Final judgment

FORTY-EIGHT

“Your ex-partner is doing well for a dead man,” Kelly said.

“But I was there,” Fish said. “At his funeral. I sat with his wife, Sylvia. She cried like a baby.”

“When was the last time you saw her?” Kelly asked.

“I stayed in touch with her for a while. The last time I saw her, she told me she was moving back to Minneapolis. She had a sister there who was dying of cancer. She went to take care of her. That was about six months after Wayne died.”

“Her sister died a year later. Sylvia inherited the house and still lives there. She works for a telephone call center and lives a quiet, modest life. She hasn’t remarried.”

“I can’t believe it. They had a place at Ten Mile Lake in Minnesota. Wayne was fooling around on his dock. He slipped, fell in the water, and got caught under the boat. Sylvia, she went looking for him. I’ll never forget what she said to me. It was a nightmare. She kept calling his name. Finally, she looked down in the water and there he was. Staring back at her. Drowned.”

Mason interrupted. “You’re saying this McBride faked his death. How did he do it?”

“It wasn’t difficult,” Kelly said. “His wife called nine-one-one and identified the body when the paramedics fished it out of the water. The coroner ruled the death accidental. No questions asked.”

“What about the body?” Mason asked. “Whose was it?”

“Mr. Fish?” Kelly asked.

“Who knows? He was cremated,” Fish answered, thumping his palm on the table. “Such a putz, I was!”

“You?” Mason asked. “Why? How could you have known?”

“I couldn’t have. It was a small funeral. Closed casket, which was fine with me. That’s not what I mean. Wayne owed me fifty thousand dollars from a deal we closed a week before he died. He didn’t have any life insurance. I felt sorry for Sylvia and I told her to keep the money.”

Mason turned to Kelly. “How did you find out that Webb was really McBride?”

Samuelson held his hand up. “We learned about that in our investigation. What’s important now is that Mr. Fish confirmed his identity.”

“I don’t like this,” Mason said. “If Avery asks Webb to hide his money, Webb will know that his identity is blown. He killed one man to fake his death. I don’t want Avery to be next.”

“We don’t know that he killed anyone,” Kelly said.

“What about the body?” Mason asked.

“All we know is that the paramedics found a man’s body in the water. We don’t know whose it was. A lot of people drown accidentally. Because the body was cremated, we can’t prove there was a murder.”

“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”

“We’ll do everything we can to protect Mr. Fish,” Samuelson said. “Besides, Webb won’t be able to resist a million dollars.”

“I thought it was only a hundred thousand,” Mason said.

“That’s the bait,” Fish said. “Am I right?”

Samuelson nodded.

“Make it a million one-hundred sixty-seven. Nobody has exactly a million bucks lying around. I’ll tell him that I’ll let him handle the balance if he can take care of me on the hundred. He won’t try anything until he gets the rest of the money. That’s the way these things work. You always bait the hook first.”

“And we nail him before he tries anything with Mr. Fish,” Samuelson said.

Mason looked at Kelly, who coolly met his gaze, silently telling him she would do her best but that she’d leave the guarantees to Samuelson.

“What about Rockley’s murder?” Mason asked. “Your scheme does nothing for him with the cops and Patrick Ortiz.”

Samuelson cleared his throat. “We’ll make certain the state authorities are aware of Mr. Fish’s cooperation.”

“That’s just terrific. But we need something more than a letter of recommendation for the judge to read at his sentencing.”

“That’s the best we can do,” Samuelson said. “Our case against Webb has nothing to do with Rockley’s murder. We can’t interfere with that investigation.”

“I still don’t like it. Webb, or McBride or whoever he is, won’t take the chance that Avery isn’t setting him up. He’ll figure Avery needs something to offer the cops and the FBI to stay out of jail. He’ll want to know how Fish got to him. There’s no story Fish can tell him that won’t make him suspicious.”

“I’ll call Sylvia,” Fish said. “She knew it wasn’t Wayne’s body they fished out of the lake. She was crazy in love with him. She has to know that Wayne is still alive. I’ll tell her I need her help hiding the money. I won’t have to mention Wayne’s name. He’ll find me.”

Samuelson beamed. Kelly looked at Fish with newfound respect and permitted herself a small grin. Mason shook his head.

“How was your relationship with Sylvia?” Kelly asked.

“Like brother and sister. She was always after me to lose weight.”

“Don’t do this,” Mason told Fish. “It’s too dangerous. They can’t make the murder charge against you and we can beat the mail fraud.”

Fish put his arm around Mason’s shoulder. “Such a good lawyer I’ve got. He tells me to take the deal before he knows what it is. Then he tells me not to take it after he finds out what it is. And I’m paying for this advice.”

“You told them you’d cooperate as long as it wasn’t dangerous. This is too dangerous.”

Fish shrugged. “Danger is a relative thing. When you’re an old man like me, there’s nothing as dangerous as going to sleep at night. Who knows if you’ll wake up the next day? I’m not so worried about my former partner. He likes money too much. And, when Miss FBI Holt says she’ll take good care of me, I believe her.”

“You don’t think Webb will be suspicious?”

“Of course he’ll be suspicious. People in my business are always suspicious. We don’t trust anybody. He’ll think I’m conning him, but he’ll go along to see how it plays out.”

“And you? Why are you doing it?”

“It’s what I do.” He turned to Kelly. “I assume you have Sylvia’s phone number.”

“She’s in the book,” Kelly said as she wrote the number on a napkin and slid it across the table to Fish. He studied it and grunted.

“Same old Sylvia.”

“What do you mean?” Kelly asked.

“She liked to play a lottery where you had to pick seven winning numbers. She’d always pick three pairs of two numbers. Each pair added up to the same number and the seventh was that number. Like sixty-three, twenty-seven, fifty-four, and nine. Each pair adds up to nine. Get it? Now, look at her phone number. It’s 445-3628. Break it down-forty-four, fifty-three, sixty-two, and eight. It’s the same pattern.”

“What’s your point?” Samuelson asked.

“Sylvia never won the lottery, but she’s still playing her system. I’ll bet she even requested the phone number. When I call, she’ll think she finally won.”