Death of a Survivalist

by Glen Ebisch

  “Mornington told me to take my time, but the sooner we filed the right papers, the sooner everything would get started. I don’t want to be one of those women who can’t make up her mind, and finds herself back with her husband just because she didn’t know what to do.”

  “Well, think about it. If you have any close friends, give someone a call and see if you can get some advice. This is one of those times when it would be good if you still had your mother.”

  “Don’t worry, Dad, you’re doing just fine.”

  Later that afternoon as Charles was heading to the parking lot behind the English Building, his neighbor Gary Wasserman, called out to him. He’d called Gary last night to cancel their daily morning run, but Gary hadn’t been home. He’s spoken briefly to his wife Ruth.

  “Glad I saw you today, Charles. Sorry you couldn’t run with me this morning.”

  “Amy and the boys are staying with me, so I’ll have to put off running for a while.”

  “Don’t let yourself get out of shape. That sort of thing can creep up on you pretty quickly.”

  “I’ll get back to it as soon as I can.”

  “Look, I wanted to talk to you for another reason. Last night when I was coming home, I saw a car parked out under that big maple tree right on the edge of your property. I couldn’t be certain, but I thought someone might be sitting in it. I was tempted to stop and ask what he was doing there, but today that’s a good way to get shot. However, I thought I’d let you know, since you’ve been involved in a couple of murders in town.”

  “Thanks, Gary,” Charles said, trying to keep the concern out of his voice. “I think I’ll let the police know, especially since the family is in the house.”

  “I’d feel better, too, if the police were keeping a close eye on the neighborhood. Who would think there would be so much violence in a such a generally peaceful area?”

  Charles sat in his car and called Joanna.

  “Sounds like Jack hasn’t wasted any time,” she said. “I’ll warn the officers on partrol in the area to make sure to check your house every hour. I could assign an officer to stay in your house for a couple of nights.”

  “Let’s not panic. If it was Jack, he may have given up and gone back home by now. Plus I was able to handle him in the past, so I could probably handle him again if it came to that.”

  “Okay,” Joanna said, sounding doubtful. “But if you see a car parked out there tonight, don’t be a cowboy. Call the police and have us handle it.”

  “Fine. I’m in no hurry to have another confrontation with Jack.”

  “How are things going with Amy and the boys in the house?”

  “It’s interesting,” Jack said dryly.

  Joanna chuckled. “I can imagine.”

  “Any further word on the Sebastian Locke case?”

  “I’m still waiting to hear back from my friend on the Vermont State Police. Otherwise nothing is new. Marie and Reggie Locke went home this morning. You know, I think I’ll check with the Opalsville Inn just to see if Jack is stupid enough to be staying there under his own name. His last name is Rossiter, correct?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Okay, well I’ll be in touch tomorrow, and remember if things start to get you down, you can always stay with me.’

  “I’ll keep that in mind, and I appreciate it.”

  Chapter 29

  That night, after the boys and Amy were all in bed, Charles sat in his bedroom by the window and struggled to stay awake. Fortunately his room was the one in the front of the house, and the double windows afforded him a good view of the street. If he stretched over to the side far enough, he could even see as far as the maple tree where Gary had seen the suspicious car parked the night before. He wondered if it could really have been Jack the Philistine. Would his father have been so foolish as to let his son wander across the state to harass Amy and his family? Charles decided that he wasn’t sure.

  Charles found himself lapsing into a sleepy reverie about fathers and sons. His own father had managed to mold his firstborn son into pretty much an image of himself: a man wedded to money with only the most tenuous feelings for other people. He had failed in some ways with Charles, at least when it came to money, although Charles sometimes suspected that his ability to form close relationships to others had suffered under his father’s influence. Like Charles’ father, Jack senior had successfully shaped his only son into what he thought a real man should be, and now he would have to live with the consequences of that influence. Charles struggled to recall the third example that drifted through his mind. Finally, he recalled Tori’s comment about her father wishing he had paid more attention to the business when he was young. Apparently Sebastian’s father had also had more success with his oldest son, Reggie, when it came to finding a business successor, and only when it was too late had Sebastian realized what he had missed out on. Fathers and sons, Charles thought. Too often they teach by harsh example, rather than allowing their sons to follow their own lead.

