The Dirty Secret Page 4

  “Let me know what, Dick?”

  Dick Bowen put the phone down. “The canvass in Kanawha County is over. Royal only picked up 24 votes there. Personally, I thought it’d be fifty.”

  Governor Vincent nodded in agreement. “Me, too. The whole Republican ticket ran strong there. The biggest county in the state … If he only gained 24 there, his overall number should be within striking distance.”

  Bowen grabbed a yellow legal pad from the end table situated between the two chairs and scribbled on it. His eyes darted across the page as he silently ran the figures. “He gained 30 in the Eastern Panhandle, which typically leans conservative, and another 19 over in Putnam County. But you and Melanie picked up more votes elsewhere, so his total lead is down to about 190.”

  Vincent stood up and strolled behind his chair. Resting his hands atop the chair’s back, he leaned forward and sighed. “I’d feel better if it was around a hundred. But we’ll have to make do. How are our boys down south doing?”

  “They’re really slugging it out down in Boone County. That Anderson guy from Saint Marys is watching things like a hawk and his lawyers are damn good ones. They’re making us work for every vote we get there.”

  Vincent’s heart skipped a beat at the mention of St. Marys. He couldn’t think of that town without thinking about Tabatha McCallen. He had not heard from her since their hotel rendezvous the previous week and that made him nervous, wondering what her fevered mind might be concocting to make his life even more complicated.

  The sound of Bowen’s gravelly voice refocused his attention. “On the other hand, we have everything in place in Mingo County. We’re just waiting on the word from you to spring into action.”

  Governor Vincent glanced down at his watch. It was 10:30 a.m. “Let’s crunch the numbers one last time. But go ahead and tell those boys to get ready to roll. I don’t think we can wait any longer.”

  Vincent’s cell phone suddenly started buzzing and vibrating. Removing it from his belt clip, the governor saw he had a new multimedia message from a number he did not recognize.

  “What you got there, Luke?” Bowen asked.

  “Don’t know yet. A new message of some sort.” Vincent hit a button on his phone to retrieve the message.

  The governor stared at the screen as his phone downloaded the message. Its subject line read, “Still Waiting” and there was a video clip attached to it. Clicking the attachment, he watched the blue progress bar slowly advance across the screen, widening from left to right as the download neared completion. Finally, the clip began to play and his face turned pale.

  The screen depicted the inside of a Charleston hotel suite he recognized. A close friend owned the hotel and Vincent used the facility on occasions when discretion was required.

  “So who do you think is going to win tonight, Governor?”

  Vincent felt a cold chill migrate down his spine. The sultry voice blaring from the phone belonged to Tabatha McCallen.

  His fingers frantically flew across the phone’s touchscreen. Unalloyed fear tore at his heart. Has someone finally uncovered my lies? Who could have recorded this? How did they get my private cell phone number? And why did they send me this?

  “Definitely Marshall,” he heard his own voice declare.

  “WVU’s defense can’t stop our three-point shooters.”

  A quizzical look crossed Dick Bowen’s face as he strained his neck, attempting to get a look at the phone’s screen. “What was that?”

  Vincent shut off the clip and the dialogue abruptly stopped. “Nothing. Just a TV interview I did back in February right before the WVU/Marshall basketball game.”

  Bowen’s visage turned from quizzical to skeptical. “Why would someone send a nine-month-old television interview to your cell phone?”

  Think, Vincent told himself. Think quickly. “One of our media consultants,” he said slowly, attempting to buy some time to make the lie more believable. “He’s been complaining about my ties. Says they’re too ‘flashy’ and turn voters off. I guess he decided to send me that clip as an example of a tie he thinks would work better for me.”

  Bowen eyed him closely, saying nothing. The room was silent, save for the low crackling of the gas logs. The governor felt his palms turning clammy.

  “I can’t help you, Luke, if you don’t tell me the truth.”

