Agent Huebner reached over and turned on a recording device. It was quite small, smaller than the tape recorders I’d seen in catalogues. “What’s that?” I said.
“This is a tape recorder, well, not really a tape recorder: everything’s digital nowadays,” said Agent Huebner. “It’s a digital recording device. You’ll need to start talking when I tell you.”
“Oh,” I said. I was still getting used to this situation, and the room. “Could I have another glass of water?” Agent Belken looked at me as if I was dirt; Agent Huebner looked at him and nodded, so Agent Belken took the glass and left the room.
Agent Huebner pushed a button on the recorder and said “This is Agent Michael Huebner, on site taking answers from person in question Randall Owen, who was strongly suspected to having gained contact with the Lovely cartel upon entering the Lovely Chocolate Factory at 13:30 hours, earlier today. Mr. Owen, did you have any contact with any members of the Lovely cartel?”
I let this question sink in for a moment, and leaned towards the recorder and said, “What’s the idea of putting a gun to my head?”
Agent Huebner grabbed the recorder, looking frustrated and pushing buttons to erase what I said. “We’re not going to make much progress if you continue to act this way, Mr. Owen.”
Agent Belken opened the door and entered the room with my glass of water. “Don’t give him that,” said Agent Huebner. “Mr. Owen has decided to become uncooperative.”
“Oh, he has, huh?” snarled Agent Belken. He looked as though he was going to jump across the table and bite my head off, when Agent Huebner said, “I’ve got a few questions to ask him, and if he doesn’t give me the answers I want, you can have him.”
“Gooo-o-o-ooood,” murmured Agent Belken. “I’d like to make him talk.”
“Mr. Owen, you’d better learn to cooperate, and I mean fast, because if you make me lose patience, Agent Belken is known to be, well, somewhat uncontrollable. The bureau doesn’t really know what to do with him; they have to keep covering his tracks.”
Now I had seen enough cop shows to know the “good cop/bad cop” routine and could see that I was being “played” at the moment. In reality, the authorities can’t touch you in a questioning situation, but on the other hand, they can’t just kidnap you, either.
“What’s with the hood and cuffs … and gag? Why didn’t you just ask me to come with you?”
“We’re under time constraints, Mr. Owen. We think the cartel is moving to put a ‘hit’ on someone, and a little birdy said you’ve set somebody up. We’ve detected activity in the underground, and so far all evidence points to you.”
He turned the recorder back on. “Mr. Owen, did you order a hit today on anyone?”
Me order a hit? I almost started to defend myself, but thought about where this would lead. Instead, I said, “Today, I went to visit the Lovely Chocolate Company’s board of directors, to speak with them concerning a family I know, and for the good of the reputation of the company.”
“What are you, a lawyer?” sneered Agent Belken.
“No, I’m an engineer, working for the company Root and Bonham. I called the chairman of the board, Mr. Hal Ostrander, and was given three minutes to air my concerns, which I did.”
“What’s your concern about their chocolates?” Agent Belken muttered. “You don’t like companies making an honest profit? You some kind of communist?” he growled, getting closer to me on my side of the table.
Even though I was seated, I leaned backwards in my chair, bumping into the silent officer behind me. “No, I’m not a communist and yes, I do like the idea of companies making a profit from their hard work, in a fair and open competitive system. But my concern wasn’t for the immediate financial welfare of the company as much as it was for the family I was represent--“ I cut it off. Maybe I’d said too much.
Agent Huebner smiled and said, “This family you were represent--ing, are they somehow involved in the planned hit? You’d better talk fast, Mr. Owen; someone’s life may be at stake!”
Yes, how well I knew that Dr. Franklin Burke’s life was at stake, but I also knew the cartel gave me a gag order; if I talked, they might go after people I cared about. If these officers let me go, maybe I could still warn Dr. Burke!
“The only people I saw were members of the board. I told them my concerns, and they responded.”
“What did they say? Did they order the hit?” asked Agent Belken, the bad cop.
“There was no talk of a hit, and really what they said is none of your business.”
Agents Huebner and Belken looked at each other; Agent Belken grinned. Agent Huebner said, “Okay, I’ve tried to be nice about it. Agent Belken, he’s all yours!” Agent Huebner stood up and away from the table while Agent Belken sat down directly in front of me.
