AS THE SPARKS FLY UPWARD

by Gloria Dank

  “I don’t understand, Mr. Woodruff,” said Detective Bentley. “What were you doing out in the woods?”

  “I was taking a walk.”

  “Right.” The thought of anyone, particularly a visitor, taking a walk on a sunny November day in the Vermont woods seemed to strain the detective’s power of imagination. “With your dog?”

  “Yes.”

  “This dog?” He made a vague gesture with his foot.

  “Of course this dog. Do you see any other dogs around here?”

  “Now, now, Mr. Woodruff. It’s my job, you know, asking questions. It doesn’t do any good to blow up. I might have to take you down to the station for questioning. So you were walking with your dog in the section of the woods you showed me earlier, and …?” He waited with his pen hovering in the air.

  “As I told you before, Misty began to sniff around that bush. She got herself wound around it, and while I was unwinding her, I saw something lying in the snow. Something large and dark. It was half-buried, so it took me a while to figure out what it was.”

  “And it was …?”

  “A package from Peking,” said Bernard. “Do we have to go through all this again? It was Bobby Fuller’s body. He was lying there, shot through the head.”

  “Mmmmm.” Detective Bentley was writing furiously. He ripped the top page off his pad and crumpled it up in his pocket. “Hmmmm. Yes. And then you—?”

  “Went to the moon.”

  Bentley looked up reproachfully. “Mr. Woodruff.”

  “Took a nice walk, enjoying the woods covered with snow.”

  “Mr. Woodruff.”

  “Came right back here to the cabin and had Snooky call you,” said Bernard irritably. “Why, I can’t imagine. It doesn’t seem that anything is getting done.”

  “All in good time, Mr. Woodruff. All in good time.” Detective Bentley nodded his thick meaty head. The hair over his bald spot flopped back and forth as if possessed by a will of its own. Snooky found himself staring at it, fascinated. I wonder if I’ll start doing that when I go bald, he thought, grasping his full head of light brown hair in sudden appreciation. His thoughts drifted off into apprehensive visions of a balding future, while Bentley’s voice receded gently into a background drone. Bernard’s voice punctuated the drone with short, angry rumbles. I wonder how I’ll look, thought Snooky, sprawled next to the hearth. I wonder if I’ll still be good-looking …

  Maya was thinking, This man really is a pig. I wonder if we can serve him some of that cider?

  When Snooky dreamily tuned in again, Bernard was trembling with rage and saying in a strangled voice, “That’s all I know. That is all I know. That is all I know. That is all I know.”

  “Now, now, Mr. Woodruff. Just doing my job. Don’t put on that tone of voice with me. So that’s all you know?”

  Bernard did not reply.

  Bentley scribbled something down. “You knew Bobby Fuller, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. He had dinner here three days ago. He and a bunch of other people.”

  “A bunch of other people?”

  Bernard enumerated.

  “They had dinner here?” Bentley looked around the cabin.

  “Yes.”

  “All those people?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did they eat?”

  Bernard refused to answer this. Snooky said, “A really delicious beef stew. I made it myself.”

  “This is your cabin?”

  “Yes. Well, I’m renting it while the owners are away. They’re in France. Lyons, actually. They have some sort of business there. The lady who owns this cabin is half-French. Their name is Wuxler. Patrick and Marie Wuxler. I can give you their address in Lyons, if you like, but I’m afraid they wouldn’t be much help. They’ve been out of the country for nearly two months now.”

  “I see.” The detective rose to his full height of just over five feet. “I’ll be seeing you around, Mr. Woodruff.”

  Bernard nodded.

  Bentley pocketed his pad of paper and left. They could hear his ancient yellow car, parked in front of the picket fence, cough slowly to life and move away down the dirt path.

  “I try to do my civic duty,” said Bernard. “I find a body, and I report it. And I get treated like a common criminal for doing so.”

  “Yes,” said Snooky. “And that’s Wolfingham’s finest you’re looking at.”

  “Why Wolfingham?”

  “It’s the big town around here. Lyle doesn’t have its own police force.”

  “Neither, apparently, does Wolfingham,” said Bernard. “Is there any cake left over from last night?”

  “Yes,” said Snooky.

  “Bring it out here to me.”

  Snooky came back with a big slice of lemon cake. Bernard placed it in front of him, cut it neatly in two and forked half of it into his mouth. Maya regarded him worriedly.

  “You shouldn’t eat for comfort, darling. It’s so bad for you.”

  “I’m not eating for comfort. I’m angry.”

