“So pretty soon he’s got an arsenal.”
She toyed with coffee. “Yeah,” she said. “I was alarmed, made him buy locked cases for the guns, and we turned a spare bedroom into a gun room for him. He keeps it locked. I was worried about Clare. Afraid she’d find one and shoot herself. He assured me that the whole point of the training was to be a responsible gun owner.”
Mac nodded. “That’s what I’m hearing,” he agreed. “But it seems to get obsessive.”
“Do you own a gun?” she asked.
“Several,” he replied. “I was a Marine. It would feel weird not to have a weapon.”
“Are you part of a club? Do you hang out with other gun owners? Talk about the need for an arsenal because bad times are coming?”
“No.”
She sighed. “I told him it sounded like he’d signed up for a cult. Like the Branch Davidians in Waco. He said the Branch Davidians were doing nothing wrong. That they were exactly why he and others like him needed to be prepared because the FBI could come for any of us and we’d be helpless.”
“When was this?”
“Maybe a year ago,” she replied. “For a while I tried avoiding the whole topic. But his gun collection — what did you call it, his arsenal? Well, it kept growing. I was locked out of the room, but I’d guess there was 80 weapons or more.”
“Have the police asked permission to go inside?”
She nodded. “I gave it to them. It was that man who talked to me about his son.”
“Lieutenant Rodriguez,” Mac said. “So, your husband is preparing for the next FBI siege. Did he talk about someone who was the leader of this? Does the word ‘Sensei’ mean anything to you?”
“He had a group of men he hung out with — the ones he went up to Skagit Valley with,” she said. “They are all gun enthusiasts like Cabot. He became more involved with them, and anything could set off a rant about SHTF, and what they’d do to protect themselves and their families. I got to the point where I didn’t want to hear any of it. And I was worried about Clare listening to him.”
“Did he mention George Martin?”
“Maybe? And you said Sensei. Yes, maybe, but he was just an online person Cabot admired. ‘He knows his shit,’ he’d say. He said Sensei was an ex-military, ex-cop who was committed to helping men like him prepare for what was coming.”
Branch Davidians might have been over 20 years ago, but the thinking didn’t seem to die, Mac thought. “Andy Malloy? Craig Anderson?”
“They’re the guys who run the range and are teaching Cabot — was teaching him — how to use guns,” she said. “I’m not sure if they were on the wilderness trip.”
Mac frowned. “You seem to think that trip was significant? Do you think it had something to do with this morning?”
“It’s been coming,” she said. She wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I had been thinking about leaving him. But I couldn’t make myself do it. His ranting was getting worse. When he came back from the wilderness trip, he said he was prepared now to do whatever was necessary to prevent the police state from happening. That he was ‘blooded’.”
Mac sat back at that. “You’re sure that’s the word he used?”
She nodded. “He was smug about it. But doesn’t that...,” she hesitated. “Doesn’t that usually mean you’ve actually killed someone?”
Mac nodded slowly. “Yeah,” he said. “Or maybe it could just mean he killed and gutted his first deer.” He didn’t think so. And neither did Vicki.
“But that’s not what you think happened,” she said.
“No,” he agreed. “So, he was different? More aggressive? Swaggered a bit even?”
“Yes!” she said. “The man I married was a gentle person, a gentle lover. But Cabot came home, and....” She trailed off and blushed, realizing she was talking to a near stranger.
“And he got aggressive with you,” Mac said. “Forced you?”
She bit her lip. “It wasn’t rape,” she said softly. “Not exactly. But I wasn’t given a choice about it either.”
Mac decided a subject change might be in order. “So, did he offer to teach you to shoot? Or give you and your daughter gun safety lessons?”
She shook her head and seemed relieved to leave the previous topic. “No, and I wanted them. I thought maybe if I learned to shoot, even just a hunting rifle, or a handgun for target shooting, it would give us something to do together again. But he wouldn’t even consider it. Said it was his job to protect us when the bad things came.”
She swallowed. “But when the bad things came? It was him. And who protects us then?”
“The police?” Mac said gently. “Lieutenant Rodriguez is a good man. You can trust him, talk to him.”
She nodded.
“You have my card,” he said. “If you want to talk? Or you think of something else? Call me.”
She patted his arm. “Thank you. Thank you for this morning. Thank you for listening and taking me seriously. My parents didn’t. Dad always went hunting, and he thought Cabot was fine, maybe a bit extreme, but the guns weren’t a problem. No one would listen to me say that Cabot was becoming obsessed with guns, with this gun club. That it was beginning to feel like a cult. They blew me off. And now? Now Cabot’s dead, and I can’t feel anything but relief that the police got him before he killed me or Clare.”
“Rodriguez will take you seriously,” he assured her. “And I do, too. I think you’re right. It’s cult behavior, and a lot of men like your husband are getting pulled in.”
She didn’t have much else to say and left shortly after.
He stood in the parking lot and watched her drive off. The question is pulled into what, exactly? And who’s pulling them? And why? Who was Sensei, and how did he benefit?
Follow the money, he
