Another Dead Republican (34 page)

“What happened here?”

“A programmer in India created a flawed matrix that caused a worker in Silicon Valley to misinterpret a particular piece of code. The matrix was off by only the slightest, but that slight mistake was too much. We pressed “on,” and the damn thing didn’t turn on.”

I was one of those who had discovered quite often getting “on” right when dealing with electronics could be hellish.

“So where did the extra votes come from in Harrison County?”

“I suggest, Mr. Mason, you look to Harrison County and those in charge of the operation.”

“Don’t the Grums work for you?”

“The Grums think they work for us, yes. Really, I hate to soil myself with those people, but they are useful. They think they’re rich. I suppose in some minor way they are, but they are billions and billions behind my brother and I.”

Being a kindly English teacher I didn’t correct him and tell him that as an object of the preposition the correct form was my brother and me. And what was the point, but odd things flash though your mind at tense moments.

I asked, “Where is your brother?”

“He had to rush to Qatar for an emergency meeting.”

“More people being fired?”

“A billion-dollar building complex deal with financing based in Mumbai, London, Hong Kong, and Sydney needed his immediate attention. You see, Mr. Mason, the election here was small time. Yes, we’d make a few more million in state contracts, but really it isn’t like there are billions at stake here. The key, the reason I wanted to talk to you, is that you are causing us some trouble. I want that to go away.”

“You could do that with the wave of a few millions.”

“Yes, but that is messy, and you are not without resources. This could drag far beyond forever. We could easily launch a smear campaign against you and Mr. Carpenter to destroy each of you, and your parents, and your whole family. Your lawyer and his firm, however, while, again, not in the same league as our lawyers and our firms, are nevertheless rich enough, powerful enough, and smart enough to inconvenience us. This situation here is not worth the hassle. Mary Mallon and this governorship are most definitely not. She turned out to be far more stupid than even we imagined.”

“What did the governor have to do with this?”

He grimaced. “She was a useful, mindless, buffoon.”

“You’re willing to foist that kind of person on the American people, just so you can make a few bucks?”

More smiling and chuckling and then he said, “Well, yes, obviously. Look at Sarah Palin as a candidate for vice-president. The mad desire to win triumphed over good sense, hence the Republican party.”

“They’re in power in a lot of places because they were backed by fools like you.”

“Fools like me win most of the time. You know that. Now, can we get down to business?”

I got up and walked to the floor to ceiling windows. As I looked out, my anger swirled, I fantasized about smashing his head through the glass, tossing his body out, and watching it plummet to the ground. I shut my eyes for a moment then opened them back up to the bright blue sky and bright blue lake staring back at each other. I didn’t believe in violence as a solution to problems, and I probably wasn’t strong enough to break through the glass anyway, and this man wasn’t worth going to jail for, and if it wasn’t him, there would be some other rich guy to take his place.

Without looking at him, I asked, “Why did you try to kill us Friday at the Flisterbiddle von Struthers warehouse?”

“If I wanted to kill you, you would be dead.”

I turned to look at him.

“But my brother and I are not killers. We wanted you frightened.”

“Why?”

“We didn’t know what you’d find. We knew the Grums were going to pin the murder on your sister. We feared that would propel you to further action. We wanted to stop you from investigating.”

“Why not just tell the Grums to stop the police from arresting my sister?”

“We are powerful. We are not all-powerful, much as I’d like to be. The Grums are out of control, and they do have a great deal to say about what happens in Harrison County.”

“How’d you know we were at the warehouse?”

“You were using your GPS to find where you were. We were using it to track you.”

“You can do that?”

“Of course. You’ve seen it done by police organizations in movies. It’s not that expensive to replicate that kind of technology. Well, actually it can be purchased for relatively little. Comparatively. We find it handy to keep track of people we need to keep track of. We wanted you frightened. We didn’t quite expect you to avail yourself of your own legal army.”

“Did you send the cops Friday night?”

“I believe that was the Grums.”

“Why was Frank Smith’s house broken into?”

“I have no idea who that is.”

“The guy who gave a lot of money to your opposition. He won the lottery.”

“Oh, him. He wasn’t important enough for us to notice.”

“Did you use the tracking on Edgar Grum?”

“He was never someone important enough for us to track. I realize he was your brother-in-law, but I didn’t care about him when he was alive. I certainly don’t care about him now.”

I turned my back on him again.

After a minute or so the silence was broken by Ducharmé, who said, “Please come back and sit down.”

I swallowed my anger and sat. He refilled his drink and resumed, “No, my dear Mr. Mason. The key is, we didn’t kill anyone. Isn’t that the heart of your concern?”

“I think the election and the two murders are connected.”

“Two?”

I explained about Zachary Ross.

He said, “I have no idea who that is either. Harrison County is where the vote changed. Who is in charge of Harrison County? This isn’t rocket science, Mr. Mason. Look there for your killer.”