  “You shouldn’t eat because you’re angry.”

  “All right, I’m not angry. I’m hungry. I had a long, pleasant walk in the woods today, and now I’m hungry.”

  “Somebody’s going to have to break the news to Sarah,” said Snooky. “She’s the one who should tell Irma about it. She’ll know what to do.”

  Maya stared out the window. “Do you think all those men are still there?” The detective had brought a group of men who had tramped off into the woods with Bernard and Snooky to examine the body and the surrounding area.

  “Probably,” said Snooky. “I heard the medical examiner say that he was shot yesterday afternoon. Then it snowed on him last night.”

  There was a short silence at this bleak image. Maya crossed her arms. “The poor man.”

  Snooky picked up the telephone and dialed rapidly. “Hello? Who’s this? Gertie, it’s Snooky. Is Sarah there? No? Oh. Well, Gertie, I have some bad news. Is Irma there? All right. You’d better be the one to tell her. I’m terribly sorry, but Bobby Fuller is dead … What?… Dead. Yes. He was … well, he was shot to death in the woods … What?… No, they don’t know whether it was a hunting accident … Yes, I know those hunters are crazy. Anyway, somebody’s going to have to break it to Irma … all right. All right. I wanted to warn you. The detective from Wolfingham is on his way over, and he’s an idiot, so I wanted you to know … Okay. Please have Sarah call me when she can … Thanks. Bye.” He put the phone down. “Well, that wasn’t easy. I hate those kind of calls.”

  “Those kind of calls?” said Maya. “What do you mean? Have you ever had to make one before?”

  “No, but—you remember, My—I’ve received them.”

  Maya’s face changed. It lost its angularity and became much softer. She crossed the room to put an arm around his shoulder. “Oh. I’m sorry, Snooks. Of course you have.”

  When Snooky was five years old, he had been alone in the house when the call had come through about their parents’ car accident. The well-meaning but moronic relative who had called to offer sympathy had given it to him, not realizing that the family had not yet heard.

  “We should go over to the house and offer our condolences,” said Snooky.

  “We should bring something,” said Maya. “Flowers, perhaps.”

  “We should get in our car,” said Bernard, “and drive very quickly back to Connecticut.”

  Later, with Maya and Snooky busy in the kitchen, Bernard sat by the fire in a pensive mood. That terrible moment of realization when he was bending over Bobby Fuller’s frozen body … he shuddered. He had not known the man—he had only met him twice—but he felt sorry for him. Whatever he had done, surely he did not deserve to die alone in the woods and be left for carrion. Surely he did not deserve that.

  The Grunwald sisters were the happiest they had been in years. There is nothing like a murder in a small town to give the elderly residents a new lease on life. Alicia and Charlotte, once they heard the news
, retired to their sitting room to rejoice. They were two tall, beak-nosed spinsters, with gray faces and gray eyes and gray hair. They had managed to receive a strict Victorian upbringing in twentieth-century America. Their father had been a minister, and in all their lives they had traveled no farther than the neighboring town of Wolfingham. A murder—an actual murder—in Lyle, in their lifetimes, had seemed too much to hope for. They sat together and twittered.

  “This is terrible news,” said Alicia, the older sister.

  “Terrible,” agreed Charlotte.

  “Poor Irma,” said Alicia, tucking back a strand of gray hair. She had been horribly jealous of Irma Ditmar and her young lover. In her few quiet moments, she admitted this to herself. But now there was no need to be jealous, simply sympathetic, which was so much easier to handle. Alicia herself had never had a young lover, even when she herself was young.

  “Poor Irma!” repeated Charlotte.

  “Those hunters. There should be a law.”

  “A law, yes.”

  “Would you care for some tea?”

  “Yes, thank you, Alicia.”

  Charlotte, pale echo of her sister, was three years younger but looked just as aged. She was only a few years older than Irma Ditmar, and had been even more jealous of her than her sister. “Terrible for the family,” she said now. “Terrible.”

  “Terrible!” Alicia said cheerfully. She paused, tea kettle in hand. “When do you think we should go over there and comfort her, the poor thing?”

  “Oh, not yet. Not right now. It’s too soon.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” Alicia poured out carefully for both of them. “There you are. Two sugars. There’s the doorbell. Why don’t you get it?”

  Charlotte was towed back into the room by a vigorous white-haired gentleman with a still-handsome face and bright blue eyes.

  “Frank,” Alicia greeted him. “Have a seat. Some tea?”

  He accepted a cup. “You’ve heard the news?”

