets,” Rick corrected.

“Let him talk,” Libby snapped. She could feel herself losing control.

Rick threw up his hands. “Just clarifying.”

Libby turned back to Marvin. “Go on.”

Marvin took his hat off and wiped the sweat off his forehead before he answered Rick's question. “I did what you told me to. I picked the muskets up from Costumers To The Stars two days ago and put them, the powder, and the costumes in the shed next to the rose garden. As far as I know, that's where they stayed until today. When I came out of the shed with the muskets, people started grabbing them out of my hands, so I put them on the bench and everyone took theirs.”

Rick looked at the assembled reenactors for verification. “People?”

“We were running late,” Tony Gerard said. “We just wanted to get out there.”

“It was nuts,” Dave Nancy agreed.

Sanford Aiken shook his head. “Sorry. I was trying to remember my lines.”

Rick turned his gaze back on Marvin. “We can sort that out later, but one thing I know. Muskets don't explode on their own.” His voice was accusatory. “Especially something that is nothing more than a prop.”

“Don't blame him,” Libby cried, leaping to Marvin's defense.

“I'm not blaming him. I'm stating the obvious,” Rick said.

“Actually, they do . . . did,” Bernie said, interrupting the conversation.

Everyone turned to her.

“Muskets did explode on their own,” she explained. “I remember reading it was a big problem in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars.”

“But that was when they were using live ammo,” Cotton objected. “We weren't using live ammo. We were using fake stuff.”

“True,” Bernie said. “But if one of the barrels was plugged, the result might be the same.”

“I very much doubt that,” David Nancy, the last of the redcoats, replied in an antagonistic tone. “Even if what you're saying is true, I don't see how that happened here.”

Bernie shrugged. “The same way it did back then, I imagine. People leaned the muzzle's barrel on the ground and got a rock, or a branch, or some mud in it. Maybe one of you guys did the same thing.”

Rick snorted. “Talk about far-fetched.”

“Not so far-fetched at all,” Bernie told him. “That kind of thing happened a lot back in the day.”

“But not now.” Rick bared his teeth in a smile. “What makes you such an expert anyway?” he challenged. “I thought pie dough was your specialty. Maybe you should stick to that.”

“And maybe you should listen to what I was saying,” Bernie retorted. “I never said I was an expert. I was just telling you about what I've read.”

“I thought you just read cooking magazines,” Rick snipped.

Elise stepped between them before Bernie could reply, which was probably a good thing. Bernie noticed a small spot of blood on the underside of Elise's sleeve from when she'd knelt by Jack Devlin. She didn't get why Elise was playing a male colonist in the first place, but who knew? Maybe there had been cross-dressers back then.

“So exactly what is it that you are saying?” Elise asked Bernie.

“It's pretty obvious, isn't it?” In truth, Bernie hadn't liked Elise when she was younger and she didn't like her now, although everyone else except Libby seemed to.

“Not to me,” Elise replied as she pulled up her breeches.

Libby answered for Bernie. “It's simple. My sister is saying that we should wait and see what the police have to say.”

Rick pointed at Marvin. “The police should talk to
him
. He was the one who put the powder in the guns to begin with. He was the one who handed Jack Devlin the musket.”

“I'm sure they will,” Bernie said, trying to calm the situation down. “In fact, they're going to want to get all of our statements.”

Everyone continued talking as if she hadn't spoken.

Marvin turned to Rick. “I don't know why you just said that. I already told you I put all the muskets down on the bench next to the shed and Devlin came up and took one just like everyone else. I didn't hand it to him. For all I know, someone else did. I was too busy doing other stuff to notice.”

“Like what?” Rick demanded.

“Like making sure the rest of the supplies were where they should be.”

“So you say,” Rick sneered.

Marvin crossed his arms over his chest. “Yes, I do.”

“And who would this other person be that handed Jack Devlin his musket?” Rick demanded.

“How would I know?” Marvin admitted. “I just know that it wasn't me. In fact, how do you know anyone handed him the musket?”