Taking the recorder and sticking it near my jaw, he said, “You better tell me what I want to hear, and if there’s any resistance, any at all, we’re going to trump up some charges and throw you in the slammer, with some not-so-very nice people. You wouldn’t like that, would you?”
I shook my head in the “No” manner and said, “What would you like to hear?”
“We want to know who you met and who you saw in the cartel and any information they told you concerning a hit. Tell us what we need and we’ll let you go; toy around with us and you’ll rot in Cellblock Lovenest.”
Miss Planter. Miss Planter. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “I went in to the Lovely Chocolate Factory to speak with the board of directors, and their response was this: nothing. They didn’t say much. It’s probably their practice not to share information with visitors at board meetings.”
“What did you want with the directors? Be specific, now!”
I took a breath, and said, finally, “I was concerned that a young woman, Miss Susan Lovely, granddaughter to Cornelius Lovely, was having an affair with a married man, which would be a public relations disaster for the company, and which would also wreak havoc on an innocent family.”
“Whose family? Who is the man in question?”
I’ve already given his name to the cartel. What could it hurt if I gave the name to the cops? They don’t know he’s the murder target. “His name is Dr. Franklin Burke. He’s married to a lady with whom I went to college, and they have four children.”
The two agents looked at each other again. “Oh, I see, now,” said Agent Belken, looking back at me. “You went to school with his wife. Bet she’s somebody you’ve had your eye on for a long time, now. So you asked them to put out a hit on Dr. Burke, and with him out of the way, it would be easy for you to play pattycake with his wife and become the new daddy to those four ….!” He never finished because I tried standing up, but was pushed back down in the chair by the large officer behind me. Agent Huebner started laughing. “Oh, Mr. Owen, touchy-touchy!” he said. “I can see we’ve hit a nerve with all this ‘hit’ talk!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, and you shouldn’t have said that.”
“You’re acting like a man under a lot of pressure, Mr. Owen. And come to think of it,” continued Agent Belken, “you’re looking awfully familiar to me for some reason.”
Agent Huebner interrupted, saying, “Don’t you know the cartel used Lovely Choclates back in the cold war to deliver microfilm to our enemies? And that they’ve smuggled diamonds and precious jewelry out of the country, covered in chocolate and delivered in gift-packs to communist dictators and third world banana ‘People’s Republics’? Don’t you love your country? Don’t you want to help us? These are international thieves; don’t you want us to nail these cutthroats?”
I sat there, trying to regain my senses. “Yes, I love my country, but I met with the board of directors and told them my concerns. They didn’t respond to anything I said. They didn’t listen, which is probably their practice with outsiders. I failed. That’s what I do. I’m good at failing.”
Agent Huebner said, “We have a record of a ‘
Mr. Smith’ talking to the board of directors, but not a ‘Mr. Owen.’ How do you explain that?”
I took a breath, but before I could say anything, a cell phone went off, and Agent Huebner reached for the phone on his belt and answered it. He looked at the officer behind me with a surprised look on his face. He then looked to Agent Belken and said, “It’s over. It’s taken care of.”
They picked up the recording device and started to leave the room. Agent Huebner, when reaching the door, hesitated and turned to look back at me and said, “You didn’t fail, Mr. Owen,” and shut the door.
I sat there, wondering what he was talking about, wondering how much he really knew. I went to the Lovely Chocolate Factory in disguise; how did they connect me with this? Maybe the same contact at the police station, the one who gave my name to the mob, also dropped a dime on me to the FBI? The big officer behind me must have had pity on me because he put the glass of water back in front of me, and I drank it. “Thanks,” I said.
“You velcome,” he said, with a thick Russian accent. I looked up at him. His name badge read “Agent Carter.” Agent Carter with a Russian accent. “What’s going on?” I heard myself say.
Agent Belken walked back into the interrogation room, carrying a large, flat box, with a beautiful cover, about the size of a board game under his arm. He placed it on the table gently in front of me, and turned to walk back out. “For Karen Planter,” he said, with his back turned to me.
“What the heck?” I halfway asked.
He had placed a box of Lovely’s Assorted Chocolates in front of me, the largest gift box that the Lovely Chocolate Company offered, which must have been in the $500 dollar range. Nobody in the blue collar world could afford this stuff, so how could government agents? I ventured to ask that very question, and said, “How did you FBI agents get this stuff? Confiscation?”
