“Typically I don't used the people and background search engines that cost money, but I tried a couple of them and still came up with nothing. It's as though she did not exist before her marriage. It seems to me she, or somebody, must have gone to some trouble to make sure her maiden name and place of birth is never mentioned in any of the articles about her. People generally don't go to all that trouble. At least, not unless there's something they want to hide.”
“What did you think of her when you met her? You said you had lunch one day after your introduction at the Yacht Club.”
He thought about it for a while. “She struck me as a lot more classy than the typical corporate wife, at least the few that I've met. She reminded me of you and the women in your circle. I took her for a real lady.”
She smiled and poured more tea, taking her time to get the milk and sugar portioned out just so. She pursed her mouth and said, “I thought so, too, at first. The first couple of times I met her, I took her for a strictly upper crust Southern Lady. Her accent sounds like North Georgia. I assumed she was from Atlanta. Since my husband is from Atlanta and we lived in Atlanta for a number of years after our marriage, I mentioned the names of some of the old denizens of Atlanta society. She didn't seem to know any of them.
“When I asked her where she was from, she told me she is from North Carolina. I don't believe that. She doesn't have a North Carolina accent, for one thing. For another, a very dear friend of mine lives in Winston-Salem. She's an old society battle-axe like me and her husband is a big shot in a tobacco company so she moves in both society and money circles. She knows everybody in inland North Carolina, and most of the piedmont as well. I called her and asked if she had ever met Marcella. She had not. I told her that Marcella claimed to be from North Carolina.
“She laughed and said, 'She's not from Winston-Salem society, I can tell you that without any doubt. To my knowledge neither she nor her husband ever visited here. They moved in the kind of circles I would have known about. Let me do some checking in other towns and see what I can come up with.' She called me back a few days later and said the nobody she knew had ever met Marcella or known her (or her husband) to even visit North Carolina.”
Ray laughed and said, “Miss Victoria, you should have been a reporter!”
She put down her cup and joined in the laughter, “That's what my son always tells me. In fact, he says it was my tendency to investigate things I found interesting that taught him how to run down a story. Nobody but he and I know that the story he wrote in college that won him a journalism prize and got him an internship with the Chicago Tribune was actually something on which I had done the preliminary research. I mentioned it to him one Sunday at dinner. He said he had an assignment to do an investigative piece and he asked if he could use it. He did a lot more research in addition to what I had done and he truly made the story his own. He has always told people I inspired him to become a reporter. He usually winks at me when he says that.”
Ray smiled at her, then leaned back and closed his eyes. “What have we got? Mystery woman marries Atlanta millionaire. About four years later he founds Techtron. I seem to recall they supposedly met at some kind of charity ball somewhere. Maybe we can start there. How did they meet?”
“Roland Wilson was from Atlanta. He lived there his entire life. His family was an old Atlanta family. They were blue bloods, at least on his father's side, but not exactly top tier, if you know what I mean. My husband was Roland Wilson's father's stockbroker. The elder Wilson was an attorney. He did well, but his success paled in comparison with his son's.
“When Roland started in business he came to Henry on his father's advice. Henry handled his investments for a few years. When Roland started to make a lot of money, he moved his account to a New York stockbroker who was known to be much more aggressive than Henry. After that we sort of lost touch with him.
“Roland's mother was not from a society family, but she was, of course, a member of the Junior League and very active in other charities in Atlanta, which is what you would expect of a woman in her station. The entire Wilson clan was expected to show up for her charity events. I know a lot of the older Junior League Sustainers, so I should be able to check out the when and how of their meeting -- that is, if they met at a charity function in Atlanta.”
“Okay, you check that out. If we can find out how she came to meet Wilson, maybe we can backtrack and find out who she knew before she met him.”
He continued, “What do we know about her after they met? We know that she was sort of with him all the way. They traveled together marketing his products and meeting with government and educational officials in a lot of countries. She seemed to be always at his side. Did she speak foreign languages? Had she traveled abroad before?”
Victoria made a face. He went on, “I'll check that out.”
They continued to run down the short list of what they knew and make a much longer list of what they didn't know. They divided up assignments.
As Ray prepared to leave, Victoria laughed, “I just had an idea. I need a haircut and my regular hairdresser recently informed me that he plans to retire. I need to find a new salon. Where did you say Marcella went to have her hair done?”
He gave her the name of the salon at St. Armands Circle. She made a face, “Pricey, but they do have an excellent reputation for color. I may just make an appointment.”
Ray laughed, “Don't stylists operate sort of on the same rules as priests? What women say to their stylist is confidential, isn't it?”
She nodded, “Generally, that is true. The stylist who does a woman's hair will typically not gossip about her if he or she knows on which side the bread is buttered. If you want to find out dirt, you need to talk to a stylist whose chair is nearby. Overheard information is often circulated.”
