Baiting & Fishing Read online

  Each call ran along the same pattern. They started with reporter chit-chat and personal “catching up”, then Ray turned to the reason for the call. Next he had to spend several minutes convincing the other reporter that he did not have any new information he was about to spring on the world, scooping everybody. He explained that he was doing a feature article on Marcella Wilson because she had recently and publicly taken up residence in a posh section of Sarasota. After putting up with some taunts about how far he had sunk to be doing celebrity bios, which made him grit his teeth, each of the reporters agreed to tell him what they knew about the case that didn't make it into the papers. Ray took notes, asked questions and thanked his friends. Each and every conversation ended with a brief discussion of the prospects for the local college team in the upcoming football season.

  By the time he finished with the California reporters on his list, it was 1:00 a. m. He glanced over his notes, jotted a few things in red in the margins and went to bed.

  He had a hard time falling asleep. He had not turned up one bit of evidence to support his theory that Wilson was anything other than what he appeared to be. Ray could not shake the feeling that didn't mean there wasn't something there. He just needed to keep digging.

  Chapter 4

  Ray woke every morning at 6:00 a. m. without an alarm, but he had stayed up too late the night before to hop out of bed with his typical energy. He dragged himself to the shower and, after a few minutes, turned off the hot water to jolt himself awake with a cold-water rinse. That worked.

  He dressed quickly and then called his police department source regarding the rape case, mentally composing his story on the way to work.

  Once in his office, he made quick work of writing and filing his news update. Then he turned to his email and phone messages. He hated email. He preferred to speak to people in person. He realized that made him something of a dinosaur in the world of reporting where email, and even text-messaging, now often replaced sitting down for face-to-face interviews. Ray loved doing research on the Internet but he didn't like the idea of using it as a communications device.

  He scrolled through his emails half of which consisted of “news tips” mostly from local crackpots whose names or email addresses he recognized, including the guy who sent him an email every single day (always at 4:30 a. m.) informing him in all caps that the Commies were taking over in Tallahassee, and begging him to get the word out so the people of Florida could rise up in revolt in order to take back their state. Ray never failed to chuckle uncomfortably when he read that guy's messages.

  He knew the Commies hadn't taken over Tallahassee, but in his opinion the idiots in the Capitol were a thousand times worse than Commies. He rather thought the idea of a million-person march on Tallahassee, with brooms and pitchforks sounded like a better idea every time he thought about it. He wondered if that made him as much of a nut-job as the guy sending the daily missives from the lunatic fringe. He really didn't want to know the answer to that.

  The other half of his messages tended to be intra-company bullshit, which he deleted without reading it.

  He could never bring himself to simply delete external email without reviewing it because there was the occasional gem: the “tip” email that actually was a for-real news item; the really funny joke; the interesting article from one of the many blogs he subscribed to.

  That day, as he scrolled through his messages, he came across one that caused him to break out in a sweat. It was from his ex-wife. He had not seen or heard from her in more than fifteen years. What in the hell could she want? He had to go to an editorial meeting in five minutes, and he needed to focus. He forwarded the message, unread, to his personal email account and deleted it from his business Inbox. He would deal with Deborah later. Right now he had to contend with his editor, which was bad enough. He strolled down the hall wondering which was worse, the Wicked Witch of the East or the Wicked Witch of the West....

  He poured a cup of coffee, by-passed the donuts and took his usual place in the seat at the conference room table nearest the door. He always made it a point to be the first person to arrive at meetings, so he could get his preferred seat. He had never actually walked out during an editorial meeting, but he always wanted to have the option if the situation called for it. Other reporters filed in. Daphne Travers was the last to arrive.

  Ray watched her with a grudging admiration. She was not a newspaper woman, which pissed him off. It was an insult to the professionals in the newsroom that she had been assigned to the position. How the hell did the company expect her to run a newsroom with no news experience? Daphne made a lot of mistakes and she was a pain in the ass when it came to controlling costs. Nevertheless there was something about her Ray kind of liked. She may not have known the newspaper business, but there was no denying the fact she was smart. Very, very smart. He liked that in women. He was usually willing to give a smart woman a lot of leeway in the bitch department.

  From the day Daphne arrived, all the reporters in the newsroom lined up against her. She hung in there and she never backed down from a confrontation. The thing that Ray sort of admired about her was that she never seemed to take it personally. She came in every day, did her job to the best of her ability, which to Ray's mind wasn't much, but he had to give her credit for persistence. What was most impressive to Ray was the fact that she appeared to be learning. He had almost decided she was teachable. Few other reporters shared that opinion. Most of them were openly hostile to her. Ray always tried to be nice to her face, anyway. He was amused to discover that he was the one person she never trusted; she was always on his ass about something.

