Another Dead Republican (26 page)

“The Grums have been trying to get into that office and the gun shed, and it’s been over a week since the reporter died.”

I shrugged. “Maybe the two events aren’t connected.”

Scott said, “I’m not so sure about going to see Zachary Ross’s mom.”

“Zachary might have left something there or told her something. Remember, we’re up against the notion that the police and the Grums want to pin Edgar’s murder on Veronica. Maybe they’re just a fake fingerprint or two away from making an accusation.” I found this a chilling and frightening thought. “We can at least ask her. If she wants us to go away, we can leave.”

Scott acquiesced.

I got out my phone and keyed in the address for Zachary Ross’s mom. She lived in a suburb at the south end of Harrison County.

FORTY

Friday 3:41 P.M.

A blond woman in her mid-forties with hair pulled taut back from her face answered the door. Jordan had told us he had a good relationship with Zachary Ross’s mother, and he would call ahead for us. We received a friendly albeit subdued greeting.

We sat in a living room. Two sandy-gold couches faced each other in the middle of a vast space of hardwood floor. The stone fireplace was immense, dead, and ashless. One wall had a painting about 24 by 36 inches. It showcased brushed right angle geometric objects.

She wore faded jeans, a heavy sweatshirt, and running shoes. She sat with her feet primly flat on the floor and her hands tightly clasped in her lap.

She offered coffee. We accepted. She left the room and returned with a tray of cups, served us, and resumed her posture.

I said, “We’re sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you. You are kind to stop by. I talk with Jordan almost every day. He made my son so happy. I was hoping some day they’d be able to have a wedding I could go to. Jordan is a good man. He said you were hoping to find out information that might lead to who murdered Zachary.”

“You think it was murder?” I asked.

“Of course. Zachary would never have thrown himself off a bridge.” She gave a brief sniff, dabbed at her eyes.

Scott said, “If this is a bad time, we can come back.”

“No, now is best. The police don’t return my calls. Nothing about this makes sense although I know what happened to him had to do with those evil people connected with that campaign.”

“Which people?” I asked.

“The Grums and the Ducharmés. They are all evil incarnate.”

“Evil?” As neutral a prompt as I could think of.

She said, “My son worked directly for Edgar Grum. If there is a hell, that man is in it. His parents, brothers, and sisters will join him. If hell has a band or an orchestra, that family will be the entire trumpet section, and Edgar Grum would be the conductor. If hell has a cheering section, he will be the head cheerleader. That whole family is evil.”

I said, “I need to be honest. We probably should have said this earlier. We agree with you about Edgar, but he was married to my sister. I don’t care about him, but I care about her.”

“Everybody thinks she’s this poor soul, intimidated by him. Oh really? She must have loved him. She must have found his piggish, obnoxious ways satisfying.”

I avoided the attack on my sister, oblique as it might have been. I wanted information. “What was it he did that was piggish or obnoxious?”

“That family rules this county, and probably owns half the state. If you don’t kowtow to them, you get frozen out. They have these barbecues every summer, July 4
^th
weekend, and if you want to be in the elite in this county, you better damn well be there. Ha! The elite barn people! My husband and I went for the first few years. He worked for them, and we had to go. Then I put my foot down. My husband was a good man. He quit and found another job. He died of cancer five years ago.”

“We’re sorry,” Scott said.

She gave us a thin lipped smile. “My husband had huge life insurance policies. I was lucky. With even more luck I’ll be able to tell you something that brings those idiots down.”

I asked, “What can you tell us that would bring them down?”

“One of the oddest things was that just before the people started eating at the barbeque, they’d gather everyone into a huge prayer circle. Imagine everyone out on the lawn on a hot, sweaty, Fourth of July bowing their heads in prayer before eating baked beans and hot dogs.”

I kind of figured if people wanted to pray their hearts out night and day, that was their business. It was the Grum’s home. Despite the societal pressure, the guests didn’t really have to be there.

She shook her head. “That was slightly weird, but it’s what they talked about constantly that was offensive.”

“Oh?”

“Everything was a political discussion. You mention the heat, it was the Democrats who had the wrong policy on climate change. No matter how innocuous the subject, they had something bigoted and racist and irrational to say. That birther bull shit? They put money behind people to write things about it and to keep it going.”

“That all sounds kind of rude for a party.”

“Rude and stupid didn’t bother those people. They have convoluted stupidity far beyond a dangerous, brainless idiocy.” She sighed.

I gave her a sympathetic nod.

“I’m a Democrat. One of the few Democrats in Harrison County.”

I took a guess. “You were working in the recall campaign?”

“Of course. Over the years I’ve worked, and I’ve marched, and I’ve protested, and now I’ve lost my son. They can all go to hell. All of them. I didn’t use to hate politics, but I do now. I hate the Grums. I hate the Ducharmés. I hate them all.”

Like Beulah Grum, she’d lost her son.

“Did you know what Zachary was doing at the campaign?”

“He told me he was investigating. I was afraid to ask him too much. I told him it was dangerous.”

“You think they killed him.”

“The Grums are capable of anything.”

“But he didn’t say anything specific?”

“No.”

Scott asked, “Would Zachary have left notes or computer information here?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Who else knew he was a spy?”