  “About poor Irma’s friend? Sadly, yes.”

  “Knock it off, Alicia. You and your sister here have been plotting Irma’s death for years. You’ve never liked her, and you’re not sorry for her now.”

  “That’s not true. Irma is one of my dearest friends.”

  The elderly man snorted. He drank his tea in a gulp and stood up. “If it makes you feel any better, the rest of the town’s old biddies are the same way. Every one of them was jealous of Irma and her catch.”

  Charlotte sniffed loudly. “It was indecent. The man was thirty years younger.”

  “Yes, well, somebody took care of that.” The old man’s glittering blue eyes swept over the two sisters. “Somebody took care of that, didn’t they?”

  “Don’t look at us that way, Mr. Frank Vanderwoort,” said Alicia stiffly. “It was an accident—a hunting accident. I heard that on good authority.”

  “Gertie, huh?” said the old man shrewdly. “I saw the two of you whispering out back a little while ago. Gertie’s not that stupid, and neither are you. I don’t think it was an accident.”

  “Not … not an accident?” faltered Charlotte.

  “No, my dear girl. It was murder, plain and simple. I’d watch what you say for the next few days. The police are sniffing all around town, looking for clues. Not that the two of you know anything. You may be old dried-up spinsters, but you’re not murderers, that’s for sure.”

  “There’s no need to be offensive, Frank,” said Alicia mildly. “You’re not exactly in the bloom of youth yourself.”

  He let out a snuffling snort of laughter. “No, by God, but if I were, I’d give you a runaround, kid!” He slapped her familiarly on the back and left. It was as if a whirlwind had swept through the parlor. Alicia found her hair was disarranged. She tucked it neatly behind her ear and turned excitedly to her sister.

  “Charlotte, he’s right! It was a murder—a real murder—not an accident!”

  There followed a small sensation in the sitting room of the Grunwald house.

  Snooky had been at Hugo’s Folly during the afternoon. Now, as the light faded from the sky, he sat in the living room of the cabin, hugging a pillow to his chest, and told Maya and Bernard all about it.

  “Sarah’s fine. She doesn’t seem very upset. None of them do, actually, except Irma. She had to be put to bed with an elephant dose of tranquilizers. Poor woman. She wanted to come and see the body, but she was too weak. I didn’t think it was a good idea, myself. Letting her see the body, I mean. She’s had enough of a shock as it is.”

  “Who else is at the house?” asked Maya.

  “The whole family. Dwayne and his stepfather and Sarah and Gertie. Dwayne and Roger came over as soon as they heard. And some friends from the village have been stopping by.”

  “Do they still think it was a hunting accident?”

  “I don’t know, Maya. Detective Bentley hasn’t told me.”

  “Very convenient that he would be murdered right after the wedding announcement,” said Bernard.

  “Yes.”

  “Doesn’t look too good for the family.”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  “Of course,” said Bernard, “with Detective Bentley on the case, whoever did it doesn’t have to worry much about being caught.”

  “True.” Snooky leaned back thoughtfully on the sofa. “I’m worried about Sarah. She’s close to her aunt, and once Irma wakes up there’s going to be a scene. I wouldn’t be surprised if this killed her. Irma, I mean. Her heart isn’t very strong.”

  Bernard recalled the layers of makeup which obscured her real color. “How can you tell?”

  “Sarah told me. She could go at any time. The shock might kill her.”

  “Maybe that’s what somebody is hoping for.”

  Snooky sucked in his lips between his teeth. “You have a very nasty mind, Bernard. I compliment you on it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “He’s realistic,” Maya said warmly, putting an arm around her husband. “Bernard has always been the soul of practicality.”

  “Plus, he hates people, so he always thinks the worst.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re right, of course, Bernard. That could indeed be what somebody is hoping for.” Snooky went to the window and gazed out at the fast-vanishing afternoon. “Danger. Danger. Red alert. Bentley approaching at ten o’clock, in that old yellow crate of his. Fifty meters to go.”

  “Coming to arrest me, no doubt,” Bernard said bitterly. “I’ll go quietly.”

  “Thirty meters.”

  “This will teach me never to take a walk in the woods. I knew I shouldn’t go. Didn’t I, Maya? Didn’t I say I didn’t want to go that day?”

  “Yes, you did, sweetheart.”

  “Ten meters.”

  “I’ve changed my mind,” said Bernard. “I won’t go without a fight. They’ll have to drag me down to the police station.” He settled back with a resigned expression as Bentley came in the door. The detective grunted hello, sat down 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 Fulle
r’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.”