  Vincent knew Bowen had his best interests at heart and truly wanted to help him. They had worked with one another for almost two decades. But to the best of his knowledge, the only three people who knew about his trysts with Tabatha McCallen were himself, the hotel owner, and the siren herself. And even the hotel owner didn’t know Tabatha’s real name.

  “You must think my life is a lot more interesting than it really is,” the governor said, cracking a grin. “Sorry to burst your bubble, Dick.”

  By the look on Bowen’s face, Vincent judged the man was unconvinced. But much to his relief, Bowen let the matter drop. “Well, tell that fancy ‘media consultant’ to postpone his wardrobe recommendations until after we get you elected, okay? Until then, we both have far more important things to worry about than what kind of friggin’ ties you should be wearing.”

  Vincent emitted a breezy laugh. “You got it.”

  Relief flooded the governor’s mind. Although he knew Bowen meant well, Vincent fully intended to keep knowledge of his affair as limited as possible. For some reason, one of Benjamin Franklin’s most famous sayings invaded his consciousness: “Three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead.”

  That advice sounded perfectly sage.

  CHAPTER 10

  MADISON, BOONE COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA

  WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 12:05 P.M.

  Dave bid the campaign’s lawyers adieu and jumped in Ned Hopson’s big red Ford F-450 pickup truck. Although there was a chill in the air, the sun was shining down through a bright blue sky unmarred by clouds. Climbing into the passenger side, Dave closed the door behind him and exclaimed, “All right, Ned, you’re killing me! Now that we’ve broken for lunch, could you tell me who in the hell’s that old coot you keep exchanging silent glances with?”

  The Boone County Republican Party’s chairman laughed out loud and turned the ignition key. Shifting into reverse, he gently backed up. “Ever heard of Zeke Crouser?”

  “Sure. He heads up one of the two Democrat factions down here. Knows every person up every holler in the county. The guy’s a legend.”

  Hopson put the truck into drive and cut the steering wheel to the left, maneuvering into northbound traffic headed away from Madison toward the nearby town of Danville. “Well, my friend, that old guy you’re so fascinated with is the one and only Zeke Crouser.”

  Dave’s jaw dropped open. “Why would you pay attention to anything he has to say? I mean … Why in God’s name would he want to help us?”

  Hopson chuckled. “The world’s a strange place, Mr. Anderson. And no place is quite as strange as southern West Virginia at election time.”

  “Enlighten me, Ned. I thought I had a pretty good handle on things but you’ve got me totally lost right now.”

  “There are two dynamics here. First of all, you’re in the heart of coal country.”

  “I know that,” Dave retorted. “Coal operators down here contributed piles of money for Governor Royal. You’d expect that. But Boone County is the heart of UMW country, too.”

  “True, some union miners would vote for Hitler before they’d vote for a Republican, and there’s nothing you can do about those guys. But there’s plenty of others who know which side their bread is buttered on, and they can’t stand Senator Wilson.”

  Dave’s mouth opened and his eyes widened as comprehension began to dawn. “Because of her environmental positions.”

  “Yep. Global warming and all that jazz … gets the operators and the miners all in a tizzy. They think she’s just another bunny-hugging Yankee secretly plotting to regulate the coal industry out of existence as soon as she gets into office.”
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br />   “Makes sense. So what’s the second dynamic I need to know about?”

  “Pretty simple,” Ned replied. “Lotsa people in the coalfields think Luke Vincent has gotten too big for his britches. He’s broken some campaign promises, particularly when it comes to funding new roads down here. More importantly, he helped folks from the northern part of the state squeeze some of our local boys outta leadership positions in the Legislature when he took office four years ago. Including the House of Delegates’ former Finance Chairman, who is the brother-in-law of none other than our good ol’ buddy, Zeke Crouser.”

  Dave whistled. “Wow. We didn’t know there was so much bad blood down here.”

  “Down here in Boone County,” Hopson corrected. “Vincent hasn’t alienated everyone in southern West Virginia. He still has plenty of friends in other places – like Mingo County, for instance. The governor still has a lot of patronage to throw around and plenty of chips to cash in. But two of our three county commissioners are aligned with Zeke’s faction, so don’t expect Vincent to pull off any funny business here.”

