Saving Sophie: A Novel (8 page)

“I have an idea. Bring him in.”

Gladys took Jenkins’s coat, offered him a glass of water, and walked him from the reception room back to Catherine’s office. Catherine came around her desk to shake his hand. “How have you been, Walter?”

“So-so.” Jenkins took a moment to survey her office. He smiled. “Same old Catherine. Papers everywhere. Empty coffee cups.” He nodded. “You’re looking good, Catherine.”

“Thanks. Things are going well.” Catherine motioned for him to have a seat and returned to her desk chair.

“I guess you’ve heard. We’ve been scammed. Someone embezzled eighty-eight million dollars from a corporate deal we were handling. J and F is on the hook for almost forty of it. Never saw it coming from these guys.”

“Do you know where the money is, who took it?”

Jenkins shook his head. “No proof how it was done or who did it. Sommers was the man in charge. They tell me that the money’s now in Panama in some untouchable bank.”

“Why didn’t you call before you came over here? I would have told you—”

“You would have told me not to bother. You would have told me you’re not interested. You would have told me that you have no experience in matters like this. You would have told me there’s no way you would work for an asshole like Walter Jenkins.”

“That’s exactly what I would have said to you, except I would have had the civility not call you an asshole.”

Jenkins sat back in his chair, smoothed his trousers, and crossed his legs. He looked calm and in control, but at the same time sad and embarrassed. He spoke quietly. “I need you, Catherine. I realize we ended badly, but I have to go outside the firm, and you’re the best lawyer I know.”

“Let’s be honest. You’re here because you don’t want to hire any of the prominent firms in the city. You can’t afford to air your dirty laundry. You don’t want your competitors snooping around inside your office. You certainly don’t want to give them on-the-street gossip material. You’re afraid they’ll raid your client base, fragment your firm, and J and F will fold like Montague, Post and Evans did last year. You’re looking for a strong litigator outside the Loop establishment.”

Jenkins bit his lip and nodded slowly. “For argument’s sake, let’s say you’re correct. Can I hire you?”

“No. I’d never work for an asshole like Walter Jenkins.”

He sat up straight and furrowed his brow. “Seriously?”

Catherine smiled. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist. I’ve been waiting to say that to you for more than a year. Has suit been filed?”

“Not yet, but it’s coming. No doubt about it. Kelsen won’t return my calls.” Jenkins shook his head. “I guess you know we hired Liam. You two work so well together, I just think it’s a natural package. I get a great lawyer and a great PI. Will you at least consider it? Please?”

“I’ll think about it. Call me after you get served with the lawsuit. No promises, but I’ll take a look at the case.” Catherine stood. “If I do decide to represent J and F, I’d want full cooperation and full access to the system, all of the partners and the J-and-F staff. No restrictions. Nothing held back. I’d need support: secretarial, paralegal, and a good associate, someone like Rob Hemmer. And I’d want senior-partner rates—seven hundred and fifty dollars an hour.”

Jenkins stood and held out his hand. “You can have Hemmer, anything you need. Money will not be an issue. You’ll have our full cooperation.”

“I’ll think about it. Let me know when you get served.”

T
WELVE

S
OMMERS MERGED INTO THE
noontime stream of pedestrians walking along Kalakaua. Waikiki’s arterial vein was full of midday energy. The breeze was light and the sun beamed hot upon his skin. Dressed in sandals, shorts, a light blue golf shirt, dark sunglasses, and a U-of-H cap, he felt more secure walking in public without fear of recognition. As Malani had described it, he was “melting” into the population.

At Lewers Street, Sommers took a turn onto Kalia Road. He knew where he had to go and what he had to face. Since arriving in Honolulu, he had stayed away, but his yesterdays were beckoning to him and he wanted to know what they had to say. At the end of Kalia, he reached the Hilton Hawaiian Village and its shops, pools, and expansive crescent beach.

Bittersweet memories carried him along the winding pathway, past the kidney-shaped pool, past the sunbathers and the children squealing in the water. Next to the beach was an outdoor café, where Sommers took a seat. He shut his eyes and allowed the sounds and smells to take him back to earlier times when life was sweet. Before his world imploded. He prayed that when he opened his eyes, it would be three years ago. Alina would step out of the pool, grab a towel, and come to him, her brilliant smile lighting up all of Waikiki.

