by Mark Zubro
“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.”
“How did the interview go with Edgar Grum when you interviewed him about the reporter’s death?”
“He was a gregarious windbag, just a complete idiot. He blubbered on and on about how fabulous the campaign was, how great Zachary Ross the reporter was, how fabulous he, Edgar, was. He told me about all the fabulous plans he had and deals he could make. He wanted me to invest in some scheme.”
“He did?”
By this time, Adlow was leaning forward in his chair emphasizing each sentence with a finger pointing at me. His rheumy old eyes met mine and rarely looked away.
“He wanted me to invest in gold futures. Gold was always going to go up. Except when it goes down. He talked politics. I knew who he was. I knew I had to be polite to him. For being Zachary’s boss and working with him for six months, he actually knew very little about the kid. Edgar actually didn’t seem to be doing a lot of work for the campaign, just kind of talking big. The other people who worked with Ross liked him. Then Smith began interfering.”
Adlow stretched his muscles and twisted his torso back and forth. He said, “Back hurts when I sit too long in one position especially in a chair without a back.”
“What happened when Smith interfered?”
“The truth that the reporter was a spy came out and then nothing happened. Everyone stopped talking about the reporter. I went to talk to that Edgar Grum again. He looked scared.”
“Of what?”
“His own shadow? I couldn’t tell. It was as if someone had deflated a child’s balloon. But it wasn’t just him, they all shut up.”
He gave me details about Ross then he said, “I went to talk to Ross’s partner. I got nothing from him. He was suspicious of everybody, especially the police.”
“What if I talked to him?”
“Well, I’d warn you about interfering in a police investigation, but there is no investigation as far as I know. I was taken off the case and nobody at headquarters claims to be working the case.”
“So I could talk to him?”
“As far as I’m concerned, you can talk to whoever you want. It’s a free country, at least it is for the millionaires who’ve got the money to spend on campaigns like this.”
“They’ve got the kind of money to just stop the investigation?”
“No matter which ‘they’ you are referring to the answer is yes. If it’s the Grums or the Ducharmés, the result is the same. All I know is that at this point in the department, it is best not to ask questions.”
“You’ve met the Ducharmés?”
“A peon like me doesn’t get to see royalty.”
“Do you think someone from the Grum campaign killed the reporter?”
Adlow said, “If they didn’t know he was a spy, why kill him? If they did know he was a spy, what had the spy done that was worth killing for?”
“If they really were cheating electronically, maybe he figured it out, uncovered the truth.”
“But the knowledge of him being a spy came about because of Frank Smith’s calls. I found no evidence that somebody knew before.”
I said, “What was the time lapse between them being cooperative to them not being?”
“A matter of hours.”
“Maybe they just shut up because politicians prefer to keep everything secret if they can. Maybe Edgar just blabbed because he didn’t know better.”
“And the others?”
“Who among the others was helpful? Who stopped?”
“They all were willing to help. Then they all stopped. They were scared. Then I got pulled off the investigation. Here’s who I think you might be most likely to get stuff from in the campaign.” He gave me names including that of the reporter’s editor. “I can’t follow up. You can.”
“Someone will want to know where I got the names.”
“You going to tell them?”
“I don’t know anybody named Adlow.”
The cop said, “Good answer.”
I asked, “Why haven’t the cops taken any of Edgar’s computer stuff?”
“I don’t know.”
Scott appeared in the entrance to the shed. He had a tray with fast food choices from a nearby restaurant, plus glasses of orange juice and napkins.
He looked at me and said, “I thought you might be hungry.” He looked at the detective and said, “Hello. Would you care to join us?”
Adlow said, “You’re the baseball player.”
“Maybe someday again.”
“Good luck with it.” Scott set the food down on the workbench, and we three began to eat.
I explained to Scott what Adlow had said so far. Adlow didn’t object to me telling him.
Scott spoke to the detective, “So you’ve gotten the shit end of the stick. Do you know what you’ve done wrong?”
“That’s hard to know with the Gr
ums. Maybe I haven’t expressed enough enthusiasm or bowed and scraped enough or showed enough ambition or willingness to please them.” He shrugged.