“Because you just said so.”

“I was using a figure of speech,” Marvin explained.

“Then you should be more careful,” Rick said. “Are you always this careless? Maybe that's why the musket exploded. Maybe you did something you weren't supposed to.”

A murmur ran through the crowd. Several people nodded in agreement.

“Listen,” Marvin said, his eyes pleading with everyone. “The powder in the muskets was just supposed to make noise and smoke. The muskets were props. That's all.”

“Maybe you put too much of that powder in,” Samuel Cotton said.

“It wouldn't have made any difference if I had,” Marvin retorted.

“So you're the expert now,” Sanford Aiken said.

“No,” Marvin said. “I never meant—”

“Exactly,” Aiken said, cutting him off. “And that's where the problem lies.”

“Why don't you leave him alone,” Libby cried. “Can't you see how upset he is?”

“You're right,” Aiken said, holding up his hands, palms outward. “I apologize. I shouldn't have said that. I'm upset, too. It's just this day. I mean who would have thought when I got up this morning . . .” Aiken's voice trailed off.

Tony Gerard jumped in, uttering his first words since Jack Devlin's death. “We're all upset. Of course we are. My God, we could have been killed.” He pointed to Jack Devlin lying on the ground. “That could have been any one of us.”

“Yeah,” David Nancy echoed. “We could all be dead.”

“There m-must have been a m-malfunction of some s-sort,” Marvin stuttered.

“Or a careless error.” Elise shuddered theatrically.

“Isn't that manslaughter?” Rick asked the crowd. “I think it is.”

“He's right,” someone murmured. Heads bobbed as another ripple of agreement moved through the group.

This is how lynch mobs are formed,
Bernie thought. She put her fingers in her mouth and let out a loud whistle. Everyone turned toward her. “Let's not get ahead of ourselves here.” She could hear police sirens in the background. For once, she was glad they were coming. “The police will be here any minute. Let's let them take care of this. Let's let them do their job.”

“Fine with me,” Rick said.

Is it?
Libby asked herself as the sirens got closer. After all, he was the one inciting people. She wondered why as she whispered, “It'll be fine,” in Marvin's ear.

Marvin shook his head and bit his lower lip. “I don't think so.”

“No. It will be,” she reassured him. “Trust me on this.”

“I do,” Marvin said even though Libby could tell he really didn't.

Heads turned in the direction of the police siren's wail and the crowd waited for the constabulary to arrive.

“Can I see the muskets?” Bernie asked. She'd suddenly realized it would probably be the only time she'd get to look at the weapons before the police arrived and confiscated them all. If it wasn't an accident—and it looked as if it wasn't—she should take a look.

“Why?” Samuel Cotton asked.

Bernie hedged. Somehow saying
I want to see if they've been tampered with
didn't seem like the best reply, so she said, “I'm just curious.”

“About what?” Rick demanded.

“About the muskets,” Bernie said, improvising. “I've never seen guns like that.”

“Since when have you become so interested in munitions?” David Nancy asked.

“Can't a girl expand her horizons?” Bernie answered, doing her best Mae West imitation.

“You want to expand your horizons, go to a museum,” Rick snapped at her. “And can the act. It's not working on me.”

“What act?” Bernie asked.

“The one you're doing now. Do you think I'm an idiot?”

“Pretty darn close,” Bernie retorted.

“One day, your smart mouth is going to get you in a lot of trouble,” Rick warned her.

Bernie was just coming up with an answer when she felt Libby's hand around her arm.

“Leave it. You're not helping the situation.”

Rick grinned. “How bad is it when your own sister has to tell you to shut up?”

Bernie could have answered. She wanted to answer. But she didn't. She let herself be dragged away by her sister because Libby was right in her assessment of the situation. This was about Marvin. It wasn't about her. A minute later, the police arrived, along with the Longely Fire Department.

“Good,” Rick said as people made way to let them through. He puffed his chest out. “Now maybe we can get this thing sorted out.”