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Gordon Keene was in his early thirties. He lived with his family of wife and two children in a newer subdivision outside town. When the police car drove into his driveway, he came out of the house to greet the detective and the man with her.
Saracena dressed in civilian clothes but proffered her sheriff's badge as she stepped forward to greet Keene.
"Hello, Mr. Keene, I am Sheriff's Detective Rachel Saracena. This gentleman is Fred Lessing. Mr. Lessing had some business dealings with your cousin and is helping with the investigation into your cousin's untimely death. I would appreciate it if he could join in our meeting."
"I'm pleased to meet you, Miss Saracena. I don't understand why you refer to an investigation when it is pretty apparent that my cousin's death was an unfortunate accident."
"You are quite right, Mr. Keene. We are not here about the nature of your poor cousin's death but some of his activities have raised some questions."
"What kind of activities? He was pretty low key. Most of his activities revolved around the church."
"That is what we would like to know. Do you think we could go inside so you could tell us more about your cousin?"
"Sure, come on in. I think you'll see Lane was a good God-fearing man."
"I'm sure we will. We would just like you to clarify a few matters for us."
The three people walked into the house and sat down in the living room. Gordon's wife came to greet them and the introductions were made. Lessing and the detective declined her offer of refreshments.
"Can you give us a more general background on your cousin? His hobbies, work, other interests? You mentioned he was active in the church. Was he a lay minister?"
"No, not that I know of. We were not close. Before his mother died a few years ago we used to get together during the holidays and sometimes in the summer they would come over, but after his mother died we stopped seeing each other except at church services. We all attended the same church and I know he was active in their outreach program."
"What did that activity involve?"
"Our church does not believe in the consumption of alcohol. We all try to discourage others from the consumption of any alcohol. Lane tried to discourage people from drinking by telling them of the evils of drink. He tried to help them reform."
"How would he do this?"
"I was told that he would go to some of the bars and try to befriend the drinkers that he thought were in jeopardy of becoming alcoholics or who had already become dependent on alcohol. I never saw this myself but one of the other church member's said that Lane was not very welcome in some of the bars in town. He would go in and have a soft drink then start a conversation with a drinker to try to discourage him from drinking. You can understand how the bar owner's would resent his driving off there best clients."
"So he was successful at it?"
"He liked to think he was. He mentioned it around the church. One of the deacons said Lane would convince the serious drinkers that the best way to change their lives was to leave the evil environment that they had become accustomed to. Not just the bar, but the whole area and people they associated with. He apparently convinced them to move out of the area because they stopped going to the bars."
"He was a religious man?"
"Yes, I would say he was. He read the Bible regularly and could quote verses from it."
"Were there any particular passages he was more fond of?"
"Yes, I would have to say the verses that condemned the consumption of wine and drunkenness. It went along with his work of saving people."
"I see. Did he have other activities, any hobbies?"
"Activities? Well, let me think. He liked to collect swords. It went along with his reading of the Bible he said. There are a lot of references in the Bible to swords. Usually it referred to a group of people being put to the sword. Sometimes it was good people, sometimes it was evil people. But in Biblical times spears and swords were the weapons of the armies. No guns back then. If you had been a police officer back then you would have carried a sword instead of that little revolver I see on your belt."
"I think I prefer the little revolver myself. I don't have to wait until my opponent is on top of me before I can defend myself."
"You definitely have a point there. They didn't use to refer to pistols as equalizers for nothing."
"Did Lane spend most of his time at his home?"
"Yes, he had been injured in a farm accident a few years back. A tractor ran over his leg and crushed it pretty badly so he had trouble getting around and couldn't do physical work like he used to. He lived on his bookkeeping business and some money his mother had left him. When he wasn't at his home he liked to go to a little house they had on their old farm land. They had sold most of the farm off when his father died but they kept about twenty acres of wooded property with a little house on it. His mother used to grow a garden there and put up food for the winter. She would give us jars of tomatoes and jams every fall."
"Where is this property?"
"It's about a mile out of town off county road thirty six. You can't miss it. It has the biggest stand of trees in the area."
"I might like to go out there and look at it. Would you have the keys?"
"No, I don't have any keys except to his house here in town. But I think he probably kept the keys in the house someplace. I can let you in if you like."
"That won't be necessary. A deputy found a key under a door mat that we will hold onto until the will has been probated if there is any kind of unusual cause of death. This was a little unusual."
"I'll have to agree with you on that. Apparently he hadn't replaced the light bulb in the hallway where the ladder to the attic was and didn't see where he was stepping."
"Yes, that's what we think, too, but it was a pretty awful way to die. Falling backwards like that. The coroner said he probably lived an hour or two after the fall."
"Gruesome. Poor Lane. He certainly didn't deserve that. You don't suspect anyone else was involved, do you?"
"He didn't have any enemies that we know of and nothing seemed to have been stolen so we have no reason to suspect anyone else was there. The lights were left on for a couple days so any criminal with sense would not have left the house lit up like that."
Lessing interjected, "Mr. Keene, there is another small matter that you might know since you were his cousin."
"Anything I can do to help."
"Lane had a code name on Epay that means nothing to me but might mean something to a relative." Lessing took a piece of paper from his and showed it to the cousin.
"You don't need to be a relative to understand that, but you do need to be familiar with the Bible, which I take it you are not." He reached across the coffee table in front of them and picked up a much used Bible. He opened it and turned to the book of Isaiah, chapter 28, verse 7 and handed the book to Lessing. Lessing read the denunciation of wine and strong drink and passed the Book to Saracena who read the verses to herself.
"Yes, I see he took drinking alcohol very seriously."
Epay Stories - German Officer's Sword - Used Page 5