“You’re free to go,” said Agent Belken. “Your car was brought here and is in the parking lot, towards the back, of course.” The large Russian/Agent Carter helped me up and to the door. I walked out into the hallway, carrying the box under my arm. These three agents walked me down the hall towards a large reception area, an area which somehow seemed familiar.
I had seen it earlier that day! We were in the Lovely Chocolate Factory! I was being ushered out the back way towards the back parking lot! I noticed that all the receptionists and secretaries were keeping their heads down, as though they didn’t want to see what was walking through the room.
When we reached the door to the parking lot, I said, “You’re not FBI!”
“That’s right,” said Agent Huebner, holding the door open.
“You’re….!” I stopped myself.
The three men laughed. “That’s right.”
Then… while walking towards the parking lot, all sorts of questions went through my mind. “What was that all about? Why did you bring me back here? Why the treatment?”
The men stopped to look at me. I immediately looked down at the sidewalk; I didn’t want to recognize them, or to remember them, and I wanted them to know that.
“I guess we owe you that, Mr. Owen,” said “Agent Huebner.” “We wanted to see if you would crack; we wanted to see if you would tell the world about us.”
“I don’t know anything about you,” I said. “All I know is I met with members of the board.”
“You’re a smart man, Mr. Owen,” said “Agent Belken.”
“Answer me one more question, if you would,” I said.
“Only one?”
“Well, maybe two.”
“Shoot.”
I looked around, making sure nobody was holding a gun on me. Agent Huebner said, “Just a figure of speech, Mr. Owen. I meant ‘go ahead.’”
“Do you still deal in gems, microfilm, illegal smuggling?”
“Agent Huebner” laughed. “Mostly we deal with chocolate, Mr. Owen. Sometimes we have to smuggle it across borders to avoid tariff and taxes, and we always get it into the hands of paying customers, who are among the wealthy, and many times high up in their respective governments. Most of our gem and microfilm smuggling went out with the Cold War, and we quit running drugs and munitions a looong time ago. It was too risky and caused bad public relations. But everybody likes chocolate, especially ours.”
I thought that “Agent Huebner” enjoyed talking, or else he was really proud of his work. I nodded as he spoke; it acted as a pump to keep him talking.
“Did you know our chocolate is used as currency on the black market in some countries?” he said. “It’s like cigarettes in jail, used in trade. In some parts of the world, it’s traded for food, wheat, land; the list is endless. We’re not just making chocolate, Mr. Owen, we’re printing money!”
“Wow,” was all I could say. “A mint!”
“Da,” said “Agent Carter.” “And ve put mints in our mint!” He laughed at his joke.
“What was your second question, Mr. Owen?” said “Agent Belken.”
“Earlier when ‘Agent Huebner’ took his phone call, what was -- ‘taken care of’?”
We had reached my car, far out at the end of the parking lot. They opened the door for me, and I got in. “Agent Belken” leaned over the driver’s side door and said in a grim voice, “Dr. Franklin Burke, he’s been taken care of.”
I was too late.
Destruction
The “special agents” left me in my car, so I felt it was time to put as much distance between myself and the Lovely Chocolate Factory as possible. I headed straight over to the West Side of town, to the neighborhood of Dr. Franklin and Helen Ceraldi-Burke. Turning on their street, I could see lots of cars lining the road, and police cars in the Burkes’ driveway to the courtyard. There were people who were coming out of their houses, neighbors walking over to the Burkes’ front door, an unusual sight in a suburb where the mansions were spread so far apart, where you wouldn’t think the neighbors knew or cared about each other; maybe Dr. Burke had made free house calls? Driving slowly down the street, I could see movement in the distance at the Burkes’ front door, and then saw Helen being escorted out by two policemen. She was crying, and they were holding her arms and shoulders, supporting her on either side while walking out to a squad car. Surely they didn’t suspect her in any wrongdoing? They must have been taking her down the station for questioning, or to the morgue for identification purposes. Traffic was so congested that the police car left before I reached the house. Seeing a few neighbors walking back to their homes, I called over to one of them:
“Excuse me! Can you tell me what happened with the Burkes?”
An older lady stopped, and said, “Oh, it was terrible. There was an explosion; Dr. Burke’s car was blown up over at the hospital, and it's still burning. The fire department is there, and I heard one of the police say it’s a total loss; nobody could have survived it. By the time firemen arrived, the fire in the vehicle was burning out of control; they’ve decided to wait and let it burn itself out.”
