by Mark Zubro
I compared them to the data Edgar had. As far as I could understand the formula for the program, Edgar was right. Enough votes were to have been switched upon the machine’s receipt of a command sent from a cell phone.
I compared columns of figures.
I pointed, “This isn’t wrong.”
“Huh?”
“According to what Edgar has here, if the vote was this close in this precinct the machine was supposed to change it by this many so that Governor Mallon would have more votes not less, but look at the official results. She actually wound up with less.”
“Maybe they only changed certain precincts. They only had to change enough to win.”
“But it wasn’t enough to win.”
We spent half an hour examining back and forth. I even took the zip drive down to the dead animal den, where there was a printer and hooked up my laptop to it so we could look at a hard copy instead of going back and forth on a computer screen.
We examined the numbers again. After another half hour, I announced, “Someone, the Grums or the Ducharmés, was trying to cheat. Presumably the Ducharmés since the machines were theirs, but the program didn’t work. They had the machines rigged all right.”
“All the machines failed?”
“All the machines counted correctly. The bug they put in the system didn’t bug.”
“Someone unbugged it?”
I tapped the screen. “These are the reported vote results by precinct for Harrison County.” I pointed to a column of numbers on the printout. “Here’s what the computer program was supposed to cheat by. It might have been sabotage. It might have just not worked. Whatever they planted didn’t do what they wanted it to do.”
“So the election results were honest?”
“Well, no. Fake. The Harrison County results still don’t work mathematically. The skewed percents we talked about the other day are still skewed. I just can’t believe nobody noticed all this. Where the hell are newspapers and reporters?”
Scott said, “One person’s fuzzy math is another person’s truth. If the math is fixed, then obviously the election is won for their side.”
I asked, “So who’s got the power to fix the math?”
We looked at each other and answered simultaneously. “Beulah Grum.”
We sat back in our chairs.
I said, “What I don’t get is what Edgar was going to do. He was going to tell on them? On his family? Out them all as cheating crooks?”
“Maybe he was blackmailing them.”
“He could have sold half of that crap in that stupid animal den. He had money coming in. Hell, I think the couch in that room is worth ten thousand dollars.”
“Really?”
I said, “That’s what it said in the New York Times.”
“Edgar didn’t talk about wrecking the Ducharmés or the election. He talked about wrecking his family.”
“What would wreck his family?”
“Losing the recall election?”
“But the Ducharmés had the election successfully stolen. Or so they thought.”
“Did they tell the Grums that?”
“We should ask.”
“Edgar was out to wreck his family, not the Ducharmés. Did Edgar really care about the election?”
“He cared about getting even. He cared about getting something out of them. If the election results turned either way, did he care? If he got something from his family, maybe then he cared.”
Scott asked, “Shouldn’t the governor be questioned as well? We seem to have two sets of cheating. I’m not ready to believe she didn’t know about both, or at least one of them, and most likely had some part in it. Could she be that stupid, naïve, or despised?”
I said, “We’ve got no proof that any of this had something to do with murder.”
“Was Edgar trying to blackmail the governor?”
“Edgar needed money?” I asked.
“According to his tax form last year, his income was over a million dollars.”
I said, “Maybe he spent it all. We’ve still got a million of those damn boxes to go through.”
“And is it his money or his family’s? If the income we saw was from family Trust investments, does the money stop coming in at his death?”
“If it was reported on his tax form, it had to be his.”
“If he had such shit jobs, how did he make so much money?”
“His investments paid well?” I asked.
I sat back in the chair. Dawn light streamed in the windows. I laced my fingers behind my head and leaned farther back. “So much of this doesn’t make sense. Mr. and Mrs. Grum would let the police cover up who killed their son? Only if they did it.”
“Maybe they don’t know who did it.”
“What about the Ducharmé brothers? They’re the ones who stood to gain from all the lucrative contracts if the Republicans stayed in power. They’re the ones who’ve been doing all the manipulating behind the scenes. They’re the ones with power and motive.”
“For more money? They’ve got enough to buy several third world countries. What the hell do they need more for?”
I said, “Reason not the need, said Lear to his daughters. But I actually had sympathy for Lear at that point. I have no sympathy for the Ducharmés.”
Scott said, “As an English teacher, does getting a King Lear quote in earn you bonus points?”
“Only if it answers a question.”
Scott grimaced. He said, “Let’s start simple. Who knew about the electronic chicanery?”
“The Ducharmés. The person who programmed the computers, Mr. and Mrs. Grum, one, some, or all of their kids.”
“Obviously Edgar.”
“He was at campaign headquarters all the time according to Zachary, twelve to sixteen hours a day without much to do.”
Scott said, “What it comes down to is, we ain’t got proof, just a dead reporter and a dead Grum. We don’t even have proof either one of them wrote all this. We believe they did, but even more we don’t know who killed them both.”
“Should we confront the Grums or the Ducharmés?”
“Would they even meet with us?”
“We just found all this shit out. Let’s think about it, talk to legal people, and then make decisions.”
