Another Dead Republican

by Mark Zubro

  Barry didn’t bother to knock on the office door. He barged right in.

  My brother turned from where he’d been standing at the sliding glass doors staring out. Darryl said, “Can I help you?”

  I said, “Barry, is there something you need?”

  Barry looked at all three of us. “I wanted to find something personal of my brother’s so I could use it during my eulogy.”

  I said, “Anything particular you’re looking for?”

  “Maybe something from when we were kids.”

  I guess a fairly legitimate thing, but why in here? What was it in here that was so vital to them all? I wasn’t going to give him stuff from the box from Barry’s childhood, not until Veronica and her kids had a chance to pick what they might want of memories from the recently departed.

  My Dad appeared in the doorway. “Barry, the governor and her people are in the kitchen getting something to eat. Would you care to join them?”

  We trooped out leaving my younger brother on guard.

  The crowd accompanying the governor clustered around the kitchen island. Baskets of food were opened and their contents placed on platters. Coffee came from the giant urn on the cupboard next to the sink. Someone had dropped off several platters of already cut up fruit the day before. These were put out along with plastic knives and forks. My mom was chattering away with the governor about her husband and children. Veronica was busy finding enough cups for the multitude. I joined her.

  “What is she doing here?” she muttered.

  “You’re not honored and dazzled?”

  “I’m frazzled, frustrated. It was a mistake to let her in. For a few minutes this morning, I want time to be with my own tears. I want time with the children.”

  We turned back to the crowd. Mallon’s bright smile conveyed all the sincerity of a hangman about to push the lever for the drop. She said, “You know, Veronica, while these nice policemen came with me, why don’t you talk with them for a while?”

  My father, perhaps one of the most non-violent of men in the universe, immediately stepped forward and placed himself between all of them and us. The calm and quiet with which he addressed them was deceptive. I’ve learned the trick from him, the quieter he spoke the more angry he was, and as his voice lowered, it became more and more unlikely who and that which had angered him would triumph. He said, “Nobody is talking to anybody about anything. Today is going to be a day of quiet for this family. And when Veronica’s lawyer is here, her lawyer will speak for her.”

  Mallon said, “I just meant…”

  My father, impressed by few and certainly not by this witch, interrupted her, “No, Governor, what you mean is, we’re sorry for your loss, is there anything we can do to help?”

  Mom, me, Scott, and my brothers clustered around dad. Veronica stayed behind us. Her kids, drawn by all the excitement, were behind her.

  A man in his late thirties stepped forward and said, “I’m Theodore Apht, the governor’s spokesperson, and of course, that’s exactly what the governor meant.”

  She couldn’t speak for herself? I’m not sure Mallon quite understood what just happened, but her aide did. Mumbled sympathies emanated from all involved, and the moment of tension drained away. For a few moments Veronica clutched onto my dad the way Patricia clutched onto her.

  Scott’s voice dropped into the ensuing silence. “What are the police doing?”

  “I’m told they’re concentrating on the thugs who have been demonstrating against the people’s elected representatives,” was Mallon’s reply.

  School teachers as thugs rushing to the streets had been the characterization they’d been using for months. I knew she never described the gun-toting Tea Baggers as thugs. I’d followed her anti-intellectual rants on the Internet. As a teacher I took her irrationality personally, and her blaming teachers for the economic downturn infuriating.

  I asked, “Do they have any facts indicating one of the demonstrators was at the hotel?”

  “I’m sure the police are checking every angle. They need to be aware of how evil the opposition has been. We’ve received numerous threats.”

  I wanted to say, “I’d like proof of that,” or, “didn’t the police follow up on the threats at the time?”. I didn’t.

  I wasn’t eager to have her in the house, but it wasn’t my decision to make. As long as she stuck to comforting Veronica, I would hold my tongue.

  Barry Grum spoke up, “These people in the streets have been out of control and prone to violence. We know Union thugs have led this movement. People responsible will be questioning those thugs. The leaders of this movement are violence prone.”

