Watcher in the Woods (Rockton #4)(76)

His hands tighten on the arms of his chair, almost reflexively. “Right. That’d include me.”

“Can you tell us where you were at the time of the shooting?”

“Here. Alone. Sleeping.” He pauses. “Lousiest alibi ever.”

“Sleeping?” My brows lift. “In the middle of the afternoon?”

“I worked a split shift. Chopping duty in the morning, and then dishwashing after dinner. I was off from noon until four. We’d headed out at five AM for lumber, so I was beat. I came back and crashed.”

“Can anyone confirm that?”

He shakes his head. “They can confirm I had a split shift. Marlo might remember me saying I was wiped out and planned to nap.” He pauses. “Which, if I intended to commit a crime, would sound like I was setting up an alibi.”

“Uh-huh,” I say.

He manages a weak smile. “Yep, I have some experience with that. Needing alibis. Setting them up, too.” He looks at me. “I’m not sure how much you know about my background, Detective Butler, but I understand Sheriff Dalton has been briefed. While I’d rather it wasn’t broadcast around town, I’m okay with you knowing my past. I’d rather you did, actually. Get it all out in the open. My personal twelve-step program for criminal rehabilitation.”

“So you’ve committed crimes.”

“What’s that joke? I don’t have a rap sheet—I have a rap book?” He shakes his head. “I got an early start. Shoplifting by eight. Jacking cars by fourteen. B&E. Petty larceny. Possession with intent to distribute.” He folds his hands in his lap, an odd gesture that I notice. “I could blame a shitty home life and shittier friends, but we all make choices, and I wasn’t a dumb, naive kid. I made bad choices. Lots of them. When I wanted out, I learned it wasn’t that easy. So now you’re stuck with me. If you need a car jacked, I’m your guy. Considering you have no cars here, though, I’m pretty much useless.”

“You prefer bump keys or jumping the engine?”

He smiles. “Been a while since I actually jacked anything, but at the time, it was bump keys.”

I hope my expression doesn’t change. You don’t jack a car with a bump key. Or by “jumping the engine”—whatever that means.

Sebastian leans back, getting comfortable. “One thing you won’t find on my records is violence. I’m sure Sheriff Dalton can confirm that. I hurt people. I don’t deny that. When you steal their stuff or sell them drugs, you’re hurting them. But I’ve never physically assaulted anyone.”

“Do you know why the victim was in Rockton?”

“I heard he was a marshal. That rules me out too—I don’t even own a passport.” He looks at Dalton, who nods.

Sebastian continues. “It caused me some trouble getting in. No passport. No driver’s license. But I didn’t lead the kind of life where I’d be going on vacation to Disney World anytime soon. Didn’t have the kind of family who’d take me, either. As for driving, well, they weren’t my cars, so I didn’t see the point in getting a license.”

“What about your drug crimes?”

“Possession with intent. That’s it. I never hit the big leagues. I guess that’s a good thing. I can honestly say that whatever trouble I got myself into, no one is coming up here after me. My rap sheet might be long, but it’s penny ante charges.”

“Which brought you up here?”

He hesitates. It’s only a split second before he shrugs, but I notice that pause. “Like I said, it was a long sheet. I pissed off some people. No one who’d have the brains to find this place, though.”

I glance at his shirt again. “What did you want to take at Western?”

His eyes light up. As we’ve been talking, he’s been calm, relaxed. Distant, though. Like talking to a guy interviewing for a job he’d like, but if he doesn’t get it, well, there are others.

When I ask about the university, it’s as if I’ve finally hit the internal switch that engages him.

“Law,” he says. “I wanted to get an undergrad degree at Western, double major, criminology and ecomonics, and then go to Queens for law.”

“Good plan,” I say.

He shrugs. “It was. It still is. I just need to get through some things first. Clean up my life and get it on track.”

We chat more about his plans, and Dalton keeps shooting me looks. He knows I’m going somewhere with this, but he can’t see it. Finally I end the interview and thank Sebastian for his time.

Once we’re away from the house, Dalton says, “He’s never stolen a car, has he?”

“He might have,” I say. “But only if the keys were in the ignition.”

“What about the rest? The questions about where he wanted to go to university, what he wanted to take?”

“I was following a hunch,” I say. “He seemed very well-spoken. Polite. Intelligent. At ease. Confident.”

“Yeah . . .”

“Like Abbygail when she arrived, right?”

Dalton snorts.

“Would you have called her well-spoken?” I ask.

“Fuck, no.”

“Extensive vocabulary? Good diction?”

Another snort. “If we’re talking profanity, yeah, she had an even better vocabulary than me. But that wasn’t her fault. School wasn’t exactly a priority in her life. She was barely literate when . . .”