  Charles jolted awake, aware that he had been asleep but uncertain for how long. He glanced at his watch and thought it could only have been for a few minutes, but he wasn’t really sure. As if trying to make up for lost time, he peered with great intensity out the window. At first he saw nothing unusual, then he spotted a shadow crossing the front yard. Or was he imagining it? He blinked twice and the moving patch of darkness disappeared. But a moment later he thought he saw it again nearer the front porch. Moving quietly so as not to awaken the others, he padded down the stairs and stopped to listen. If Jack tried to break in he would surely make some noise. He heard nothing. Charles went into the study and got the fireplace poker. He wanted to be prepared in case Jack broke a pane of glass in the front door and attempted to turn the deadbolt from the inside.

  Charles stood in the hallway poised with his weapon, ready to smash any hand that attempted entrance into his house. By the light from the new streetlight on the road directly in front, he could clearly see the front door. But he was stunned into immobility as the deadbolt easily turned and the door opened. A hand reached in and turned on the hallway light. Jack stood there with a gun in his hand.

  “Well, if it isn’t Charles,” Jack said with false joviality. “It looks like you brought a fireplace poker to a gunfight. Rather shortsighted of you.”

  “How did you get in?” Charles asked, still stunned.

  “Amy had a key to the house, and a long time ago I made a copy of it. Anywhere that Amy went her lamb was sure to go,” Jack sang off-key.

  Charles gave him a hard look. “You’re drunk.”

  “Not that drunk,” the man said, pointing the gun at the center of Charles’ chest with an enviably steady hand.

  Charles felt his stomach tighten. “You’d better leave. The police will be here before long.”

  “I’m not going without my family,” he said, waving the gun in front of him.

  “All you’re going to do is scare Amy and the boys. Why don’t you go back to wherever you’re staying and we’ll talk about it tomorrow like sensible adults?”

  “Don’t care about scaring Amy, she deserves it, and I’m going to take the boys. Right now,” he shouted, staring up the stairs, as if hoping for a response. He took a step toward the stairway.

  Charles raised the fireplace poker and prepared to leap forward. He hoped that in his unsteady condition, Jack’s first shot would miss. He wouldn’t get a chance for a second. Charles just hoped that he was as fast as he thought he was. But before he could move, Amy’s voice came from behind him at the top of the stairs.

  “I’ve called the police, Jack. They’ll be here in a few minutes, so you’d better leave in a hurry.”

  “I’m not going without the boys,” he said, pointing the gun up the stairs.

  “Yes, you are,” Amy said in a firm tone. “Is this the way you want them to remember you, as a drunk carrying a gun?”

  Jack’s gun hand fell at his side. “I just want things to be the way the
y were,” he whined.

  “This isn’t the way to do it,” Amy said.

  There was the sound of a siren, and a second later Charles saw the blinking lights of a patrol car through the open door.

  “Put the gun down, Jack,” he said. “If the police see a gun in your hand, they’ll shoot you.”

  Jack was beyond hearing. Tears were running down his face and he was shaking with sobs. His back was toward the door, and Charles could see the future with fateful clarity. A cop would come through the door, Jack would turn with the gun in his hand, and he’d end up dead on the floor. This became an even greater certainty when Charles saw Officer Henley coming through the door. Before Jack could turn, Charles walked six steps and placed himself directly in the line of fire between the officer and Jack. He turned to face his son-in-law.

  “Put the gun down, Jack,” Charles said firmly.

  For a moment he thought the man didn’t hear him or wouldn’t obey. Then Jack slowly bent over and softly laid the gun on the floor. Charles stepped out of the way. While a female officer with her gun drawn kept an eye on Jack, Henley rushed forward and cuffed him.