  A ringing phone interrupted their conversation. Anderson pulled his phone from his right front pants pocket and looked at the screen. It was Jonathan Royal. “Hello.”

  “How are things looking in Madison?” the nominee’s voice boomed.

  Dave smiled and winked at Hopson. “Better than we realized.”

  “Hot damn! Nice to hear. Couldn’t have come at a better time, in fact.”

  A look of concern lodged itself on Dave’s face. “Why? What’s up?”

  Royal sighed heavily. “We just got word from Williamson. There’s something fishy going on down there with the voting machines’ memory cards.”

  “What do you mean by fishy?”

  “They say some of the memory cards aren’t working right. The data from the cards was supposedly uploaded on Election Night to servers maintained by the company that sold the machines to the county. Our opponents want to use that backup data for the canvass. Care to guess which vendor’s machines the good folks in Mingo County used?”

  Dave’s stomach sank. “AIS?”

  “AIS,” Royal affirmed. “Assurant Information Services, which bought the Cicero brand electronic voting system from the civic-minded nerds who developed it. And the venture capital group that owns AIS is headed by your friend and mine …”

  “Dmitri Mazniashvili,” Dave moaned.

  “The very bastard. Wanna bet which way the votes stored in that backup data are gonna swing?”

  “Shit! Who do we have in charge down there?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’ve told them you’re taking over as soon as you can get there. Until then, they’ll keep the cameras rolling and stall for time.”

  “Got it,” Dave said. Mentally calculating the distance down Route 119 to Williamson, he added, “I can be there in a little under an hour.”

  “Don’t get pulled over – especially by state troopers, ha ha! But get there quick. They’re gonna start dealing with this discovery about one o’clock.”

  Dave glanced down at the platinum Rolex watch on his left wrist. It was ten after twelve. “I’m on my way.”

  Dave hung up the phone and glanced at Hopson. “Can I borrow your truck?”

  “Where you taking it?” Hopson asked. “Williamson?”

  “Yep. Some of their voting machines’ memory cards magically stopped working this morning.”

  Hopson snorted. “Magic, my ass.” He flipped on his turn signal and pulled into the restaurant’s parking lot. “I’ll jump out here at the pizza place. My wife can pick me up and take me back to the courthouse after lunch.”

  “Thanks. I’ll get your truck back as soon as I can.”

  Hopson unbuckled his seatbelt and opened the door. “Don’t worry about it,” he said calmly, leaving the keys in the ignition as he exited the cab. “Good luck and Godspeed, Mr. Anderson.” With those blessings, he raised his cell phone to his ear and strolled toward the restaurant’s front door.

  Dave slid into the driver’s seat and put on his seat belt. Throwing the truck’s transmission into drive, he started plotting a course of action.

  CHAPTER 11

  INTERSTATE 79 NEAR BRIDGEPORT, WEST VIRGINIA

  WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 12:30 P.M.

  As State Senator Jack McCallen drove north on I-79 toward Morgantown, his thoughts raced through his PowerPoint presentation. The commercial loan officer had coached him on the points he should emphasize in his pitch to the bank’s president, and Jack mentally reviewed those items one last time.

  McCallen Resources had friendly relationships with the “gathering” companies that purchased raw oil and the “transportation” companies that purchased raw natural gas from well-head operators like his company. Those companies sold them for a profit to local plants that refined and processed them into products consumers could use. Jack would argue that his company’s good relations with those middlemen improved its chances to turn a profit even if prices dropped and times got tough.

  Moreover, Jack knew MR had invested wisely during the recent boom, updating and upgrading its wells with the most accurate measuring devices and the most efficient capturing equipment available. Those investments maximized its profits and improved its chances to endure the bust periods that scared the bejeezus out of jittery, conservative bankers.