I asked, “Do you know where they’re taking Mrs. Burke?”
“No,” she said, “Dr. Burke had told one of his workers that he was going home for the day, and then this happened! Poor Mrs. Burke, they seemed like such nice neighbors. Did you know them?”
“Yes,” I replied. “I went to school with them. Where are their children?” I asked.
“Oh, Mrs. Burke has plenty of siblings in the area; they’re all with their aunts and uncles. I heard they were still in school when this happened, and the police contacted each one through the different school administrations. Most of the neighbors will be here if they come back home.”
“Thank you” was all I could say, and I drove on, still being slowed by traffic and rubberneckers. Dr. Burke may have been a minor celebrity in town, since he’d been seen by many of the sick, was known at the hospital, and had hobnobbed with society’s upper crust. Since there was more traffic appearing behind me, I left, not knowing what to do, where to go. There was nothing I could do here.
&nbs
p; I drove downtown to police headquarters and parked in the visitors’ parking lot, and stayed outside for awhile, looking for evidence of Helen doing a perp walk, but didn’t see any signs of the media; usually they’d be tipped off if there were to be an event. I entered the police building and spoke with the desk sergeant. He was an older gentleman, wearing a name tag reading “Sgt. Bechen,” probably past his prime and so took this assignment; he couldn’t tell me much, but did offer me some candies at the desk. I made a little small talk with him, gave him my phone number and asked him to call me if he managed to see Mrs. Burke come in. He must have seen my concern because he turned to a busy-looking policeman, who was hurrying through the lobby area, about Helen Ceraldi-Burke. The hurried officer said they had taken her to the hospital to identify the car, in case someone switched license plates, and maybe to identify the body, but doubtful there’d be much to ID. I thought to myself, “Why couldn’t this wait until later? Why would they do that?”
In the television shows, police always look first to the people closest to the victim, and if that’s the case, this may have been shaping up badly, into a wrongfully accused situation. Maybe they were hoping to get her to talk, to say something that would give them reason to book her.
I thanked Sgt. Bechen and left, deciding I didn’t want the police to drag me into this. All I could think about were those kids, those poor kids. What else could I do? If it came down to it, I suppose I could spill all the beans to the law, tell them the whole story, if indeed Helen was charged with a crime. But then, what about the people I love? The cartel already knew about Miss Planter. They’d know who talked; it wouldn’t be hard for them to backtrack the information to me.
It was getting late and so it was time to drive home; it had been a long and eventful day; I was tired and had to re-group. Home would become the base camp; I’d have to see what I could do from there. So I made the slow drive across town in the dark, trying to take the side and back roads; the drive helped me to think. How would this all work out? What steps would be necessary to keep Helen’s name clear? She did have an education, but she married soon after college and had no time in the military; her records would show that. She had no background in munitions or explosives unless she’d excelled in chemistry; she had been an excellent student. Plus, a female wouldn’t kill her husband using anything as crude as a bomb. Women used poison or guns, but not explosives; it’s too dangerous; they might blow themselves up! On the other hand, the cops might say this was a ‘hit,’ that she had hired somebody to kill Dr. Burke. Helen was always paying someone around the house: the maid, cook, gardener; it wouldn’t be anything for her to pay a murderer to “erase” Dr. Burke. And if it came out that Dr. Burke was having an affair with a younger and richer woman, that would give the police a motive. Things were looking worse for Helen; by the time I reached home, I was thinking what an easy time a district attorney would have in pinning this on Helen, a scorned wife and the mother of the victim’s children. If the tabloids got wind of this, and they would thanks to the celebrity/model Susan Lovely, headlines would read “Spurned Older Wife Bumps off Playboy Doctor-Husband,” with pictures of Helen, Dr. Burke, and Susan Lovely, a love triangle. The internet would take this and make it go viral, spreading this story around the world. Courtroom accounts would follow, and after all the dust had settled and sentences handed out, different versions of television movies would be made of this, along with interviews on daytime talk shows, where one of the innocent parties, Susan Lovely, would be promoting her book, a tell-all, and how she didn’t know that Dr. Burke was a married man, which might be a hard sell, seeing how he had four kids.
The Lovely Chocolate Mob Page 20
