The Voting Machine

By Dmitri Ragano

It’s election season in Las Vegas and someone is murdering voters. Two local activists from opposite ends of the left-wing/right-wing divide are killed inside electronic voting machines at Clark County polling centers. Temo McCarthy, a voter registration volunteer from Los Angeles, assists the FBI as they link the killings to a broader terrorist attack on the general election.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dmitri Ragano
• Release date: Sep 29, 2012
• ISBN: 9780988435209

Dmitri Ragano

Dmitri Ragano (@DmitriRagano on Wattpad) writes thrillers about unlikely heroes. His most recent novel is the family adventure The Fugitive Grandma. He is also the author of the Temo McCarthy mystery series including the books Employee of the Year and The Voting Machine. Originally from Pittsburgh, PA, Ragano lived in San Francisco and Tokyo before settling in his current home in Southern California. His varied career includes experience a journalist, a Japanese-English translator and an Internet entrepreneur. His Imagines episode was inspired by a stint as an entertainment writer, when he interviewed actor Ben Affleck and historian Howard Zinn. You can contact him at DmitriRagano.com or on Twitter as @DmitriRagano.

Book preview

The Voting Machine

Published by Dmitri Ragano at Smashwords

Copyright 2012 Dmitri Ragano

All rights reserved

ISBN: 0-6156-5940-3

ISBN-13: 9780615659404

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012942695

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

The Voting Machine: A Temo McCarthy Mystery

by Dmitri Ragano

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Exit Polls

Chapter 2: The Second World

Chapter 3: At Fault

Chapter 4: The Founding Father

Chapter 5: The Nightmare

Chapter 6: The Freedom Fighter

Chapter 7: Disenfranchised

About The Author

Acknowledgements

This book is dedicated to my father, Lawrence Ragano, who spent 30 years in Pittsburgh public schools teaching kids about democracy.

I would like to thank my friends, family, and fans who supported my previous Temo McCarthy mystery, Employee of the Year.

I would also like to acknowledge the author Matthew O’Brien, whose 2007 book, Beneath the Neon: Life and Death in the Tunnels of Las Vegas, provides an authoritative account of homelessness in the Las Vegas flood drains.

For more information, please visit:

http://www.dmitriragano.com

Chapter 1: Exit Polls

My father always told me that no good deed goes unpunished. Try to do the right thing and sooner or later, it’s going to bite you. Of course I hated to agree with anything he said, but in this case he had a point. I was in trouble again.

It had been a year since I’d proven my innocence and won the Employee of the Year award at Passion Financial.

I’d done this so I could live happily ever after with my wife Suzy and our baby daughter, Reina; except the happily ever after part never happened.

Just when I thought that I’d finally climbed to the top of the hill, I realized there was an enormous mountain right behind it that I’d never seen before.

I was alone and broke in a new city. I had left my hometown of Los Angeles to start over in Las Vegas. I was hoping I could find a way to stop hating myself for losing everything that ever mattered.

I wanted to be part of something bigger, so I volunteered in the election campaign of a bright, young candidate for Senate. He was a man with a name similar to my own, a man who talked about changing the country and helping all the people out there struggling.

So I worked as a volunteer to get out the vote. I started to care about democracy and justice. I wanted to be part of something more important than the dog-eat-dog, corporate world of Passion Financial.

I wanted to do something good.

No good deed goes unpunished.

The FBI agents came for me in late October, a week before Election Day. They knocked on the door of my week-to-week room in a motel on Sahara Avenue. They stood in the entrance, in their gray, government-issued suits, a white man and a black woman, Albert Decatur and Marguerite Polk, agents from the Las Vegas office.

They led me through the motel parking lot, past a rusty fire escape and the slot machines in the first floor lobby. Once we were in the car, they explained I was a person of interest in a double homicide.

We rolled through the blue-collar blocks of the city’s west side. This was a part of Las Vegas that the tourists never see. These were the streets where I’d pounded the pavement for six months as a voter outreach volunteer, talking to people in front yards and strip malls, trying to convince them to show out for my candidate in the upcoming election. Agent Polk drove while her partner sat beside me in the back seat. Agent Decatur was blonde with a freckled complexion. Their faces looked familiar to me.

I know who you are. I’ve seen you on the TV news, I said to both of them. You’re the agents who arrested the World Series Bandit.

