“My client is ready to make a deal. Tell us what you want,” Mason said.
Samuelson cleared his throat. “It’s not quite that simple.”
“What’s so complicated?” Fish asked. “You want me to do something, I’ll do it. Whatever it is, as long as it’s not dangerous. I’m too old and fat for dangerous.”
“And,” Mason added, “as long as it includes dismissal of the mail fraud charge.”
“That’s what makes it complicated,” Samuelson said. “Before we found a body in Mr. Fish’s car, we were arguing over jail time and dollars. Now you want us to dismiss the charges in return for what? Mr. Fish’s cooperation? I don’t think so.”
“Look,” Mason said. “My client is agreeing to work for you without having so much as a job description. He’s the cops’ number-one suspect for a murder he didn’t commit, so getting rid of the mail fraud charge won’t exactly make him sleep better at night. You want him, you got him. But you’ve got to give us something worth having in return.”
Samuelson looked at Kelly, who leaned into him, whispering. He let out a sigh. “I’ll take it to Roosevelt Holmes. It’s his call.”
“You do that,” Mason said and slid his cell phone across the table to Samuelson. “Right now, or we can just order a round and enjoy the music.”
Kelly snapped the phone off the table. “I’ll work it out with Holmes myself. Is that good enough for you, Lou?”
Mason hadn’t figured out the pecking order, but it was clear that this was more Kelly’s show than Samuelson’s. She wouldn’t have made the offer unless she knew it was already done.
“Good enough. What’s the deal?”
Samuelson pulled an envelope from his suit coat, extracted a piece of paper, and handed it to Mason. In the dim light, Mason had trouble making it out, but quickly understood what it was.
“What is it?” Fish asked.
“It’s a plea agreement, also known as your get-out-of-jail-free card. It says you agree to assist the Justice Department with an investigation and they agree to fill in the blank identifying the investigation after you sign.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that you sign first and they promise later. After Kelly talks to Roosevelt Holmes.”
“What if her boss says no?”
“Then we don’t have a deal. They reserve the right to reinstate the charges if they aren’t satisfied with your cooperation. If Roosevelt Holmes doesn’t agree to dismiss the mail fraud charge, you don’t cooperate and we’re back to square one.”
“Such a crazy business.”
“Your tax dollars at work. Sign it.”
Fish signed his name and looked away as Samuelson sealed the agreement inside the envelope, tucking it back into his jacket pocket.
“Thank you, Mr. Fish,” Samuelson said. “Your government is grateful.”
“For what? I haven’t done anything yet and I don’t see how I can. My name is all over the papers like a common criminal. Which I’m not. Thank you very much. So how can I possibly help my government that’s so grateful?”
Kelly answered. “We are investigating a money-laundering operation. We want you to launder some money for us so we can trace where it goes.”
“How much money?” Fish asked, perking up now that the game had begun.
“A hundred thousand dollars,” Kelly said.
“I don’t know anything about laundering money.”
“We don’t care what you know. We’re interested in who you know,” Kelly said.
“I don’t know any money launderers either.”
“Mr. Fish,” Kelly said, “have you ever been to the Galaxy Casino?”
Fish shook his head. “Casinos are for suckers, Ms. Holt.”
“Who bring a lot of money with them and leave it there,” she said. “The manager of the casino is a man named Al Webb. You’ll make contact with him and tell him you need to put a hundred thousand dollars away where the government can’t find it until you get your legal problems worked out.”
Mason bit the inside of his mouth at the mention of Webb’s name. He couldn’t tell whether the noose he was caught in was getting tighter or whether he was about to find a way to slip out of the knot.
“And this Webb character who doesn’t know me from Adam,” Fish said. “I suppose he’s going to thank me for my business, give me a receipt, and tell me to come back tomorrow to pick up the number for my new Swiss bank account.”
It was Kelly’s turn to take an envelope out of her jacket pocket. It contained a photograph. She handed it to Mason along with a pen flashlight.
“Do you recognize this man?” she asked Fish.
Mason shined the light on the black-and-white photograph as Fish studied Al Webb’s image.
Fish tugged at his face, struggling with a dormant memory. He picked up the photograph, his hands shaking with recognition. “It’s not possible,” he said.
“What’s not possible?” Mason asked.
“It’s the eyes. He’s done something. Plastic surgery, I suppose. But, you can’t change a man’s eyes. But it’s still not possible.”
“Who is it?” Kelly asked.
“Wayne McBride. But he’s been dead for ten years,” Fish said.
“How do you know that?” Mason asked.
“Because,” Fish said in a low voice, “he was my partner and I was a pallbearer at his funeral.”
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?”