  Scott spoke up, “That strikes me as evil and irrational. I hope the police are doing better than that.”

  Scott? Mister keep everything calm? Mister don’t antagonize the enemy?

  “They always look at the family as well,” Barry said. He gave Veronica a mean glance.

  “Then have they interviewed you, your brothers, cousins, aunts, and uncles, and your mother and father?” Scott asked.

  The governor stepped in. “I’m sure the police are doing everything they can. No one can control what the media says.”

  Scott said, “Yes, you can. You try to control it every time you give a press conference, every time your press spokesperson leaks information to the press, every time you or one of your representatives appears on a talk show.”

  “Who are you?” the governor asked.

  I intervened. “A member of the family.”

  Things were getting very tense.

  My mom asked, “Are the police close to an arrest?”

  The governor said, “I don’t know.”

  My dad asked, “What about the person who found the body?”

  Apht, the spokesperson said, “The police are following all possible leads.”

  The two cops remained in the background. The young, burly guy, Brendstin, scowled continuously, lips pursed, brows drawn together. Adlow, the older man, mostly hung his head and didn’t meet people’s eyes. Something odd was going on there.

  Scott asked, “Why are there reporters here with you?”

  Mallon looked like she just guzzled a good dose of vinegar.

  Scott continued, “I saw some of them on the news. Why aren’t they asking you about the charges of stealing the election? Why are they even here during this time of family tragedy?”

  My mother said, “Why don’t we all have some more to eat?” She pointed. “There are so many delicious things. Does anyone need more coffee?”

  Much of the herd lurched in the direction of the goodies on the surrounding counters. The governor followed suit. Once she moved, most of the others resumed wolfing down the proffered provender.

  Enid Achtenberg strolled in.

  Then Barry once again headed toward the doorway to the rest of the house. My brother casually planted himself in his path.

  Barry tried to brush past him. He stood like a rock. In seconds my dad was beside him. The cops approached Veronica. She turned very pale.

  Enid got between them and her.

  Achtenberg said, “We met yesterday. I’m Mrs. Grum’s lawyer. Can I help you gentlemen?”

  Scott joined my dad and brother barring the access to the rest of the house. I joined Veronica and my mom. The herd in the kitchen were on their own.

  Detective Brendstin said, “We had more questions.”

  Enid asked, “About what?”

  “Mrs. Grum’s whereabouts when her husband was murdered.”

  Veronica gasped. My mom hurried the kids out of the room.

  Enid said, “She already told you where she was.”

  “We wanted to go over it again.”

  Enid asked, “What’s to go over? She said she was home asleep.”

  “Why wasn’t she at the election headquarters?”

  Veronica opened her mouth as if she would answer. I placed a hand on her arm.

  Enid smiled. “My dear detective, how kind of you to
be interested. Really, I can’t think of a more useless question. How are you doing with the investigation?”

  “She needs to answer our questions.”

  Behind us I heard Barry Grum say, “Get out of my way.”

  Scott said, “This isn’t your house. You aren’t in charge. My guess is the real reason for the governor’s visit was to get you into the house.”

  Barry said, “How dare you?”

  Scott said, “Not a difficult insight. What is it in that den that you all want to get hold of so desperately?”

  “Detectives,” Barry Grum shouted, “arrest these people.”

  Enid laughed. “On what charge?”

  Silence.

  Governor Mallon’s voice came from the kitchen doorway. “We have to go now.”

  Poof and the mob shuffled out the door, trailing reporters behind them.

  We all looked at each other, at their departing figures, and kept our mouths shut until the front door closed.

  Lionel said, “There’s got to be something in there they want.”

  My dad said, “So let’s search the place.”

  Lionel asked, “Search for what?”

  That stopped us. Scott said, “What would they want so desperately?”

  “Money?” Lionel guessed.

  “Something that proves their guilt,” my dad suggested.

  “Guilt for what?” I asked. “That they stole the election? Proof of who killed Edgar?”

