IN HIS OWN CABIN, Bernhardt walked to the window and carefully checked the overlap of the floor-to-ceiling draperies. Satisfied that no one could see inside the room, he took one of his two suitcases from the small closet. He lifted the suitcase to the bed, dug in his pocket for a key ring, and opened the suitcase. From under a miscellaneous collection of clothing he lifted out a bundle that had been wrapped in an oil-stained sweatshirt and secured with three strips of green cloth, each tied with a bow knot. He untied the knots, spread the sweatshirt on the bed, and took the shotgun in both hands. He’d bought the gun on impulse, for twenty-five dollars, at a garage sale. It was a double-barreled Browning, originally an expensive gun that had obviously been neglected over the years. He’d taken the gun to Jack Finney’s mountain cabin. With some trepidation, at first using a large square of thick steel to shield his face, he’d test fired both barrels. Satisfied that the breech was tight, he and Jack had shot up a whole box of twelve-gauge shells, firing at tin cans weighed with rocks that one man threw into the air while the other man fired. Afterward, they’d calculated that their hits were less than twenty-five percent. And, yes, both their shoulders had turned black and blue the next day.
He’d taken the gun home, cleaned it, sprayed it with WD 40 and put it in his closet. The next day he’d bought a hacksaw. Feeling like a criminal, he’d disassembled the gun. Using a kitchen chair as an improvised sawhorse, holding down the barrels with his foot, he’d spent more than an hour sawing eighteen inches off the barrels. Then he’d sawed six inches off the stock, and two inches off the forestock. In two hours he’d fashioned an illegal weapon that, loaded with buckshot, could literally blow a man apart at close range. Broken down into its three parts, it could easily be carried in a grocery bag. Assembled, it could be concealed under a jacket, or even inside a pants leg. In two years, this was only the second time he’d ventured to take the gun outside his apartment.
Rummaging again, he found the plastic bag containing six rounds of twelve-gauge buckshot. He broke open the gun, slipped two shells into the chambers, and snapped the gun closed, carefully setting the safety, and testing it. As he slipped the four extra shells into his pocket, he glanced at his watch. The time was exactly nine o’clock. In five minutes, Betty would leave her cabin.