FIFTY-TWO
Sunday 7:27 A.M.
I was exhausted and exhilarated and depressed. We had tons of information and no proof. It was still early. I wasn’t sure what to do with this knowledge. Who would believe us? What would it help? Presumably, we had proof of an election that wasn’t stolen electronically. Call the press? Call the police? Kind of pointless.
After I got back from my run that Sunday morning, mom, dad, Veronica, and the kids were all dressed up. They were going to church for Easter Sunday. They said they’d be gone and that it was a family tradition to go to the Easter Sunday brunch at Schnitzel’s in Milwaukee. Veronica wanted to keep up the tradition.
In our room Scott was finishing his shower. I joined him. Halfway through soaping his front after our climaxes soaked us both, my cell phone rang.
Dripping wet, I rushed out. It was Todd Bristol.
He began without preamble, “I have a meeting set up for you, with Albert Ducharmé for ten o’clock this morning.”
I said, “He’s not going to Easter Sunday service?”
“Do you care?”
“I guess not. Sorry.” I explained what we found to which Todd said, “Hmmm.”
“Is that your strict legal interpretation?”
“It explains why he might have been willing to agree to this meeting. I may think of myself as legally deft, but what you’ve got is better.”
“Why am I meeting with him?”
“Because I am a wise and powerful lawyer who knows what he is doing and sees a way out of this mess.”
“He’s the killer?”
“I have no idea.”
“I’ll get Scott…”
Todd interrupted, “No, you
are to go yourself.”
“Is it safe?”
“I certainly hope so.”
“That’s not as reassuring as I’d like it to be.”
“It’s as reassuring as I’m going to get.” He paused a moment then resumed. “Think for a minute. This is a meeting I’m setting up. People know about it. I know about it. Enid Achtenberg is in the loop. Nobody is going to try and hurt you.”
“Why not?”
He sighed. “Because he wants this whole thing to go away, and he thinks you’re the key to that.”
“What whole thing to go away?”
“Just go talk to him.” He gave me an address.
“I’ll leave Scott in the car.”
“Fine.”
Scott wasn’t too happy with the arrangement, but if we were going to make progress, this was something we could do.
The meeting was to take place in a luxury penthouse condo on Lake Michigan south of Milwaukee.
We drove in silence. Speculation would be useless. Todd wouldn’t have set it up if it wouldn’t serve some kind of good purpose. We didn’t leave a guard at the house. With the locks changed, we had less to fear from a Grum invasion. Plus, presumably, we had all the secret stuff and had begun disseminating it. We hadn’t called the press or the cops, but that could certainly come. Now if we could just figure out who the killer was.
FIFTY-THREE
Sunday 10:00 A.M.
The twenty-story building was chrome, glass, and steel. A guard in a blue blazer met me on the ground floor and escorted me into an elevator that took us up to the top floor suite. I stepped out of the elevator into a teak and oak realm that half a rain forest must have given its life to decorate, wood floors and wood paneled walls, on the walls lush 16th century paintings perfectly lit from ceiling spotlights.
Mr. Ducharmé entered the room. He wore white plastic frame glasses that covered washed-out blue eyes. His beige Italian-cut suit draped his slightly pudgy frame.
“Mr. Mason, would it be all right if you and I retired to the living room and discussed this unfortunate situation? I’d like to settle this. Wouldn’t you?”
We entered a room which contained several intimate groupings. One area had a loveseat covered in beige velvet, linen and twill, plus a chaise outfitted with striped cotton ticking cushions, and a vintage coffee table with a slab of marble for the top. Another seating area had a brown leather couch that was big enough to use as a boat to head out onto the lake. Twentieth century art covered these walls. Embers glowed in a twelve foot fireplace which interrupted the march of Picassos on one wall. Matching armchairs flanked the gargantuan divan. The door shut softly behind us.
The view out the vast windows was of downtown Milwaukee and the lake.
“Drink?” he asked.
“No thanks.”
He poured himself two fingers of an amber liquid into a beaded crystal glass. “Shall we be seated?”
I couldn’t think of a reason to say no. I could try churlish and smart ass. I could try subservient and cringing. For now I’d go with curious.
We sat in the area with the brown leather furniture.
He crossed his legs, made a wide sweep with the hand that held the drink, and said, “Things are a mess.”
“Yes.”
“How did it come to this?” he asked.
“You tried to steal the election electronically. We’ve caught you. You’re not going to be able to snap your all-powerful, very wealthy fingers and make all of this disappear.”
“Really, I think this can be a civilized discussion. You can sneer at me if you wish. Maybe it will make you feel better when you tell the story later. Wouldn’t you want to know what has really been going on?”
“And what you tell me will be the truth?”
“Why don’t you let me tell you, and then you can decide, but if we’re busy sneering at each other, neither one of us will make any progress toward our goal.”
“What is your goal?”
“To get richer.”