  Lionel said, “This sounds kind of hopeless, and whatever it is, could be anywhere in the house.”

  We searched over, under, around all the critters, nothing. We moved all but the larger pieces. If something was hidden under the grizzly, they were going to have to get an industrial crane to move the damn thing. They must have dragged the huge bear in through the sliding glass doors or, who knows, maybe they built the house around the thing.

  Nothing we found seemed to be something of value to the Grum family in terms of murder or the election. Nothing gave a hint to us that some kind of criminal activity was afoot, but we might not have recognized it. Scott and I would have to continue our vigilance as we went through the boxes.

  The rest of the family left, and Scott and I resumed with the filing and cleaning. After two hours we had more bags of trash and a few more financial bits of information.

  We took a break. Lunch was an almost quiet affair.

  My dad asked as we were cleaning the mess from lunch and the morning herd of visitors, “Veronica, did you still want us to let people in here? Wouldn’t you like some peace and quiet?”

  “As long as the kids are okay, it’s all right. Friends and food and talk are good. And some of the people bring their kids, so David, Gerald, and Patricia have someone to talk to.”

  I thought it was nuts and a switch from what she’d mentioned earlier, but it was up to her. I didn’t expect extreme consistency from someone under the stress she was experiencing.

  The rest of them left. Scott and I were alone in the kitchen cleaning the Mallon crowd mess and the lunch dishes, like an old married couple working together at cleaning the messes others had made. At one point I said to him, “I was a little surprised when you made comments to the governor.”

  He tossed a cleaning rag into a trash container under the sink then looked up at me. “She hit the limit on my temerity index. How often do you have the chance to confront absolute evil?”

  THIRTY-ONE

  Thursday 1:00 P.M.

  Early that Thursday afternoon my dad and I had time to stroll out to the gun shed. Veronica had given us a set of keys, and pointed out which ones opened this building. Scott was back in the dead animal den guarding and sorting. Mom, Darryl, and Lionel were on greeting duty.

  The day was filled with high clouds. While walking across the lawn, my dad said, “I can’t believe the Governor. That took a hell of a lot of nerve.”

  I said, “They wanted something. Veronica told me how grateful she was to have you and mom there at the funeral home. She said you were great.”

  My dad let out a snort that was kind of between a snarl and a bark. “Wasn’t hard. When they’re that stupid and that mean. You just have to remember who you are and what you want. Those people are too stupid to live.”

  My dad was one of the mildest of men. He caught my raised eyebrow.

  “What?” he asked. “A little truth seems to be needed around here. These people are a menace to the universe, and I’m not talking about their politics. Anybody that stupid and that unwilling to deal with reality needs to be beaten with sticks.”

  I said, “I can’t believe Veronica is letting all those people come to the house.”

  “She’s like your mother. If there’s stress, they want to keep busy. If they’ve got a problem, they want to talk. The bigger the problem, the more people they want to talk to. Your mom’s been that way from before I married her.”

  “I’d want peace and quiet.”

  “That’ll come,” my dad said. “Veronica will be remembering this her whole life. For now the crowd is a comfort.” He shrugged.

  The so-called shed was the size of a three-car garage. It was built of brick and had one door and no windows. The locks had scratch marks, and the door jamb on one side and the hinges on the other looked as if someone had tried to pry them open with a crow bar. My dad and I examined them. He said, “Somebody tried to get in here.”

  “I thought I heard something as I was falling asleep last night. Scott and I went downstairs and examined all the doors and windows but couldn’t find evidence of tampering around the house. We turned on the lights for the backyard and came out on the patio, but we couldn’t see anything.”

  My dad said, “Ghost of the Grums?”

  “Not a bad guess, especially if we were in the middle of a gothic horror novel, but we’ve got no proof.”

  Dad said, “The Grums are a gothic horror.”

  I found the keys for the triple locks. I paused before I opened it. “How can the police not have sealed this? This makes no sense.”