  Mentally reaching the presentation’s midpoint, Jack recalled the vivid, full-color pie charts and bar graphs he had generated from stacks of MR’s production records and sales invoices. Those graphics showed that over the past five years, MR had significantly increased both the oil and gas it was extracting from its leaseholds as well as its profit margin.

  Jack stared at himself in the rearview mirror. If only that told the whole story. If that were the case, I would sleep like a baby. Instead, I have bags under my eyes and an Elavil prescription that needs refilled.

  Driving between Fairmont and Morgantown, Jack was struck by the barren scenery around him. The rolling hills of north central West Virginia – so lush and green in the summer and painted in fiery reds, deep oranges and golden yellows in the fall – were brown and dead-looking today. As they would remain, Jack knew, until the leaves began to return in the middle of April. Despite winning yet another election last week, Jack felt the aching emptiness of those hills perfectly reflected the despair and loneliness weighing him down.

  Jack suddenly realized he had to shake this foul mood, quickly. In only minutes, he would be shaking hands with the banker and he needed his “A” game. He closed his eyes and bent his head sideways like he was trying to touch his ear to his shoulder. First to the right, then to the left, he felt the taut muscles in his neck slowly begin to unknot.

  Jack turned on the radio and a few haunting lyrics from Doug Stone’s old song, “I’d Be Better Off (In A Pine Box)” poured out of the speakers. Scowling, he jammed his thumb against the tuning button, hoping to find something less likely to make him slit his wrists.

  Moments later, the melodic strumming of a single electric guitar began to fill his ears and he pulled his finger away from the stereo controls. Exhaling deeply, he leaned his head back against the seat and closed his eyes as the lead vocalist of the ‘80s hair metal band, Tesla, crooned the first few lines from Gettin’ Better.

  The guitarist kicked his efforts up a notch and the rest of the band followed suit. Jack tapped his left hand on the steering wheel in time with the music and felt his outlook on life improve. As the song played on, he became more and more animated, banging his head slightly and even balling his right hand into a fist at one point he found particularly uplifting.

  By song’s end, he was rolling into the bank’s parking lot without a trace of the gloom and doom that had earlier gripped him. Turning the volume down, he shut off the engine and grabbed his laptop case after making a mental note to download that old Tesla album soon.

  It might come in handy the next time I feel like throttling Tabatha, he privately quipped, cr
acking a wry smile as he strolled toward the bank.

  A stunning woman in her early thirties with long wavy hair the color of cornsilk sat behind a semi-circular stainless steel desk. “Hello,” she said with a smile. “How may I help you?” Her words flowed smoothly, sounding melodious, educated, accommodating and sultry.

  Jack returned the smile. “I have an appointment with Marty Tharp at one.”

  The receptionist glanced down at her calendar. “Mr. McCallen?”

  “You’re looking at him.” From years spent making campaign speeches and shaking hands with farmers in the oil patch, Jack felt his comfort level rising as he subconsciously switched into glad-handing mode.

  The woman nodded. “Have a seat, and I’ll let Mr. Tharp know you are here.” She motioned toward a row of burgundy leather office chairs aligned along a glass wall to her right. Jack silently dipped his head in acknowledgment and took a seat.

  Magazines half-covered the cherry end table beside his chair. Jack pawed through them before selecting a Smithsonian to pass the time. Less than a minute later, a man called from across the lobby. “Jack?”

  Glancing up from the magazine, Jack saw a tall, slightly-built man in a crisply-tailored suit staring back at him expectantly. His rusty-colored hair was thick on top with an emerging widow’s peak. Light brown eyes gazed through a pair of rectangular metal eyeglasses, and dark freckles dotted the man’s middle-aged cheeks and forehead.

  The banker smiled and approached him, extending his right hand. “I’m Marty Tharp. You want to come on back?”

  Jack accepted the grip. “Thanks for seeing me. You lead the way.”

  Tharp whirled on his right heel and headed back across the lobby toward a pair of stainless steel elevator doors. Jack followed suit.