He started to shake her hand. She responded with a hug and a peck on the cheek. She said, “Plan to come by one morning next week. We'll touch base. Take care.” She paused and added softly, “And, please do not hesitate to call me if you need to talk.”
He kissed her cheek and whispered, “You may be sorry you made that offer.”
He headed straight for the morgue at the newspaper, and spent the rest of the day reading articles from the society pages of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. That world was a mystery to him even though he had covered many stories about society in Sarasota. He appreciated the wonderful charity work the women did, and he had always rather enjoyed the charity events he attended, perhaps by virtue of a sort of vicarious pleasure at being around the movers and shakers in his community, not to mention the terrific food.
As he pored through the articles, a general picture of Atlanta Society seemed to emerge, which he understood because a smaller, less complex version of it existed in Sarasota. The cities of the South had their own social pecking order which, at their core, harked back to generations past. In old Southern cities like Atlanta, the social hierarchy stretched back into the antebellum period. The true Southern aristocrats could trace their ancestry to various Confederate officers and gentlemen. The Social Registers of the South were maintained by those aristocratic families; admission was based on complicated rules that rested fundamentally on bloodlines.
Along side that “Social Register” society was the society made up of upwardly mobile people who had made money, mostly after the end of WWII, along with the huge influx of Yankees that started in the 1950's and reached a flood tide in the 1980's. That society was based more or less on financial position, although some ways of accumulating wealth seemed to be more socially acceptable than others. In addition to all that, the social standing of the families in the place of origin factored in as well. Ray couldn't quite follow all of the rules, but he had the sense that the two “societies” co-existed but did not really intermingle in places like Atlanta, at least not as much as they did in Sarasota, where the entire social circle was much smaller.
He surmised that Marcella Wilson would have been involved in the “r
ich” society circle as opposed to the social register set. He found very few references to her in the paper. From what he could tell, she and her husband attended certain high-profile events, such as charity balls, during what Ray thought of as their “glory years”. Marcella did not, however, appear to have been involved actively in any of the charities that put on the events. She certainly did not participate on the board of directors of any of the more prominent charities. Her name never appeared in any of the articles profiling the committees that hosted fund-raising events.
The only reference to anything she was involved in was one small article which mentioned that she and her husband joined Peachtree Presbyterian Church when they first moved to Buckhead. He thought that was interesting. According to its website PPC was the largest Presbyterian congregation in America. That would be just the kind of place people who wanted to have a church membership (because being members of a church is, even today, more or less expected of any respectable Southerner) but who did not want to get involved. He intended to check it out, but he surmised the Wilsons probably gave a sizable pledge to the church and only rarely attended services.
He stepped outside and called a friend who worked at the research desk for the Atlanta Municipal Library. She had started out as a reporter, but she was not a very good writer. When it became apparent she would not make it as a reporter, she got a job as a research librarian and was positively the happiet human being Ray knew. She was a fantastic researchser. He loved it when he could come up with excuses to call her because she was also a great gal.
After they chatted for a few minutes, Ray told her what he was doing and asked if she would be willing to look into the Wilson's local involvements. She laughed and said, “I can actually answer your question about their church involvement without any research at all. I am a member of Peachtree Presbyterian and I have been on the finance committee for years. I won't tell you how much money they gave; that would be a breach of confidence. I will tell you your guess about their membership is correct. The word on them was that they were sort of one of our fairly sizable group of 'record only' members. They gave a regular pledge, paid in one installment annually at the time of the annual stewardship pledge drive. They hardly ever attended services.
“The joke was that if somebody important was visiting or there was likely to be news coverage for some reason, we could expect some of those members to show up. Otherwise they did not attend services. The Wilsons did not participate in the congregation in any way whatsoever and they never gave money for any special purpose beyond their pledge except for once. The church needed a new piano for the choir room. They donated a very expensive grand piano.
Ray laughed, “Did they show up when it was officially presented?”
She said, “Actually, they did not attend the dedication of the piano, although an article about it appeared in the newspaper. The church acknowledged the gift in our internal newsletter, but did not issue a press release. We assumed the Wilsons were the source for that article. I thought that was odd.”
Ray asked, “Does the church have many members like that?”
She laughed out loud, “Oh, yeah, all the Buckhead churches have quite a lot of them. Rich people move in to Buckhead and the first thing they do is join a church. It's what people do in the South because, as you know, in social discourse one of the first things people ask is where you go to church. They maintain their membership in good standing by paying pledges (often very large pledges, for tax purposes) and attending just often enough to meet the minimum membership requirements. The other thing a lot of them do is to join a country club.”
She paused. “That's something you might want to check out. A lot of those Buckhead folks are a whole lot more active in their country clubs than they are in their churches. They play golf regularly and eat in the restaurants, schmoozing with the other rich folks. My guess is the Wilsons probably joined a club. Given their money and business contacts, I'm betting they weaseled an invitation to join the Buckhead Club. Let me do some checking around.”
He said, “I'm interested in her, not so much what the two of them did together. What I'm trying to find out is where she came from and what she did before she met him.”
