Another Dead Republican (27 page)

“What about a connection to the Grums?”

He snorted. “Them! They are too stupid to live. Them kill somebody? They aren’t bright enough to plan a walk down the street.”

I told him about our connection to the Grum family.

He frowned when I finished. “I feel sorry for your sister.” He didn’t say what I thought a lot of folks might, how bright could she be if she married into the family? I suppressed the thought.

Scott said, “They’ve been smart enough to rule the county.”

Gottlieb sighed, sipped more coffee, hunched even closer to us. “This county is run like the KGB with spies and dirty tricks and death.”

“Others have died?”

“I have no proof and trying to get proof on a simple damn election cost a life.”

We paused and took hits from our drinks. Gottlieb said, “I’ve known the Grums for years. I grew up in the county. The
Harrison County Clarion
is the largest paper in the county. I’ve heard and seen them do incredible things.”

“Like what?” Scott asked.

“They fight like an incestuous backwoods family on meth mixed with a group of siblings squabbling over billions.”

“They have that much money?” Scott asked.

“They may or may not have over a billion, but it is a great deal. I’ve heard of screaming matches among them, accusations, physical fights.”

“Between Mr. and Mrs. Grum?” Scott asked.

“Certainly between the brothers. Mrs. Grum is the one who rules that brood, but even she can’t keep the peace. She and her husband hate each other.”

“Why do they stay together?” Scott asked.

“Money? Power? I already said they’re too stupid to live. The Grums have money, and Mrs. Grum married into it, but she comes from money as well. They’d do everything to preserve their position and their cash. The fights pale in comparison to the cash.”

“Steal the election?” I asked.

“Oh my, yes. That would be among the smaller things they’ve done.”

“How would they go about rigging voting machines?” Scott asked. “There must be some way to find out about them.”

Gottlieb shrugged. “Zachary thought he had a lead on the cheating. I think that’s where he was going that night, to see someone who could give him more information. I told him to call me immediately after the meeting. He never called.”

I said, “There’s something about those damn machines.”

Gottlieb said, “I presume so.”

“What can you tell us about them?”

“They’ve got offices in the next county west on Interstate 94. I’m not suggesting you go there or investigate. Why are you bothering?”

I said, “I think all these things are connected, Edgar Grum’s death, Zachary’s plummet off the bridge, and stealing the election.”

He held my eyes. “The wife is always one of the main suspects. She’s your sister. You’re worried about her being accused.”

“The police don’t seem very trustable.” I didn’t tell him about my connection with Adlow.

He had no further insights and no knowledge of what Zachary might have done with his notes.

FORTY-TWO

Friday 5:59 P.M.

It was just before six and the clouds had thickened and the drizzle had become a steady light rain all adding to the impending gloom of night.

I started the car, put the heater on low, and the windshield wipers on intermittent pulse. We joined the Friday evening traffic west on Interstate 94.

I said, “I feel sorry for Gottlieb. I hope I never have that much guilt or regret over a decision I make.”

Scott said, “These people are all sad. They’re all dealing with the horrific loss of a son, a husband, a friend, a coworker.”

“Caused by some desperate conspiracy.”

“What is it they gain?” Scott asked. “What possible good does this all do?”

We’d had this discussion numerous times. We hashed it out as we drove, the mad desire of humans to act irrationally and hurt deliberately or to act against their own or their loved ones self interest. We got no further than we usually did in figuring out why we humans did such awful things to each other.

As we crossed into Mendotta County, the first one west of Harrison County, I checked the review mirrors again. I’d been doing so since we started out.“I haven’t noticed anyone.”

Scott said, “I’ve been checking too. I haven’t seen anything odd.”

“I’m eager to get into Zachary’s e-mail and try “elephant” as the password, but we’re out now and might as well finish what we started.”

“We don’t even know if it will work.”

After several more miles the traffic had begun to thin out. Scott broke the silence. “Remind me, why are we going here?”

“To nose around. Because I think these deaths and this election and all this incredible paranoia are tied together.”

Scott asked, “How can these people live in fear like this? Why don’t they just get out?”

I said, “Maybe the boiled frog syndrome.” This was an old conundrum. If you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will jump out. If you put a frog into a pot of room temperature water and then turn heat on under it, the frog will not jump out as the water begins to boil. It simply stays inside and dies.

Scott asked, “And this world of Harrison County, their lives here were that great that they’d never want to leave?”

A semi-truck roared past us spraying us with his damp and dirty wake.

I said, “We’ve both gone through tough times at our jobs. Did it make us want to change or want to fight?”

“But these people aren’t fighting. They’re just giving in.”

“And sometimes that’s just easier. We can only do as much as we can when we’re at work. Doing as much as we can right this minute includes going out to this place and hoping it gives us another clue to the mystery and helps us keep Veronica from being arrested by these creeps.”

