Charlie could sense the turmoil Anna was going through. He eventually understood that Marx had been wrong about history, but not wrong about what created a fair and equitable society. What mattered was the outcome, not the process. Charlie patted the couch beside him and she reluctantly sat next to him. And, like his own patient schoolmasters had done for him, he spent the next couple of hours educating her on how the world actually worked.
CHAPTER 15
Election Day in Blue Creek broke clear and cold. Turnout was expected to be low to moderate. If people turned out in droves, Patton figured that David Asher could pull a majority, thus negating any chance of Mike Wilson becoming Blue Creek’s first governor. To win they needed to get David Asher in a one-on-one runoff and then make the case that Mike Wilson was more qualified to lead. Polling locations opened at two in the afternoon and closed at seven that evening. This allowed business owners to operate normally and still have an opportunity to vote. With little news anywhere else in town, all of Blue Creek’s media outlets constantly reported any updates, no matter how meaningless they were.
The media released their first exit polls at five o’clock. Results showed a likely rout for Asher, who had nearly fifty-seven percent, with Mike Wilson at a just under thirty percent. The rest of the vote was split between the other five candidates. By six, however, and this was just as Patton had predicted, the vote count started to close up. The second exit poll showed that Asher was coming back down towards the fifty-percent line while Mike’s count was increasing. When the polls closed at seven, the count had David Asher at forty-five percent, with Mike Wilson edging up to thirty-five percent.
Although exit polls were often inaccurate, Patton was sure they showed what was going to be the final outcome—the one he wanted, a head-to-head matchup between his candidate and David Asher. It was going to be a tough climb for Mike, but if they could find something negative about Asher, they might just have a chance. Patton had two weeks to put a campaign together. It was going to be difficult, considering the media’s fawning coverage of David Asher. It reminded Patton of the 2008 election, when America’s national media lost their mind for Barack Obama. Asher’s controllers obviously knew what they were doing—they were merely following the playbook that got Obama elected twice.
Because of the campaign, David Asher became the biggest celebrity in Blue Creek. His campaign team transformed him from a candidate for a small town mayor into a rock star. Asher’s face was on billboards, the local newspaper and magazine, and plastered on posters all over town. His face was constantly on television screens and social media videos, either doing interviews or on his commercials. Of course it had a polarizing effect. There were those who loved him, those who hated him, and those who just wanted the damn election to be over with, no matter who won.
Standing in stark contrast to David Asher was Mike Wilson, who was definitely the more serious of the two candidates. He talked about keeping government “light, lean and effective” but his message had not resonated as much as Asher’s mere presence had. Mike wanted to get Asher to commit to a series of televised debates, but to that point, Asher had turned down the offer. Patton knew it was because he was afraid that some of the luster would come off the coin when he had to answer some questions, but Asher’s campaign would never admit to that.
What Patton had to do was to dig deeper into Asher’s connection with the girl and the mystery man from the bar. He thought the trail would ultimately lead to the old man, and he knew that there was something the old man wanted to keep hidden.
Travis felt uneasy. He took a sip of coffee from a gigantic porcelain coffee mug and then set it down on a hand-carved mahogany coaster with a thin, gold inlay. Travis wanted to laugh at how pretentious Charlie was, but he didn’t want to set the old guy off. Not that Travis was afraid of Charlie Henry. He just didn’t want to deal with his infamous temper. The unease came from the way that the old man was looking at him—as if Charlie was a psychiatrist, trying to determine if Travis was telling him the whole story. And although Travis wasn’t a wet-behind-the-ears kid, he had a hard time sitting in front of Charlie Henry’s gaze.
“What does Asher know?” Charlie asked, twirling a pair of reading glasses in his right hand. He was leaned back in a large stuffed leather chair, his feet propped up on a matching Ottoman. Travis took another sip of coffee and held onto his mug this time. He gave a slight shrug and shook his head.
“Has Anna said that she’s told him about his role?” Charlie asked, anger starting to form in his eyes.
Travis just shook his head again.
Charlie sat up and set his feet on the floor, shaking his head at the younger man as stood out of his chair.
“I didn’t bring you here to nod at me,” he said, pacing back in forth in front of the stuffed chair. He stopped and looked at Travis with a piercing gaze. “Well? Are you going to respond?”
Travis set his coffee mug down and looked at Charlie with a playful grin. “Was there a question in there somewhere?”
Not wanting to lose control in front of a subordinate, Charlie decided to say nothing. Knowing that he wasn’t going to get anything out of Travis he invited him to leave.
“He’s coming out,” Mike Wilson said, handing the binoculars to Patton.
Patton didn’t need the glasses to see his prey. He could spot that walk a mile away now. He clicked his tongue against his cheek and exhaled deeply. “If I’m right, the old man lives in that house,” Patton said, feeling like he’d just clicked the last puzzle piece into place.
“Well, I’m sure it is,” Mike said. “But what does that even mean?”
Patton thought about it for a moment.
“I’m not sure,” he said, sighing, “but I’m sure it’s not good whatever it is.”
Two hours later it was just Patton on the stakeout. After watching the long-haired kid leave, Patton drove Mike home, figuring it wouldn’t be good David Asher’s opponent to be caught spying on Blue Creek residents.
“There he goes,” Patton said to himself as he watched Charlie Henry pull out of his driveway in his black Cadillac crossover.
So here he was, about to commit what would be a felony back in his home in California. Technically, though, Blue Creek had no laws on the books yet so what he was doing wasn’t really a crime. Patton cringed at his hypocrisy in justifying his actions, but then he shrugged and waited for darkness to come.
The sun had set but it still wasn’t dark enough for comfort. Patton didn’t know how long Charlie Henry was going to be away from his house and that was a problem. Luckily he had a backup plan to keep Charlie away. After another half hour of waiting in his borrowed vehicle, it was sufficiently dark to make his move. Patton reached into the backseat, grabbed a black duffel bag, and exited the vehicle.
The streetlights were on now, making it easier for a nosy neighbor to see Patton. As camouflage, he walked as casually as his nerves would allow. He continued down the sidewalk and then turned into the alleyway that ran behind Henry’s house.
The old man was obviously wary of break-ins, Patton could see. He had an eight-foot privacy fence with lots of trees and tall, leafless bushes. Patton threw his duffel bag over the fence and then knelt down and listened. He looked both ways to make sure no one was watching. As he pulled himself up and over the fence, a security light came on. Patton dropped into a crouch and waited and listened again. Nothing was amiss so he grabbed his bag and made his way towards the house.