by Mark Zubro
After two hours, I needed a break. I turned to Scott and mentioned the Colt guns to him.
“He had several of them?”
“That’s what Zachary says. Edgar claimed it was his favorite gun.”
“We didn’t find any. Is that important?”
I shrugged, leaned back from the computer and stretched my neck.“What have you got this morning?”
“Camping brochures and US Savings Bonds. So far in this box I’ve found one bond stuffed into each brochure. He had at least fifty thousand dollars worth of them in here. They’re all in the kids’ names.”
I moved over to the desk and looked, saw the stack of bonds, shrugged. The guy could save his money any way he wanted. I went back to work. I was into the last few days of Zach’s notes. Edgar’s brags and boasts had turned to a lot of paranoia connected with his family. There were numerous mentions of his desire to take revenge on one, some, or all of them. He claimed they were traitors. Other times Edgar declared he was going to get even with all of them and they’d be sorry. That he, Edgar, had information saved and stored that could destroy all of them if they didn’t treat him right.
At one point Zachary asked Edgar, “Why do you all hate each other so much?”
Edgar had said, “We were brought up right.”
Which indicated to me that Edgar either had more insight or a better sense of humor than I’d given him credit for. Or he meant it, which was ghastly sad.
Edgar had never told Zachary what he had or where it was stored. Zachary was convinced that Edgar knew about the plot to steal the election electronically. As far as I’d gotten, he had no proof.
Around noon we broke for lunch and to get ready to go to the wake which was to begin at the funeral home at 1:00 P.M.
As the time came to leave, I checked on Veronica. She and the kids looked as good as they could get in such awful circumstances. We left Darryl in the house to guard the place and headed to the funeral home.
FORTY-SEVEN
Saturday 1:00 P.M.
For much of the afternoon and evening I stood with Veronica and my mom and dad to the left of the closed casket.
My most vivid memory of the day, up until the last ugly incident, was Edgar’s brother Dewey taking pictures. He was in the viewing room recording each flower arrangement, the casket, and the mourners. Most of the assembled mourners looked at him with distaste. Fortunately, he mostly avoided our family, but who takes pictures at a funeral? The simple, obvious answer here was Dewey Grum.
As the day went on Veronica clutched my arm less often. The Grum family was to the right of the casket. Neither side approached the other. Scott sat in the back observing both sides for quite some time. My family looked grieved and worried. The Grums looked variously dispirited, lost, or angry. Every hour or so Mrs. Grum had to sit down. It must have been hard for all of them to be standing there hours on end. I also noted that some of the people lined up to talk to the Grums didn’t bother to stop and talk to Veronica. Were these politicians currying favor? Veronica’s people tended to talk with her longer, hug more often. With the Grums it was handshakes, and an occasional hand to the elbow.
For a while Scott watched the kids. David, the oldest, got restless and bored. Gerald and Patricia sat solemnly with him for a while. Patricia fell asleep against his arm for half an hour. The family rotated duties taking care of them.
Often Scott took up a quiet spot down a hall at the opposite end from the entrance to the viewing room. Partly because he was bored, but I could still find him if he was needed.
The viewing room and hall toward the front door were fairly crowded with people. Off to the side where Scott stood was mostly quiet.
Around five that afternoon, while Scott and I stood together in the hall, a very drunk man about Edgar’s age staggered up to us. He slurred his words and his liquor-fueled breath reeked.
“Is this the way to the john?”
I pointed to a door a few feet away. He took a step in that direction and then peered closely at Scott. “Aren’t you the baseball player?”
Scott said, “Derek Jeter, nice to meet you.”
“Nah, you’re not Jeter. I seen Jeter on Letterman. You ain’t him. You’re Verlander that Cleveland guy, no wait, Detroit guy. You’re him. You’re somebody. Why’d you say you’re Jeter?”
Scott said, “I came for Edgar and his family. It’s sad that he’s dead.”
“Ol’ Edgar. I was his best buddy in college. I’m Bill Rabenaw.” He thrust out his hand toward Scott who shook it. Scott said, “You knew him that long ago. You must have been good friends.”
“The best of friends. The very best of friends. We went everywhere together. Couldn’t keep us apart. Dated some of the same girls.” He hiccupped and leaned toward Scott conspiratorially. “We even banged one chick together once. We didn’t touch each other. We’re not gay. It was hot her doing both of us at once. Each of us took a different end.”
More information than I wanted.
Scott asked, “Had you seen much of him these past few years?”
“Hell, yes. Played poker with him. Me and his buddies, but I was his best buddy. Inseparable buddies.”
“He usually win or lose at poker?”
“Lost. He was so great to play poker with. Could never pull off a bluff. Never.”
“They say he was murdered.”
“I heard that. I don’t believe that. Who would want to murder him? He was harmless. Never hurt a fly. Always a good guy to be around.”
“Did you work with him?”
“As kids we had jobs together at my dad’s construction business. My dad fired him.” He leaned close. “We couldn’t go out and do carpentry work. God damn unions insisted we join. Wouldn’t join no god damn union. Edgar and me, we hated unions. You in a Union?”
