A Catered Fourth of July by Isis Crawford

shots?”
    â€œShot,” Brandon told her.
    â€œOkay then. The shot looked black and they were about this big.” She made a small circle with her thumb and forefinger to show the size.
    Brandon turned off the water. “There goes the musket as a prop theory. However, that still wouldn’t be enough to make the musket explode the way they said it did on television.”
    Jack Devlin’s story had been featured on the six o’clock news, much to the dismay of Marvin and his dad.
    â€œNo, it wouldn’t,” Bernie agreed. “Clyde said the muzzle was also stuffed with mud and sticks, which means that once Devlin pulled the trigger, the thingie—”
    â€œThe thingie?” Brandon said. “What’s the thingie?”
    â€œThe thing that ignites everything.”
    â€œYou mean the percussion cap.”
    Bernie waved her hand. “Whatever. The percussion cap then. It caught, the shot had nowhere to go, and blammo! Instant Jack Devlin hamburger.”
    Marvin turned white. He’d already seen Jack Devlin’s face. He didn’t need reminding.
    â€œThat’s disgusting,” Libby informed her sister.
    â€œBut true,” Bernie said.
    Brandon cleared his throat. Everyone turned toward him. “That wouldn’t necessarily have killed Devlin. It could have just maimed him pretty badly.”
    â€œMaybe that was the intention,” Bernie noted after thinking for a moment about what Brandon had said. “Maybe someone wanted to take away Devlin’s looks. He certainly would have needed extensive plastic surgery if he’d survived.”
    â€œI could see this being a punishment,” Libby added.
    â€œLike the guy who throws acid in a woman’s face because she’d rejected him,” Brandon said.
    â€œExactly,” Libby said. “Or maybe in this case, a woman getting her own back.”
    â€œOr a guy,” Bernie said.
    â€œThen the motive would be different,” Brandon said. “I can’t see a guy doing something like that. I can see him killing Devlin, but maiming him? Not so much.”
    â€œWe really don’t know a lot, do we?” Libby observed.
    Bernie ate a pretzel. “We do know a couple things. We know that screwing around was Devlin’s favorite occupation and we also know that someone had to hand Devlin the musket. Those two facts we are sure of.”
    â€œAre we?” Brandon asked.
    â€œYes, we are,” Bernie answered. “That is, if we’re proceeding under the assumption that the purpose of this little exercise was to kill or maim Devlin.”
    â€œAnd we know I didn’t do it,” Marvin said. “We’re sure of that. That’s a third fact.”
    â€œBut we don’t know who did,” Brandon stated.
    â€œCorrect. If we did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Bernie pointed out.
    Everyone was quiet for a moment.
    Bernie ate another pretzel. The crunch echoed through the room. “We have eight people, seven excluding Marvin, who were directly involved in the reenactment. That’s another thing we’re sure of.”
    Everyone was quiet again. They could hear a freight train tooting its horn in the distance.
    Brandon poured the last of the ginger ale from the bottle into his glass. “Let’s go over this one last time.”
    Marvin groaned. “I’ve already repeated this at least a hundred times.”
    â€œThen one more time won’t make any difference,” Brandon told him. “So who was responsible for the muskets?”
    Marvin raised his hand. “I was.”
    â€œHow did you get them?”
    â€œI picked them up at the costume place along with the rest of the garb.”
    â€œDid they seem all right?” Brandon asked.
    Marvin shrugged. “Sure. I guess.”
    Brandon took a sip of his ginger ale and put the glass down. “What do you mean I guess? ” he demanded. “Did