by Glen Ebisch
Joanna must have noticed as well. “Did someone hit you in the jaw, Professor Carlson?”
“What do you mean?” he snapped.
Joanna pointed to his face. He smiled and fingered his chin. “Oh, I got hit by the proverbial door. My wife was coming out the back door while I was standing on the porch. I didn’t see her, and the door hit me in the face.”
Joanna grimaced. “That must have hurt.”
“I thought at first I’d broken my jaw.” He moved his jaw up and down. “But it still works, so I guess everything is okay.”
“You might want to get it x-rayed if you start having headaches,” she suggested.
“I will. Thanks for the advice.”
Joanna paused for a long moment. Charles suspected that she was intentionally letting tension build as Carlson waited for the true purpose of the meeting to be revealed. Her ploy must have worked because Carlson jumped into the silence.
“As I told you when you called me and asked for the appointment, I’m not sure why you want to talk to me about Sebastian Locke’s death. I didn’t even attend his presentation.”
“That’s good to know,” Joanna said with a smile. “But the reason we’re here is that there’s some evidence that you asked Tori Locke out on a date. Is that true?”
He frowned and took his puzzled demeanor up a notch. “I don’t recall … oh, now I remember. We were discussing something I’d talked about in class, and it was getting near dinnertime. So I may have suggested that we continue our discussion over dinner. She may have misinterpreted what I said.” Carlson gave Charles a knowing smile. “Young people often do, as you know.”
Charles stared at him unmoved. “They may misinterpret passages in Beowulf, but not invitations to dinner.”
Professor Carlson frowned.
Joanna cleared her throat. “Well, misinterpreted or not, Tori apparently told her father that you had invited her to dinner, and from all accounts he was very upset about it. Did he come to see you the morning of his death?” Joanna held up her hand as Carlson began to speak. “Before you deny it, I should tell you that I will have officers canvassing the building to find out if you are telling me the truth. Lying to an officer during an investigation is a serious infraction.”
Carlson swallowed and stared down at his desktop.
“Okay, Sebastian Locke did come to see me that morning, and unfortunately I had an office hour.” Carlson looked up with a frightened expression, as if reliving the event. “The man was crazy.”
“What happened?” Joanna asked.
“He demanded to know if I had asked his daughter out on a date. I tried to explain what happened, just as I did to you. But he wouldn’t listen. He just … ”
“Hauled off an hit you in the jaw,” Joanna said.
Carlson nodded sadly. “He loosened one of my molars.”
“Did you fight back?” she asked.
“Are you kidding? He would have killed me if I tried. There was something wrong with that man. He just couldn’t grasp nuance.”
Charles thought that it would take quite a helping of nuance to justify a fifty-year-old professor asking an eighteen-year-old student out on a date.
“Did he say anything?” Charles asked.
“He threatened me,” Carlson said in a voice that hovered between being frightened and offended. “He said that if I ever saw or spoke to his daughter again outside of class, I was a dead man. And I believe he meant it.”
“Did you see him again that day?” asked Joanna.
“No.”
“Did you go near where he was going to give his lecture?”
“Are you kidding? As soon as he left my office, I went home and had a stiff drink. Then made an appointment with my dentist. I never wanted to see him or his daughter again.”
“But you couldn’t very well toss his daughter out of class because he beat you up,” Charles said.
“I should have reported it to security,” Carlson grumbled.
Charles smiled. “Ah, but then it would have come out that Tori Locke thought you had invited her out to an intimate dinner, and you wouldn’t have wanted to explain that to the administration, would you?”
The other man glared at Charles, but didn’t respond.
Joanna stood up. “We may be back in the near future to ask some more questions, so don’t be taking any long trips.”
“I hope you solve this case soon,” Carlson grumbled.
“That’s one thing we agree upon,” Joanna replied.
After leaving the office, Joanna and Charles went down the stairs without speaking, but once they were alone in the downstairs lobby, Joanna reached out and grasped his arm to stop him from leaving the building.
“Did you believe him?”
Charles nodded. “I think he’s too scared to lie, and I think his actions fit right in with his character. When Locke threatened him, his first reaction would be to go home and hide.”
“I think so, too. I interviewed Sebastian’s brother, Reggie, and Sebastian’s ex-wife Marie, this morning. Tori and her boyfriend Jason came in as well.”
“What did you learn?”
“There wasn’t much love lost between his former wife and himself. The wife and daughter also both seem to hate Lavinia Cole.”
“Lavinia told me that this morning when I met with her.”
Joanna raised an eyebrow. “When were you planning to inform me about your meeting?”
Charles blushed. “It only took place this morning. I guess I got so focused on Carlson that I just forgot.” Charles wondered if another reason was that he felt vaguely uncomfortable talking with Joanna about the rather seductive Lavinia.
“So what did you find out?”
“Well, Lavinia already knows about Carlson coming on to Tori Locke. She also is aware that Sebastian didn’t care for Tori’s boyfriend, Jason.”
