Another Dead Republican (4 page)

Veronica and Patricia left together hand in hand. Moments later we heard a soft tapping on a distant door. She was knocking before entering.

SEVEN

Wednesday 6:51 A.M.

Scott closed the office door then sat down on the maroon leather couch. I sat in Edgar’s chair. It was extra large, built for the heavy-set man that Edgar was.

Scott waved a hand at the assembled dead animals. “If I was going to build a shrine to killing innocent creatures, this would be it. If this was an English manor house, and we were in a British cozy murder mystery, the dead body would be in this room.”

I glanced at the silent, mouth-open-as-if-in-mid-screech, bronze wolf. “It is a creepy place.”

Edgar’s older brother, Barry, manipulated his bulk into the room. He didn’t knock. He looked neither of us in the eyes as he said, “Everybody’s pretty hungry.” His prominent nose was very red.

I wanted to say, you aren’t crippled, get your ass into the kitchen and make something yourself, or unbend far enough to rush to a fast food place and get a to-go order for everyone.

Barry’s shtick in the family, as far as I had experienced it, was to be master of the snide-aside.
His forte was the mumble-under-the-breath not-quite-in-a-stage whisper comment such as: “How can he be qualified to be president? He’s never learned to march in cadence?” Or this, “That’s not an American car they bought. It better run perfectly.”

Political debate as theatrical asides? Discussion of policy issues as snide slogans or outright calumny or deliberate personal attacks? Not a whiff of a syllable of significant issues, discussed devoid of emotion and approached rationally.

I never quite figured out the point of what I called Barryisms. Was the other person supposed to hear them? If so, were they to rush over and prostrate themselves at his feet and declare themselves converted to his way of thinking because of his self-proclaimed brilliant but barely heard bon mots? Were they designed to provoke someone into calling him on his ludicrous nonsense, to provoke a fight, to compel acquiescence? If they were designed to convince someone to come to agreement with him, they seemed pointless.

Pointless never bothered a Republican.

My sister had made peace with all of the Grums years before. I was not about to start World War III with them while she was overwhelmed with her loss.

“Where’s Veronica?” Barry asked

“With the children.”

He said, “We could ask her about food.”

I was incapable of a civil response at this moment. Scott leapt into the breach. He said, “She’s talking to the children. She’s telling them what happened. I think we’d best leave them alone for a while.”

“Oh. I guess.”

Scott said, “I’ll check the kitchen in a few minutes, and we can put something together.”

Barry nodded. “I hope she’s going to pray with them.”

Blank stares from Scott and me.

“That’s what helps at a time like this, praying to God. She and the kids have to put faith in Him.”

Except for weddings and funerals, I hadn’t been inside a church in more years than I could count. And if he wanted to chat with an invisible being in the sky, that was his business. I repeated today’s mantra to myself. He’d just lost his brother. I had to give him some slack.

Scott murmured, “It’s a tough time for everyone in the family. We’ll all have to be supportive.” Neutral and faintly positive, with not a hint of snark. The man is a saint.

As Barry turned to the door, I said, “Veronica told us the police claimed Edgar was murdered.”

“Well, I’m sure the police were probably hysterical. And I’m sure Veronica was confused. I’m sure we’ll get this all sorted out.”

Barry gave us a vinegary smile as he sidled out of the room.

Scott watched the door close then said, “Waiting for me to get into the kitchen is gonna be the longest few minutes of his life.” He turned to me. “I feel so sorry for Veronica and the kids.”

“Me too.”

He came and took the chair I had been in next to the large swivel chair. He took my hand.

Scott said, “Barry or any random Grum can make murder go away?”

“Too bad nobody murdered him.”

“You’re upset. About what? Not Edgar being dead. I know you.”

“I’m upset for Veronica. The Grums will make this harder for her and the kids, not easier. You’ll see. I don’t like them.”

“Me neither.”

I said, “I didn’t follow Barry’s parting crack. Hysterical police? I find that hard to believe. And Veronica confused? About murder? Nobody makes that kind of mistake. What’s he up to?”

“Veronica told us the police said murder. Even Edgar didn’t deserve that.”

I blurted before I thought. “The man deserved to be tortured and die miserably.” I looked Scott in the eye. “I don’t believe I said that.”

“You feel it. No point in denying your feelings.”

“I know I’d never say any such thing to Veronica or the kids.”

“I know. And be careful what you wish for.” He then quoted from Tolkien, Gandalf on the worth of the life of Gollum when Frodo expresses the wish that Bilbo had killed Gollum when he had the chance in the caves in the Misty Mountains. Gandalf said and Scott quoted, “And some die that deserve life. Can you give that to them? Then be not too eager to hand out death in the name of justice.”

I said, “You know I agree with that, but Edgar was such a shit.”

“I know. The question is who would kill him?”

I said, “I presume most people who came into contact with him hated him. Except maybe his family and a whole lot of them sure didn’t seem like they were all that fond of him either, or of each other for that matter. If the police were looking for people who hated him as the killer, they’d probably need a list of everyone he’d ever met.”

“Veronica loved him.”

“Are you defending him?” I asked.

