Baiting & Fishing

by Meredith Rae Morgan

  Ray paused to let both of them compose themselves.

  Then he said, “Question 2: did you know there were people from the Collonia organization in key positions at Techtron.”

  She thought about that for a while before she answered. Eventually, she said, “Yes. In fact, I recruited one of them. Roland wanted Techtron to hire good people with international experience. Aurelio had about the best staff you could imagine. A couple of them, for different reasons, wanted out of Aurelio's organization. I tried to help them. Aurelio was agreeable. In retrospect, it appears he was too agreeable.”

  “Did Collonia maintain contact with them after they joined Techtron?”

  “I was unaware of it at the time, but in hindsight, I'd bet on it. I would also be willing to bet they all continued to receive pay checks from Aurelio. He put people in key positions at Techtron to get the ball rolling on whatever operation he had in mind. I always thought there was something weird about the Techtron business. Looking back, I think it was all a front for a Aurelio's smuggling operation. If I had to guess, I'd say it was weapons.

  “I am sure you are going to ask me about the accountant who had an affair with Susan Steinholz. That was the first hint I had that something was not right. He moved in on her like a vulture. She was such a troll I doubt she had ever had a date in her life. He was kind of a dish. It was such an unlikely pair, it caused a lot of talk in the company. Even I heard the gossip. Since I knew him when he worked for Aurelio, it freaked me out. It didn't add up. But, I did not want to explore it in any depth at the time, so I ignored it. I guess that could be used against me, but it's true.

  “I think that what may have happened is that the Collonia plant put the bug in Susan's ear to undertake the accounting scam. Despite the high level of interest in the product, Techtron was not selling any computers for supposedly because of all the problems with the manufacturing plants around the world. Susan apparently fell for some kind of, 'Give us time to get this going' line, which prompted her to start cooking the books. Aurelio took the opportunity to set up a smuggling network using Techtron for cover. Once his network was established, the Techtron cover was unnecessary, and he let it collapse.”

  They were both quiet for a long time. Ray held her tightly. It was all he could do not to burst into sobs, but he forced himself to ask, “Who was in the hotel room when Roland died?” He was surprised at the way that question came out.

  “I have always assumed it was Aurelio.”

  He was shocked, “You knew it wasn't suicide?”

  She made a face, “First of all, Roland was terrified of guns. If he were going to commit suicide, he would have taken an overdose of pills or something like that. He would not have shot himself. Aurelio always carries a 0.22 handgun. Always. Everywhere he goes. It is his security blanket just as my blade is mine. Everybody who knows about it teases him about his 'sissy' pistol, but he never goes anywhere without it. He sleeps with it by his bed. When the police told me that Roland was killed by a 0.22, I knew that Aurelio killed him.”

  “And you said nothing?”

  She shook her head, and he could tell she was angry, “No! I didn't say anything. I believe Roland went to that hotel with the intention of committing suicide. I am positive as sure as I am sitting here Roland had never used drugs. I never saw him finish so much as one drink. He did not use drugs, ever. Aurelio found a sandwich bag full of heroine in his room. There is no doubt in my mind, Roland went there to commit suicide. The fact that Aurelio stepped in and made sure he didn't fuck it up, does not change that fact. So, no. I didn't say anything to anybody.”

  “You and Collonia discussed it?”

  “I confronted him after the fact and accused him of murdering my husband. He told me about the heroine.”

  “Did you believe him?”

  She shrugged, “I decided it was in my best interest to believe him.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means Roland was dead. He would not be going to jail. I could move on with my life, without having to have conjugal visits in the penitentiary for the next thirty years. I decided to accept Aurelio's story. Aurelio's version at least gave me the luxury of being angry with Roland for being a coward, which he was. It also gave me the 'out' of being the grieving widow instead of a convict's wife. I was angry with Roland for being an ass and for deciding to take the coward's way out. I confess, I was also relieved that the whole thing was over. Aurelio never actually admitted anything, but I have always assumed Roland's death was something of an 'assisted suicide'.”

  They were quiet for a while. It was getting late. They should have headed back to the marina, but Ray was not quite finished. He took a deep breath and said, “You told me at Christmas that if you double-crossed Aurelio, he would kill you. I take it you believe that.”

  “Ray, that is one absolute certainty.”

  “Do you feel you are in danger?”

  “From Aurelio?”

  “Yes.”

  “Absolutely. I have never for one moment allowed myself to lose sight of the possibility that Aurelio could turn on me at any time. Recall that Tonio was killed under mysterious (and unsolved) circumstances by a 0.22 caliber gun, and Aurelio thereupon inherited his father's fortune, his business and his wife. That has always seemed too pat and convenient to be a coincidence. If Aurelio could murder his father and then marry his step-mother, I have never doubted for a second I was completely expendable.”

  She paused for a long time, and then she said softly, “I guess the answer to the question as to whether or not I am in grave danger from Aurelio depends on whether or not I was involved in setting up Roland from the beginning.”

  Ray let that statement hang in the air without any comment.