  The meeting that morning went about the same as usual. Daphne wanted a bunch of fluff stories to fill up the paper but she didn't want to pay the reporters to go out and dig up anything. Ray had the impression she would just as soon they sat at their desks and made up total fiction. That would be cheap and easy. She would like that. She should go to work for the National Enquirer.

  The reporters snarled and bitched. Daphne tried to lay down the law. Slowly a sort of consensus emerged as to who would do what. The meeting appeared ready to end when Daphne said, “You know since Marcella Wilson moved to town, only the society pages have written anything about her. Maybe we should consider doing a feature on Sarasota's newest prominent resident. What do you think?”

  There was a chorus of vulgar remarks. Ray silenced the room and shocked the hell out of himself when he said softly, “I'll do it.”

  Every person in the room stared at him with mouths hanging open. Daphne, caught off guard for the first time ever, blurted, “You will??!”

  Ray nodded, “Yeah. I'm kind of interested in that whole business. I was working on something else at the time. I missed the whole Wilson/Techtron saga. I'd kind of like to catch up. Everybody knows I don't do celebrity stories, but Marcella Wilson's more than a celebrity. For the opportunity to spend some time digging around in a huge news story that I missed altogether, I guess I can churn out an article about Mrs. Society-Lady-Come-To-Town. I may need some help in describing her clothes and shoes because I know squat about that kind of thing.” He laughed, shrugged and made a face, “It could be fun. It'll get me out of my rut writing about rapists, murderers and political corruption. That shit's getting old anyway.”

  The reporters laughed, a little uncomfortably. Daphne stared at him with suspicion in her eyes. He gave her what he hoped was an innocent, boyish grin. That appeared to make her mad.

  Nobody talked to him as he walked back to his office. He went inside, shut the door and sat down at his desk, wondering what had come over him. He feared he might be cracking up, so he did what he always did when he was worried or confused. He threw himself into his work. He read the paper. He logged onto the Internet and surfed through several news sites and news blogs. Nothing particularly jumped out at him. He made a few notes about a couple of things he might want to follow up on.

  Next he made his daily calls. First, he called a secr
etary he knew in the mayor's office; nothing going on there. Next he called an old buddy who worked in the attorney general's office in Tallahassee; nothing new there other than an update about the ongoing internal feud between lawyers in the attorney general's office and the lawyers in the Department of Financial Services. They wasted a lot of time and inordinate amounts of the state's money on their internal feuding, but compared with the rest of the crooks and crazies who ran the state, they were small potatoes. Besides, lawyers are boring. More importantly, Ray believed that as long as the state's lawyers were feuding amongst themselves they would not have the time to prey upon the citizens of the state of Florida. That, by itself, merited holding his fire.

  His last daily call was his favorite. Years ago he had befriended one of the matrons in the upper echelons of Sarasota society when he wrote an impassioned article objecting to the city's announced intention to tear down an old mansion, which happened to have been the lady's parents' home. Victoria Caruthers had been grateful for his efforts – which, sadly, had failed – and she had served as a sort of his official background source on Sarasota Society ever since. She was his principal source of information regarding what old landmarks the city had targeted for destruction. He called her nearly every day. She was a nice old Southern lady. He enjoyed talking to her. They chatted for a while. About the time he would ordinarily have ended the conversation, he said, “Ma'am, this is a little out of my league, but my editor gave me an assignment today I may need some help with.”

  There was clearly a smile in her voice when she said, “How can I help you?”

  He cleared his throat and replied, “Well, she wants us to do an article on Marcella Wilson. I have done lots of bios on local people, mostly our local oddballs. You know what I'm talking about. I've never written anything about society people or celebrities. I'm out of my element. I'd actually like your advice on who I should talk to.”

  There was a strange edge in her voice when she said, “Why don't you talk to her directly?”

  He said, “Oh, I certainly will, if she'll speak to me. I am given to understand she has not been giving interviews, which is understandable given recent events in her life. Still, I like to get as much background information as I can from other sources before I interview someone.”

  She paused, “That makes sense. To answer your question, I have to say, I don't know who you should talk to. She seems to have portrayed herself as a society woman. To my knowledge she has made no contact with any of the women who actually make up Sarasota Society, if you know what I mean.” He did: she meant the Sustaining members of the Junior League and the Yacht Club Auxiliary. She went on, “I personally think she is more of a 'jet set' person than a society person. She moves in the celebrity and corporate circles. I don't know those people, you understand.”

  He bit his lip to keep from laughing. He said, “If you think of anyone I should talk to, let me know.”

  “Oh, I will. It would be most interesting to find out more about her.”

  Ray thought that was an odd comment. He asked, “Why?”

  She said with a tone that called his intelligence into question, “I can't put my finger on anything specific, but I always had the feeling there was more to her than the stories ever told. There is something about her and her husband that never made sense.”

