by Dean H Wild
CHAPTER THREE
When they arrived at the Mellar Borth property, other people were already milling about, chatting in small groups. In the bright mid-morning sun, the grounds were inviting with their orderly placement of tables bearing punchbowls and cups, an easel supporting an ancient photograph of the mercantile in its heyday, and two stage platforms, on one of which a musical band of local repute called Shifting Sands was tuning up.
Mick took Judy’s hand as they stepped onto the grounds. He wondered if any of this was valid, this festival atmosphere on private property, if fruit punch and a cover band were on the books as acceptable trappings for a town vote, if maybe the whole event could be scrapped on some sort of compliance issue. But it was too late to change the schedule now; everything was in full swing.
The six of them met up casually, hailing one another as if it had been days instead of minutes since they’d spoken.
“You’re prepared, I see,” Mick said with a gesture toward the wheeled apparatus at Nancy Berns’s side. It looked like a white beverage cooler with a large red cross sticker on the top.
Harley followed up with a sly smile and a wink. “Somebody put you on duty at the last minute?”
“You never know when you might need some first aid.”
She patted the side of the container. The LINR box was inside for now, but they would need to find some way to make the exchange when the time came.
“Look at them come,” Judy said, shielding her eyes.
Cars were pulling onto Tier Street one after another. People walked up with the measured flow of a migrating herd. “Floodgates are open,” Will commented under his breath.
“Typical Knoll,” Nancy said with a nervous laugh. “If you’re not early, you’re late. I’m going to start working the crowd.”
With that, she wheeled her first-aid cooler away, nudging elbows and greeting people with her broad smile.
“We should all do the same,” Mick said. “At this rate anybody who is going to vote will be here in the next ten minutes.”
“Look sharp,” Will said with a nod toward the elevated stage near the voting carrels.
Chastity Mellar Borth mounted the platform, gazing out at the activity in her yard as if surveying a wonder of nature. Mick thought she appeared almost radiant; only a slight crease of worry around her mouth spoiled it. Behind her, Thekan stepped up, his face set in a hard imitation of pleasantness. Thekan the abomination, the levitator of stones and the killer of Kippy Evert. Looking at him chilled Mick’s blood.
“Split up and mingle,” Mick said. “He can’t watch all of us at once. At least I hope not.”
“Come on, darlin’,” Harley said and put his hand at Beth Ann’s waist, “let’s blend in and do some campaigning.”
Shifting Sands ran a few practice riffs and batted a sample drumbeat or two. The chatter on the grounds was becoming a buzz peppered with friendly laughter.
Will held up his clicker. “Once this deal starts, I’ll casually make my way to the right-hand side, the voting station farthest from the house. When I reach about ninety-five, I’ll walk away, toward the band. Is that good enough for a signal?”
“Perfect,” Mick said. “All I need to do is figure out how we can switch boxes under Thekan’s watchful eye. He’s too smart to think we won’t try something today. And he’s intuitive.”
“More than intuitive, in my experience.”
Mick slapped him on the shoulder and sent him on his way. When he turned around, Roger Copeland was standing there. His eyes were red, as if from a night’s worth of drinking, but he seemed eager about something. His smile was tentative. “H’lo, Mick,” he said.
“Roger. Voting Mellar’s In, I hope.”
Copeland’s smile widened. “I knew it. Your wife and Harley Kroener already asked me the same thing. You guys got a thing going, don’t you?”
“What do you mean, a thing?”
“Pushing the vote to one side. I’m all for letting the old building stand, too, just so you know.” He fingered a pocket watch chained to his hip. “I sorta feel like Knoll needs it. Isn’t that crazy?”
“Not crazy at all. We think so, too.”
“This town doesn’t need any more changes or shakeups. Not after Kippy. And The Crymost lighting up at night . . . I’d make sure the votes went right, too. I’d put in a fix if nothing else.”
“Yeah, well . . . ”
“Mick.” The voice from behind him was Nancy Berns’s. Her eyes were bright with determination. “I got our man. Gordy Prellwitz.”
She pointed out the slouched, potbellied and very familiar form standing at the edge of the crowd. He was talking with the people from Elmore Excavating, his balding head bobbing appreciatively. One of his hands gripped the handles of a yellow Rock-a-roo mounded full of baby blankets.