We got nowhere in our discussion of how an entire police department could be dedicated to preserving the Grums of Harrison County.

I drove to the exit Adlow had indicated. The GPS confirmed the turn off.

This exit had one BP gas station/convenience store. We filled the tank and stopped in the washroom. I didn’t notice anyone who seemed suspicious or out of place. Then again, it was a reasonably busy exit at this time on Friday. We followed the GPS instructions off the Interstate two miles north past farms with fields tired from winter, resting before spring plowing and planting, isolated homes, two stories, wooden, built probably before 1930, most well kept. The light was failing fast so I slowed down considerably. No one that I could see followed us from the interstate. After another mile or so, we became the only car on the road. As we drove farther north, the lights of distant houses, the few signs of life, became more scattered.

The GPS indicated a turn onto a paved road to the right, east. I continued to check the review mirrors. Still, nobody was on the road with us.

I passed a warehouse that a sign said was for refrigerators and appliances. It had one car and one semi-truck in front.

After another mile, a left turn, north again, up a dirt road half a mile, even fewer houses, still no other cars. The light rain kept up and evening closed in.

I stopped in the middle of the road, rolled the window down. We listened to the silence of spring country, no bugs yet, the birds didn’t seem interested, a slight breeze blew the ever increasing rain through the open window.

To the left I saw a line of old trees that began at the side of the road and trailed into the darkness. I saw the last shadows of lone trees, silos, and fences. A few unseen cows mooed.

I shifted around in my seat so I could take a 360° survey of my flat surroundings and saw no signs of pursuit.

We continued on. The GPS said we were still heading in the correct direction.

The road became rutted and pot-holed. I could hear the water splashing up onto the underside of the car. This was on the way to the headquarters of a multi-national corporation, or at least their local offices? And they were out here on a road that didn’t get repaired?

In another half mile, I saw one fairly bright light in front of a larger set of buildings ahead of us on the right. The GPS said this was it, Flisterbiddle Von Struthers Wisconsin warehouse.

The gravel parking lot was empty. The windows showed no lights on the inside, no curtains on the windows, no signs on the doors. I inched the car closer. The most suspicious thing at the moment was the lack of obvious security cameras. Nor did I see evidence of an alarm system.

Here in the middle of nowhere was a headquarters for a high tech firm, where someone could merrily break in and steal everything with not a soul as a witness? Remote was kind of believable but unsecured was not. We wouldn’t find anything. Nobody as paranoid as the Grums would leave such a thing unguarded.

I did another 360° check of my surroundings. Nothing except the clumped-together buildings. I drove a full circuit around the them. Our headlights illumined what appeared to be three large corrugated, single level buildings in a railroad car formation.

Still no sigh of habitation.

I eased the car around to the back, parked next to the building, and turned out the lights.

“Now what?” Scott asked.

“We might as well get out and look around.”

The darkness was now broken only by the dim lights on the dashboard. “Or we could leave. There’s nothing here.”

I turned off the car. “We came this far.”

He took a flashlight out of the glove compartment. That’s the thing about living with a neatnik, it also extends to preparations. In the car we had matches, flares, extra windshield wipers, umbrellas, blankets, dried food, and flashlights. We’d probably still carry a can of gasoline in the trunk if that hadn’t been declared a hazard.

In the ever increasing rain, we walked the perimeter, looked in the windows, briefly shone the flashlight through them.

Empty, no boxes, desks, chairs, lights.

Should we break in? What was the point? Maybe we simply had the wrong address.

I used my phone to check the Internet. This was the address listed in Wisconsin on their web site. I called Frank Smith. Bowers answered. I got Smith on the line. I told him what we’d found.

He said, “Far as I know that’s it. That’s where the machines came from. Maybe it’s empty because all the machines are in place.”

I hung up. We huddled in a small recessed doorway in the back of the building ten steps from the car.

Scott said, “We could break in.”

At the moment I couldn’t catch his eyes. I said, “You think we should?” He was normally the cautious one. Then again, he’d been the one to rip on the governor.

His deep, sonorous voice bent the night in cautious whispers. “We’ve got proof the Grums were assholes. We really don’t have anything else. What’s to lose? We saw no sign of any kind of alarm system. If there’s nothing inside, then we’re no worse off than we are now.” He took off his jacket, wadded it around his fist, broke the glass in the door, reached in, and unlocked the door.

No sirens rang, no lights blinked, nothing gave an indication that something was wrong.

We entered.

Scott turned on the flashlight and pointed it toward the ground to keep the circle of light to a minimum. We let our eyes adjust and then started a systematic walk through a very empty series of rooms. We stepped softly and carefully. Mostly we disturbed dust.

If we spoke, we kept our voices in whispers.

Scott said, “Nobody’s been here in ages.”

No footfalls sounded behind us. No lights appeared anywhere.

I asked, “Why aren’t there emergency lights, exit lights? Why am I asking impossible questions?”