“But if Edgar Grum or Zachary Ross died in part because of your schemes, you are in some way culpable.”

“Morally perhaps you are right, but in the eyes of the law? That’s a much more difficult proposition.”

“And I’m just supposed to take your word for what you’ve told me?”

“You can do as you wish. You will bring no harm to me or my companies. You might even cost me a few million in legal fees. And what of those you know and love? You know the power of lies.”

“And you’re willing to tell such lies?”

“Manufacture them, use them. Look at the Republicans I use. They built their entire edifice on lies. The silly people serve me and mine nicely. They’ve learned to twist and squirm and turn and pivot as I wish. They so desperately want to be part of the one percent, they are quite willing to sell out the 99%. I don’t pretend to understand it. I don’t care if I ever understand it. I just want them to keep doing it.”

He took another sip of his drink.

I wondered if the Grums knew with what scorn he regarded them. At least according to the man sitting in front of me, whatever the Grums felt made no difference to his existence.

And in some ways that was sad and in some ways that made me furious. All the Grums’ mad rushing about to please this man was for what? Themselves? Certainly, he didn’t care.

“You’d rather you and your partner and your lives go down in glorious flames in the hopes, the chance, that I might be harmed? Trust me, I will be on a private jet and gone in just a few hours.”

“You must be very frightened of what we might find.”

Even if all the condescending smiles of the Republicans fighting for the 2012 nomination were combined, they could not have matched the one he now gave me for sneering superiority. He topped off the smile with a chuckle and said, “Not really.”

“Then why tell me this at all?”

“Because I truly want this to go away. I did not kill anyone nor did I order anyone killed. If underlings of mine went to excess, then I’d be quite happy to have them punished. We are not responsible for this. We are not responsible for anyone getting murdered.”

“You’re responsible for screwing a whole lot of things up. You may not have pulled any actual triggers on any actual guns, but your actions set in motion the events that led to this.”

Ducharmé said, “Good luck with finding a prosecutor in this jurisdiction who will take legal action.”

I said, “You must have violated any number of laws. You might not get some local politician in your pay to prosecute, but the federal authorities will go after you.”

“You don’t think I have influence there as well? You are naïve.”

“You’re so sure none of this will reflect on you?”

“Oh, my yes. I’ve got more lawyers on retainers than more than half the countries on the planet have in total.”

“I’d prefer proof.”

“You said you had the documentation from Edgar Grum’s home.”

“I’d feel better if you showed me how it worked.”

He frowned at me for a moment, downed the last of his drink, and said, “Okay.”

He pressed a button on what looked like a remote control on steroids that sat on the coffee table next to him. A flat screen television to my left, his right, came to life. Using the same remote, he began to manipulate the icons on the screen. A program that looked like the one we found on Edgar’s computer came up. He hunched forward on the couch and said, “This represents every Firbutton 20 voting machine in the state. Here are the vote totals. By manipulating the following formulas,” he scrolled down and clicked, “the results should have changed in each machine in each precinct. They didn’t. The command was sent. It never arrived. There should have been no need for Mrs. Grum’s obvious mathematical chicanery.” He took out his cell phone and manipulated the buttons on the front. The numbers on the screen didn’t change. He said, “Go to the machines if you wish, or you can get a court order to do so. Take apart all that techno crap inside them. The program didn’t work to change the votes, but it did work to erase itself. The self-destruct mechanism was set on a timer on all of the machines for forty-eight hours after the election. No paper trail. No electronic trail. None of the Grums were supposed to know about this. More people are going to be fired. I like firing people.”

I thought for a minute. “We’re not going to find proof.”

“No, you aren’t.”

“So Mallon or the Grums stole the election?”

“The governor? You’ve met her. As I said, the woman doesn’t have the brains that this table has. She has neither charm nor good looks. She happened to be in the right place at the right time for our purposes. No one thought she’d win the governorship in the first place. She did, and we were glad. She is certainly expendable.”

“And the Grums?”

“Are also expendable. Whatever happened with the election, happened locally. For the cheating and the killing, look to them. Call off your people or have them search forever. You will get nothing on us.”

“And if we get things on the people who worked for you?”

“As I said, nothing will redound to us.”

I stood up. “I’ll have to think about what I intend to do.”

He rose as well. “Do that.”

The man who accompanied me up did so as well on the reverse journey.

FIFTY-FOUR

Sunday 11:23 A.M.

When I got into the car, I asked Scott to drive along the lake. We got to the Wind Point Lighthouse in Racine and pulled into the deserted parking lot. All the good Christians were in church so we had the place to ourselves.

I’d told him the whole story as we drove. Now we walked along the lake. The sky had turned gray, the low clouds rushing in from the northeast, the wind off the lake snapping our clothes.

Scott asked, “Do we believe him?”