  “What’s going on here?” Henley asked, looking vaguely annoyed that he hadn’t been able to use his gun.

  “This is my son-in-law, Jack Rossiter. He came in here using my wife’s key that he had copied without her permission. Then he threatened to shoot me, and said that he planned to force his wife and children to leave with him.” Charles may have been willing to save Jack’s life, but he wasn’t about to lie for him.

  Grabbing Jack by the arm, Henley pulled him toward the door. The female officer followed behind him. “We’ll be back to take statements,” Henley called out over his shoulder, “once we have the prisoner secured.”

  Charles looked up the stairs at Amy, who had come down the stairs. She was pale and had her arms wrapped around her. “You could have been killed, Dad, getting between the police and Jack.”

  “Go back and look in on the boys. They don’t have to see this.”

  Amy nodded and disappeared.

  Suddenly there were shouts from out front, followed by a scream of pain. Charles ran out onto the porch. Jack was on the ground clutching his arm and crying.

  “What happened?” Charles asked.

  “He resisted arrest,” Henley said. “I had to subdue him.”

  Charles glanced at the female cop who gave a reluctant nod. Another car pulled up at the curb, and Joanna climbed out.

  “What’s going on here?” she demanded.

  “The suspect resisted arrest,” Henley said, a bit more doubtfully.

  Joanna bent over the prone figure whose screams had susided into low moans.

  “So you broke his arm?” she asked the officer.

  “It happened when he fell.”

  Joanna glanced at the other woman who again gave a small nod.

  “Get him to the hospital and stay with him while he’s being treated,” she said in a disgusted tone. “Then bring him to the station and book him. You,” she said to the woman officer, “take the suspect’s keys and drive his car to the police impound.”

  Joanna walked up to the porch and stood next to Charles.

  “Is everyone all right?”

  Charles nodded. “It had its moments, but it turned out okay. Do you think Jack really resisted arrest?” he asked Joanna in a low voice.

  She shrugged. “That’s a judgment call. He probably did something, just enough to give Henley an excuse to get rough. But probably nothing that earned him a broken arm.”

  “The woman officer backed Henley up.”

  “They’re a couple, so I wouldn’t believe anything she said. I’d put them on separate patrols, but we’re short handed right now.” She shook her head. “Some day Henley’s going to do something that even the mayor won’t be able to get him out of. How about we go inside and I get your statements?”

  An hour later Charles and Joanna were back on the front porch, the statements completed and signed.

  “You took a big chance getting between Henley and Jack,” she said. Charles had avoided mentioning it, but Amy had made a point of praising her father’s bravery to Joanna.

  “I wasn’t going to have my grandsons lose their father on my livingroom floor. I may not think much of Jack, but he didn’t deserve to die tonight.”

  “You’re right. You did a good thing. I wish I could say that my officer would have acted responsibly, but I can’t promise that.”

  “Every organization has its bad apples. What will happen to Jack next?

  “He’ll be booked and arraigned before a judge tomorrow.”

  “What will he be charged with?”

  “Depends on the commonwealth attorney. If that gun wasn’t licensed to him, which I’m willing to bet it wasn’t, he’ll be up on a weapons charge, probably home invasion, assault, and resisting arrrest. They might even up the charges to attempted murder for his threat against you, depends on how aggressive the commonwealth decides to be. Any way you look at it, he’s in a lot of trouble.”

  “Will he go to prison?”

  “A good lawyer might get him a suspended sentence since he probably hasn’t got a previous record. But if he steps out of line again, he’ll be going away for quite a while. I imagine that if he gets out of this without prison time, his father will take him back home and see that he never travels into the western part of the state again.”

  “So Amy and the boys should be safe from now on?”

  “I’d be pretty sure of it. I think Jack got a healthy dose of reality tonight. He may have been a tough guy in financial circles, but real violence is a completely different matter.”