They nodded like they’d heard this a thousand times in the past year.

That’s right, Decatur said. The World Series Bandit. That was our fifteen minutes.

The World Series Bandit was the nickname for a famous bank robber, a big deal in the news when I first came to Las Vegas in the spring. The city had its fair share of bank robbers, but the World Series Bandit stuck out as one of the more colorful characters.

He was a retired auto dealer who came out from Florida to follow his dream of playing Texas Hold ’Em on national TV in the World Series of Poker.

Within a week of arriving at the Strip, he lost his entire life savings in the casinos. So he began holding up local banks with nothing more than a pen and paper. He’d pass the teller a note threatening to blow the place up if they didn’t give him money.

The FBI finally caught him through a sting set up to look like a poker qualification round that might get him on cable TV. The World Series Bandit would now spend the rest of his retirement in federal prison.

Las Vegas was full of guys who took a chance and lost. Life is a gamble anywhere you go. When bets go sour, everybody has their own way of taking the loss. Some rob banks. Some get divorced. Some commit suicide. Some get hooked on drugs. Some disappear into the flood tunnels underneath the glamorous lights of the Strip.

I had plenty of bets in my own life that went sour during the past year. Once upon a time, I took a chance and tried to have everything that eluded my parents: a happy marriage, steady employment, a loving, secure environment for my family.

That was all gone.

So I had some sympathy for the World Series Bandit, because I knew what it was like to go after the things you want the most and come up empty.

Can you tell me anything about the murders? I asked.

We’ll let you know more back at the station, Decatur said. We’ve been instructed to wait until you meet the special agent in charge.

OK, I said meekly. Can you tell me anything now?

All we can say is that it’s related to the election.

***

The Clark County FBI headquarters sat like a fortress on a barren plain at the edge of the city of North Las Vegas. It was a pristine structure with the words Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity carved into the face of the building. These were all qualities I had at some point in my life. I was hoping I could get them back somehow.

Next to the building was a vast, empty lot. Beyond the stretch of desert sand littered with broken glass and abandoned shopping carts, you could see the Strip glittering in the distance a few miles south. It looked like a mirage but everybody here knew the reality. The Strip was the place where the money was, and North Las Vegas was the place where the money wasn’t.

Polk and Decatur led me to an interrogation room on the second floor where a trio of familiar faces awaited me.

Across the table, I saw Harvey Chang, Alex Weisbein, and Teresa Swan, people I knew through my old job in the call center at Passion. Chang and Weisbein were agents with the LA chapter of the FBI. Teresa was a former boss at Passion. She also left the company and was now working as a consultant for the Bureau, specializing in identity theft crimes.

Temo McCarthy, Agent Chang said. We never thought we’d see you again.

I shrugged. Here I am. I saw their travelling bags leaning against the wall. They had just arrived from LA. They must have been called here because they knew me. And that relationship mattered, because apparently I knew something about these election murders.

They still haven’t told me any details. They said I have to wait for the Special Agent in Charge.

Chang whispered something to the Las Vegas agents and they nodded.

We can tell you a little bit, Chang said. I am sure you’re pretty anxious to know something. There were two separate murders at polling centers in Las Vegas this morning. Both victims were killed inside the voting machine.

Inside the voting machine?

That’s right. They were in their booth, behind the curtain. They were just about to cast their ballots.

I didn’t hear about this on the news this morning, I said. As a campaign volunteer, I’d been checking every morning to see how things were going. Nevada had an early election law. This meant that polls were open for three weeks prior to Election Day so people had more time to vote. A pair of murders like this would be big news. It would throw the whole city into a panic. Are you holding this from the media?

The agents said nothing.

Why haven’t you shut down the voting centers? Why didn’t you tell people what happened?

There was another long silence.

We closed the polls while we checked this out. But we didn’t explain the reason.

You really want to keep this a secret?

You know how much is at stake, Temo, Weisbein said. Nevada is the swing state. The winner of the Senate race will tip the balance in Congress. This election will decide the future.

Of course I understand. That’s why I came here to Nevada. That’s why I did this. For the future.

This country is based on free and fair elections, Chang said. The minute people don’t feel safe casting their vote—

—this isn’t America anymore, I said, finishing his sentence.

