Death of a Survivalist

by Glen Ebisch

  “So that was a two-way mirror,” Charles said. “I thought they only had those on television.”

  “Part of our last remodel.” The door opened and Officer Henley entered. Henley gave Charles a hard stare that Charles returned.

  “I want the two of you to play nice and give me your opinions of the next two people I’m going to interview,” the lieutenant said, shooting them both warning looks.

  Once she left the room Henley and Charles stood next to each other, staring through the glass as if the other wasn’t there. Charles doubted that he and Henley were ever going to be best friends.

  A minute later, Joanna escorted Marie Locke into the interview, and she took the seat Jason had just vacated.

  “I’m sorry to have to call you in again,” Joanna said. “But as a commonwealth attorney, I’m sure you can undertand that in a murder case we have to be sure to cover all the bases.”

  “And family members are always the most likely suspects,” she said with a thin smile.

  Joanna nodded. “We’ve determined that your husband was killed between twelve and one on September 23rd. Where were you at that time?”

  “As I told you before, I was working from home that day. I had a big case to prepare, and I find that I often get more done away from the distractions of the office.”

  “Can anyone corroborate that?”

  “I did call in to work, but I used my cell phone so it would be hard to determine my location. Anyway I made that call around eight o’clock, so I would still have had plenty of time to have driven out to Opalsville and killed Sebastian.”

  “She seems very willing to undercut her own possible alibi,” Charles mumbled.

  “Some of the smartest criminals do. They think it makes them look innocent,” Henley surprised him by replying.

  “So no one saw you until when?” asked Joanna.

  “No one saw me that entire day. I live alone, and I didn’t go out that night. Like I said, I was workng on an important case, and it had a tight deadline. I didn’t see anyone until I went to work the next day.”

  “Did anyone call you?”

  “Not that I remember.”

  “Did you call anyone else later in the day?”

  “No.”

  Joanna sat back and thought for a moment.

  “Do you have any idea who killed your husband?” she finally asked.

  Marie Locke smiled. “That’s very hard to tell. He could get into a fight alone in a room, and since our divorce, I have completely lost track of his associates. In fact, even before we separated, he had his own life, although I wasn’t fully aware of how very different his life was from mine until he asked for a divorce.”

  “You didn’t know about his interest in survivalism?”

  “Oh, I had some idea that he was getting interested in some odd political views, but Sebastian was always something of an outlier when it came to his beliefs. I didn’t realize how serious it had become.”

  “Was when he asked for a divorce the first time you became aware of Lavinia Cole?”

  “I may have heard her name mentioned as a real estate agent that the business had employed, but I didn’t know about their personal relationship.”

  “What do you think of her?” Joanna asked.

  The other woman smiled. “As you might imagine, I’m not very fond of the other woman. But actually it’s more than that. I think she’s dangerous and violent. After all, you saw what she did to Jason just because she suspected him of attacking Sebastian.”

  “That would seem to show that she didn’t kill Sebastian herself,” Joanna pointed out.

  “Don’t bet on it. She’s fully capable of doing that as a ploy to direct attention away from herself.”

  “So you think we should take a longer look at her?”

  “I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, but I’ve conducted my share of criminal investigations, and you know how often the guilty party is the spouse.”

  “Or sometimes the ex-spouse,” Henley said softly in Charles’ ear.

  As Maria Locke stood and left the room, she shot a knowing glance toward the mirror as if she knew that someone was behind it watching.

  A few minutes later, Reggie Locke walked into the room, smiling at something Jonna had said and sat in the chair that Marie had vacated. He unzipped his light jacket and rested his hands on his ample stomach. To Charles he looked like someone who had once been a football player—a linebacker perhaps—and had let himself go to seed over the past fifteen years.

  “Thanks for coming in again,” Joanna said.

  “Glad to be of help. I’d like to find whoever killed my brother.”

  “Do you have any idea who that might have been?” Joanna asked bluntly, clearly trying to catch him off guard.

  Reggie shook his head. “I can’t give you any names, but my money is on one of those survivalist nuts he hung out with up in Vermont. Those guys are all armed to the teeth and have a bad attitude.”

  “Did your brother ever mention having trouble with anyone in particular from the area where he lived?”

  Reggie shrugged. “Sebastian and I didn’t communicate that much after he left the business and moved to Vermont.”

  “There were hard feelings?”

  “I thought what he did to Marie and Tori was wrong, and I let him know. I also told him my opinion of Lavinia, which wasn’t very complimentary.”

  “But you were still in business together, right? You said that he was coming out the day he was killed to talk to you about some business matters.”

  “He still had fifteen percent of the shares in the company.”

  “After he sold you half of his shares.”

  Reggie blinked. “How did you know that?”

  Joanna smiled. “I’m a trained investigator. What business matter was he coming out to talk to you about?”

  “Nothing special. He just liked to be brought up to date on what we were doing every couple of months. I think even Sebastian got bored sitting out in the woods up there all the time waiting for the end of the world.”

  “When did he call you?” asked Joanna.