  Ray did laugh that time, and said, “Keep this totally under your hat, but that is exactly how I feel and why I volunteered to do this article. I will confess to you that I am a total nincompoop when it comes to trying to figure out women. I'm going to do some digging around. I may ask you from time to time to help me interpret what I come up with. In the meantime, please keep your ear to the ground and let me know what the grapevine has to say about her.”

  She giggled like a girl, “Oh, I most certainly will. This sounds like such fun.”

  “Remember, don't say anything to anyone.”

  Her voice went a bit chilly, “Ray, you should know by now that I can keep my mouth shut better than most people.”

  That was correct. She could be a veritable sphinx when it served her purposes. Most people underestimated her, which was exactly the way she wanted it. Her reputation as something of an airhead was of her own making. It was a complete fiction. Very few people knew her secret. She was actually a brilliant woman who had helped her husband, a stockbroker, build a fortune by playing the 'dumb society lady' and listening carefully to conversations people conducted in her presence which they assumed she did not understand.

  Through their entire marriage she had read six or seven newspapers a day, clipping articles and making notes about things she thought her husband would find interesting. She was his eyes and ears, and her instincts were amazing. She was also the soul of discretion. She never shared the information she knew with anyone other than her husband, at least not until she called Ray to thank him for the story about her family's endangered home. After that, she had became a very important news source for him. They had never actually met since they didn't move in the same circles but they had a great working relationship over the phone. Ray cherished his daily chat with Victoria.

  Chapter 5

  After work, Ray went for an extra long run and then stopped at a deli near his house to pick up dinner. He was very careful about his diet and chose a chicken and arugula salad with raspberry vinaigrette dressing. He ate at a picnic table on the beach, where he lingered to watch the sunset before heading home. He liked eating outside. Watching the sunset was a daily event for Floridians. As a native of Key West, where sunsets are celebrated with a daily party at Mallory Square, watching the sun go down was a ritual that bordered on the sacred for Ray.

  When he got home, he showered and decided he had put off Deborah's email long enough. He logged onto his computer and made quick work of the spam and junk mail that filled his Inbox. There were only three real messages. One was a forwarded joke from an old retired mentor, who drove him crazy with that crap ever since Ray had bought him a computer three years ago. One was an invitation to a barbecue over the weekend from the guy down the street who had appointed himself as the neighborhood social director.

  The last one was the email from Deborah. It read:

  Dear Ray,

  I suppose you will have delayed reading this until you are at home alone. I apologize for sending it to your work address but it is the only one I could find. I hope hearing from me was not too much of a shock to your system.

  I won't beat around the bush. I'm writing to tell you that I will be in Orlando next month. This will be the first time I'll have visited Florida in years. If you are willing to see me, I'd love to get together. To be clear, I do not have in mind picking up where we left off. That would be unthinkable for either of us. What I do have in mind is to apologize face-to-face for my egregious behavior towards you. Lunch or dinner will be on me if you're interested.

  I hope you'll consider it.

  Deb

  Even after fifteen years, she knew he would not read her message at work. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the thought that he was so predictable

  Similarly, even after fifteen years of separation he was prepared to bet the farm she had more on her mind than buying him dinner and apologizing for deserting him without so much as a fare-thee-well. There was a part of him that wanted to hit reply and simply send the message: Fuck you.

  He went so far as to type those words into a reply message, but something kept him from hitting “Send”. Maybe that something was the fact that he did very much want to sit across the table from her and hear her apologize. There was a part of him that felt he deserved nothing less.

  He was also curious to know what was such a big deal that would cause her to break silence and contact him after all this time.

  Curiosity won out. He erased his initial vulgar message and slowly typed: Now that I have picked myself up off the floor without injury, I think I would like to take you up on your offer. For one thing, I think you owe me that apology. For another, I'm
curious to know what your real reason is for the invitation. Let me know what day you want to meet. I'll drive to Orlando if you like. My cell number is below. /R

  After that, he resumed his background reading on the Wilson case until bedtime. He had gone through all the mainstream media articles and learned nothing new. Having developed a general time line, he turned to Google and started doing searches on names and key words. That kind of blind drilling could waste a lot of time, but he had discovered on a number of occasions that, much like panning for gold, while it dredged up a lot of sludge, it occasionally turned up some amazing nuggets. He did not turn up much information of interest on either of the Wilsons. It seemed odd to him that there was so little information about two such prominent people. He was puzzled by that.

  He shut down his computer and began to put his notes away when the phone rang. His cell phone hardly ever rang in the evenings. He picked it up without looking at the incoming number.

  “Hello.”

  “You're very funny.”

  He caught his breath. Her voice was deep and she spoke with perfect diction, thanks to the elocution lessons she took when she first got into television news, followed by more than twenty years of daily practice. The tone was light, but there was a nervous tension in her voice as well. He tried to respond with a similarly light tone, “It seems a little pathetic that after all these years we have changed so little.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Tell me I'm wrong.”

  “You're not.”

  “What's up?”

  “I want to talk in person.”