  Eventually, just about the time Ray thought he would lose his mind, she said, “I did not set up my husband and I did not know what Aurelio was up to at the time. Recall that I thought Aurelio had gone legit for the most part. It appears from what we know now that Aurelio set up Roland, used his company as an entrée for Aurelio to make new connections for his arms dealing operation. Then, when everything fell apart at Techtron, Aurelio killed Roland, probably to keep him from talking to the feds. Roland didn't know about Aurelio or the smuggling operation, but he knew the customers. If he had cooperated with the feds, they might have been able to put to good use some of the information Roland had. For good measure, Aurelio apparently scattered about enough incriminating evidence to make me look as though I was part of the whole scheme. I am telling you I was being used as much as Roland was, but I know I can't prove it. What is more, I'm quite sure Aurelio has planted a plenty of evidence to incriminate me.”

  She paused for a long time, and rested her hand on his chest, over his heart. She whispered, “And so, it appears we are close to where we started. You possess some information that could be very damaging to me. The question is, what do you intend to do with it?”

  Ray pulled her closer and held her to him. He managed to croak, “I have no idea.”

  He cleared his throat and whispered, “Are you already working with the feds to get to Aurelio?”

  She chuckled, “You know that if I were, I couldn't answer that question, and if I'm not, it would not be in my best interest to tell you that either.”

  She put her arms around him, held him for a long moment and then kissed him, “It's time for us to go now.”

  He pulled in the anchor and started the motor. He couldn't look at her. She didn't look at him either. She stared straight ahead, dry-eyed. He could not read the look on her face.

  They pulled up to the dock only moments before dark and Ray started to prepare the boat for storage. Marcella made no move to clean the catch. Instead, she called to one of the fishermen nearby and offered to give him the entire catch if he would take it away. He accepted gratefully.

  After he walked away, Ray and Marcella were alone. She sat down beside him in the bow and put her arms around him, “Ray, you are such a fucking Boy Scout,
I know you feel duty bound to call the cops and tell them what you think you know. I want to say a couple of things. Please don't interrupt until I am finished.

  “First, I don't hold it against you. I really don't. It's the way you are made; you're a stand-up kind of guy. You believe the cops are good and the robbers are bad. You believe it is your civic duty to rid your community, which you value very highly, of unsavory characters wherever they my lurk, even if that happens to be in your heart. I admire you for that. I really do. I wish I had your sense of moral certainty. I wish I could believe that the police will always evaluate evidence in the correct way. I will confess to you that I do not believe that. Perhaps I have been scarred by too many years of living in a morally ambiguous world. I've seen too many guilty people get off and too may innocent people (or at least not-terribly-guilty people) go to jail, or worse.

  “I want you to know that our time together been very special for me -- life-alteringly special. Whatever you choose to do, I know it will be done with a pure heart and I forgive you completely.”

  He started to cry, and turned away from her. She patted him on the shoulder and kissed the back of his neck. Then she stepped up onto the dock and walked away from him without looking back.

  Chapter 24

  Once he felt he could trust his voice, he put in a call to Steve Johnson's work number from his cell phone. “This is Ray Bailey. I would like to talk to you as a follow-up to the conversation we had at Walt's a few months ago. Please call me at this number as soon as possible.”

  Next he called Victoria. He had never called her in the evening before. He regretted it as soon as the phone rang, and hung up. A minute later, she called him back. “Damn caller ID!”

  He picked up the phone and said, “Hello, Victoria.”

  She said, “What's up that you should call me and then hang up?”

  He didn't know what to say. His voice cracked and he tried, for the most part unsuccessfully, not to cry as he said, “I'm sorry. I guess I just wanted to talk to someone, and you were the only person I could think of to call.”

  “Why not call Marcella?”

  “It's about Marcella.”

  She paused and then asked, “Where are you?”

  “I'm at home.”

  “What is your address? I'll come to you.”

  “No. Please don't. I don't want to be a bother.”

  She made a sound in her throat, “It is not a bother when a friend is in trouble. Where do you live?”

  He gave her directions and she hung up. He felt like such an unbelievable dork. What was the matter with him? He had a good thing for the first time in years; why did he have to go screw it up by having some kind of moral qualms about the woman?”

  He paced the floor. He wanted to call Victoria and tell her not to come over, but he knew that would do no good. He wanted to prepare himself, to steel himself so he didn't cry and go all hysterical when she arrived; that would be a waste of time because he knew he was going to go to pieces the minute she walked in the door.

  He was still pacing when he heard her car pull in the driveway. Victoria did not have a driver. She drove her own 10-year-old Cadillac. He opened the front door before she rang the bell. She came into the room, and took over. She hugged him tight and said, “Have you eaten?”

  He shook his head. She went to the kitchen and rummaged around in the fridge. In an astonishingly short time, she had prepared a plate of sandwiches and crudités. She had the plate in one hand and two beers in the other. She asked him where he wanted to sit while they talked. He motioned to the screened porch. She handed him the plate and waited politely while he ate, sipping her beer and listening to the night sounds.