“His editor, a good man, but a frightened man. He’s got kids and a mortgage and a job. He called me and came to the wake and the funeral. I feel sorry for him.”

“You think he’ll talk to us?”

“You can try. I can give him a call.”

She showed us Zachary’s old room, but from the level of dust it was obvious nothing had been disturbed in a long time. There was a shelf with what looked like high school textbooks. A twin bed against one wall had a row of stuffed toy elephants lined up along the wall. Several more larger stuffed elephants sat in front of the dresser. One even sat on the desk chair.

Scott said, “He must have loved elephants.”

“When they are little, some kids get into dinosaurs, but for some reason Zachary got into elephants. He wanted to go on a safari in the worst way. It was one of those “bucket list” things that now he’ll never get to do.”

She wiped at her eyes.

Scott said, “We’re so sorry.”

In the car I said, “Elephants.”

“What elephants?” he asked.

“We didn’t try it as a password.”

He looked at me. “You think?”

“Can’t hurt to try.” Labrinski had shown us Zachary’s e-mail provider and the e-mail address he used. We could try it when we got home.

FORTY-ONE

Friday 4:48 P.M.

The wind was up. The afternoon had turned totally gray and misty. We’d followed up on Mrs. Ross’s call to Zachary’s editor, Jeremiah Gottlieb. Frank Smith, the aged gay millionaire, had done as we asked and called him as well. We met at another Starbucks. Thankfully there’s always a Starbucks. The editor was in his fifties. Short and stout with a white beard, he had all the accoutrements of a Santa impersonator, including the rosy cheeks. He wasn’t smiling, and after his first few words I knew he wasn’t planning for any ho, ho, ho in his near future.

We huddled in a corner. Gottlieb stared out the window, glanced carefully at the other patrons, then leaned over his cup of coffee. His voice was low and quavery. “I caused that young man to die. It is my fault. I should have known better. I thought I was a good person. I thought I was a good editor. I was too smart for my own good.”

I spoke just enough to be heard over the piped-in-music. “You must have been close to Zachary. We’re sorry for your loss.”

“I will never forgive myself. Never. No election is worth this. It just isn’t. If anything I tell you can lead to finding out who murdered him, I’m glad, but it can’t come back on me. It just can’t.” He mopped at his face with his hanky. “This is all so awful.” He blew his nose, put the hanky away. “I’m not stupid. As soon as the campaign started, I worked with Frank Smith, and we set up a spy program on the campaign. I knew it would be too obvious late in the campaign. I sent that kid in. It got him killed. I’ve been in this business for years. I’ve seen some odd shit, some crazy shit, but I’ve never seen murder. Never been a part of it. And I’m scared.”

He gave the other patrons another series of searching looks. He examined each new person who walked in. “I’m afraid of everything and anything and anybody. You should be too. Anybody who gets too close to the Ducharmé brothers is in danger. Those boys get their way, and they play tough to get it. Nothing, nothing stands in their way.”

Scott said, “This is America. They can get away with this shit?”

Gottlieb gave him a pitying look. “But they have. It doesn’t have to be direct threats. Your reputation for viciousness can be enough and that which is unsaid can be just as powerful.”

“You got threats?”

“Not personally. They didn’t have to. My publisher called me in. Told me to stop running the story. I tried to ask questions. He became very angry and told me to drop it. I’ve got an ex-wife, plus a current wife, and kids with both. I don’t want to lose this job.” His sipped from his cup of coffee. He looked into it and murmured, “Although it may have cost me my soul.”

“Should we try to talk to the publisher?”

“He can’t know I talked to you. Nobody can. Listen, I liked Zachary. I mentored him. He trusted me. I feel such guilt, but I can’t stick my neck out. I can’t.”

“Who in the Ducharmé company, family, any part of the organization, can we talk to? They’ve gotta have some weak link.”

“We never found it, but then after Zachary died, we didn’t look any further.”

“Do you have his notes?”

“No. And if I did, I’d destroy them. If you find them, you better destroy them. I’m sure you’re good and brave and tough and all that, but these guys stop at nothing. Nothing.”

“They stole the election electronically?”

“Of course.”

“How?”

“Frank Smith makes claims about those voting machines being rigged. We checked their provenance. They are supposedly state of the art.” He shrugged. “They could be state of the art cheating. Or state of the art unbuggable. Remember the Titanic was unsinkable. Until it sank. This whole election stinks.”

“Did Zachary being gay have anything to do with his death?”

The editor looked thoughtful. “I never thought of that. I doubt it. Whatever happened on that bridge will never be known. And no, I don’t know why he was there, or if he was supposed to be meeting someone.”

“What did the police report say?”

“I tried one call to the cops about it. I got a final warning from my editor half an hour after the cop told me to go to hell.”

“How did Zachary know Frank Smith?”

“Smith was paying the kid’s way through graduate school. Zachary told me about it once. He met Smith at a coffee shop. Zach was at one of those low points in college. His loans weren’t coming in. That day he paid for his coffee with pennies, nickels, and dimes. The old guy who saw this turned out to be Smith. Then he saw Zach asking for spare change on the street, and so the old guy helped him out. They knew each other three, maybe four, years. Frank won the lottery in his mid-to-late eighties. He must be over ninety now.”