  My dad said, “Not the first time since we’ve been here that’s happened.” He shrugged. “Maybe they have the gun.”

  “We didn’t see anything about that on the Internet, and you’d think Achtenberg would have mentioned it.”

  Upon entering I reached to my right, felt along the wall for a switch, found it, and flipped it on. My first notion upon entering the so-called storage shed was that it was way better than my first apartment, twice as large, better lit, and with more furniture. The carpeting was all-weather ordinary, green and gold. A few display cases displayed guns.

  The main difference between my first apartment and this shed were the wall decorations. I had bricks, boards, and books. This had racks and racks of guns. I knew a little about guns because I’d been in the Marines. Each displayed gun had a little cards next to it labeling what the gun was, its provenance and/or a brief history, how much it cost, and how many critters it had been used to kill, if any. He had a pair of 1911 .45 caliber Ithaca marine army service pistols, but with different handles, one ivory, the other ebony.

  There were shotguns from Boos & Co., Holland &Holland, and J. Prudey & Sons. One of them was a gold-inlaid 12 bore. One rifle was an H.H. Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan Mosque rifle. I pointed this last one out to my dad. “Can this be real?”

  “Why?”

  “If it’s real, it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

  My Dad said, “So Veronica’s rich.”

  “I haven’t seen the guns on any of the lists in the documents we’ve found.”

  My Dad bent forward to read the card. “Why would you think it was fake?”

  “Edgar was many things. Being a victim of a fake or trying to perpetrate one wouldn’t surprise me.”

  My Dad said, “I think eccentric is one of the milder words I’d use for the Grums in general. Coupons clipped and guns collected?” He shrugged. “Who are we to judge?”

  He was right about that
. After we spent a few minutes glancing at the displayed items my dad asked. “You know what’s missing?”

  I shrugged.

  “A bazooka.”

  “Huh?”

  My dad said, “Wasn’t he supposed to be a lousy shot?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, to compensate, why doesn’t he have extra fire power. Knowing Edgar, I’d presume he’d need a bazooka, or a tank, to equalize the odds between him and Bambi.”

  “You might be underestimating Bambi.”

  None of the guns mounted on the walls, and none of the shelves of boxes of shells told me who killed him.

  My dad said, “There’s a bank of switches here.” He flipped several. Bright lights illumined the guns, racks of track lighting, spot lights.

  One card said that the AK-47 on display was the one that had killed Osama Bin Laden. I pointed it out to my dad. “That can’t be real.”

  “It’s really a gun,” my Dad said, “as to its provenance and history.” He shrugged.

  I asked, “How could you prove it was real? I wouldn’t take what it says on that display card as proof. Can you buy this kind of thing from the military?”

  “More likely he got scammed.”

  “The better question is why aren’t the cops all over this place? Why haven’t the cops been all over this place?”

  My dad said, “What’s this red button?” It was at the end of the row of switches he’d flipped. He pushed it. Racks of guns six feet wide slid sideways. The two walls behind them parted a few feet, it revealed a small room. The floor was a door like that on a storm cellar. Dad checked a newly revealed panel of switches. Flipped them, nothing happened. I saw another red button on the end of the row. Before I could say anything, he pressed it. Hinged on one side, creaking louder than the sound effects in a thirties horror movie, the door rose like the lid of Dracula’s coffin. Steps led down.

  I said, “Plot thickener if I ever saw it.”

  “Do we descend?”

  “We’re not doing anything illegal. We have permission from the current owner.”

  We had to duck our heads. The door at the bottom was not locked.

  I flipped a light switch on the wall to my right. A six-feet-by-six-feet workbench rested against one wall. Again, absolutely everything was labeled. The walls here were corkboard. On them pieces of equipment were outlined in black magic marker. Then below each outline was a label of what tool was to be placed there. It looked like everything in the room had a color-coded laminated label. The tools all had pink labels, the guns yellow, the label maker had a green label saying “label maker”.