“Can I get you something, sir?” the waitress said, wresting him from his daydream. She set a glass of ice water on the table.

“There are three of us,” he said with a knot in his throat. “Please bring us two mai tais and a fruit juice, and they all must have purple umbrellas.”

She nodded and left to fill the order.

Damn, I’m a prisoner in the present. I don’t want to be here. I don’t have the strength to be here. I want to open my eyes and find out that the last two years were nothing but a bad dream.

Without waiting for the drinks, he stood, left money on the table, and walked past the Rainbow Tower to the beach. He stared intently at a spot where the ocean met the sand. Again, he saw only his memories. Sandals in hand, he walked across the hot sand to stand in the shallow water. He looked down at Sophie, sitting with her plastic bucket and shovel. He looked back to the sand to see Alina on a beach chair reading her magazine. Images that quickly dissolved. Tears rolled down his cheeks.

God,
his mind shouted,
are you listening to me? Because it’s time for you and me to have it out. Right now, right here! Why did you do this to us? C’mon, I want answers! Alina always told me that everything happened for a reason, there was purpose in the universe. Okay, what’s the purpose? What possible reason could you have for destroying my family? What’s your grand plan? You took my wife, you’ve stolen my daughter, you’ve reduced me to a common thief. I’ve lost everything I had, including my self-respect. Are you happy now? Does this suit your grand plan? And my little daughter, she’s just a baby, why would you do this to her?

He dropped to his knees in the surf and wept convulsively.

Please, please, God, help me get my daughter back. She doesn’t deserve this. I need your help.

A man came up to him and bent over. “Are you all right, fella? Do you need me to call someone, get you some assistance?”

Sommers splashed water on his face and stood. “No, no, I’m okay, thanks. Really, I’ll be all right.” He walked out of the surf toward the hotel lobby.

T
HIRTEEN

C
ATHERINE HURRIED TO MEET
Liam at Café Sorrento, but she was almost an hour late. She found him sitting at the bar watching the Bulls and the Lakers. His cocktail glass was nearly empty.

“Sorry,” she said as she set her purse on the bar and slid onto a stool. “The pretrial conference lasted all afternoon.” Turning to the bartender, she said, “I’ll have a light beer, please.”

Liam tapped his glass for a refill. “You could’ve called.”

“I’m sorry. I was in chambers. I came as soon as I could. Anyway, how was your day?”

“Depressing. I spent the whole day looking into the bedeviled life of John Sommers. One tragedy after another. I talked to a couple partners in the transactional group and his deceased wife’s friend and neighbor Sharon Oberman. He has a sister, Deborah, but she hasn’t returned my calls.”

The bartender brought the two drinks and Liam took a sip of his cocktail.

“So, you left a message for Deborah Sommers?”

“No. Now she’s Deborah Wilson. Married to Eugene Wilson. They live in Louisville.”

“What did you learn about Sommers?”

“Everyone I talked to likes him, and everyone feels sorry for him. And no one is surprised that he left his job. They worry about him.”

“Do they think he took the money?”

“I didn’t raise that issue with everyone. It’s not common knowledge. Yet. Walter asked me to keep quiet about the money, at least until the lawsuit is filed and it hits the papers.”

Catherine took a sip of her beer. “Does anyone have any idea where he went?”

Liam nodded solemnly. “The general consensus is Brazil. Walter found a receipt for a plane ticket, and the FBI confirmed that Sommers was issued a boarding pass for Rio a few hours after the closing.”

“Why Brazil? Does he have a connection there?”

“Not that anyone knows of. There’s a picture of Sommers, his wife, and daughter on a beach that sits on Sommers’s desk. Could be Brazil. But Walter thinks it’s most likely about Brazil’s extradition policy. It’s almost impossible to get someone extradited from there, so the ticket might make sense. Brazil amended its constitution in 1988 to state, ‘No Brazilian shall be extradited.’ If he planned all this and applied for Brazilian citizenship, who knows?” Liam shook his head. “But I don’t think that’s it. I think it’s more likely the ticket was a diversionary tactic, a misdirection. He might not have gone there at all, but even if he did, he could have gone on to someplace else.”

Catherine grabbed her beer and her purse. “I’m starving, let’s get a table.”