“He’ll do it?” Mick asked.
“In a heartbeat,” Nancy said. “He and the wife have got their grandbaby for the week but Gloria is carting the little bundle around showing it off, so Gordy’s just toting an empty Rock-a-roo. The box will fit, no trouble, and he can walk right up to the voting booth with it, and raise zero suspicion.”
“Goddamn,” Roger Copeland said, “You already got a fix going, I see.”
Mick passed a glance of resignation to Nancy. “Keep it to yourself, would you Roger? I can’t go into details, but this thing has got to go our way. It’s important.”
“No sweat, Mick. Hell, I’ll stump for the Mellar’s In vote, too, if you want. Don’t know how many folks will listen since I’m no Cy Vandergalien, but I’ll give it a shot.”
“Thanks, Roger.”
“Have we seen Cy, yet?” Nancy asked and surveyed the crowd.
“He’d be a big help about now,” Mick said.
Roger pointed. “Alice is working the registration table, talking to your missus.”
Judy and Alice were indeed involved in conversation. Behind them, the band was warming up with an up-tempo version of “On Wisconsin”. Nearby, Harley and Beth Ann chatted with Stu Rueplinger, and Will stood near the carrels with the Bellamys who lived on Meadow Lane just a door down from Orlin Casper’s place. Gordy Prellwitz caught Mick’s eye and tipped him a confiding but discreet wave.
Mick’s teeth scrubbed across his lower lip. All was in place, with a tense but otherworldly feel like Lord of the Rings by way of John Clancy. Things were going to fall into true soon, and without mercy.
The band stopped. Chastity Mellar Borth stepped up to the microphone and put up her hands. The crowd noise fell to a hush.
“Welcome, Knoll, to this important occasion. Today, we make a historic decision on behalf of our town, and I hope I have made the experience a pleasant one for you. No matter what the outcome—”
A voice from the crowd rose up. “Whatever, lady. Where’s Cy Vandergalien?”
Soft chuckles traveled across the grounds.
Chastity seemed reserved and amused, very diplomatic. “Whatever the outcome, we must remember this is the day a significant part of Knoll moves toward long awaited change. A rightful destiny.”
Harley caught Mick’s arm as he passed by. “Everything ready?”
“As ready as it’s going to get.”
Mick moved on, cut between the Carmichaels and the Joneleys and met up with Judy. “Alice is upset,” she said before he had the chance to ask. “She hasn’t seen Cy since last night.”
“Damn it.”
Chastity raised her hands up again because the crowd was stirring, anxious to get on with it. “Before we open the registration table for you to collect your voting ballots, one per customer, and our friends in the band play some music to entertain you, I thought we might have these proceedings condoned by a man many of you have come to know over the last few days.”
“Cy Vandergalien,” someone shouted.
Laughter popped up in small islands and sank away.
“The Honorable Judge Roderick Thekan,” Chastity said and stepped back, her hands pattering against one another, h
er mouth still etched with barely-there worry lines.
Applause spattered like sparse droplets. The crowd’s interest deepened, however. There was a collective sensation as if everyone was leaning in as Thekan took the microphone.
“Good morning, Knoll. As I have introduced myself around town, I have met many fine people and I am compelled to give you counsel. The face of your town is on the verge of change, and today’s proceedings will determine what that change will be. This venue is casual, light-hearted, and for that you must thank your so-fine matron. But keep our purpose in mind. Keep your decision at the top of your thoughts as you cast your vote. Raise it to the heavens. Speak it plainly to your souls.”
Judy tugged Mick’s sleeve and turned away from the stage with a sound of distress. “He’s getting to me. I don’t know how, but I can see myself marking up one of those ballots for Mellar’s Out. I can practically feel the pencil in my hand.”
