He guessed that Clinker was still smarting that Rob had won Clarissa’s heart fair and square back in High School, and that what he was doing was trying, all these years later, to earn some payback on Rob.
Even though they lived in a small town, and despite his wife’s avowed disregard, there was still prestige in being the Mayor and Harvey was running a beat up and run-down tavern that had seen its glory days back in the 1960s and ’70s under his father, and Harvey was the kind of guy who’d cut his nose off to spite his face.
Several times, for old time’s sake, Tony had let some infractions by the tavern slide. He was beginning to wish that he hadn’t.
The extra patrols worked because the Mayor’s Office and the Police Department had issued a joint statement issuing a warning, everyone in town took it seriously. Everyone save Harvey Clinker, of course, and a few hardened drinkers who regarded his tavern as a second home.
Why did Harvey Clinker act like that? Because Harvey Clinker was a weird dude. It was like he was under the impression that his excretions bore no olfactory load.
Obviously, he decided that he would keep his bar open using the “lock in” technique where certain people were invited to visit the tavern and locked inside the premises, safe, at least in theory, from prying eyes.
Clarissa had a number of excuses ready for Rob to explain her absences from the house, but to her relief, he never questioned her. Her relief was misplaced, because had she been capable of rational thought (her rational thinking processes, never first rate at the best of times were dampened by being in that psychological state of “the affair fog”) she would have realised that the reason that Rob didn’t ask her for any excuses or reasons as to her absences (during a time of lockdown, for goodness sake!) was because he actually no longer cared to know where she went or who she was with.
After several days of patrolling and issuing minor citations to people caught wandering the streets for no valid reason or excuse, the police scored big time when they found a fairly large crowd of people hiding within Harvey’s Tavern. At first, Harvey Clinker tried to face down the two patrol officers who had made the bust, but they reminded him that as they had “probable cause,” they needed no warrant, so he was forced to allow them in.
The fact that Mrs. Mayor was quickly trying to do her blouse up did not go unnoticed by the officers. And they both wore bodycams, which were recording at the time…
They put a call in for backup and for vehicles to take their several prisoners into the County Jail, which, as was often the case in most small American towns and cities, was part of the City Hall Complex which formed the local government hub for the town and the surrounding county. And just along from the Mayor’s office, too.
It was just after 2AM when Rob received the call that he had been both dreading and expecting. “Mr. Mayor, this is Chief Draper. We have launched a successful raid on Harvey’s Tavern.