Death of a Survivalist

by Glen Ebisch

  Charles smiled sympathetically. “Don’t worry, Yuri, I’m sure you aren’t in serious danger of being deported. What you told me may turn out to be very helpful.”

  “I have done my best,” Yuri said with a mournful expression, as if he could already see himself on a slow freighter heading back to mother Russia.

  When Charles returned to his office, he immediately called Joanna.

  “How’s the hero of the evening doing this morning?” she asked.

  “Suffering a bit of a hangover from being so foolhardy. God must love drunks and fools because he saved us both last night.”

  “As bad as you feel, I’m sure Jack feels worse. He’s being arraigned this morning, but his father has already got a lawyer out here to represent him. From what I’ve heard, his father will be here himself by this afternoon to take him home.”

  “He’ll make bail, then?”

  “Undoubtedly. I doubt a judge will think he’s a flight risk. But like I said last night, I expect his father is going to keep him on a tight leash now that he’s been charged with a couple of pretty serious crimes.”

  “I hope that calms Jack down, so the rest of this can be handled by the lawyers. The reason I called is that Yuri remembered one further fact about what happened at the time of Locke’s death.”

  “Remembered or finally revealed?” Joanna asked.

  “I can’t see why he would have intentionally kept it secret,” Charles said, anxious to defend his colleague as he had promised to do. He went on to deliver Yuri’s message.

  “So he saw a man,” Joanna said slowly.

  “Not someone he recognized.”

  Joanna grunted. “Not very helpful.”

  “It was the best he could do. Have you got any more leads?”

  “I talked to my friend on the Vermont State Police. He didn’t know anything about any survivalist gang freuds in the area, and his people normally patrol that part of Vermont because there’s no local police in the area. One of their patrols mentioned seeing a car with Massachusetts plates parked in front of the Locke compound yesterday. When the trooper returned to take a second look, the car was gone. It could be a coincidence or it could be Yuri’s unidentified man.”

  “Do you think it might be worthwhile to take a trip up there?” Charles asked.

  “Could be. I’ve been thinking, Lavinia went up to the compound and came back the next day with some kind of clue to the killer’s identity. We know one thing she saw was the threatening e-mail from Kevin Rhodes, but she also had an idea of someone else who might have killed Sebastian. We searched her room and didn’t find anything to give a hint as to the identity of her other suspect, but maybe a visit to the compound would give us some idea of who her other lead was. I found her keycard. That should get us through whatever kind of security they have.”

  “Sounds like it’s time for a road trip.”

  “Are you free in about an hour?”

  Charles knew that he should be preparing for his class tomorrow because in the morning he’d be working at the soup kitchen, but he wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity like this.

  “I’ll be waiting in front of the English Building,” he said.

  “You pick me up. I’d rather take your car. A Massacusetts police car might attract too much attention up that way.”

  Charles agreed. He thought Edgar Allan Poe would approve of his choice to spend less time preparing his second class on Poe and more on solving a crime.

  Chapter 31

  Charles drove along, smiling to himself, with Joanna at his side. Even though he knew they were on their way to investigate a murder, the beautiful foliage and serene countryside caused him to fantasize about this being their first daytime date. He imagined they were going to a charming bed and breakfast in a small town in northern Vermont, instead of to the survivalist compound of a man and woman who had both been murdered. The good feeling didn’t last long, however. They hit considerable traffic in southern Vermont, encountering many others who really were on a pastoral adventure. It took a good hour before they had travelled far enough north to leave the crowds of leafpeepers behind.

  “What do you expect to find?” Charles asked, once they were zipping along on nearly empty roads.

  “I’m not sure. I’ll see if I can find anything interesting on Locke’s computer.”

  “But won’t you need a password?”

  Joanna waved a small notebook in his direction. “We found this among Lavinia’s personal effects in her room. It contains a list of her and Sebastian’s passwords.”

  “Not very secure.”

  “Well, she didn’t expect to die. Plus most people are more concerned with not remembering their passwords than they are with having them stolen.”

  Charles nodded. “So you think Lavinia threatened to reveal the name of the man who killed Locke, so he killed her?”

  “Possibly. But Lavinia impressed me as someone who might be a bit of an entrepreneur. I can easily imagine her trying to blackmail the killer and dying for her efforts.”

  Although Charles had liked Lavinia, and he still thought about her death with a sense of shock, he had to admit that Joanna’s hypothesis fit his knowledge of Lavinia’s personality. She would be likely to try to turn a stroke of fortune to her own advantage.

  “Any thoughts on who the killer might be?” Charles asked.

  She shook her head. “There are too many possibilities. Sebastian Locke made enemies like bees make honey. I think we have to hope that his recent communications help to narrow things down.”

  They drove on in companionable silence for another hour. The good four-lane secondary roads soon became double lane local streets that forced Charles to go more slowly and be more attentive to the signs. Joanna was keeping a weather eye on the GPS.

  “I think we make a left just outside of this village and go for another five miles,” she said.

  Charles did as directed and soon they were following a narrow road that ran along the base of a steep hill.

