by Glen Ebisch
“Well, the other night I was hanging around Kevin’s apartment, and he just happened to mention all casual like that he had gone down in the basement of the library to see Locke, to ask him to call off the lecture.”
“How did he know where he was?” Charles asked.
“He heard Professor Abramovitch tell someone where the speaker was.”
Probably Jason, Charles thought. “Do you know what time this was?”
She shook her head. “I was afraid to ask Kevin. I didn’t want to seem too interested. I was pretty shocked that he had seen Locke so close to his being killed. I sort of wondered …”
“Whether Kevin was the killer?”
She looked down at her lap and nodded. “At first I wasn’t going to tell anyone. I didn’t want to sell out a friend, you know. But then I started to think that if Kevin had killed someone, I should tell somebody. You always seemed like a nice, smart guy, and I heard you sort of worked with the police. So I figured you’d know what I should do.”
“You certainly did the right thing not keeping it to yourself. Murder is a serious act. Whether Kevin was involved or not, the police need to have all the evidence.”
“But I can’t go to the police. Kevin is my boyfriend.”
“How about if I pass along what you’ve said to the police? Kevin never has to know where they got the information from.”
Cynthia smiled in relief. “That would be great.”
“But you’ll have to be careful what you say around Kevin or you might give it away.”
“Not a problem. I plan to break up with him soon, anyway. He’s way too intense with all this political stuff. I’ve got other things to worry about.”
Charles reflect that young love could also be fickle.
“Did Kevin say whether he actually saw Sebastian Locke?”
“He said that he knocked on the door and Locke opened it. Kevin told him that he wanted Locke to cancel his lecture because students didn’t need to hear another ignorant right-winger rant against the government and gun control.”
“What did Locke do?”
“Kevin said that he laughed and said he admired Kevin’s spirit, but he was too busy to talk. And he shut the door in Kevin’s face.”
“Did Kevin see anyone else around there?”
“He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.”
Charles stood up. “I’ll pass along what you’ve said to the police. Thanks for stopping by.”
“Do you have to tell the police that you heard this from me?”
“I’m afraid I do. But I’ll only tell Lieutenant Thorndike, and she’ll keep it confidential.” At least Charles hoped that she could. “But you may have to provide a written statement of what you’ve told me.”
The young woman looked worried again. “Could you see if you can get me out of that? I really don’t want it to get back to my friends that I sold out Kevin.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Lieutenant Thorndike is your girlfriend, right? So maybe she’d listen to what you have to say.”
“Maybe,” Charles granted reluctantly, thinking how quickly gossip spreads in a small college town.
After Cynthia had left, Charles called Joanna’s cell phone, but he got diverted to voicemail. So he left a message that she should call him when she got a chance because he had another lead in the Locke case. Then he went out in back of his house and wandered around the property, enjoying the bright early fall day. A few leaves had just started to drop from the trees, and he knew that in a few weeks there would be a colorful layer of them covering his lawn. Thankfully he had only to admire the beauty of them. He had decided to get his lawnperson to do all the hard work of removing them before the winter. A small surrender to age.
Perhaps the coming of fall had made him nostalgic, but when Charles walked by his car in the driveway, he opened the door and took out his father’s baseball bat. Looking up and down the street to make sure none of his neighbors were out, he took a couple of tentative swings just to see how it felt.
A rush of sensations came over him. He was transported back to that April day so many years ago when he had been on the Yale team and they were playing Harvard. It was the bottom of the ninth and Yale was down by three runs. There were three men on base and Charles was up at bat. He had one strike when he saw the pitch come in low and hard. Bending slightly he swung with all his might, and knew as soon as he made contact with the ball that it was a home run. He paused for a moment before starting to run to watch it sail over the fence, then he slowly headed around the bases, consciously thinking to himself that this was one of those rare moments in time that he would remember for the rest of his life. As he went down the basepath towards home, all the people on the Yale side of the bleachers stood.
And the crowd roared.
Chapter 23
The next morning Charles drove in to the college. Joanna had called him last night and gotten his account of what Cynthia had told him. She said that she would try to get in touch with Kevin Rhodes immediately and bring him in for questioning tomorrow morning. She wanted to know if Charles would be available, and he said that anytime in the morning would be fine. Now he was sitting in his office attempting to prepare for class, while half thinking about the murders of Sebastian Locke and Lavinia. Could Kevin have lied to Cynthia? Could he had had a fight with Locke and ended up killing him? Charles tried to dredge up what he knew about the boy. He was well over six feet tall, slender but wiry, and Charles seemed to remember noticing once in the student newspaper that Kevin was on the varsity soccer team, so he was probably fit. It might have been possible for him to wrestle a weapon away from Locke, and even stab him to death. Kevin might have gone to see the man just to argue over his ideas, but knowing Locke’s temper, it could easily have degenerated into a physical altercation. As Charles recalled his conversations with him in class, Kevin could be quite confrontational and gave every sign of having a fiery temper of his own.