She giggled, “You know how much I enjoy a research challenge. Let me dig around a bit. I'll let you know what I come up with.”
Ray decided to leave the subject for a while. He had Victoria and Karen Thompson looking into Marcella's background. He decided to focus some of his energy and efforts improving his current job performance. The first thing he did was rewrite the feature articles he had set aside for future reference. He realized that, since he no longer had a discriminating editorial staff to write for, he had gotten lazy. He decided to write with Victoria's standards in mind. His writing improved immediately.
For a few days, he followed a breaking story about a dust-up between the city and residents in one of the older neighborhoods concerning the enlargement (or not) of a water retention pond. It was exactly the kind of story he liked to work on when he wanted to show off. The story itself was boring as hell. He added all kinds of local color and polished up his best grammar. He turned in a very good article. He was amply rewarded. The next time he spoke to Victoria, she told him she enjoyed it.
Chapter 9
About ten days after his conversation with Victoria, Marcella called him on his cell phone while he was having a beer at the beach waiting for the sun to go down. They chatted for a few minutes. He asked her where she had been. She responded by telling him she had some personal business to attend to but did not divulge any details. She asked what he had been up to and he replied that he had been basically up to 'no damned good'. She laughed, but did not inquire further into what that involved.
After a couple of minutes, she asked him if he were still willing to have dinner with her; she said she would love to hear more stories about the local lore. He said he was about out of stories, but would be more than happy to have dinner. She suggested two nights hence and asked him where he liked to eat.
He laughed, “Mrs. Wilson, you would not be caught dead in the kinds of places I frequent. My idea of fine dining is a joint that serves draft beer in glass mugs instead of plastic cups. Some of the places I frequent don't even have draft beer. They serve their beer in bottles, and they don't offer glasses at all. I think you should make the suggestion as to the restaurant.”
“Since you told me you are a native Floridian, may I assume you like seafood?”
“I actually eat little else.”
“Have you been to Moore's Stone Crab?”
He laughed, “Yes. That is my 'special occasion place'. Birthdays. Outrageous celebration spurges. It's out of my price range for frequent dining, but I love the food.”
“I have not been there, but a number of people have told me it is good. Shall I meet you there about 8:00 p. m.?”
“That sounds fine,” he said, thinking that 8:00 p. m. was an ungodly late hour to start dinner. What was more, he knew they would probably have cocktails first and would not eat until 9:00 or after. He made it a point to get his weekly work turned in by Thursday afternoon. He was pretty sure he wouldn't be worth a damn on Friday.
On Thursday, he arrived a few minutes early and waited for her outside. She was delivered to the door in a black Mercedes driven by a uniformed chauffeur. She was in the back seat. For the umpteenth time it crossed his mind that she had some money somewhere, and he couldn't understand why the FBI hadn't looked into that, when there were still hundreds of millions missing from the Techtron retirement plan.
He opened the door for her and she stepped out. Before they entered the restaurant she stopped him with a light hand on his chest. She cleared her throat and said, “This is awkward, so I'm just going to blurt it out. Dinner is on me, but I don't want to embarrass you. I gave them my credit card information in advance. When we are finished, we can simply leave. You will be spared the awkwardness of sitting there while I pay, and I will be spared the awkwa
rdness of paying for a gentleman.”
He chuckled, “First of all, thank you for your consideration, but I have to tell you I don't feel the least bit awkward when someone, even a woman, offers to buy me dinner. And,” he paused, “I am by no means a gentleman, at least not in the sense I think you meant that comment.”
She looked at him with an odd expression but did not reply.
They were ushered to a table overlooking the water. The view probably would have been spectacular a little earlier in the evening. By the time they arrived, it was dark already. The inky blackness of the water, which ordinarily gave him the creeps, was offset somewhat by the twinkling lights along the coast. She asked if he wanted to order a cocktail or a bottle of wine. He grimaced. “I am strictly a beer drinker for the most part. Especially when I eat seafood. Please order wine for yourself, but if you don't mind, I'd rather have a glass of beer.”
She smiled. “Roland and I used to go fishing with a captain out of the Bahamas. The chef on his boat insisted on serving only beer with seafood. He could cook haute cuisine with the best of them and he made some amazing food-wine parings when he served meat, but said that real seafood should be consumed with only local beverages. In the Bahamas that meant water, tea or local beer. He said in France or California it is okay to drink wine with seafood if it is local wine and local seafood. I thought that was strange until the first time I ate grilled grouper and washed it down with a bottle of Red Stripe on the beach in Jamaica! Are there any good local beers here?”
“There are a few Florida beers, but most are strictly micro-breweries you have to drink on site. With seafood, I like Red Stripe or Kalik; I guess the Bahamians know how to make beer to go with all that seafood. To be totally honest, though, my favorite beer, period, is Yuengling draft.”
She laughed, “I love Yuengling!”
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