  “Turn left here,” Joanna said suddenly.

  They went up a dirt road about two hundred feet and found the road blocked by a sturdy gate mounted on two concrete pillars. Four strands of barbed wire stretched off into the woods from each pillar, making it difficult for people to get in.

  “Annoying to unplanned visitors,” Charles said.

  “But I expected more. Anyone with wire cutters could easily get in, and unless they have security cameras it would be hard to see inruders from the road or probably from the house. It looks to me that they were playing at having a compound rather than fully serious about it.”

  “They both came from Boston, so maybe this rural security thing didn’t come naturally to them.”

  Joanna handed Charles the security card she’d gotten from Lavinia’s room. He flashed it under an electronic eye mounted on the left pillar, and the gates slowly opened. They drove through and headed up the road. Trees and bushes intruded along both sides of the road, rubbing on the paintwork of Charles’ car, not making him happy. Just as he was about to suggest that maybe they should leave the car behind and walk the rest of the way, the road opened out into a large parking area at the foot of an expansive sloping lawn. At the top of the hill was a gracious looking log home.

  “Not exactly what I would call a compound,” Charles said. “It looks like it was designed by an architect, and they sure didn’t build it with their own hands.”

  “A professional job, and an expensive one at that.”

  In back of the house the land flattened out, and they could see several outbuildings dotting the area behind. Jonanna took a small bunch of keys out of her pocket. She held up one and took it off the key ring.

  “This is marked as the house key. “Would you poke around on the property and see what these other keys open, while I start searching through their computer and paper files?”

  Charles took the keys and waited for a moment to make sure that Joanna got into the house, then he began w
alking up a worn path that led from the front of the house to the structures behind. The hill that rose up at the back of the property was a blaze of color, and he stood for a moment soaking in the range of hues. Although Fall was still in its early stages down in Opalsville, it was certaintly at its peak here. In another week the leaves would be gone and the trees would be starting to show their winter bareness.

  He approached the first building, which was a small log cabin built with the same care and lavishness as the house. The walls were made of full thickness logs, and the door was solid oak. Charles found a key that opened the lock, and the heavy door opened easily on well-oiled hinges. He groped inside the front door and found a switch. The lights showed walls filled with gun racks. Some held hunting rifles and shotguns, others were filled with what appeared to be automatic weapons. Down the center of the room were wooden crates. Several that were open held ammunition, others were still sealed. He wondered if they held hand grenades or mortar rounds. Sebastian and Lavinia were clearlty prepared to fight off an attack or start a small war.

  The next shed was a metal corrugated structure. Inside Charles found two snowmobiles and a couple of all terrain vehicles, not unusual equipment in this part of the world. Last came a cement bunker built into the hillside. The windows were small, obviously designed to return fire without exposing the people inside unnecessarily. At the back of the bunker Charles found a metal door. After trying several keys he found a small key that opened it. There was a light switch inside which illuminated a tunnel that ran off to one side into the darkness. He imagined the idea was that if you couldn’t defend the bunker anymore at least you had an avenue of escape. Charles figured it must have led to a concealed spot on the other side of the property.

  Charles locked up the buildings. There was nothing to indicate that there were any files or computers in the outbuildings. They had been dedicated to arms, equipment, and a last line of defense. He slowly walked back past the main house. As he walked by he glanced in a side window. There was a light on, and as he looked inside he saw a man. Perhaps it meant nothing. It could have been a state trooper checking while on his patrol and stopping to question Joanna, but Charles quickly ducked down below window level and made his way back to the car. Being as quiet as possible, he opened the back door and took out his father’s baseball bat. It wouldn’t be much of a defense against a firearm, but it was better than using his hands.

  He went up the stairs to the porch, testing each one carefully before putting his weight on it in case it squeaked. He crept across the porch and hoped that the front door of the house was as well-oiled as those of the sheds. He turned the handle and gently pushed it open. As he stepped into the foyer, he saw that the man was in the room to the left rear with his back to Charles. On the other side of the desk stood Joanna. They appeared to be having a conversation. Charles almost called out, but then he saw Joanna remove her weapon and put it on the top of the desk. He knew she would never do that unless required to do so. He took a couple of careful steps forward until he could make out the voices.

  “So why did you kill your brother?” Joanna asked.

  “I didn’t mean to. He gave me no choice,” a voice Charles recognized to be that of Reggie Locke answered. “When he found out from in-house confidential reports that we were planning to put up a building for a company manufacturing telemetry devices for cruise missiles, he called me and said that he would go public and get every anti-military group in the Boston area to bring pressure on the board to veto the idea. He thought that with his shares and those of a few of the other big shareholders he could outvote me. He even planned to vote me out as president and get himself installed as head of the company. That’s why I rushed out here, to try to reason with him.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Because he hated the government. He thought eventually those missiles would be used against himself and other freedom fighting militias.” The scorn in Reggie’s tone was obvious. “I told him that if he tried to take over the company, I’d let the Vermont authorities know that he had a cache of illegal arms. He had confessed that to me one night when he’d had too much to drink.”