I said, “Someone doesn’t want these murders investigated. Presumably that someone doesn’t want the murderer found. Who has the power to stop an investigation? The Grums. Why would they want an investigation stopped? Because finding out who did it would reflect on them.”
Adlow objected. “But that would mean they killed their own son, or caused it to happen. They are shits, but I don’t think they are that big of shits.”
Scott said, “The Ducharmés have power, supposedly more power than the Grums.”
Adlow chewed his breakfast biscuit for a few minutes, drank some coffee. “I’ve never met any of the Ducharmés. They aren’t from around here. You hear about them all the time. I suppose they’ve got the money and power to stop an investigation too.”
“But why?” Scott asked.
I sipped some orange juice then said, “Because if the killer was found, it would reflect on them. And with at least two deaths surrounding this campaign, things could get very suspicious, especially if what you said is right that the reporter/spy worked directly under Edgar as a gofer and factotum. There has to be some kind of connection.”
Scott said, “We should try and talk to the recall campaign that hired the spy. The people who worked with the reporter, his editor, his wife or partner if he had one.”
Adlow said, “I gave your partner some names.” Adlow munched for a moment, caught Scott’s eyes, then mine. “What you really need to be worried about now is Edgar Grum’s wife, your sister.”
“Huh?”
“The higher ups in the police department or the Grums or the Ducharmés or some combination of them want to pin it on her.”
“She was at home.” I sounded more defensive than I should have.
“You can prove that?”
I snapped, “I know my sister.”
Adlow said, “I haven’t heard that defense work real well in a court of law recently.”
I couldn’t keep the sneer out of my tone. “Normally they need some kind of evidence and proof for an accusation or an arrest.”
“This is Harrison County,” Adlow said. “I’ve seen the power this crowd has.”
“But you’re helping us now,” I said.
Adlow frowned into his coffee. “I wonder if bringing down the governor, this campaign, and the Ducharmés, and the Grums would save my pension. I can’t finance a campaign. I can’t risk my job, but I can do a little bit. I was told to let the whole thing go, which was told to me right after I mentioned going out to the computer company headquarters because of the computer connection with the reporter and the rumors that Edgar was shooting off his big mouth about winning the campaign any way possible. If he was on my side, I’d probably have tried to think of a way to shut him up.”
The suspicion of a conspiracy against my sister angered me. I said, “I should call Enid Achtenberg and warn her about the danger Veronica is in.”
Adlow said, “I’m not in charge of your cell phone, but you didn’t hear it from me. If I’d ever eavesdrop on my idiot bosses in the department and I ever heard them talking I’d say they were thinking about making an arrest right after the funeral on Monday.”
My mouth gaped.
Scott said, “Bullshit.”
“Maybe so,” Adlow responded. “If you know lawyers, and you seem to, you might want to give your cell phone a workout.” He stood up, brushed crumbs off his clothes, downed the rest of his orange juice, and used a napkin to wipe his face and hands.
I asked, “Why put crime scene tape on the gun shed?”
“We have the gun that killed him, a Colt Mustang Pocketlight .380 Auto.”
“What’s that?” Scott asked.
“A small gun, fits in your hand.”
I said, “He must have been shot up close.”
“Yup.”
“You’ve got the gun,” I said. “Why close off this shed?”
He thought for several moments. “They’ve got me doing nonsensical shit work. I’ve got tons of paperwork to do back at headquarters. Somebody is getting away with murder. Why this? Why now? Beats the hell out of me. Maybe they want to plant the gun here. Maybe they want to see if it came from here.”
“Plant the gun? That makes no sense. There have to be a zillion cops who know that the gun was found at the crime scene. They can get that many people to be silent? They can distort reality to that great of an extent?”
Adlow gave me a grim smile. “Welcome to my world.”
“This is worse than Dorothy being dropped into Oz. I’ve been dropped into Wonderland and Oz combined.” I shook my head. “If they can do that, I am very frightened. Are you sure they want to plant it?”
“No, I’m not sure what the sheriff and the Grums are up to. I know I don’t want any part of it. This is wrong.”
We looked at each other in dismay and disbelief for several moments.
I broke the silence. I swept my arm around the room. “I didn’t see an obvious empty spot where it may have been on display.”
“It’s a small gun that could have been concealed anywhere.”