Joanna swore under her breath. “I’m going to give Cole a call and warn her not to harass Carlson or the boy.”
“She seems very determined to conduct her own investigation.”
“I’ll lock her up if I have to for interfering with a police investigation. I’m not going to have her muddying the waters to the point that the killer gets away.”
Charles paused, not sure whether to say more, given Joanna’s obviously strong feelings about Cole.
“She might also stir things up so you learn something you otherwise wouldn’t find out,” he said tentatively.
The police lieutenant stared hard at Charles. “She impressed you, didn’t she?”
“I thought she had a lot of determination.”
“I’ve never heard that word used for sex appeal.”
Charles tried for an offhand smile, but it came out more as a leer.
“Marie Locke described her as a succubus. Do you know what that is?” asked Joanna.
“Of course, a supernatural female who seduces men.”
Joanna nodded. “I don’t think Lavinia is supernatural, but the rest is right. So you better watch your step.”
“I’m too old to be seduced,” he said desperately.
“I hope that isn’t true,” Joanna said with a small smile.
Charles decided that it was a good time to stop talking.
Joanna and Charles walked out the door, and stood for a moment on the top step of the porch.
“My car is around back. I’ll call you later if anything new comes up.” She reached over and gave Charles’ arm an affectionate squeeze. “Just be careful, there are a lot of folks with hidden agendas involved in this case. You can’t just go blundering about.”
Charles bridled a bit at that description of his detecting method, but he smiled back. “I look forward to hearing from you. If I learn anything new, I’ll let you know right away.”
She gave him a warning glance. “I certainly hope so.”
Chapter 13
Charles began walking across campus to his office. He had class later on that day and wanted to do a bit more preparatio
n. He was lost in thought when a hand tugged on his arm. Startled, he turned to his right and saw Tori Locke with her long hair flowing in the breeze and an expectant smile on her face.
“Sorry to frighten you,” she said.
Charles gave a chuckle, as if to show that he and fear were unacquainted. “I was concentrating,” he explained.
“I saw you walking along, and I just wanted to introduce you to my family.”
He glanced over her shoulder and saw three people lined up about fifteen feet behind. He recognized one of them as Jason. The other two were folks in their late forties, and from what Joanna had told him, he guessed the woman was her mother, Marie, and the man was her uncle, Reggie. And indeed, that turned out to be the case.
“Mom and Reggie are here to make sure “that woman” doesn’t get to take my father’s body back to Vermont,” Tori explained after the introductions.
Mom and Reggie appeared embarrassed, either at the vehemence of her tone or her willingness to air dirty linen in public.
“We’re also here just to visit,” Marie Locke added.
“Mom’s an assistant district attorney for Massachusetts, so she’s not going to let anything illegal happen,” Tori asserted.
It registered with Charles that this was a detail Joanna had failed to share with him. Suddenly he didn’t feel so bad at having neglected to tell her immediately about his conversation with Lavinia Cole.
“Why don’t we talk about this later?” the mother suggested, giving her daughter a warning look.
Tori got the point and blushed. “I was just taking folks on a tour of the campus. We were heading over to see the English Building where our class meets.”
“I’m going there as well to my office. Do you mind if I walk along with you?” he asked, thinking this would be a good opportunity to pick up more information.
“Not at all,” Marie Locke said.
They soon formed into rows, with Jason, Tori, and her mother walking in front, and with Reggie and Charles trailing along behind. Reggie was a large man, as his brother had been, but whereas Sebastian had been muscular with a forceful appearance, Reggie was more gently rounded and his expression was friendly rather than intimidating.
“My condolences on the death of your brother,” Charles said.
Reggie nodded. “Yes, it’s very sad.”
“I’m sure you were shocked as well.”
The man paused and slowly shook his head. “I guess on some level I’ve been expecting something bad to happen to Sebastian ever since he went off on his wild survivalist adventure.”
“Breaking up his marriage and heading out to the boonies of Vermont must have been very disturbing to the whole family.”
“There was more to it than that. It was like Sebastion became a different man after he met Lavinia. He began to see the world as a hostile place, filled with people plotting against him. He became paranoid. And the future to him was soon going to end in a cataclysmic confrontation between the forces of good and evil.”
“He really believed all that?” asked Charles.
Reggie gave a humorless laugh. “Sebastian was my younger brother, but not by much, only by a little over two years, and I always tried to guide him. But it wasn’t easy. Even as a boy he was always looking for answers to the big questions. He bounced from church to church, political group to political group, always following the latest trend promising to give meaning to life. It wasn’t too surprising that, when Lavinia came along offering answers in an attractive physical package, he would jump at the chance to start over again.”
“Yes, I’ve met her. I can see how she could be very convincing.”
Reggie nodded. “On a variety of levels.”
“I met your brother briefly on the day he died.”
“Tori mentioned that he had spoken with you shortly before going over to deliver his lecture.”
“We had an interesting conversation about Thoreau.”
