Another Dead Republican (20 page)

We gave it up and went up to our room.

While we got undressed, we compared notes and comments on the day. Still wearing my gray boxer-briefs, I fired up the computer and put in Edgar’s flash drive. I figured we could look for a few minutes before dropping off to sleep while gazing at the monitor screen. Scott and I looked at the various folders and saved porn icons. They gave us little insight into what might have happened to Edgar. If there was a clue to his death, I had no idea where to even start among all this gibberish.

We discussed our various encounters of the day.

Scott asked, “Barry Grum was nuts when he confronted you in the gun shed?”

“Pretty much.”

We were too tired to make much of it. We crawled under the covers and went to sleep.

THIRTY-FOUR

Friday 6:00 A.M.

I was up early again Friday morning. Scott was exercising. I decided to take a morning run around the neighborhood. Normally Scott and I exercised together every day. Partly it was to stay in shape and try to look hot for each other, but mostly we worked extra hard so we could indulge in our chocolate habits with less guilt.

I set out through the subdivision. Widely spaced streetlights let me follow the serpentine, gate-guarded road. A few homes had front porch lights on. Some had powerful spotlights above the garage doors. Most were completely dark except for dim flashes of orange and red lights indicating security systems in place.

The moon was half full and the breeze was up. I should have worn a heavier sweatshirt, but I warmed up after about five minutes. One car passed me in the first twenty minutes, none after that.

It was nearly seven by the time I returned. Early dawn light illumined the trees, bushes, and homes. I showered, dressed, and headed downstairs while Scott finished his meticulous routine. I stopped in the kitchen to begin breakfast preparations. No one else was up. Out the kitchen window I saw a man in a dumpy suit crossing the lawn.

I was sure it was the older detective Adlow. In his right hand he carried a roll of Crime Scene tape. I wondered what was up, a new crime? I walked out the door off the kitchen and crossed the yard toward him. I caught up to him at the door to the gun shed.

I didn’t want to come upon him and surprise him so from fifty feet away I called, “Hello.”

He spun in my direction. I kept my hands where he could see them. His eyes were tired with the detritus of humanity he’d seen all his cop years. I held out my hand for him to shake.

He said, “You shouldn’t be here.” He didn’t hold out his hand or move toward me.

I said, “Has there been another crime?”

He didn’t look me in the eyes. He stared out at the lightly wooded countryside, trees mostly barren, grass mostly gray and brown.

Now Adlow walked up to me. He asked, “Has anyone been in there?” He nodded toward the shed.

I said, “We were all in there. It wasn’t off limits before. Detective Adlow, something odd is going on here. I know you don’t have to talk to me or trust me.”

He interrupted, “You’re the one with the lawyer who says you can’t answer questions.”

I kept my patience intact. I said, “I guess we’re all kind of wary when we see the Grums with an attack posse, makes people nervous.”

Adlow glared for a minute then did another gaze off into the trees. Would he be angry because of my “attack posse” crack, lose his temper, arrest me. I sometimes wished I was better at keeping my mouth shut before I said things to piss people off. Scott says I’ve gotten better at it over the years. I wished I’d gotten even better about two minutes ago.

Adlow said, “I’m an honest cop and an honest Republican, but these people are fucking with my pension, and the investigation sucks. My wife has taught school for forty-two years. They want to fuck with her pension too.”

I’d died and gone to amateur sleuth heaven.

He continued, “I got sent here to do crap duty because they don’t trust me. Any moron can put up crime scene tape.”

I said, “I know you don’t have to tell me, but what the hell is going on?”

He said, “We are expecting a warrant, and we will have one. I know you don’t have to let me in the gun shed, but it might help me feel a little more like talking.”

I thought for a minute. Here was a chance to get inside information. Could it be a trap? For whom? I hadn’t killed anybody.

I said, “I can get keys.”

He nodded.

I hurried back up to our bedroom. Scott was just out of the shower. “What’s going on?” he asked.

I said, “Adlow, the detective, is here. He might give me some information if I let him into the gun shed.”

“You think that’s wise?”

“It might get us information.”

“You want me to come with?”

“Two of us there might make him reluctant to talk.”

“Keep your cell phone handy. Call instantly if you need help.”

I hurried back out. Adlow was examining the shed door. “Someone tried to break in.”

“They didn’t succeed. We heard them the other night and came out. We didn’t see anyone. Maybe they made too much noise and scared themselves off, or they could have heard us and run.”

He grunted and moved aside so I could unlock the door. We walked in. I didn’t volunteer that there was a secret gun assembling room. I was only ready to trust him a little bit.

He walked around the room examining the guns. He found the switches for the basement room. He flipped them. The walls parted. I pressed the button for the storm cellar door. It did its coffin-creaking noise and opened. We proceeded down. Again he examined everything in the room. He touched nothing, inspected everything.

Finished, he took a three-legged stool and placed it so, as he sat on it, he could lean his back against the wall by the door. I took another stool and sat facing him. He said, “I’m glad your partner came to the rallies to try to save our pensions.”

“You were there?”