“No, of course not, but he’ll have had friends. If you’re that rich at the very least somebody is eager to suck up to you.”

“That’s not friendship.”

“But it might be close enough. For someone as awful as Edgar, maybe that’s all he had, or that’s what he was used to. Maybe he chose to be that way, which is really sad.”

I felt a twinge of guilt. “I shouldn’t be speaking ill of the dead?”

“You’re recognizing reality. It just sounds kind of jarring, but if that’s all he had, I do pity him.” He sighed. “I wonder if it would help if we knew details about what happened.”

“We can try the Internet.” Scott got my laptop from next to the bronze grizzly. Supposedly the giant was some kind of family heirloom. Yeah, this family would have a bronze, angry grizzly as a keepsake. Next to it was its companion, a three-feet-high, on-all-fours, four-foot-long, brown bear.

Standing on the other side of the desk from me, Scott moved some of the junk on the top of the desk to the side to make room. He placed the laptop in the now empty space and began to boot it up. I moved the keyboard and computer monitor on the top of the desk toward me. As soon as I pressed the mouse, the screen came to life.

Scott pointed at Edgar’s computer. “Why didn’t the cops take that?”

“I would if I were a cop.”

The computer immediately opened to the last page it had been on, a porn site.

I said, “He didn’t shut it down so it went back to the last place he’d been. Here’s something ordinary.” The site was called Mona Moans for You.

Scott came around the desk and stood next to me. He gazed for a moment. “A straight site. We needed confirmation he was heterosexual?”

“If he was the last one using it. I think Veronica’s got her own laptop, and I vaguely recall her telling me the only other time I was in here, that the kids weren’t allowed entry to this room. So it was probably him, and judging from this he was pretty heterosexual.”

“Why did he need to look at porn?” Scott asked.

I shrugged. “Why does anybody? Because it’s there? Because he can? I know for sure I am not going to speculate about its significance in terms of his and Veronica’s sex life. I’m not going to go there. Dead or alive I never want to think about Edgar’s sex life.”

Scott pointed at the list of bookmarks at the top of the page. One read ‘tits’ another ‘legs’. A smorgasbord of anatomy abbreviations. I clicked on the show all bookmarks tab. A list of hundreds popped up.

Scott peered at the screen and nodded. “Relentlessly heterosexual.”

“I’ll try to care.” I tapped the tip of my finger on the screen. “The real question is the one you asked. Why haven’t the police taken the computer? Why aren’t there police swarming all over this place? Why is there only the one guarding the door?”

Scott shrugged. “We don’t know anything about the circumstances of the murder. For all we know, they have a suspect in custody, someone who has motive, means, and opportunity.”

“You’d think they’d have mentioned that to Veronica.”

I got my laptop carrying case from next to the grizzly bear and took out my flash drive. I stuck it into Edgar’s computer.

“What are you doing?” Scott asked.

I worked as I spoke. “I’m going to save what’s on this computer. Something odd is going on here. The cops should be here, not us. They’re not. I don’t trust the Grums. Maybe I shouldn’t do this and maybe Veronica would be angry if she knew, but I don’t like this. If I was a cop, I’d want this information. I don’t trust any of these people.”

“Seems like a bit much,” Scott said.

I closed the site and then clicked out of the Internet. The desktop appeared. It was filled with photo icons. These were labeled by name: Susie, Sharon, hundreds more. Turned out Mona was not the only site Edgar perused nor were her pictures the only ones he saved. Further icons on the desktop showed pictures of downloaded videos from porn sites. They were alphabetical. Above Mona were Mandy the Randy and Luscious Laura. Good to know idiot porn names knew no sexual orientation. I took my flash drive and fitted it into the USB port.

“Are you sure about doing that?” Scott asked.

“In the middle of all this other crap, somewhere on here could be financial information. We can look at it later. The cops could take it away any moment. I’d rather be careful.”

“Are you supposed to take another guy’s data?”

“Two things. He won’t care. He’s dead. Plus Veronica asked us to help.” I highlighted all the desk top items and then dragged them to the zip drive. I had 64 GB space on the drive so I wasn’t too worried that everything on the computer would fit. After I downloaded all these I would check the documents folder and move everything there over.

I concentrated on Edgar’s computer for a few minutes. Data began to transfer. While the computer and flash drive made friends, I said, “I don’t like it when cops don’t act like what I know cops usually act like.”

I watched as Scott established the wireless connection on our laptop. He clicked over to Google and called up the Milwaukee papers. Huge election news headlines proclaimed the candidates to be within twenty votes of each other.

Useless, I thought. If it was close, the Republicans would know how to steal it: think Florida in 2000, or the special election for judge in Wisconsin. We liberals knew how it worked. You either won by a whole lot, or the Republicans would find a way to fuck you over.

Scott found one breaking news squib outlined in yellow about a possible tragedy at the governor’s campaign headquarters, no details.

EIGHT

Wednesday 7:26 A.M.

I pointed at the door Veronica had indicated. “We should start with the stuff in there that she asked for help with. She said she needed money. I can give her some for now, but she claimed she didn’t know about the family’s finances.”

Scott said, “In this day and age? That sounds kind of medieval.”