Yuri stuck his head in the doorway. “Are you busy, Charles?”
“I can spare some time.”
Yuri sat down in the chair on the other side of the desk. “I heard that Lavinia Cole has been murdered.”
“That’s right. She was killed last night in the parking lot of the Opalsville Inn.”
Yuri hung his head. “That is very sad. She was an exciting woman.”
“I thought she frightened you?” asked Charles.
“She did, but so did my ex-wife. That didn’t make either one of them less exciting.”
Charles felt the same way about Lavinia, but he didn’t share is opinion with Yuri.
“I have also heard that you found her body,” said Yuri.
Charles nodded.
“You seem to have developed a rather unfortunate habit of finding dead bodies.”
“It certainly isn’t my intention.”
“Of course not. All the same, it is a bit odd. Was Lavinia able to tell you anything about the person who attacked her?”
“No, she died almost immediately after I found her.”
Charles decided that he’d take advantage of having Yuri there to see if he could in any way corroborate Kevin’s story.
“Do you remember seeing Kevin Rhodes and several other students protesting outside the library before Sabastian Locke’s lecture?”
“Yes. He and several other spurious radicals were carrying signs and shouting.”
“When Jason Savoy asked you where Locke was staying before the lecture, do you happen to remember if Kevin Rhodes was standing nearby?”
Yuri stared into space. “Now that I think about it, I believe he was. I remembering wondering why he was inside the lobby instead of outside raising the rabble.”
Charles smiled to himself at Yuri’s word choice. “Did you happen to notice what he did next?”
“No. Just as I did not notice what Jason Savoy did. I was simply too busy getting things organized to pay attention to the location of particular students.” Yuri
paused for a moment. “Are you saying that you believe Rhodes was involved in the death of Sebastian Locke?”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“I can easily imagining him engaging in a homicide. When he was in the Joyce seminar with me, he had the temerity to say that studying Ulysses was a waste of time because the novel was simply a relic of late capitalist decadence. Someone who would say that would do anything.”
Charles stared at Yuri’s earnest face and confined his reponse to a nod.
“It would be very good if you could find him guilty of such a thing,” Yuri persisted.
“Indeed, but we can’t very well frame him for murder just because he isn’t a fan of Joyce.”
“I am not suggesting that. I am simply saying that if the evidence is out there, you and your girlfriend, Lieutenant Thorndike, should endeavor to find it.”
Was there anyone who didn’t know about his relationship with Joanna? Charles wondered. Perhaps he’d better check Joanna’s bedroom for a public access cable camera.
“I can promise you that we will do our best to discover who murdered both Sebastian Locke and Lavinia Cole.”
“Yes, that is a problem,” Yuri said.
“What is?”
“I can easily see Rhodes killing Locke, but why would he have murdered Lavinia?”
Charles paused. For once Yuri had raised a very good question.
Joanna called about an hour after Yuri left.
“I talked to Rhodes. I offered to give him time to have a parent or a lawyer present during his interview, but he said that wouldn’t be necessary. However, he did say that he would be pleased to have you there because he’d heard you were involved in the investigation.”
“He was a student of mine a year or so ago, but I don’t remember ever having a private conversation with him. He frequently contributed in class. He isn’t shy about expressing his opinions.”
“I gathered as much. Well, he must like you well enough because he asked for you to be present. Are you willing?”
“Of course.”
“Can you be at the station in half an hour?”
“Sure.”
No sooner had Charles hung up than the phone rang.
“Hi, Dad,” Amy said in a low voice.
“Why are you whispering?”
“The boys have a the day off from school for some kind of teachers’ study day, and I don’t want them to hear.”
“What happened?”
“Jack came by last night. I think he was drunk. He tried to get in with his key, but I’d had the locks changed the same day that we talked. When Jack had the nerve to attack you, I decided that I just couldn’t trust him. When he couldn’t get in he began shouting and screaming and calling me names. I sent the boys to their rooms and told them Daddy was just paying a silly game, but they’re not stupid. I think they’ve figured out that things aren’t right.”
“Did you call the police?”
“I didn’t want to with the boys here, and when he realized that he wasn’t going to get in, Jack left pretty quickly. But this is a good neighborhood. I can’t have this going on or before long the neighbors will be calling the police.”
“You should get a restraining order against him.”
“But will that even work?”
Charles thought about it. Restraining orders only worked if the police had enough time to arrive to enforce it. Plenty of women were killed yearly by outraged husbands and boyfriends while waiting for the police to show up.
“Who has the most influence over Jack?” he asked.
“His father, without a doubt. He’s modelled himself on him.”
“That would be Jack Senior?
“Right.”
“Can you get me his phone number?”
Charles thought about how he would never have named a son after himself. It brought on nothing but a lifetime of trying to measure up. Jack the Philistine Sr., Charles thought with a smile, now there was something to strive for. Probably the same had been true for his own brother Ed who had been named after Dad. It was never good to be a lesser version of the original.
Amy came back on the line and recited the number. Charles wrote it down on his desk blotter. “Are you going to call him?”