“Sort of one.”
“That’s right, Derek Jeter, the baseball player. You guys got a Union.”
“So you worked in the office at the construction company?”
“Yeah.” He leaned close to Scott again, but he was still loud enough to be heard halfway across the hall. “I like you cause you’re a baseball player. I met some of the Milwaukee Brewers once or was it the Bucks? Anyway. Met them because my daddy’s rich. I can tell you this stuff. Edgar got fired. By my dad. Edgar wouldn’t say nothing. My dad just got rid of him. His dad and my dad are buddies. Good to have good buddies.”
“But he fired him?”
“Well, that’s what it amounted to. One day he was gone. I think my dad was missing some money and Edgar’s dad, he paid up. I think it was a lot of money. Nobody wanted to involve lawyers or police or shit. Just friends, you know, but Edgar, he had to go.” He burped spasmodically and said, “I think I’m gonna be sick.” I steered him down the hall.
Around six my mom and dad took the kids to get something to eat and then promised to bring them home. I stayed up front with Veronica for a while.
The lines were still long as it neared 9:00 P.M. I stepped out in the hall to talk to Scott. We were in a far corner when Mrs. Grum tottered out of the viewing room. Two older women flanked her, one on each side. I thought they might be her sisters. Mrs. Grum clutched her dog. She wore a nearly shapeless gray dress. With her free hand, she wiped her eyes. She wore black rimmed glasses. She must have been making her way to the washroom which was behind me and to the left.
We moved to make sure they had enough room. She only caught sight of us when we were within two feet of each other. She halted abruptly and staggered back. The dog wiggled, squirmed, and leapt free. On the ground the poor little dog yapped and shivered and then ran.
Mrs. Grum stooped toward it. She stumbled. Her companions grabbed for her, but Mrs. Grum’s bulk propelled her forward. Scott reached out his hand to keep her from falling. Their flesh came in contact for an instant. She pulled herself back as if she’d been burned.
“Don’t you touch me.” Her voice was shrill, high, and loud.
I looked into the mad, unrea
soning hatred in her eyes. She wagged a finger in Scott’s face like Governor Brewer in the face of President Obama. She shrilled, “It’s your fault my son is dead. You killed my son. I wish you were dead. I hope someday you suffer in the flames of hell.”
Scott spoke very softly. “If it makes you feel better to belittle and berate me, it’s okay. Your son is dead. I’m so sorry.” I was standing right next to him. We turned to each other. I embraced him, held him close, and kissed him.
Mrs. Grum was sobbing. The two women led her away. A minion I didn’t recognize ran after the dog.
FORTY-EIGHT
Sunday 12:10 A.M.
After the wake, back at Veronica’s, we’d eaten with her in the kitchen and spent time with my brothers and mom and dad, talking in the living room. We went to bed just after midnight.
In the room I went to Scott and pulled him close. “I love you so much.”
We held each other in a warm, safe embrace.
I said, “What you said to Mrs. Grum was the most kind and wonderful thing and in the face of such rage.”
He murmured into my ear, “I don’t think I started shaking until we got up here. I feel so sorry for her.” He pulled back a few inches and looked me in the eye. “But I will hate her forever. What madness.” He had tears in his eyes. We clinched again. I soothed and caressed him.
When we were calmer, he asked, “How are you after being up front with Veronica all day?”
“You do what you have to do. She liked having all those people just like Wednesday and Thursday. Good for her. I hope it helped.”
We got undressed and ready for bed. We climbed in and held each other and said endearing things and finally I felt him relax into sleep.
FORTY-NINE
Sunday 4:00 A.M.
I woke about four. The house was silent. I often have a hard time sleeping when we aren’t in our own bed. I got up and looked out the window. Nothing disturbed the quiet of the night. I watched Scott sleep for several minutes. I enjoy watching the man I love in quiet and repose.
I was tired but too keyed up to get back to sleep. I threw on jeans and a T-shirt and sat at the computer and called up Edgar’s stuff that I’d saved to my zip drive that first morning. I worked very quietly so as not to disturb Scott. I started going through it again. Zachary Ross had written that Edgar was for sure hiding knowledge of the election being stolen.
I hunted through every document, clicked on every icon, and opened every folder. I checked recent items, pictures, applications, recent documents, recently downloaded items, and anything else that I could think of. There wasn’t a nanobyte about the election.
Finally, I went back to the porn sites. Most of them I couldn’t get on because I didn’t have the password. Then I realized that there were some basic ways to pay for porn, some general processing sites that took credit card information. If I could get into his account there, I could retrieve his passwords. I didn’t see much point in this, but I figured I might as well be totally thorough.
I eased out of the room and down the stairs to the dead animal den and got Edgar’s credit card statements which contained his card number. Upstairs I eased shut the door and sat back down.
Scott stirred. I looked over and saw he was awake. He said, “It’s five in the morning.”
“Couldn’t sleep.”
He threw on tight black boxer briefs that had a special pouch in the front designed to hug the contours of the wearer’s dick and balls. Then he walked over and stood next to me.