  “What happened?”

  “What usually happened with Sebastian, he said he wasn’t going to let me stop the movement and took a swing at me. When he missed I pushed him down. He went for his gun and I caught him in a bear hug and squeezed until he finally let it go. I thought it was all over when he dropped the gun, but before I could pick up the automatic, he pulled a knife from behind his back and came at me. I really don’t know what happened after that. We struggled and suddenly he was on his back with the knife sticking out of his chest. I pulled it out, but he was gone.”

  “And you ran?”

  “I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “Okay,” Joanna said crisply. “Well, it sounds to me like you can make a good case for self-defense. Why don’t you put down that gun, and we’ll take you in where you can get a good lawyer.”

  Reggie gave a sad chuckle. “You know as well as I do that Sebastian isn’t the only person I killed, and the other one isn’t quite so easy to explain.”

  Joanna gave a resigned sigh. Charles thought she had spotted him over Reggie’s shoulder coming closer. She carefully kept her eyes on Reggie, but raised her voice to drown out any sounds that Charles might make.

  “I guess you got that gun from Lavinia. Why did you kill her? Did she threaten to go to the police?”

  “That wasn’t her way. She wanted to take over where Sebastian left off. She found the same report Sebastian had read. It’s probably somewhere in this desk right here. She put two and two together and figured I might have had a confrontation that day with Sebastian. She tried to blackmail me into giving her my shares in the company. She promised to keep me on as president as long as I did what she wanted. Can you believe that? I was the one who worked with my father to make the business what it is today, not Sebastian, and certainly not Lavinia. But she was so sure she had the upper hand that she said she’d give me a day to make up my mind, then she’d go to the police. She even had the nerve to turn and walk away from me like I didn’t matter. Well, she was wrong, I didn’t need a day to decide, I killed her right there with Sebastian’s knife.”

  “You still might be able to make a case for extenuation to a jury. But if you kill me, they’ll throw the book at you.”

  “I’ll just have to hope that by the time they find your body, the authorities will figure that some crazy survivalist did you in.”

  By now Charles was just inside the doorway. He planned to raise the bat over his head and bring it town on the top of Reggie’s right shoulder. He couldn’t see the man’s hands, but he remembered from somewhere that ninety percent of people are right handed. As he was shifting his weight forward, Reggie moved slightly to his right and Charles saw that his right hand was empty. That meant the gun was in his left. Charles tried to adjust, but he must have made a small grunt of effort because Reggie heard something and began to turn towards him.

  Charles abandoned all thought of aiming for Reggie’s shoulder, and decided to swing away, aiming for his head. As he brought the bat forward, the sound of a gunshot deafened him. He felt a numbing pain in his right side, but forced himself to follow through with the swing and heard the rewarding thunk of the bat hitting its target. Then Charles lost his balance and began to fall.

  Everything went black. But his last thought was that he had heard the crowd roar.

  Chapter 32

  Charles woke up. He tried to take a deep breath, but pain held his chest in a vise. Anything but the most shallow breath was agonizing. He didn’t dare to move in case that too increased the pain. Maybe he had died, he thought, and this was hell—an unending bed of pain. Surely he didn’t deserve this, he thought. He was an academic, after all, his sins had been very minor ones. Lying very still eased the pain in his side, but made him all the more aware of his splitting headache. He must have groaned because when he opened
his eyes again, Joanna was bending over him.

  “Well, look who’s come back to the land of the living.” Although her tone was joking, Charles could tell by the crease between her brows that she was concerned.

  “What happened to me?” he mumbled.

  “You were shot,” Joanna answered, hurrying on when his eyes opened wide, “but the bullet glanced off you. However, you’ve got a couple of broken ribs. That’s why you have the pain in your side.”

  “What about the headache?”

  “You fell and hit your head on a bookcase. It knocked you out for a few moments, and you were pretty groggy even when they were putting you in the ambulance. How do you feel now?”

  “Like I’ve got the worst hangover of my life.”

  “They’re going to keep you for twenty-four hours, so they can check for a concussion. I think they’ve got a CT scheduled for this afternoon. The doctor told me to warn you not to do any heavy thinking or worrying.”

  “Easier said than done, especially the worrying. By the way, where am I?”

  “Still up in Vermont. I called Amy already and told her you wouldn’t be home before tomorrow, and reassured her that you’re going to be fine.”

  “Good. Now you can reassure me.”

  Joanna laughed. “I’m certain you feel like death right now, but you’ll be fine in a few days. Altough those ribs will be hurting for a while. I want you to come home with me for as long as necessary. Everything is on one floor, and I can look after you better than Amy can with two kids. Is that all right?”

  “Yes, thanks,” Charles said feeling a rush of affection. “That’s very kind of you.”

  She took his hand. “Don’t mention it.”

  “How’s Reggie Locke?”

  “His head is hurting more than yours. Even after getting shot, you managed to hit him pretty solidly. Any harder and he’d probably be dead.”

  “I didn’t want to hit him in the head, but he moved at the last minute.”