“Tonight. I think a little father to father conversation might calm the situation down. Have you gotten in touch with that lawyer yet?”
“I have an appointment for tomorrow.”
“Well, let him know what happened. He may have some ideas as to your legal options.”
After ending the call with Amy, he looked across his office and out the window at the rolling hills. Yes, he thought to himself, I definitely should have broken all ten of Jack’s fingers.
Chapter 24
Charles had forgotten how annoying Kevin Rhodes could be. The condescending smirk that was everpresent on his face was enough to put you off from the start, but the icing on the cake was his tone of voice, which always managed to make it sound as if he were speaking to someone definitely inferior to himself.
“Thanks for being willing to do this, Professor Bentley,” he said, somehow managing to make that polite sentence sound insufferably rude.
“Of course.”
Joanna sat across from Kevin, while Charles sat on the long end of the table as if to show that he wasn’t aligned with either side.
“So Kevin … ” Joanna began.
“Mr. Rhodes, please,” the boy said.
“So, Mr. Rhodes, it has come to our attention that you met with Sebastian Locke shortly before his death.”
“Something you no doubt found out from that cow Cynthia. No wonder she broke up with me. I knew I shouldn’t have trusted her with any personal information.”
“Is it true?” Joanna asked.
Kevin paused as if wondering whether he could avoid telling the truth. “Yeah. I went down to see him before the lecture.”
“And what happened?”
“Nothing. I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you mean.”
“Exactly what did happen?” Joanna asked patiently.
“He opened the door. I told him what I thought of him. He said something about admiring my grit, as he called it. Then he said he was busy and shut the door. That’s all that happened. Can I go now?”
“Was there anyone else there?”
“Not that I could see, but he didn’t open the door very wide.”
“Had you ever had any contact with Locke before that time?” Joanna asked.
“Not in person. That was the first time I ever saw him.”
Joanna stared hard at him. “Had you ever communicated with Locke in any other way?”
The boy shrugged. “When I first heard that he was coming to speak at the college, I sent him an e-mail telling him we didn’t want him here.”
“Did he respond?”
Rhodes shook his head.
“Did Lavinia Cole get in contact with you?” Charles asked.
Rhodes twisted in the chair and a look of desperation came into his eyes. “Maybe I should call a lawyer,” he said.
“We can delay out interiew until your lawyer is here, if you have something to hide,” Joanna said. “But if you haven’t done anything wrong, maybe we can get all this cleared up right now.”
“I’ve got nothing to hide.”
“Okay, then,” she said and sat back waiting for him to begin.
“That woman contacted me on Saturday afternoon. She said she’d been going through Locke’s saved e-mails and found mine. She said that she wanted to meet with me, and if I refused, she was going right to the police.”
“Where did she pick to meet with you?” Joanna asked.
The boy sighed. “The parking lot of the Opalsville Inn. Right after dark.”
“The place where she was murdered.”
“I guess.”
“Did you go to see her?”
“I didn’t have any choice. If she told you about my e-mail, you’d have me locked up in a flash
for killing the guy.”
“What happened?” Joanna asked.
“She pulled a gun on me. She was crazy. She accused me of killing her boyfriend, and said she was going to put a bullet in my head if I didn’t confess. I tried to tell her that I had nothing to do with his murder, but she didn’t believe me. She hit me in the head with the barrel of the gun.” Rhodes lifted the hair from his forehead to show a small bruise.
“You’re lucky she didn’t do worse,” Joanna said, no doubt thinking about Jason Savoy’s condition.
“What happened next?” Charles asked.
“That’s when it got really crazy. Suddenly she put the gun away and gave me a funny smile. She said that she had to make a decision. She said that if I had killed Locke, I’d better go straight to the police, otherwise she would hunt me down. And if it was someone else, she’d take care of that, too.”
“What did she mean by that?” asked Joanna.
Rhodes shrugged. “She didn’t say any more, other than telling me to get lost.”
“Did you see anyone else in the area?”
“It was dark and there were cars everywhere. Anyway, I wasn’t going to hang around with that crazy woman. I walked right back to campus.”
Joanna glanced at Charles, and he gave a small shake of his head.
“All right, Mr. Rhodes, that will be all for now. But don’t leave Opalsville without notifying us.”
“What is this? Some kind of a police state?” he asked, some of his attitude returning now that he felt safe.
“In your case it is, and don’t forget it,” Joanna said calmly.
After escorting the boy from the room, she sat down across from Charles.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“I’m inclined to believe him because I’m not sure he’s got the grit, as Locke would say, to murder two people.”
“How about one? He could have killed Locke, but not Cole.”
Charles shook his head. “I think whoever killed Locke murdered Lavinia to keep her quiet. Positing two killers is an unnecessarily complicated theory.”
“Yeah, I agree. But the boy is in the right place for both killings, and there’s no evidence that he didn’t do it. He could have gotten in a fight with Locke and accidentally killed him, then killed again to cover it up.”