  “Around seven-thirty on the morning he died. I had just gotten in to work when the phone rang.”

  “Can a secretary or anyone confirm the time of the call?”

  He shook his head. “The staff only shows up at eight-thirty. I was the only one in the office. I like to get an early start.”

  “And your brother said that he’d be in Boston that afternoon?”

  “Right. We were scheduled to have dinner together.”

  Joanna paused and looked at the file. Charles could tell that she wasn’t actually reading, but composing her thoughts.

  “No offence, Mr. Locke, but you don’t seem very upset over your brother’s death.”

  The man stared across the room and then sighed. “Sebastian was my younger brother by three years. I tried to help him along the way, but he was very difficult to understand and get along with. Even as children I wouldn’t say we were very close.”

  “But you worked together in the same business with your father when he was alive. Isn’t that right?”

  “Yes, Dad founded the business and we both worked for him. But I was the one who really enjoyed the work and shared my father’s enthusiasm. Sebastian did the minimum. For him it was just an easy way to get a paycheck. So even though we worked together, in many ways we were miles apart. And, of course, it all got worse after he deserted Marie and Tori. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want his killer caught. I definitely want justice to be done.”

  Joanna nodded. “And I promise you that we will do our best to see that it is,” she said, getting up to escort Reggie Locke from the room.

  Henley and Charles stood there looking through the glass into the empty room as if there was something to see. Charles didn’t want to share ideas with the officer, and he suspected that the other man felt the same.

  After five minutes the door opened and Joanna said,
“Come with me.”

  She led them into the interview room and indicated that they should each take a chair.

  “Well,” she said, “what did you think?”

  “Before we start, I want to know why he’s here,” Henley said, glaring at Charles. “Since when do we share ideas with a suspect?”

  “First of all, he’s not a suspect. Secondly, he’s the only one of us here who actually knew the victim at all. Thirdly, he has special insights into two of our suspects: Jason Savoy and Professor Russell Carlson.”

  “I still don’t like it,” Henley said, getting red in the face.

  Joanna smiled grimly. “And when you’re chief of detectives, I’m sure that will carry a lot of weight.”

  Henley got even redder.

  “So let’s begin at the beginning. What about Jason Savoy?”

  “I doubt that he killed Sebastion Locke,” Charles said. “He doesn’t seem very violent to me.”

  Henley snorted. “Everyone is violent. You just have to find the right thing to bring it out.”

  “I suppose he could have gotten in a fight with Locke, and stabbed him in self-defense,” Charles admitted. “But don’t you think he would have broken down by now and confessed?”

  Henley gave a wolfish grin. “You can never tell with those college boys. They can be pretty sneaky.”

  Charles suppressed a sigh. “But he’s not a hardened criminal. He has to be frightened by all of this.”

  “What about Marie Locke? Do you think she drove out here and killed her husband?” Joanna asked.

  “She’s got some kind of black belt, so she could have disarmed her husband,” said Henley. “And if she’s a D.A., she’s probably tough enough to stick a knife in him.”

  “But what would she get out of killing her husband?” Charles asked.

  “Maybe she thought she was protecting her daughter?” Joanna suggested.

  “From what?” asked Charles.

  “From having her crazy father interfering in her life.”

  “So you think she rushed out here on the morning of the murder and killed him?” Charles asked.

  “I don’t think that was her intention. I think Tori told her that her dad was coming to visit. Marie could have decided to come out the day of the murder in case she had to provide some damage control. Tori told me she spoke to her mother the night she had dinner with her father and Sebastian. She told her about her father not liking Jason. So maybe Marie decided to meet with Sebastian before his lecture to warn him about getting involved in Tori’s life, and things got out of hand.”

  “Yeah. And maybe it wasn’t as complicated as all that,” Henley said. “Maybe she was still angry about being dumped for that goth chick, and she finally decided it was time to get revenge. I’ve never known a woman who gave up a man easy.”

  Joanna and Charles stared at Henley for a moment and said nothing.

  “What about Reggie Locke?” Joanna said.

  “Why would he do it?” Henley asked.

  Charles was surprised to find that he thought that was the right question.

  “Yes, what would Reggie have to gain by killing his brother?” Charles asked.

  “Maybe he gets to own the company all by himself,” Joanna wondered out loud.

  “Or maybe he has to share it with that woman in black,” Henley said. “If that was the case, I’d rather have my brother alive.”

  “Let me check into that and see what Locke’s will says,” Joanna said, making a note to herself. She looked around the table, “Any more observations?”

  “I still say we should bring in that college boy and grill him some more. He was probably smarting after what Locke said about him. He goes to see him to make nice and the guy insults him some more, and they get into a fight. Locke pulls a gun and the kid gets it away from him. Then he pulls a knife, and the kid takes that and kills him.”

  “Jason probably weighs about a hundred and thirty soaking wet. Locke was around two fifty. Does the scene you described really seem likely?” Charles asked, trying to keep the scorn out of his voice.

  “The kid was filled with righteous anger. That can give you the strength of three.”

