Free Another Dead Republican by Mark Zubro Page A

had a van full of gift baskets, flowers, even two casseroles. We stored the food in the fridge and the other stuff on the counters. The kitchen had a twelve-foot-by-three-foot island in the center.
     
    Scott collected cards and names and began a list. Scott would remember that Veronica would need these if she wanted to send thank you notes.
     

EIGHTEEN
     
    Wednesday 12:02 P.M.
     
    People, casseroles, and condolences began to accumulate. A few of the visitors brought their kids, which turned out to be good. They knew Veronica’s children and could help keep them occupied without constant, direct adult supervision.
     
    Sometimes they arrived without benefit of security checks. I learned these were from the neighborhood.
     
    Scott and I went back to paper sorting. About an hour later I was on a bathroom break. The living room and kitchen were filled with men and women bustling about organizing, eating, drinking, cleaning, or comforting Veronica. At least one Grum cousin, aunt, uncle, or daughter-in-law that I knew was in there with them.
     
    I ran into Azure Grum in the hall. We exchanged sympathetic greetings. Azure was the one at the wedding who spilled the beans about who the minion had been sent from to try and stop Scott and me from dancing. While talking with her at the wedding, she’d given me all kinds of fairly useless and perfectly nasty gossip about the Grums.
     
    Azure was short and thin. She’d married into the family so she wasn’t in imminent danger from the Grum family fat curse. She wore a white sweater over a long-sleeve, gauzy-white summer blouse, and baggy jeans.
     
    I said, “Thank you for coming over in the middle of the night.”
     
    “Thankfully the kids didn’t wake up. I’m always willing to help Veronica.” She beckoned me down the hall out of ear shot of the others. She said, “I feel so sorry for Veronica. She had it tough in this family.”
     
    “How so?”
     
    She looked back toward the kitchen, nodded toward a room nearby. We entered a room which was a mini-movie theater with a wide screen at one end, large comfy chairs facing it in the middle. The shag rug was green and the walls painted gold. The plush velvet covered chairs were in plaid patterns of green and gold. Heavily curtained sliding glass doors led outside. Yes, the curtains were green and gold.
     
    The room had a Green Bay Packer shrine on the wall opposite the screen. The pictures went back to the days of Curly Lambeau and George Whitney Calhoun and the founding of the team, plus photos and/or portraits of all the team’s quarterbacks from Norm Barry to Aaron Rodgers. I knew this because my nephew, Gerald, their middle child, had spent one long hour explaining it to me while Veronica, he, and I had been waiting for Edgar before we could leave for a family outing.
     
    That was another thing about Edgar. The world ran on his time, and be damned to the rest of you.
     
    I suppose I would have been more sympathetic if his time was being used to perform emergency brain surgery on widows and orphans from war torn countries. If anyone had dared to put him remotely close to a position of power, he would be more likely to have started the war.
     
    The sad reality was the family could be sitting in the SUV ready to leave for something, but Edgar might decide that moment was time to refold the towels in the linen closet. The rest waited until he was done with this easily postpone-able activity.
     
    Azure and I entered, took seats. She carried a small purse in one hand and a glass of orange juice in the other. She held it up to me. “You want a mimosa?”
     
    I declined.
     
    She said, “Hell of a thing.”
     
    “Murder is that.”
     
    “Can you imagine? Murder! In this family! They won’t be able to hush this one up.”
     
    “This one? There’ve been others?”
     
    “This family hushes everything up. Everything. From simple stuff, like how old you are or who was pregnant before they were married, to