That’s right.

I shrugged. Well you can’t keep a lid on this for long. Otherwise, you’re putting people in danger.

Voters need to feel confident in the law, Weisbein said. They need to feel like we can protect them.

But you can’t, I blurted out. I knew I shouldn’t have let that slip. I knew I was overstepping my bounds. But I was so mad I couldn’t help it. Two voters are already dead. That’s proof that you can’t protect us. You obviously have no idea who the murderer is. If you did you wouldn’t need me here.

The agents glanced aside weakly. They didn’t try to argue. They knew I was right. Then I grew nervous. Wait a minute. Don’t tell me I am a suspect. I had a feeling of déjà vu from the Employee of the Year investigation.

Teresa gave me a smile that would melt an iceberg.

Of course not, she said. But you knew the victims. They were part of the election campaign, just like you. You have information that could help us. The FBI is desperate, Temo. We’re racing against the clock. If we don’t find out who did this, it could spread into hysteria by Election Day. It could throw the whole country into a state of crisis.

Ok. Tell me how I can help.

We need to know everything about your time in Las Vegas, Teresa said. What exactly have you been doing here?

They call it GOTV, I explained. Get Out The Vote. I find people and help get them register for the election. Then I follow up and convince them to go to the polls.

So you’re in the business of persuading, Teresa said. Just like when you used to dial the deadbeats at Passion to pay their credit cards.

That’s true. When I worked in the call center, I had to try to get customers to pay their bills. Now I am trying to get them to do something that’s free and it’s much harder. People understand why they should pay off their debts. They understand the power of money, the way it can make or break your life. Voting is different. People don’t see the point.

Do they pay you to do this work? Teresa asked.

No, I am a volunteer. I’ve been living off what’s left of my savings from the Employee of the Year Award.

At that moment the agents were called away. Chang and Weisbein asked Teresa to stay with me while they received a briefing from the Special Agent in Charge.

Temo, I am here because the FBI asked me to help with this investigation, Teresa said. But I am also here because I care about you as a good friend. So I have to ask how this happened. What brought you to Las Vegas in the first place? You had a good life in LA. What made you leave your wife and baby daughter?

I didn’t leave them. They left me. My wife thought it was better if I went away.

I thought you guys had the perfect marriage.

There’s no such thing as the perfect marriage. You know that.

What about your work at Passion?

They fired everyone in the call center and shipped the jobs to India.

But you were best employee at Passion, Teresa cried. You were the best person. A kind man. A family man. You were the one we all admired.

I am not that person anymore, Teresa.

Teresa raised a hand to her temple, as if she had a sudden headache, but I could tell she was hiding the small tears forming in her eyes. It must have hurt her to see an old friend like me who had fallen so low. What happened, Temo? How did you lose the life you had?

I am really not sure, I told her.

But in my heart I knew the reason. I lost it all because that’s what losers do. Deep down inside a failure is always a failure even if he succeeds once or twice along the way. I saw this at the card tables when I went down to the casinos on the Strip. A loser might get a good hand of cards and play it right but this is just a blip. It just creates a false confidence that sets him up for bigger failures down the road.

This is what must’ve happened to the World Series Bandit and a million other losers in this town. They won just enough hands to forget who they really were. They would’ve been better off if they’d never succeeded at anything in the first place.

That’s how it was with me. Growing up there were no victories to savor. I was raised in a world where things didn’t go my way. In the past couple years, I had some big victories for the first time. I won the love of the woman of my dreams, my wife Suzy. I landed a regular job at Passion, a big fancy bank, and earned the Employee of the Year Award.

Looking backwards, I guess it was inevitable these dreams would fall apart. The legacy of failures would boomerang back into my life. Two steps in the right direction can’t set you straight if you’ve been going the wrong way since the day you were born.

Sooner or later, my past would kill my future.

My parents could never make thinks work. I don’t know why I thought I’d end up any different.

It all changed so fast, Teresa, I explained to my old boss. I had everything a man could want after I won Employee of the Year. I had a wonderful wife, a beautiful daughter, plenty of money. I had a purpose in the world. And I lost it all. So I came here to Las Vegas to begin again. My mother told me something once. She said that even when nothing’s working out, you can still be a good person. Sometimes that’s all you have to fall back on. So I guess I wanted to see if I still had it in me to do something good.