Thekan seemed unnaturally taller somehow. Almost heroic, Mick thought. His voice was an up-winding engine, gaining fervor, generating power. “The mark you make today shapes a part of the future for Knoll. Your vote seals a fate, and I’m sure there are some of you who came here with uncertainty over which way your decision will fall. Let me assure you the inner voice is the just voice. It is your sensibility and your deepest known truth. Therefore, for any who are unsure, I advise you to listen to your innermost, unscathed thought on the matter. Acknowledge it before doubt can cloud it. Listen to it and follow it through. Listen to it wholly. Listen. Listen . . . ”
Mick caught Harley’s attention from across the crowd. The look Harley returned was on the edge of dread. Will shook his head as if coming up from a dip in cold water. Nancy worked her way back to Gordy Prellwitz and spoke to him low and imperative. Many others in the crowd stared at Thekan with thunderstruck silence.
“So prepare and vote confidently,” Thekan said with an appreciative nod. “Today you help to confirm a destiny. Today you will initiate change in your town. You have all become pavers of the way. Thank you, Knoll, for allowing me to participate in this so-important event.”
Applause rose up, more emphatic this time.
Judy turned to him, pale and shaken. “Is it some sort of group hypnosis?”
“He’s stuffing ballots in his own way. Come on, let’s get in line and drum up some last-minute sympathy for Mellar’s In. Just to be sure.”
“It’s going to be hard,” she said, her eyes wide with concern.
Chastity grinned and took over the microphone. “I declare the polls officially open.”
The crowd moved with a fluid synchronicity, first to the registration table and then into groups around each carrel. Shifting Sands, who was breaking in a new drummer, fired up an old Carl Perkins song about Kansas City.
Mick took a quick account. Judy was working the crowd near the carrel across from Will. Harley and Beth Ann were in the back, making their point with a couple of women in nurse scrubs, one of which he recognized as Emma Balog from Forest Street. Will was hawking like a funhouse barker to funnel voters to his carrel, one hand uncharacteristically buried in his pocket where he kept the clicker going. They were doing their best, Nancy included.
Mick made his appeal to Mrs. Merk and the Goldapskes and the Fergusons from Garden Street. Thekan and Chastity likewise worked the crowd, and more than once he caught Thekan’s hard glare aimed directly at him, suspicious and uncertain and with more than a little warning in the mix. He kept going until he saw Will stroll toward the band and flash his palmed clicker as an all-clear.
Go time. The air turned to lead in his lungs. He glanced across the crowd at Nancy who also took note of Will’s cue and tapped Gordy Prellwitz on the arm. The box had apparently been transferred to the baby carrier because Prellwitz immediately got in line at Will’s carrel. Judy was just stepping away from casting her vote, her smile wide but fixed because she too had noticed Will’s signal. The time seemed right for Mick to cast his own vote, perhaps in the carrel across from where their cheater’s box was about to be planted. He turned and ran bodily into Roderick Thekan.
Thekan stepped back and caused the man behind him to stumble.
“Hey, watch it mister,” the man said. It was Roger Copeland. “Oh, sorry, Judge.”
Thekan paid him no mind but stared at Mick with evaluative calm. “Are you pleased with the turnout, Mr. Logan?”
“Are you?”
“My appreciation holds no bearing I’m afraid.”
“Besides,” Roger popped up,” the good guys are going to win this, hands down. No way they’re going to lose, right Mick?”
Thekan whirled around and Copeland shrunk beneath his gaze. Mick’s first reaction was to shout don’t look at him, but it was too late. Mick could almost feel information pass unspoken between the two men.
“Pardon me,” was all Thekan said before he stalked off to the stage nearest the carrels.
Mick looked around for the others. Gordy Prellwitz slipped into the carrel, the baby carrier on his arm. Nancy was chatting with a group of women. Harley was shaking hands with a man Mick couldn’t identify. Judy was walking toward him but making helloes on the way, stepping in time to Shifting Sands’s version of “Taking Care of Business”, which whirled high and twangy in the sunny air.
It was Will who caught his frantic expression first. Will, who instinctively broke away and rushed toward Gordy Prellwitz. People were jammed around the carrels, voices high and excited. Mick pushed his way in. He wasn’t sure what he meant to do but they’d thrown Gordy into dangerous waters and, like Will, he needed to jump in, to defend.
Thekan mounted the platform and gazed down at the carrels, an imposing silhouette. Chastity came up behind him, brushed his shoulder with concerned hands and he shrugged her off. With a pang of hopelessness, Mick saw Thekan’s gaze settle on Gordy’s booth. He was too far away to be heard, to intercept, to do anything. Will was closer, but not close enough. Thekan tensed. He was too far from the microphone to be heard and yet when he spoke Mick understood him plainly. “Not today.”
