Baiting & Fishing
Page 22
Chapter 22
One afternoon he received an email from Karen Thompson. The subject line read: “Important.” The message read: “Call me tonight after 8.”
He worried about that the rest of the day. Well before eight o'clock, he had his phone plugged into its charger to allow for a long conversation. He had a notebook out with pens ready. He sat in the dark, waiting for time to make the call.
At two minutes past eight, he called Karen's home number. She answered on the second ring, saying, “I just love a punctual man.”
He ignored that and said, “What's up?”
She paused. “This is another one of those I-have-no-idea-what-the-hell-this-means situations, although a picture is emerging. I have found some information that seems very interesting.
“Item One: I found out that Marcella Pappias did not exactly meet Roland Wilson by accident. She specifically asked to meet him. She knew he would be in Palm Beach that season, so she asked an acquaintance to get her a ticket to a ball because she wanted to meet him. Ms. Pappias apparently all but stalked him at the party until she could maneuver herself into a position to 'accidentally' run into him.
“Item Two: There were four key employees at Techtron who had previously worked for Aurelio Collonia.”
“What??!!”
“When Roland Wilson set up Techtron, his development team interviewed accountants and marketing people. In particular, they were looking for people who were familiar with international operations. Two accountants and two marketing people who worked for Aurelio Collonia interviewed for jobs and were hired. All four of them worked at Techtron for only a couple of years. They started at the beginning. They all four resigned after a couple of years, and well prior to any of the problems. By itself that means little, but it gets more interesting.
“Item three: Susan Steinholz, Techtron's comptroller, had an affair with a staff accountant, who happened to be one of the Collonia employees. Since Steinholz is generally considered to be the mastermind behind the accounting scam, I think that is significant. I wonder what kind of pillow talk was going on between those two bean counters!”
“Do you know what that employee did for Collonia?”
“He worked in the laundry business...the money laundering business.”
“Where did those employees go after they resigned from Techtron.”
“Where do you think?”
“Back to Collonia?”
“Yep.”
“Item four: The Ft. Lauderdale police debated about whether to classify Roland Wilson's death as a suicide or a homicide. The detective who was first on the scene still believes it was not a suicide.
“Last item: Apparently, in addition to the accounting scam at Techtron, there was something else going on. Techtron wasn't selling many computers, which was why the accountants were so busy creating fictitious revenue. Techtron was apparently really in the business of selling weapons. I'm not talking about Saturday Night Specials or sawed off shotguns. They were selling military matériel: artillery, tanks, helicopters and even planes.”
“Marcella mentioned she thought there was something fishy. She said she thought somebody was up to no good. She seemed to think there was smuggling going on.”
“So she knew about it?”
“She told me she suspected something was wrong. She said she did not like the looks of some of the clients. She said she mentioned it to Roland and he blew her off.”
Karen started out softly, tentatively, “I am guessing that Collonia set up Wilson. Wilson was going around talking about his plans to sell these cheap computers around the world. He was a high-society, do-gooder. An idealist. He made his money investing in other people's companies. He had very little experience running a business of his own. Collonia somehow maneuvered his way into Techtron, which he then used as a front for his own arms dealing business. Wilson and Techtron crashed and burned, but Collonia's operations went chugging right along. Techtron provided the initial cover Collonia needed to set up his network, but once the connections were made, Collonia did not need Techtron any more and let it collapse. I'd bet you Collonia is still dealing arms to the network established by Techtron.”
Ray asked, more to himself than to Karen, “Was Marcella a tool Aurelio manipulated also? Or, was she in on it?”
Karen added, “There's another question: Is she a murderess or is she in grave danger?”
“What do you mean?”
“If Roland Wilson was murdered, did she do it? He was killed by a .22 caliber pistol. That is generally considered a woman's weapon because it's small enough to fit in a purse. Did she kill him?
“Or, did Collonia kill him and try to make it look like Marcella did it?
“Haven't you ever wondered why she didn't just carry out her plan to go back to her former identity of Marcia Pappas and disappear? Why is she keeping such a high profile? And, I mean no offense by this, why did she take up with a reporter, of all people?”
Ray muttered, “I have, indeed, wondered about all of that, and more. Do you have a hypothesis?”
“I think she may be in terrible danger. I think she's keeping a high profile because Collonia may be after her. If she stays visible he may have a harder time getting to her.”
“Do you think she was part of the plot?”
“I don't think it matters whether she was set up as much as Wilson and then figured it out later, or whether she was in on the whole plot to begin with. She knows about Collonia's operations and his involvement. She's in a position to bring his whole operation down. She may have motive to do just that if she feels he used her and betrayed her. If he thinks for a minute that is what she has in mind, she's toast.”
“You think Collonia would kill her?”
“Ray, where have you been? Collonia is a smuggler, an arms dealer, an international mobster. He may not pull the trigger – although I have heard from more than one person that he has indeed pulled the trigger on more than one occasion – but, he has the wherewithal and connections to cause people to disappear under strange circumstances.”
They were both quiet for a while. Ray was torn between being furious at the possibility that Marcella was a liar and potentially a murderer who was manipulating him for some purpose he couldn't figure out, and being terrified that she was in mortal danger. His thoughts were interrupted when Karen dropped another bomb, “There is one other thing. It has bothered me from the beginning that I was able to find out all of this information on Marcella Wilson and nobody else had. I don't have any special sources. All of this information was a matter of record. Anybody could have found it. Why didn't the feds find it when they were investigating Techtron? I can't believe they investigated everybody else involved with Techtron and did not investigate her. Why didn't somebody else come up with this before?”
Ray sat up and said softly, “What if they did?”
“What do you mean?”
“What if the feds did uncover Marcella's secret? What if they're using her to get to Aurelio? What if they figured it all out early in the game and decided to use her as bait to get the Big Fish?”
He went on more to himself than to Karen, “If that is true then she was telling me the truth when she told me that every man she has ever met has manipulated and used her.”
He paused for a long time. Karen did not say anything. They both seemed to know the ultimate question. He eventually articulated it, his voice choked, “Which means do I turn her in to the cops as a potential murderess, smuggler and God knows what else, or do I keep her out in the public eye as much as possible to protect her from Collonia and hope to hell the feds get enough information to get to him before he kills her.”
She added, “Ray, this time I think you can't tell her what you suspect. If she was a part of it, it will cause her to disappear. If she is innocent and you imply you suspect she is not, she will be hurt and leave you anyway. I think we have reached the limit of what we can do with this by ourselves. I think it's time you tell what you know to the FBI. If t
hey already know it, then at least you've done your civic duty. If they have not figured it out, they're idiots, but again you will have done the right thing, and they can finish their job, hopefully before Collonia moves in on Mrs. Wilson.”
“You may be right, but that means I'll be turning on her, too, just like every other man she's ever known.”
“That is one possibility. The other possibility is that she has been the one pulling the strings. She has been a part of the Collonia operation for decades. Was Techtron her piece of the family business? Maybe she's been manipulating you with her sob stories about being manipulated and used by men. You could be her public cover.”
“How can I tell?”
“I don't think you can.”
They ended the conversation quickly. He sat up most of the night, staring off into the blackness outside the windows with a horrified look on his face . Around 3:00 a. m. he left a message on his editor's voice mail saying he had a stomach flu and would not be in to work that day. He went to bed shortly before dawn, but slept little.