***

Normally, Gordon Bauer would have filled his lungs with the briny sea air the instant he stepped out of his house. Normally, he would have checked his wristwatch, his favorite possession, after locking his front door. He would have greeted everyone he passed on his way to City Hall with a broad smile and cheery hello. Normally, he would have stopped after crossing the footbridge to decide which route to take to work. But not that day. With his head down and his face tight, Gordon hurried directly to his office. 

The walk from his house on Newbold Square, over the Turtle walking bridge, and into the City of Rehoboth should only take twenty minutes. However, Gordon gave himself an hour. Since his first day as a city councilman, he had never walked the same route twice in a row. Instead, he varied his trip, sometimes taking him far out of his way, which was most days. His goal was to greet any residents who were out and about, giving them a chance to speak with their councilman. 

Gordon was one of five city council members in Rehoboth Beach. He’d been elected for five consecutive three-year terms, serving almost fifteen years. He liked the position and worked hard to make the city a better place. However, this year he decided to run for mayor. In his view, the current mayor was more focused on his personal interests than of the city. Even though Mayor John “Ziggy” Jackson had deep pockets, the race felt tight. But yesterday, after finding the note taped to his door, the race had to be closer than he imagined. He hurried up the stairs and into his office in the city council room. He tossed the note on his desk and paced the small office. 

City council offices were toward the front of the building. The office was one large room with a conference table, four cubicles along the back wall, and a semiprivate office near the entrance for the senior council member. There were windows along the outside wall that overlooked Third Avenue, which was nothing more than the driveway from Rehoboth Avenue, alongside City Hall, leading to the parking lot in the back. 

Gordon sighed. He wasn’t sure what to do next. He stepped over and looked out the window. His face wrinkled when he saw a man chasing a small cat with a shovel. Every time the man slammed the rusty blade down, the kitten jumped, barely evading being flattened. 

Gordon bolted. He wasn’t a cat lover. In fact, he never had a pet. But there was no reason for someone to kill an innocent creature. He raced down the hall and out the back door. He heard the sharp smack of the shovel and then saw the small ball of fur dart around the man. 

“Hey! STOP!” Gordon shouted and waved his arms. “What are you doing?” 

“What?” The man, wearing a Sussex Waste Management shirt, turned and frowned. The cat sprinted around him and took off down the Third Street driveway. “Who are you?”

“Senior Councilman Gordon Bauer. What the heck do you think you’re doing? You could have killed that kitten.”

“I thought it was a rat. Besides, it was eating out of the dumpster.”

“When was the last time you saw an orange-striped rat with a tail like that?”

“Why do you care? It’s just a stray.”

“There’s no law against stray cats in Delaware. But there is a law against assaulting them.” 

The gruff man belched and tucked the shovel onto the side of his trash truck. He got in and backed up fast, forcing Gordon to jump away. The truck lurched to a halt and jolted forward, its two hooks clamping down on the dingy brown recycling dumpster. It lifted the box and dumped the contents into its belly with a crash.

Gordon spun on his heels and marched down the driveway to the front of the building. As he walked, he examined a row of low shrubs that lined the drive between the curb and the building. When he reached the front of the building, there, under the shrub closest to the front door, were a set of eerie green fluorescent eyes glowing in the shadows.

He stepped closer, but as he reached the shrub, the sparkling eyes blinked and disappeared. Gordon stepped closer and squatted. A few yards away, behind the safety of another shrub, the iridescent eyes stared back at him. The tiny cat was chewing on a square of white paper.

Standing, he took a step toward the creature, but the tiny thing dropped what it was chewing and trotted off. He leaned down to pick up the abandoned paper and followed the animal to the end of the building. The kitten bolted across the parking lot to the trash dumpster and vanished behind it.

Gordon slowly followed. He stopped and peered behind the recycling dumpster. The cat, which wasn’t much bigger than a softball, was sitting in a box beside the trash dumpster. The carton looked like it had fallen out and split open. The cat blinked at him and chewed on the edge of the packing tape that had peeled away. As Gordon approached, the cat blinked again, meowed mournfully, and then scurried away. 

Gordon peered around the dumpster and over the half-wall that housed the two trash containers. He knelt to look around, but the cat was gone. He stood and brushed off his knees, then went to the box the cat had been sitting in. One corner was banged up and the box was split open.

He picked the carton up to toss it back into the dumpster. Some of the packing tape had been torn off, including the label. Through the split top, he saw that the carton was filled with papers that should have been tossed in the recycling bin. He pulled open the top flap and stopped. Printed at the top of the first sheet in bold black letters was City of Rehoboth Beach Official Absentee Ballot.

He pulled out the top sheet and read it. It was an absentee ballot, with the box next to his name filled in with black marker. The next thing in the box was the opened official outer envelope with the name and address of Dale James Adams printed on it. Below that was a signature he knew well; DJ Adams was his next-door neighbor, campaign manager, and best friend. And yes, DJ Adams would be away at a conference on the day of the election. 

So why was his ballot and outer envelope, along with dozens of other ballots, in a box on the ground behind the rubbish bin?

Scanning the area, Gordon saw no one else around. He raised the lid of the trash dumpster and peered in. There, atop a pile of black trash bags, was an identical carton. This one had the packing tape and official label torn, but intact. He retrieved the box and revealed another stack of completed absentee ballots, along with the signed outer envelope.