The owner led them to a corner table covered with a red-and-white-checkered tablecloth. In the center, a straw-covered bottle of Chianti had been converted into a candleholder. They waved off the menus. “We’ll both have the cannelloni special, Tony,” Liam said. “Sausage and peppers to start.”

Catherine took another sip of her beer. “So, tell me about your depressing day.”

“I started at your old firm. Walter introduced me to Chuck Henderson, who seemed to know John Sommers well. They were both transactional attorneys, ate lunch together, sometimes socialized. Sommers headed up J and F’s business group—he was the practice-group chairman.”

“I knew Jack was a group chairman, he was appointed to the position before I left. But he worked on a different floor and we didn’t cross paths very often. I also remember Chuck. A little overweight, a little thin on top? Fighting that middle-age battle?”

Liam nodded. “Middle age is a formidable opponent. Chuck’s losing the war. To quote Charles Barkley, ‘Father Time is undefeated.’” Liam tore off a piece of garlic bread and placed it on his plate. “Anyway, Chuck’s a nice fellow who was close to Sommers and had a lot of information to tell. As far as Jack’s service to the firm, he was a diligent, hard worker. There was never an issue with his professional responsibility or his work product. He was never accused of mismanaging a file or neglecting a matter. He was entirely trustworthy, and Chuck cannot believe he misappropriated any money.”

“But?”

Liam shrugged. “He’s gone and the money’s gone. As Chuck reluctantly admitted, ‘The inference is compelling.’ It makes him very sad. He says it’s ‘just the cliff at the end of Jack’s road.’”

“What does that mean?”

“It means Jack was in a tailspin. The events in his personal life had devastated him.”

“His wife?”

Liam nodded. “Sharon was a close friend and gave me the Sommers family history at her kitchen table. It’s a long story.”

Catherine opened her hands and raised her eyebrows. “And?”

“Jack met Alina overseas about ten years ago. He was a junior Foreign Service specialist on assignment for the State Department in Amman, Jordan. She was pursuing an advanced degree in psychology at the University of Jordan. She was also an accomplished pianist, and that’s how Jack came to meet her.

“Alina was performing at the embassy one night with a classical trio. It was a cocktail party for some dignitaries, and Jack was in attendance. According to Sharon, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. He was smitten. Sharon showed me pictures, and I don’t blame him, Alina was striking. Dark hair, perfect complexion. A Middle Eastern beauty. They were a good-looking couple.” Liam paused. “She wasn’t Jordanian.” He wrinkled his brow. “Palestinian, I think. Sharon said her family lived in one of the West Bank cities.

“Anyway, Jack takes a liking to her and hangs around after the concert to ask her out, which according to Sharon was a giant step because Jack’s a very shy person. He’s a Jew, she’s an Arab. He’s an American, she’s a—I don’t know—a Palestinian. This is a relationship that’s never going to work. But, like Sharon says, he’s smitten, so he musters up his courage and asks her if he can call on her. Customs being what they are over there, she won’t go out without a chaperone. She’s staying with her aunt Safiya, who lives in Amman, and so the three of them take a walk. Then they go to dinner. And then another dinner. And, you get the picture.”

“I like this story,” Catherine said.

“I would too, if it didn’t end so tragically.” Liam reached over and took a healthy share of sausage and peppers off the serving plate. “They dated solidly for the better part of a year. Safiya was their cover. She liked Jack and delighted in the intrigue. Then in the spring, things began to change. Alina graduated and Jack was informed that the Foreign Service was going to send him to Turkey. At that crossroads, they decide to get married. Neither of them wanted to move to Turkey, so they decide to move back to the States.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Right. Alina hadn’t told her parents about Jack. They didn’t know she had been dating anyone, let alone an American Jew. And Jack, he wanted to do the right thing. He told Alina he was going to ask her father for her hand in marriage. So the two of them travel to Alina’s home to see the father. Naïve as can be. Surprise. It did not go well.”

Liam offered the sausage-and-peppers plate to Catherine. She took a single green pepper and cut it into small bites. Liam shook his head.

“What does Sharon know about Alina’s father?” Catherine asked.

“We didn’t talk too much about the father’s background. Supposedly he comes from a very old and respected Arab family. He’s a doctor. A prominent man in his community. Alina’s family is well-to-do and lives in a large home in some West Bank city.”