  Not knowing what to say to that, Charle said nothing.

  “Okay, gentlemen, thanks for your help,” Joanna said, standing up and opening the door.

  Henley went out right behind her and headed further into the bowels of the police station without saying a word to Charles. Charles and Joanna walked down the hall to the lobby together.

  “I still don’t know what to make of all this,” Joanna confessed.

  “It’s hard to choose among the three of them. But I think Jason is the least likely suspect.”

  “Maybe, but what Henley said is true: some of the weakest looking characters can have almost superhuman stength when they get angry.”

  “Let me ask you something,” Charles said. “Why is Henley a detective at all? He barely seems able to function as a traffic cop.”

  Joanna blushed. “He’s related to the mayor.”

  “Ah, at last something that definitely makes sense.”

  “He’s also pretty solid backup when a fight breaks out.”

  “Someday he’s going to get into trouble.”

  Joanna scrunched her brow up thoughtfully and nodded.

  Chapter 18

  When Charles got home he began to clean. He knew that he was a bit obsessive-compulsive about the house, as he had been ever since his wife died. He had moved a few things around since he had started going out with Joanna, trying to establish his new life, but it was still pretty much of a monument to the way it had been when Barbara was alive. Since the solution of the first murder he had been involved in had proven that his wife had been intimately involved with another woman, he wasn’t sure why he clung so desperately to the way things were. The last few years of his marriage were hardly the golden time that he had imagined. Sometimes he wondered if he was attached to the past simply because he had yet to find a future that he was anxious to reach toward. Perhaps Joanna would provide that. With a sigh he decided that only time would tell.

  Late in the afternoon, just as Charles was about to take a break from his clearning and organizing, the phone rang.

  “Can you talk, Dad?” Amy asked, as if to warn that she wanted his complete attention.

  “Of course, what’s the matter?” He could tell by the sound of her voice that she was distraught.

  “Jack showed up while I was outside the boys’ school waiting to pick them up. He was ranting about how he was in charge of the family, and it was ridiculous for us to be living apart. He actually frightened me. He seemed to calm down a bit when the boys came out, but I had to tell him very firmly that I did not want him coming home with us. At first I thought he was going to insist, but finally he took a deep breath and just stalked off.”

  “Perhaps you should go to the police and get a restraining order against Jack,” Charles said, struggling to keep the anger out of his voice.

  “But if I did that, there would be no going back. I know Jack would never forgive me.”

  Charles remained silent. In his heart of hearts he doubted that there was any going back anyway at this point, but he thought it prudent not to say so.

  “Maybe you could come out here and have a talk with Jack. Act as a kind of intermediary,” she suggested.

  “But Jack has never liked me, and he probably blames me for being the instigator behind your decision to get a job. Seeing me would be like throwing gasoline on the fire.”

  There was a long pause. “But I don’t have anybody else.” There was a catch in Amy’s voice that told him she was close to the breaking point. He knew that he’d have to comply.

  “If you think it will help, I’ll be happy to talk with Jack. Maybe I can get him to see your point of view, and we can reach a compromise.”

  “Thanks, Dad, I really appreciate it. Probably it wouldn’t be a good idea to see him at his parents’ house. I think his
father is encouraging him in all of this. It would be better to talk with him at work where he’ll at least have to pretend to be calm and rational.”

  Since Charles thought Jack’s father to be even more egregious that the son, he agreed with Amy’s observation that it was better to see him outside the bosom of his family.

  “He works most Saturday mornings. Could you go see him tomorrow?”

  “I’ll give him a call and see if he’ll be there. I think a bit of a warning might be better than my just showing up.”

  Amy gave him the phone numbeer of Jack’s office, and thanked him again. Charles promised to stop by her house after the meeting and give a report on his success. He immediately called Jack, before he had a chance to reconsider. Jack listened to Charles’ vague assurance that their meeting would be to his benefit, then sullenly agreed to a meeting the next morning. Reaching an accomodation was clearly going to be an uphill slog.

  Charles hung up and wondered exactly how he was supposed to convince his son-in-law not to act like a jerk. Probably the most successful approach would be to point out to him that if he wanted to maintain his family, and his daily contact with the boys, he had to be more malleable. That might be a good rational argument, but like most people when their fundamental approach to life was being challenged, Jack was most likely not very amenable to reason.

  Charles was pondering how people were essentially governed by their emotions rather than by reason, when his door bell rang. He pulled open the door, expecting to see the mailman, who often rang the bell when delivering packages, and was startled to find Lavinia Cole standing on the porch. He had to resist a strong impulse to shut the door and lock it.

  “Not happy to see me, Charles?” she asked, putting on a hurt smile that managed to look incredibly sexy.

  “How did you find me?”

  She gave him a puzzled look. “You’re in the local phone book.”

  Charles stared at her. She was wearing tight black pants that accentuated her long legs, a black silky blouse like the one from yesterday, and over it was a black buckskin jacket with fringe. All of which made her look somewhat like a goth cowgirl.

  “May I come in?” she asked.