“I went to as many as I could. My bosses aren’t any bigger assholes than any other bosses. They aren’t any more or less politically involved than any other cops, but these idiots in the legislature are insane. And that Mallon…” He shook his head.

He was talking freely. I was prepared to be silent until all the cows in Wisconsin stopped giving milk.

He continued, “The investigation is fucked. I don’t know if I can trust you. I know I can’t trust anybody in the department. I want this shit Mallon to lose. It’s not my fault the economy went to shit.”

I said, “No, it’s not.”

He looked at me briefly. He said, “I knew that.”

“Who’s in charge of the investigation of Edgar Grum?”

“It is not me.”

“Not the other detective?”

His dark brown eyes held mine.

I said, “Who has the power to derail an investigation?”

“The Grums.”

“The county clerk?”

“And her whole family. And the sheriff who owes his office to the Grums, as does every politician in this county. You do know the Grums hate you and your partner?”

“I didn’t think we were even a blip on their radar.”

“You are very much mistaken. Before we showed up in that room where you guys were on Wednesday, the Grums were adamant about you two guys. They wanted you arrested. For all I know they might have been planning to put you in the deepest dungeon and torture you and leave you for dead.”

“Harrison County has dungeons?”

“I’ve never seen one, but that doesn’t mean the Grums don’t have them.” He grumbled and shifted his weight. “I guess I’m exaggerating but not by much. They also tried to throw suspicion on Veronica.”

“How?”

“Mr. Grum, his son, Barry Grum, but especially Mrs. Grum kept repeating the line about the wife being the prime suspect in any murder such as this. They don’t like your sister, not one little bit. They talked about trying to get the kids away from her. The other day, I almost had to laugh when your lawyer stepped in. That Grum lawyer is a big shot around county government. The sheriff, the Grums, the lawyer, all of them are hip deep in some strange shit.”

“But you keep working for the department.”

“It’s not a bad job if you can avoid the politics.” He sighed, shifted his butt as if he had a hemorrhoid acting up. “But none of that has much to do with the murder as far as I can see. It’s more relatives and in-law shit and that goddamn recall vote. There was something fishy about that whole campaign. You know a reporter who went undercover to work in the anti-recall campaign was murdered?”

“Yeah.”

“I was in charge of that investigation for a short while. I got no cooperation from the campaign in the investigation. Zero. Zip. None. The poor guy might not have existed. Turns out, people liked the guy. It didn’t come out until later that he was a spy.”

“How’d you find that out?”

“Frank Smith. An old guy who won the lottery and put a lot of money into the recall campaign. Smith was a maniac about the whole thing. He demanded a full investigation. Called me every day after it happened. He called my boss to get him to put pressure on me. Big mistake. The people behind my boss, the Grums, have way more money than he won in the lottery. And the Grums have been around since dirt. A heap of money plus power, connections, influence can get anything buried.”

I said, “I think the technical medical term for that is politics.”

“Not when it comes to murder and cover up. Then it’s criminal.”

“I know the Grums a little, mostly from Veronica and Edgar’s wedding. I knew Edgar sort of.”

Adlow snorted and banged the flat of his palm against his thigh. “That shit had been in and out of the sheriff’s office since he was fifteen. We’d catch him for something, destruction of property, drunk driving, pissing on the rose bushes at the county court house.”

“He kept his criminal activity confined to Harrison County?”

“I only know about the Harrison County stuff. I met with the parents once. They thanked me. They were a piece of work. Mrs. Grum carries a therapy dog.”

“I’ve seen the dog.”

“It’s pathetic how she clutches it in her great big arms. The poor thing doesn’t snarl and snap much. It just kind of looks like it’s glad it hasn’t smothered in her arms. You’ve met her so you know how huge they all are. I only met with them that once because all the calls went through the sheriff’s office. He’s been sheriff for a very long time. He and the Grums go back a long way.”

“Why didn’t you go to the Feds about the cover up of the reporter’s murder?”

“Who knows how far the Grums’ influence extends? I don’t. You do your job for thirty-five years, and you see a lot, maybe too much.”

I said, “I heard there was electronic cheating by the Mallon anti-recall campaign. Was that what the reporter was trying to investigate?”

“Frank Smith made these wild accusations about computers, electronics, programs, coding. He’d demand we investigate Flisterbiddle Von Struthers, the company that makes the computer program that’s being used in the voting machines all across the state.”

“Flisterbiddle Von Struthers sounds like a fake name.”

“They exist. Their headquarters is in the next county west of here. I tried to look into them. I got nowhere. I went out there once. The buildings looked abandoned. They were locked and I couldn’t get in. They may be a front company. I’ve had no reason to connect them with murder, but yes, I believe the Mallon people are capable of any kind of fucking around. It was after I reported Smith’s accusations that the cooperation from the anti-recall campaign ended. When I first went there, people talked.”

“Who’d the reporter work with?”

“He worked directly with Edgar Grum. They were doing a lot of electronic vote checking, who was registered, who had ever voted Republican, who had voted Republican in every election, that kind of stuff, trying to find anyone they could get to who was likely a Republican voter.”