“And what will that gain you?” I quoted the lines from the movie Chinatown that Jack Gities says to Noah Cross, the rich evil character in the movie, “Why are you doing it? How much better can you eat? What could you buy that you can’t already afford?”
“Chinatown, very good. And a few lines later, Mr. Cross says, “most people never have to face the fact that at the right time and the right place, they’re capable of anything”. Can you face that, Tom Mason?”
“I can live with my conscience.”
He swirled the liquid in his glass. Took a sip. “As can I with mine. It’s all a matter of perspective, isn’t it?”
“What is it that you have to tell me?”
“My brother and I didn’t steal the election.”
I moved to rise.
“Please sit down, Mr. Mason. Let me finish. We did plan to steal the election.” He shook his head. “The Firbutton 20’s were set to shave or add enough votes in enough precincts to guarantee a win no matter what happened.”
“You know Edgar Grum kept notes about you stealing the election, and now you admit it?”
“Oh, yes, because you see, it failed. It was brilliant. Flawless. Foolproof. Our people supplied the programming.”
“How could you program each machine for each election?”
“Can your cell phone respond to remote commands, or give directives, turn things off and on, chat with you, cater to your every whim?”
“I know some can. Mine doesn’t.”
“Well, the best phones can. The most up-to-date have chips that can be synchronized and can be controlled from one location or multiple locations. You just have to put the right electronics into the machine in the first place. No one has to go from voting machine to voting machine in each precinct to rig or alter vote totals. One person in one location can activate the machines and give whatever commands that need to be given. It was perfect. The only problem was, it didn’t work.”
I didn’t tell him we’d already figured a lot of this out.
He sipped from his drink. “No, the damn things didn’t work. I was quite upset. Over a thousand people in various of our global facilities have lost their jobs already. We had it set so that no one person would know what was going on. You know how there can be glitches in electronics. Look at the space program or the military. All of them have the most advanced electronics on the globe and most of the time they work. And sometimes they don’t. And sometimes there are glitches. And as you well know, humans screw up.”
“What happened here?”
“A programmer in India created a flawed matrix that caused a worker in Silicon Valley to misinterpret a particular piece of code. The matrix was off by only the slightest, but that slight mistake was too much. We pressed “on,” and the damn thing didn’t turn on.”
I was one of those who had discovered quite often getting “on” right when dealing with electronics could be hellish.
“So where did the extra votes come from in Harrison County?”
“I suggest, Mr. Mason, you look to Harrison County and those in charge of the operation.”
“Don’t the Grums work for you?”
“The Grums think they work for us, yes. Really, I hate to soil myself with those people, but they are useful. They think they’re rich. I suppose in some minor way they are, but they are billions and billions behind my brother and I.”
Being a kindly English teacher I didn’t correct him and tell him that as an object of the preposition the correct form was my brother and me. And what was the point, but odd things flash though your mind at tense moments.
I asked, “Where is your brother?”
“He had to rush to Qatar for an emergency meeting.”
“More people being fired?”
“A billion-dollar building complex deal with financing based in Mumbai, London, Hong Kong, and Sydney needed his immediate attention. You see, Mr. Mason, the election here was small time. Yes, we’d make a few more million in s
tate contracts, but really it isn’t like there are billions at stake here. The key, the reason I wanted to talk to you, is that you are causing us some trouble. I want that to go away.”
“You could do that with the wave of a few millions.”
“Yes, but that is messy, and you are not without resources. This could drag far beyond forever. We could easily launch a smear campaign against you and Mr. Carpenter to destroy each of you, and your parents, and your whole family. Your lawyer and his firm, however, while, again, not in the same league as our lawyers and our firms, are nevertheless rich enough, powerful enough, and smart enough to inconvenience us. This situation here is not worth the hassle. Mary Mallon and this governorship are most definitely not. She turned out to be far more stupid than even we imagined.”
“What did the governor have to do with this?”
He grimaced. “She was a useful, mindless, buffoon.”
“You’re willing to foist that kind of person on the American people, just so you can make a few bucks?”
More smiling and chuckling and then he said, “Well, yes, obviously. Look at Sarah Palin as a candidate for vice-president. The mad desire to win triumphed over good sense, hence the Republican party.”
“They’re in power in a lot of places because they were backed by fools like you.”
“Fools like me win most of the time. You know that. Now, can we get down to business?”
I got up and walked to the floor to ceiling windows. As I looked out, my anger swirled, I fantasized about smashing his head through the glass, tossing his body out, and watching it plummet to the ground. I shut my eyes for a moment then opened them back up to the bright blue sky and bright blue lake staring back at each other. I didn’t believe in violence as a solution to problems, and I probably wasn’t strong enough to break through the glass anyway, and this man wasn’t worth going to jail for, and if it wasn’t him, there would be some other rich guy to take his place.
Without looking at him, I asked, “Why did you try to kill us Friday at the Flisterbiddle von Struthers warehouse?”
“If I wanted to kill you, you would be dead.”
I turned to look at him.
“But my brother and I are not killers. We wanted you frightened.”