Teresa laughed through her tears of pity. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that no good deed goes unpunished?

Yeah, actually they did.

Chapter 2: The Second World

The FBI agents returned to the room with their leader, a muscular, gray-haired man with tinted, wireframe glasses and a thick scar covering his forehead. He was introduced as Emmanuel Stevens, the Special Agent in Charge managing the Las Vegas office.

Stevens sat down at the head of the table, looked me in the eye, and started talking without hesitation. He knew everyone else would shut up and listen to what he had to say. He was the boss.

Thank you for agreeing to come in and speak with us, Mr. McCarthy. You’re not a suspect in these murders, he said. He looked like ex-military but the eyeglasses also gave him the thoughtful air of a professor. I know our team from the LA office already told you this.

I’ll take your word for it, sir, I replied. I regretted this the moment the words slipped out of my mouth. It sounded sarcastic. It was not the right way to begin my relationship with the Special Agent in Charge.

Stevens noted my skepticism and addressed it head on.

Mr. McCarthy, I know you’ve been falsely accused of crimes in the past. I heard about the Employee of the Year murder trial in Los Angeles last year. This situation is a little different. For instance, we’ve already confirmed an alibi for you during the twelve hours up to the time of the killings in these voting machines. Agents Polk and Decatur have statements on the record from various neighbors in your motel, testimony that you were on the premises from seven p.m. last night until seven a.m. this morning when the murders occurred. Prior to that time, the polling centers were open with the machines in plain view and no one could have tampered with them without being seen by dozens of people.

He placed the copies of the reports on the table in front of me.

Thank you for showing me this, I said. I tried to help the cops in the past and they used it against me.

I don’t work that way. I knew you’d be concerned about cooperating with us after the way they treated you in Los Angeles. That’s why we went out of our way to document your alibi, so you could see the irrefutable proof of your innocence and be completely at ease. The truth is we need your help, he admitted. We’ve had problems in the past with elections in Las Vegas where the FBI was called in to investigate. But we’ve never had murders until now.

Stevens rubbed the scar on his forehead. It was an odd shape, like some blotch on a Rorschach test. It wasn’t a cut from a knife.

Since we’re asking you to share everything you know, Stevens continued, you probably want information from us.

I nodded. So far, nobody told me much of anything, I said.

That’s because they were waiting for me, Stevens said. I wanted to tell you directly.

Stevens proceeded to explain the details of the two voting machine murders.

Let’s start with the victim. The first man to die was David Stone.

I had a sinking feeling when I heard the name. It was the shock and sadness of irreparable loss when you realize a beloved friend is gone forever.

You knew him, Stevens pressed.

Sure I knew him. He was the field director for the Senate campaign I supported. We were both working hard for the Democratic candidate. I couldn’t help but choke up as I thought back on everything David had done for me since I came to Las Vegas.

"He taught me how to do voter registration drives. He taught me a lot of things. I was a mess when I first came to this town. He helped me get my life back on track.’

I’m really sorry for your loss, Mr. McCarthy.

Who was the other victim? You said I knew both of them.

His name was Zeke Legend.

This was a shock as well, though Zeke Legend was never someone I liked or trusted.

Tell us about him, Temo?

Why do you need me to tell you about him? He’s pretty well known in political circles here. He was the leader of the Founding Fathers, the group that supported our opponent, the Republican candidate.

You had some run-ins didn’t you?

That’s right. David and I were going around to different neighborhoods trying to get people registered to vote. The Founding Fathers didn’t want those people voting. They wanted to keep the turnout low in Las Vegas. They knew that would give the Republicans a better chance of winning.

Nevada’s a swing state, Stevens said. "So the elections are always close and Las Vegas is the main battleground. Things always get nasty between Democrats and Republicans in the general election. It’s our job to make sure they don’t cross the line and break any laws.

We’ve had investigations into problems with the voting machines for the past two election cycles. Four years ago, Republicans won a few key seats here in Clark County by less than a thousand votes. Democrats pointed to mysterious technical glitches. Witnesses testified about their experience with the machines in the polling booth. They said they saw Republican candidates check-marked on the touch screen even when they voted for Democrats. This led to a conspiracy theory about Globaltech. I am sure David told you about this because he was involved in the state hearings for an investigation.