He asked, “What are you up to?”
“I thought I’d try these porn sites. I’ve looked at every single document in every folder I could find. None of them contain anything about the election. If I can get into the billing sites he used, I can probably retrieve his passwords.”
“Is there a point to calling up all this porn?”
“It’s the only thing on here I haven’t been able to open.”
“And you know about Internet pornographic billing sites how?”
“You really want to know?”
“Not particularly.” He rubbed his brief covered crotch against my shoulder. I shut my eyes and leaned back into his warmth for a moment.
FIFTY
Sunday 5:10 A.M.
With the credit card and e-mail address which I had from the mass of documents in the dead animal room closet, I was able to get into the billing site and retrieve his passwords. I began examining the porn sites.
Scott said, “How would information be on these sites?”
I shrugged. There was a slight chill in the room. He threw on pants and a shirt and brought me one to put on over my T-shirt.
I went to the bookmarked list and called each one up but got nothing. I went back to the desktop and its mass of icons listing pornographic pictures. I clicked on them to go to more sites. It was tedium upon tedium to open each one and examine pornographic images which I did not have the slightest interest in. It must have taken at least an hour. Edgar was a voracious consumer of porn.
When I got to Mona Moans for You, the one that had been opened when the computer came on the first time we’d tried it, I realized there were two for Mona.
“Why does she get two?” I asked.
Scott said, “She was his “go to” site when he wanted to get off?”
“How do you know about “go to” sites?”
“Do you really want to know?”
Touché.
I opened the first Mona and got pornographic pictures of a woman with gargantuan breasts. I opened the second. It looked the same to me.
I began to reach to click off them when Scott said, “Wait.”
“What?”
“It’s different. Your question was right. Why is it the only one that’s a duplicate?”
I put the pictures next to each other on the screen. Like watching a tennis match back and forth, we compared the two. I listened to the two of us breathe. Finally, he reached out to the screen tapped the left breast of Mona on the left and the left breast of Mona on the right. He said, “The nipples are pointed in the opposite direction.”
He was right.
He moved the cursor over her left nipple on the picture on the left and clicked. Nothing.
He tried the left nipple on the picture on the right.
I let out a breath. Data flooded the screen.
Before we even started to read, I saved it to my zip drive then e-mailed it to myself and to my attorney.
Then we started to read.
FIFTY-ONE
Sunday 6:27 A.M.
We found charts with lists of rows and rows of voting machines by number on the machine, and the county and precinct they were assigned to.
But the bonanza came when we found hundreds and hundreds of notes written by Edgar. They were filled with anger and resentment about how his family didn’t respect him or listen to him or want him around. That all they thought of him was that he was a fuck-up. That he was going to get even with them. That they were going to pay. He claimed he found out they were going to steal the election electronically. He claimed he had the goods on them.
Edgar’s notes were far more scattered and less articulate than Zachary’s, but they were no less clear in the insistent notion that criminality was afoot.
Then we found pages of dense code. Edgar’s title for that section was Logarithmic Design. I scrolled to the end and found several paragraphs of summary. It said that the machines were geared to respond to a remote code from a cell phone to change vote totals.
“They were cheating,” I said.
Edgar had outlined what he believed to be the whole convoluted scheme. Turns out the Grums hadn’t trusted the Ducharmés and were not as enthralled to the brothers’ billions as had been presumed. The Grums had hired people to infiltrate the Ducharmés’ businesses so they would have their own information. They may have been patsies, but they were paranoid enough to want protection for themselves.
Mr. and Mrs. Grum had told Barry, their presum
ptive heir, all this information. They had wanted to be proactive and come up with a plan if the Ducharmés turned on them. Barry had told Dewey, who hadn’t been able to keep his mouth shut and had blabbed to Edgar. Now we knew where Edgar had gotten his information.
Edgar in his notes was far more vicious than noble. He detailed who told lies to whom, who changed sides in familial disputes, who prayed hard enough. The family stuff included notes on alliances of brothers, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws, even kids and grandkids. Many of the disputes seemed to be minor clashes over such things as the best directions to the summer reunion but rose to greater heights over things like who got to keep great grandmother Grum’s souvenir plate from the 1912 Republican convention. Zachary had some items in notes about the family fights, but Edgar went into far more detail. To what effect, I had no idea except the election stuff. Edgar was hot about the election, stealing it, and how he could make what he found out work for him.
Armed with this knowledge about the election, he’d threatened to expose all of them. He had access to the campaign’s passwords and managed to download all the information. This struck me as not too smart.
Edgar revealed in his notes that it was he who was going to meet with Zachary Ross that night on the bridge. Edgar’s notes claimed Zachary never showed up. His last entry was written immediately after he found out Zachary was dead. It was ghastly reading it now. “They came for Zachary. They’ll come for me.” There were no further notes that I could find.
Had someone decided to take action to stop Edgar? Had Zachary and Edgar been working together and someone found out about it?
I turned back to the election results. I called up returns for the election by county.