A charge leapt into the air like a rush of spilled lightning. The lights inside the voting carrels exploded with harsh pops. Feedback screeched from the band’s speakers, and the lead guitarist of Shifting Sands threw his guitar down with a shout, goggling at his smoking fingers. The carrels shook with seizure-like frenzy; Mick could see the press wood sides pulling away from the metal backs as if wrenched by unseen hands. The voters inside goggled around, stunned.
“Gordy!” Mick made an attempt, but his voice was lost in the surprised shouts from the crowd.
The triad of carrels exploded. Fragments of wood and metal whickered through the air. Slips of ballot paper sailed up like leaves stirred by a passing bus. The crowd scattered in a hail of shouts and wounded screams. Mick saw Gordy stagger backward, his face studded with mini stilettoes of wood. One of the metal booth backs flew outward and caught Jack Hamilton, who taught English at Drury High, full on in the throat. He fell backward, spouting a spume of blood from his mouth. Mick was nearly to Gordy, who still clutched the baby carrier.
“Thekan knows,” Mick called to him. “For God’s sake, drop that thing, Gordy!”
Dangerous waters, a part of Mick recited as Gordon Prellwitz addressed him with a dazed, splintered and blood-streaked face. Thekan glowered at them, and that same panicked part of Mick recited he’s not done yet. Thekan writhed as if shedding an invisible overcoat of pure power. The Rock-a-roo exploded into flying pieces with a lick of green fire. The explosion flung Gordy back, a violent pirouette that ended in collapse, the arm which held the Rock-a-roo a second before now gone in a burst of bloody fragments. He rolled in the dirt and clutched at his gushing shoulder stump, producing deep, rasping screams. A crescent of mangled Rock-a-roo rocketed deep into the crowd and plunged into Melody Carmichael’s abdomen as her husband tried to lead her away. He continued to pull on her even after she was down, her midsection pumping blurts of crimson into the grass.
>
Shouts and screams came from everywhere. Mick twisted around, trying to take it all in at once. He saw Judy helping a woman who kept a bloody hand clamped over her right eye. He thought it might be their neighbor, Mrs. Merk. He saw Harley and Beth Ann across the way, safe and hurrying toward the perimeter.
“Jesus.” Someone rapped him on the shoulder. It was Roger Copeland. “I did this, didn’t I? I told him what you were doing somehow, that judge. I didn’t mean to but I told him without saying anything. Jesus.”
“You didn’t tell him,” Mick said. “He took it from you.”
Roger stumbled away goggling at the chaos, a lost traveler in a land where the common language was screams and the air reeked of ozone. Mick watched him for a moment, then crouched next to Gordy Prellwitz. “Come on, Gordy,” he said and then stopped.
The man’s mouth was a dark gash, frozen and silent, his splinter-ravaged face paper white, his wide eyes sightless.
“Goddamn it.”
“This is null,” Alice Vandergalien screeched and beseeched the sky with fists full of crumpled ballots. “It’s all null. God, this is insanity.”
Thekan whirled toward her on his platform and executed another of those writhing shrugs. Alice planted both pudgy hands against her chest as if applying a corsage of ruined ballots to her bosom, and then she dropped to the ground.
Mick caught a glimpse of Nancy Berns, who was yelling into her cell phone and tending to a woman with a gash in her scalp. “Nancy,” he called out and motioned to where Alice Vandergalien lay. A siren whooped at the other side of town. Someone, Stu Rueplinger presumably, had high tailed it to the firehouse to put the emergency vehicle into play.
Mick realized he was standing once again, with his arms held out, doing his best to coax those around him back toward Tier Street. “Leave the premises,” he shouted. “We don’t know if those wires are still live or anything else. Vacate the premises now, come on.”
People responded, blindly, some of them calmed as if in appreciation of being instructed.
“Hey, you better sit down, Mick.” Will Adelmeyer came up and put a hand on each of Mick’s shoulders, gazing at him with an odd directness. There was a jagged scratch on his cheek. It reminded Mick of wax paper violated by a dull knife.