  “Maybe Henley did him a favor,” Charles said.

  “Some day Henley will pay for what he did tonight,” Joanna said with certainty, revealing a hard side that Charles had never seen. She leaned over and gave Charles a kiss on the cheek. “Good night. And try to stay out of trouble until morning.”

  Charles promised he would. He went inside and locked the door. He checked to see that the doors to the other two bedrooms were closed, then went into his. He got into his pajamas, thinking he’d never get to sleep after all the commotion of the night. But as soon as he lay down, he was unconscious.

  Chapter 30

  The next morning Charles was walking up the front steps of the English building when he heard Yuri call out to him from the walkway behind. Charles turned and saw the man rushing up the stairs toward him.

  “Are you all right?’ Yuri asked. “I had to call out twice to you. You didn’t seem to hear me.”

  “Just a bit distracted this morning,” Charles said.

  He didn’t want to tell his colleague that he’d awakened this morning almost shivering with fear at the thought of how close he had come to death last night. If Henley had been a shade more undisciplined and attempted to take a shot at Jack, Charles and his son-in-law could be laid out right now on ajoining slabs. Then where would Amy be? The thought paralyzed him with fear even more than the idea of his own death. He’d taken a chance and won, but the odds had been slender. It had been that way in the war, as well. He was fine during the action, but afterwards he could only sit and stare into the distance.

  “Do you have a moment, Charles?” Yuri asked, glancing at him a bit nervously.

  “Sure,” Charles said, entering the building and heading up the stairs with Yuri at his side. The other man remained silent, unwilling to discuss what he had to say in public. When they got to the floor of the English Department, Yuri suggested they go into his office.

  Yuri unlocked the door and went inside, immediately taking the chair behind the desk, leaving Charles to find a place to sit that wasn’t covered with books and papers. Charles chose the chair with a pile of books on it. The one on top read Ulysses: the Man and the Myth. As he put the pile to one side Charles wondered idly whether it referred to the Ulysses of Joyce or Homer.

  “Would you please close the door?” Yuri asked.


  “What can I do for you?” Charles asked, once he had settled into the chair.

  “You and that police lieutenant are an issue, am I right?”

  Charles struggled for a moment until he realized that Yuri meant “item.”

  “I guess you could say that.” Why not admit it? All the state west of Worcester seemed to know.

  “So if you told her something for me, she might forgive the fact that I failed to mention it earlier?”

  “That depends on why you failed to mention it.”

  “I forgot,” Yuri yelped, leaning forward as if about to leap to his feet. “That’s all. I simply forgot.”

  Charles held out a placating hand. “I’m sure if it was simply a matter of forgetting, she would understand.”

  Yuri sank back in his chair. “It was when I told Jason where Sebastian Locke was before the lecture. There was someone standing right near me, aside from Kevin Rhodes, who was close enough to hear what I said.”

  “Who was it?”

  “That’s the thing, I don’t know. He was behind me. I sort of sensed that he was there. By the time I turned around, he was walking away from me, probably heading down to the basement.”

  “Was it a male or female?”

  “Definitely a male.”

  “A student?”

  Yuri frowned. “I’m not certain. Like I said, I only saw his back. But I think he was dressed more the way an adult would dress.”

  “But you didn’t recognize him as a teacher or administrator.”

  “I was busy, Charles, I only saw him out of the side of my eye.”

  “Corner.”

  “Huh?”

  “We say “corner of my eye.”

  “Ah,” Yuri said, and jotted down a note to himself on a piece of paper.

  “Is there anything else you can recall?”

  “I think he was quite tall. Larger than myself.”

  Since Yuri topped out a five feet six that didn’t mean very much.

  “Did you see him at any time after that?”

  “Not that I noticed.”

  Charles sighed and stood up.

  “You will tell the lieutenant that I did my best to identify this man. I wish I could tell her more. I like it in this country.”