“I’m not surprised. Sebastian could talk very knowledgably on a variety of subjects, at least on a superficial level. That was perhaps his biggest weakness, he let his enthusiasms get in the way of clear thinking.”
“Did you get a chance to talk to him recently?” Charles asked, knowing from Joanna that Reggie had spoken with his brother by phone on the morning of Sebastian’s death.
“Yes, he called me early on the morning that he died. I had just gotten into work, so it must have been around seven-thirty. He told me that, after his presentation, he’d be driving out to Boston. He was planning to spend the next day at our office looking over our upcoming projects.”
“So he hadn’t committed totally to the hills of Vermont. He still took some interest in the business?”
Reggie smiled. “When he was in the mood.”
“So it was really a family business?”
“We worked for my father and took over when he passed away.”
Although Reggie seemed very open in his willingness to talk, Charles wondered how many more questions he could ask before the man would feel like he was being interrogated and clam up. He decided to share a bit about himself, taking a more indirect approach to getting the information he wanted.
“My father was in the financial sector,” Charles said, “and my older brother went into the same line of work. That’s not quite the same as being in business together, but it always gave them a great deal to talk about.”
“A conversation you couldn’t share in,” Reggie said, giving Charles a shrewd glance.
“Exactly.”
“I’m sure Sebastian felt somewhat the same. Dad and I were highly committed to the business, while Sebastian saw it merely as a source of income. I wouldn’t say he shirked his responsibilities—he always did his job—but you had the feeling he was watching us with a sort of amused scorn, as if we were wasting all our effort on some insignificant activity.”
“I guess because you weren’t getting ready for the end of civilization.”
Reggie chuckled. “Yes, he lived on a higher plane, at least he thought he did.”
“What kind of business do you have?”
“We do primarily commercial construction in the Boston area. We’re not the biggest boy on the block, but we take on some pretty significant projects.”
“Did you and your brother own the business together?”
“Not exactly. We have shareholders. Dad left Sebastian and me each thirty percent of the shares in the company. The remaining forty percent are held by several shareholders.”
“So you had to work together to get your ideas past the board?”
Reggie smiled. “Dad was pretty clever. He wanted the two of us to work together and remain close, and this was his way of guaranteeing it.”
They paused in their conversation for a minute while Tori turned to her uncle and began telling him about some of the buildings on campus. Charles joined in to share some stories and details that only a long-time faculty member would know.
“What happened to your working arrangement when your brother decided to relocate to Vermont?” Charles asked when Tori was finished.
Reggie paused as if trying to decide how much about the business to share with a stranger, but he must have decided that an English professor was pretty harmless, because he continued.
“Sebastian needed money for the land and compound he built in Vermont. I also suspect he was supporting some of his reactionary friends who lived up there in the woods, but he never gave me any details and I never asked. I didn’t really want to know what he was involved in just in case it was illegal.” Reggie’s voice dropped to a whisper. “He also needed money to work out his divorce settlement with Marie. She made out pretty good.”
“How did your brother get all of that money?”
“He sold me half of his shares in the company to me.”
“Oh, so after that you had forty-five percent and he had fifteen.”
“Right. Together we still controlled things, but I was the major owner.”
“But you couldn’t win against the rest of the shareholders without Sebastian’s support.”
Reggie smiled. “That’s true, but it would never happen. The company is making good money. As long as that’s the case the shareholders are going to remain cooperative.”
Charles could see the English Building coming up around the next turn, so he didn’t have much time to squeeze in the important questions.
“Do you have any idea who might have killed your brother?”
“I don’t know what sorts of characters he got mixed up with in Vermont. He had a way of attracting extremists. Probably it was one of them. I imagine these militia groups have pretty violent internal politics.”
“I would think so,” Charles agreed, but wondering why an extremist wouldn’t have killed Sebastian out in the woods of Vermont, maybe in a well-staged hunting accident. Following him down to Opal College seemed inconvenient at best. “Tori suggested that Sebastian might have been thinking about breaking up with Lavinia Cole. I met her recently, and she seemed capable of reacting badly if she felt betrayed.”
Reggie laughed. “That’s putting it mildly. The woman is a piece of work. When he first brought her around the office to work with us in purchasing real estate, I saw that something was going on between them. I sat him down and told him that he had a wife and family. I told him to think about what he was doing. I also warned him that this woman seemed highly unstable.”
“Did your advice do any good?”
“Of course not, he was already smitten. What she was offering him, besides sex, was a view of life as a great drama filled with highly volatile characters. All of that adventure appealed to Sebastian. A quiet home life with Marie and Tori never had a chance.”
Charles lowered his voice to match Reggie’s
“I’m sure Marie was devastated by all this,” Charles said.
Reggie nodded. “But she’s a tough woman. You have to be to become a district attorney. She deals with hardened criminals everyday.”
“Sounds like you admire her.”
“I do, very much so. I think breaking up with her was the biggest mistake of Sebastian’s life.”
Charles noted that Reggie didn’t wear a wedding ring and wondered if he saw himself replacing his brother in Marie’s life.