Could that have been what the Grums had all been looking for? But if the cops had the gun, what was the point?
Adlow continued, “There were no fingerprints on the gun that was used. Or maybe they just wanted to get me the hell out of the way.”
He climbed up the stairs. At the top he turned around and said, “You, me, and your family should be very, very careful.” He left.
I gaped at Scott. “They’re going to frame her. Those mother-fucking asshole sons of bitches.”
He said, “Incredible. Stunning. But I can believe they’d do something like that.”
Achtenberg had given me her number Wednesday night before she left. I called and told her the news. She asked where I heard it from. I told her “a good source.”
“What’s going on?” she asked.
I said, “We’re going to talk to some people who worked with Edgar.”
“Don’t get in the way of the police. Be careful. I think you should stay in the house.”
“Good advice.” Which I didn’t plan to take. She promised to work her sources in the department and the courts to see if she could find out if anything was in the works concerning Veronica.
I asked, “Have the police made any progress on the investigation?”
“Not that I’ve been able to find out.”
“Do you think I should tell Veronica about possibly being arrested?”
She paused for several moments. “Let me see what I can do. If they really are going to wait until after the funeral, we’ve got some time. She’s dealing with a lot right now. I’ll stop by. Maybe if I’m there when she’s told, I’ll be able to help minimize any fears she has.”
“She’ll be scared,” I said. “Who wouldn’t be?” She promised to check her sources and stop by later today.
While I talked, Scott crumpled our papers and empty cups and stuffed them back into the bags. I hung up and called our attorney. I trusted Achtenberg, but I wanted Todd Bristol in on everything, and I was very worried about a possible trumped up charge against Veronica.
I checked my watch. Nearly 8:30. Todd would be in the back of his Lincoln Town Car being driven to work by the house boy. I filled him in.
His first question was, “Did she kill him?”
“No.” He was silent for several beats. I said, “She’s my sister. I know she wouldn’t.”
Todd said, “You’ve described Edgar and his family as the kind of people who would be leading the cheering section as each person arrived in Dante’s circles of hell, and Edgar as the kind of person who, if hell had a brass band, he would be the entire trumpet section. They sound like people who would cause a saint to contemplate murder.”
“What can we do to avoid an unfounded accusation by the police?”
He had me go over what Adlow
and then Achtenberg had said. He listened carefully then said, “It’s Friday. I have a few appointments then I’ll drive up. I’ll make calls during the day. Unfounded indictments are something I like to keep track of on the spot.”
I didn’t question his willingness to drive up. He offered, and Scott and I paid him a hefty retainer every year, and he’d bill us for any extra hours. If it took money to keep my sister away from Edgar’s family’s clutches, then I’d spend it. He said he’d be up late that afternoon or early evening.
I said, “What about this company that designed the computer program?”
“If I was a detective still on either case, I would pay a visit to their company.”
“We’re not doing anything right now.”
Todd hesitated. “Be careful. Very, very careful.”
Veronica had said she wanted me to find out who murdered her husband. Now I might have to take action to be proactive to keep her out of jail.
THIRTY-FIVE
Friday 8:48 A.M.
There was a crowd in the kitchen having breakfast. Mom was making omelets. Veronica was talking with Patricia. Dad and Gerald were discussing comic books. David was playing with a hand-held electronic device. Darryl and Lionel were discussing the Grums.
Veronica, Scott, and I stepped into the pantry. I told her what I learned except the part about their possibly trying to arrest her. Veronica said, “Good, I want you to get those goddamn Grums. I knew all the police couldn’t be in their power.”
“Do you need me here?”
“I think I’m not going to have so many people here today. It was nice these past couple days, but I need to take a rest.”
I said, “We’ve got more boxes to go through but we’re around half done. We’ll finish before we leave. We’ll stay as long as it takes.”
Veronica stamped her foot. “Why haven’t they found the killer? Why haven’t they told us anything?” As per my discussion with Enid Achtenberg, I didn’t say because they’re trying to pin it on you.
I asked, “Do you know if Edgar owned a Colt Mustang Pocketlight .380 Auto?”
“What’s that?”
After I described the gun to her, she shook her head. “I have no idea. He never showed me any of his guns. I never wanted to see any of his guns.”