David gave me the background, I said. Globaltech was a voting machine manufacturer and a major donor to the Republican Party. The company was highly secretive about the hardware and software design of its products. It refused to reveal the source code and other key technical details.

During the investigation, a few Globaltech engineers quit the company. Then they went on record, stating they designed the software so that certain lines of code could easily be inserted into individual voting machines to ensure a pre-programmed result. In other words, if you knew the code, you could make the votes come out of the machine any way you want.

I am sure David gave you the background about the time when his side lost four years ago, Stevens said. Did he tell you about the investigation two years ago when his side won the elections?

Yeah, he did.

"In the cycle two years ago, it was the Democrats turn to win a few closes races with the Republicans crying foul play over the voting machines this time.

"The Republicans claimed the machines were rigged by government-employed technicians, who belonged to a union linked to the Democratic Party. The Founder Fathers filed an official complaint, accusing public worker of sabotaging the voting process to skew toward union-endorsed candidates.

"Zeke Legend’s group put up a video on YouTube showing how easy it would be for a government-hired electrician to swap out memory cards, wiping out the real votes and replacing them with fake ones.

The FBI was involved in both investigations, said Stevens. There was no conclusive evidence of fraud in either case. But during that time, we got to know David and Zeke. We know they were both patriots, deeply committed to this country and the political process. They just had completely different ideas. So we’re really devastated that they would die like this.

I can’t understand why someone would want to kill them both, I said. This election is a big fight for the future of the country. David and Zeke were on opposite sides. I can see why someone might kill one of them so the other side could win the election. But why would someone kill them both?

Maybe the killer didn’t want either side to win. Maybe the killer wanted everyone to lose.

I don’t understand.

"Temo, I need to explain the circumstances of their death. What I am going to tell you must remain confidential. I am not going to make you sign any disclosures or make any threats. I am just going to trust you to keep this quiet based on what I know about your character.

The victims were killed by highly concentrated doses of a poison called ricin. Ricin is derived from a protein in castor beans. A dose the size of a few grains of salt can kill within hours once it enters the bloodstream. There is no known antidote.

How were they poisoned?

Someone booby trapped the voting machines. You know how the Globaltech devices work, Temo. Voters each receive a unique access card at the polling station. They go into the booth and insert the card in the machine. A chip in the card initiates a new voting session and each voter can make their choices on the touch screen.

I understand that. I had to train people how to use the machines as part of the registration drive, I said. But I don’t understand how the Globaltech machines could be used to poison someone.

I am going to get to that, Stevens said. "Stone and Legend voted in two different locations, in the neighborhoods where they lived. They were both early risers and had a habit of getting in early to vote in the week before the election.

When they slipped their access cards into the machines, something pricked their fingers, a tiny, sharp needle embedded into the surface of the card slot. It was hidden in a lining that would’ve been barely noticeable unless someone knew where to look. This needle by the card slot was coated with ricin. It was enough to kill both men within an hour.

Why were they the only ones killed by the ricin? Why didn’t it kill any early voters at the other precinct stations?

"Each voter gets an access card when they come into vote. The local volunteers check their registration and type in verification for each voter. The card is programmed with a unique code that it passes to the voting machine. This is to create traceability for every vote in case there’s an investigation. It’s a process the state put in place after all the accusations of voting machine fraud in the past two elections.

For some reason the card reader magnetized David and Zeke’s cards, it gave it a special charge like when you get a hotel key card. The reader has this capability, but it’s not supposed to magnetize the cards. This magnetization triggered the trap wired to the card slot in the voting machine, thrusting the needle forward to prick their hands and get the poison into the bloodstream.

So it had to be someone with access to cards and the machines, right? What about the election workers? After all they were the ones who gave them the cards, right?

"We’re interviewing them of course, but they’re just a bunch of retired volunteers with a few hours training. They weren’t in the building when the county technicians were setting up the equipment. They didn’t even know the card readers had the ability to magnetize. It must have been programmed into the reader software by someone who set the traps on the machines. The killer would have to know how to hack into the reader software. They would have to know about poison and electronic sensors. And they would have to have access to the voting equipment.

"The problem is there’s so many people involved in the process of running an election. There’s the state officials, the county workers, the machine manufacturers, the card reader manufacturers,