The incumbent has just barely survived an audit over spending county funds to redecorate his office to the tune of eighty grand, and paying auto expenses for what turns out to be his wife’s personal car. He claims it was miscommunication with staff and filling out the wrong forms, he reimbursed the county, and then it dies out in the onslaught of more pressing news both locally and nationally.
Still, he’s likely going to be turfed out in the primary, but it’ll be a bloody fight in the process.
However…if Benchley weighs in and supports Owen in the primary, it would sweep in enough GOP votes from people disgusted with the incumbent so as to give Owen a huge boost. Since we have a closed primary state, it also means we’ll have a tactical advantage if several GOP candidates run for the incumbent’s seat in the primary, splitting local party support across several candidates.
If I can get Benchley to support Owen, or even get him to sway the local party to pull their support from the incumbent and put it behind Owen as a protest—exactly the kind of statement that Benchley enjoys making—that would be the first stepping stone to getting Susa elected Governor.
Even Benchley would have to admit that.
I use events like tonight’s cocktail party to network and bounce ideas off people. Also, to introduce Owen around. He tends to do well at these kinds of events, especially if I’m there. It allows people to meet him in a more relaxed, one-on-one kind of setting. I need him to learn how to have an “on” mode in public. He’s getting there, but this is why I have to slowly build his tolerance. Thanks to his bitch of a mother, I not only have to teach him how to be “on,” I’m having to deprogram the negative feedback he heard most of his life following some sort of event like this. He was used to blending in and remaining hidden in plain sight. Susa and I have to teach him how to draw the good kind of attention onto himself.
There’s a few bigwigs from local politics in attendance tonight, including Kelly Fortuno, an elderly man who was a two-term Hillsborough county commissioner, a two-term Tampa city commissioner, a two-term Tampa mayor, and who now sits on the county’s planning and zoning committee.
Years ago, he also worked as a deputy county administrator under one Benchley Evans. So of course he feels it appropriate tonight to regale me with hysterical stories of my wife’s childhood. Considering the guy is in his late seventies, I go with it, laughing where appropriate.
“Yeah, sometimes I even went camping with them.” He shakes his head. “Wasn’t there that one weekend, though.”
It was currently myself, Owen, and Kelly in our tight little group. “What weekend?” I ask, my antennae twitching with the hint of something juicy, even perhaps at Susa’s expense.
“When that guy shot himself.” He scowls, his brow furrowing as he tries to remember the details. “Oh, what was his name. Morgan something-or-other. Head of public works, at the time. City of Tampa, not county.”
He glances around and leans in closer, dropping his voice. “Guess he got a girl pregnant.” He leans out, nodding knowingly. “Younggirl.” He keeps nodding. “Teenager. And he was amarriedman. Well, married until his wife took their kid and divorced the sonofabitch.”
Anger flares through me and I quickly school it, keeping my voice calm, I hope. “I hadn’t heard any of that.” I wonder if there’s something from Susa’s past that she hasn’t revealed to us. As far as I know, she’s never been molested or assaulted.
Except by me, and that was consensual.
“Oh, Susa might not even remember it. Probably not. She wasn’t even ten when it happened, I don’t think. Confessed in his suicide note about what he’d done. Guess he forced himself on the girl. I’m talking young teenager. She had the baby, if I remember correctly. He would have gone to jail for it, that’s for sure, if he hadn’t saved the state the cost of a trial.”
I want to know more but am frustrated by one of the senior partners walking up to talk to Kelly. Owen arches an eyebrow at me as I pull out my phone and quickly type a note to myself with details about what Kelly told us. I’ll have to research it later.
Yes, I have a good memory, but I’m not an idiot.
If for no other reason I want to talk to Susa and ask, for my own peace of mind, if she’d ever been victimized by the creep.
In fact, I’ve almost forgotten about it by the time the three of us finally get out of there two hours later. Owen is driving tonight, and I turn in the passenger seat to glance back at Susa.
“Guy we talked to tonight, Kelly Fortuno. Said he used to go camping with you and your dad sometimes.”
Her brow wrinkles. “I think so. Why?”
“He started to tell us an interesting story, but we got interrupted. About a guy who killed himself one time while you all were camping. Do you remember that?”
Her eyes widen. “Oh, my god. I haven’t thought about that in years.”
“So it did happen?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“What was the guy’s name? The guy who killed himself.”
“Wheedon. Martin Wheedon, I think.”
“Morgan?”
“Yeah, that’s it. Morgan Wheedon. Why?”
I’ve already pulled my phone out and am adding info to my original note. “He said the guy got a teenaged girl pregnant.”