  When he had finished, she said, “I didn't press you for information before, but now I think I would like for you to tell me what you know. I won't tell anyone. But, if it is a contributing factor to making you into such a basket case, I feel as though I need to know in order to give you any kind of reasonable advice.”

  Ray filled her in generally on Marcella's history as she had explained it, along with the additional details he had just learned.

  Victoria put her arm around him and tried to comfort him, but there was little comfort to be had. The woman he had fallen in love with after so many years of being alone was definitely an international jewel smuggler, possibly a participant in a massive corporate fraud that left tens of thousands of employees broke and cost stockholders millions upon millions of dollars. She was potentially even a murderer. Victoria agreed with Ray that he had to go to the authorities, but she knew him well enough to understand that would be the hardest thing he had ever done.

  Somewhat to Ray's amazement, he did not cry and fall apart. He had done that earlier with Marcella. Now he felt drained and tired. He was afraid. He was afraid that (if he was wrong about Marcella's involvement in the Techtron scandal or in Roland Wilson's death) he had just thrown away the best opportunity he might ever have for love. He was afraid that (if he was right about Marcella's involvement in all that crap) he would have to spend the next months or years watching her life collapse again in public, and he would have to deal with the quizzical looks of his friends and colleagues who, thanks to Marcella's blabbing, all knew he was involved with her. He couldn't quite decide which was worse.

  He sat with his head on Victoria's shoulder for a while. Then he leaned back in the love seat and stared at the ceiling. “First, tell me what you make of the information I gave you about Marcella.”

  She pursed her lips and studied her hands, “I guess there is a sort of spectrum of possibilities. On the one extreme, Marcella may have been in on the Techtron scam from the very beginning. She seduced Roland, helped place Collonia's people in key places at Techtron. They planted the seeds for everything that followed, then they pulled out, but the groundwork was laid. Marcella at that point was the model corporate wife, but she may also have been placed there in order to keep Roland Wilson in line. When it all started to unravel, she opened an escape hatch for herself, which she failed to use. Did she fail to use it for the reason she gave you? Did she fail to use it because Collonia found out about it and stopped her? Or, did she fail to use it because the time had not yet come for her to need it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Maybe the escape was not to get away from the Techtron collapse as much as it was to get away from Collonia if she ever needed to do that? That's a wild guess....

  “Anyway, then somebody killed Wilson. I think it was suicide, with or without assistance. I think Roland Wilson would never have gone to jail. Did Marcella have a hand in his death? Somehow I don't think she did, although I feel certain that if she suspected what he intended to do when he left for Miami, she did nothing to stop him. She certainly benefited from his death. That's motive enough for murder and I could imagine a prosecutor scoring some points with that information. I'd also bet that if Collonia killed Wilson he also planted some evidence against Marcella.”

  She got up and went into the kitchen, returning with a pitcher of tea and two glasses. She poured them each a glass and continued, “Somewhere in the middle is the point Marcella would have you believe she occupied. She was a more or less unwitting recruit into Collonia's smuggling operation, but she continued to work for him until now. She knew about Collonia's operations, but closed her eyes to the parts that did not involve her. She was not involved with the Techtron scam but she suspected something was wrong; again, she did not look too closely. If we are to believe her, she is a sort of tool who was manipulated by Collonia for his purposes. I think that if she was more or less in the dark about most of the bad stuff, it was more due to her failure to look than due to anyone actively trying to hide things from her. That's certainly a possibility. People do that all the time.”

  She sipped her tea and closed her eyes, rubbing her forehead, and pinching her brow. “There is one other possibility. You have alluded to it. There is the possibility she could be working with the authorities to get to Collon
ia.” She smiled, “One could go crazy thinking up opportunities at which point that could have happened. Looking at the time line, there are a whole lot of places where the FBI could have recruited her. It sounds crazy, but it's the only thing that really explains why she wasn't arrested or at least investigated more closely. If that is true, then she is in terrible danger from Collonia.”

  He put his face in his hands, “If that is true, then I just threw her away for no reason.”

  She shook her head, “I wouldn't say it is for no reason. Even if you were willing to blink at the smuggling -- which I am not sure I think you should do because who's to say what she was really smuggling -- if there is any possibility she was involved with the Techtron business or, God forbid, murder, you have to go to the cops. She's right it is your civic duty to report crimes you know to have been committed. As a law-abiding citizen, I think you have to do it. I know you've turned people in before when you ran across evidence during your research on stories.”

  He nodded. “What do you think?”

  “I think whoever planted all that evidence for us to find did a great job of muddying the waters.”

  “What?”

  “Whether it was Collonia, the feds or Marcella herself, somebody has laid down a trail of evidence that is pretty amazing. It is damning enough to make me think Collonia did it in order to keep her from bailing out on his operations. It is ambiguous enough to allow for the possibility she is working both sides of the street. Most of all, it is impossible to draw any real conclusions from it.”

  “God, I've got a headache.”

  She stood up. “You need to go to bed. I am going home. When are you meeting with your FBI friend?”

  “I left a message on his work machine. I assume he'll call me tomorrow.”