“As you and I suspected he would, he was trying to circumvent the lockdown regulations of the Governor. However, there’s a potential complication, your wife was there and she was obviously not being a good wife, I will put it no stronger than that, but the two officers who made the bust were pretty disgusted by her actions, I’ll say that much. You want me to let her go?”
Rob sighed. “No, Tony. I do not. I want you to process her the same as all the others you took in. She doesn’t deserve any special treatment, even, or maybe that should be, especially, because she is my wife.”
The next morning, Mayor Rob Mason was flanked by Police Chief Tony Draper and the City Manager, Andrea Hall, who were all socially distancing, as he held a press conference, via social media.
“Members of the press, you may already be aware that a group of people were arrested in the early hours of this morning by members of the Blandings Crossings Police Department at the premises of Harvey Clinker, Harvey’s Tavern on Cooke Street.
“You might not be aware, however, that my ‘wife’ was one of those people who were arrested there. All I will say is that my wife is a mature, grown woman and that she knew the legal ramifications of what she was doing. Along with the other people in those premises, she and they knowingly and deliberately flouted the law.
“This law was not enacted to stop people having fun, it was enacted to keep people safe from the Coronavirus. There are people in our community and all over this nation, the world, in fact, who are especially vulnerable to the effects of this virus. People who are elderly, have lung conditions like asthma, or diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease, who thoughtless, uncaring people like the folks at Harvey’s Tavern are putting at risk.
“They and my wife now face a potentially stiff fines and lengthy jail sentences. That’s just too bad, but they were all adults and they all know that actions have consequences.”
“Mayor Mason, are you going to divorce your wife?” asked Dave Peters, the editor, chief reporter, typesetter and advertising sales manager of the town’s sole surviving newspaper, The Weekly Reporter.
Rob gave an enigmatic shrug. “Like I said, Dave. Actions have consequences.”
Out of the 20 people who had been in the tavern, 16 of them, including the mayor’s wife, tested positive for COVID-19, and it was decided that they would be bailed out and allowed to live in the old hotel rooms at Harvey’s Tavern, as their families rejected the idea of allowing them home.
They cleaned the rooms up as best they could, and the Red Cross donated blankets and bedding to put on the musty and lumpy mattresses that had been left in the rooms for the past 25 years.
Clarissa begged her husband to allow her to come home. Rob declined saying: “I don’t have the virus, you do. I don’t want it, so you have to stay and live with your lover and his cronies.”
“But I want to come home” she sobbed.
“That’s too bad, Clarissa. Because like I told you, actions have consequences.”