Confused, Gordon fanned through the carton finding that all of the ballots had been removed from their outer envelopes. Paging through, he recognized many residents’ names. The common thread among these discarded ballots was that all had voted for him. 

He guessed that each box held maybe a hundred ballots. In a city with fewer than 2,000 voters, two hundred ballots could certainly affect an election outcome. He picked up the cartons and headed back to the building. When he reached the back door, he stopped. He darted to the side when he heard voices just inside. Slowly, he peered through the wired safety-glass window. On the other side of the door was a man standing at a table rifling through another carton of ballots. 

Mr. Milkowski, one of three janitors in the building, sliced open an envelope, removed the ballot, and placed both in a pile. He looked at the name on the envelope and checked a box on a list. Then he picked up a blank ballot and filled in the box next to Ziggy’s name. He stuffed it into a new envelope and sealed it. Milkowski filled out the name on the outer envelope, signed it, and then placed it in a box at the end of the table. He put the original ballot and outer envelope in a box on the floor. 

Not every ballot was put in the carton on the floor; some were placed in a new envelope and placed in the box at the other end of the table. Gordon watched the janitor, who had only started working a year earlier, fill out another ballot.

Pulling out his phone, Gordon opened the camera app, made sure the flash was off, then held it up to the window and started recording a video. He recorded for about a minute, with only the lens visible in the window. Then, just as slowly, he eased the camera back. Still recording, he stepped away from the building, making sure to record the door and building, thereby establishing its location. 

He was just about to go back to the door and do what, he didn’t know, when he heard a man yell.

“Milkowski, what the hell are you doing? Anyone could come through that door and see you. Do this in private,” the deputy police chief, Carlos Dumars, shouted. 

Not wanting to get caught, Gordon quickly stepped away from the door. He heard Milkowski respond, but didn’t make out what he said. 

“Take those out to the dumpster and then finish this somewhere else. And hurry,” Deputy Chief Dumars yelled. 

Gordon scurried over and hid behind the closest car. A minute later, the back door swung open. He pressed the record button on his phone and raised it just over the car’s fender. He watched on the screen as the janitor, wearing a city jumpsuit and carrying a carton, looked around before hurrying to the dumpster. He pushed the side panel door and hurled the box in. Before reaching the back door, it swung open again, and Deputy Chief Dumars stepped out. He too looked around before shoving the janitor in. 

“Now take the rest of them to the basement to finish. And hurry. People will be arriving soon,” Dumars said. 

He shut the door behind Milkowski, walked over to a squad car, and got in. 

Gordon turned off the camera after the squad car pulled out of the parking lot. 

He waited another fifteen minutes and when nothing more happened, he stood and casually walked to the back door. The corridor was vacant and the table was void of ballots. He pulled out his phone again and started recording. Starting from the door, he turned and walked to the dumpster, filming as he fished out the carton of ballots. He continued to record as he fanned through the ballots and envelopes. 

Gathering up the cartons, he hurried through the parking lot to the street. He stopped at the first open store and asked the teen behind the counter for a plastic bag.

“Sorry,” the teen said, blushing. “The city won’t let us give out plastic bags anymore.”

Gordon glanced around quickly. “Do you sell shopping bags?”

“Yeah, but they cost like three dollars,” he added.

“I’ll take one.”

“What color? We have some with seagulls or shells. There’s a big one with a sandcastle, but that one’s five bucks.”

“Fine, I’ll take that one.” Gordon pulled a ten from his wallet and tossed it on the counter. He stuffed the ballots into the shopping bag and hurried out.

“Sir, your change!” the kid shouted after him. 

Gordon couldn’t concentrate; the sandcastle shopping bag under his desk pressed against his leg. It felt like a time bomb. He needed to expose the ballot deception, but to whom? If Deputy Chief Dumars was involved, the chief would be as well. The two men were cronies and frequent guests at both of Mayor John “Ziggy” Jackson’s homes. 

Something else nagged at him. Mr. Milkowski wasn’t part of the boys’ club, he was sure. Ziggy only associated with people of status. Milkowski had only worked there for a year and a half and was one of three men who kept both City Hall and the police station clean. He was somewhere in his forties, had two kids in grammar school, and had only recently been awarded his green card. Getting caught tampering with ballots would get him and his family deported. And, besides, Gordon knew the man. He was kind, gentle, and a hard worker. He didn’t seem the type to break this kind of law. 

He needed to know why the man had done what he had. He locked his office with the ballots under his desk. First, he went out to the dumpster and found one more carton, this one only partially full. He carried it with him and headed to the maintenance office. As he turned the corner, Police Sergeant Dickerson, another frequent visitor to Ziggy’s mansion, was also heading to the maintenance office. Gordon slowed when he heard Dickerson speak.

“Put those ballots somewhere no one will find them. Then, tonight, after everyone is gone, deliver them to the voting commissioner’s office. Leave them in the corner like they were always there. And remember, if you tell anyone about this, you’ll be on the next plane to Poland or wherever you came from.”

Gordon wanted to record the scene, but he left his phone on his desk. Instead of stopping, he turned the carton over to hide the label and nodded at Sergeant Dickerson as he stepped out of the maintenance office. As he passed, he saw Milkowski looking at him and the man looked scared to death.