Chapter 6: The Uncle Who Liked Fishing
Gerald Fitch lived in a two-story house in Edina, twelve miles from downtown Minneapolis, with a detached garage and a boat he kept covered in the side yard through the winter months.
I drove there myself.
No driver.
No attorney.
Phillip had strongly advised against it.
"Let me come with you," he'd said.
"Or at minimum, let Grace."
"If I bring an attorney, he won't open the door," I said.
"And if he doesn't open the door, we lose two days getting a formal interview arranged."
"Helena—"
"I met the man four years ago at a dinner party.
He spent forty minutes telling me about walleye fishing on Lake Mille Lacs.
He's not dangerous.
He's scared."
I rang the doorbell at ten fifteen in the morning.
Gerald Fitch answered in a cardigan and reading glasses, a coffee mug in his hand.
He was sixty-seven, heavyset, with the kind of face that had probably been pleasant once and had since settled into something tired.
He recognized me immediately.
The coffee mug lowered slightly.
"Helena," he said.
"Hello, Gerald.
I'd like to come in."
He looked past me at the empty driveway.
"You're alone?"
"Yes."
He stepped back from the door.
The living room was neat and quiet.
A fishing magazine on the coffee table.
A television on low in the corner.
He sat in the armchair across from the couch and set his mug on the side table and looked at me with the expression of a man who had been waiting for a knock on the door for a very long time.
"I assume you know why I'm here," I said.
"I imagine I do."
"The Nevada account.
Hartwell Consulting Group is registered to your address."
"A different suite number," he said.
Automatic.
Like he'd rehearsed it.
"Same floor, Gerald."
He looked at his hands.
"Jason came to me thirty-two months ago," he said.
"He said he needed a registered agent for a consulting company.
He said it was for a legitimate contract he was managing outside of Meridian.
He said it was cleaner to keep it separate."
"And you believed him."
"I wanted to believe him." He picked up his mug and set it down again without drinking.
"He's my sister's boy.
I've known him since he was nine years old."
"When did you realize it wasn't legitimate?"
A long pause.
"About eight months in," he said.
"When the deposits started coming in.
The amounts were — they weren't consulting fees.
I've done accounting for thirty years.
I know what consulting fees look like."
"What did you do?"
"I called Jason.
He told me not to worry about it.
He said it was a restructuring payment.
He said Meridian's board had approved it."
"Did you believe that?"
Gerald Fitch looked at the fishing magazine on the coffee table.
"No," he said quietly.
"I didn't."
"But you kept the account open."
"He's family." The words came out like something he'd been carrying for a long time.
"I kept telling myself I'd close it next month.
And then next month came and I didn't."
I let the silence sit for a moment.
"Gerald.
I need to know about the deposit eleven days ago."
His hands went still.
"Jason called me the night before," he said.
"He said there was going to be an announcement at the Meridian event.
He said he needed one more transfer processed before everything changed.
He said it was the last one."
"Did he tell you what the announcement was?"
"No."
"He didn't tell you that Vanguard Capital was acquiring Meridian?"
"No.
He just said things were going to change and he needed the transfer done."
"And you processed it."
"I processed it." He looked up at me.
His eyes were red at the edges.
"Helena.
I know what I did.
I've known for a long time.
I just — I didn't know how to stop it without destroying him."
"You were protecting him."
"I was protecting myself too," he said.
"If it came out, I was part of it.
I knew that."
I sat with that for a moment.
"Gerald," I said.
"I need you to give a full statement to my legal team.
Everything you just told me, and everything you haven't told me yet.
Every transfer, every phone call, every date."
"If I do that—"
"If you cooperate fully, your exposure is significantly reduced.
You're not the architect of this.
The records make that clear.
But I need your statement before Jason's attorney has a chance to build a version of events that puts more of this on you than it belongs."
He was quiet for a long time.
Outside, a car passed slowly on the street.
"He called me this morning," Gerald said.
"Jason.
He said I shouldn't talk to anyone until I'd spoken to his attorney."
"What did you tell him?"
"I told him I'd think about it."
"And now?"
Gerald Fitch looked at me across the coffee table, over the fishing magazine and the cold mug of coffee, and for a moment he looked less like a man who had made a terrible mistake and more like a man who was simply very tired of making it.
"When can your legal team come?" he said.
I took out my phone.
"I'll call Phillip right now," I said.
I was halfway through dialing when my phone buzzed with an incoming call.
It was Grace.
I held up one finger to Gerald and stepped into the hallway.
"Grace."
"Jason just filed for the injunction," she said.
"And Helena — he didn't file it in Minneapolis.
He filed it in Delaware, where the first shell company is registered.
His attorney is arguing Delaware jurisdiction over the acquisition."
I closed my eyes for one second.
"Can he get it?"
"The judge assigned is someone Reeves has appeared before many times," Grace said.
"We need to move.
Fast."
I looked back through the doorway at Gerald Fitch sitting in his armchair, his hands folded in his lap, waiting.
May you like
"Get Phillip to Edina," I said.
"I have something that changes everything."
