The Eighth Sister (Charles Jenkins #1)(98)

“What exactly does that mean?” Sloane asked.

“I’m saying, believe your client. I’m saying that in my opinion, he’s honest, nondeceptive, and emotionally stable. I gave him a battery of tests, all of which will be summarized in my report. He isn’t delusional, and he isn’t a sociopath or a pathological liar. It’s my opinion that you can believe what he says happened.”

They went over every test Beckman had administered. Five hours later, documents littered Sloane’s conference room table—charts, graphs, notes, and test results. It was all well and good, but it didn’t solve their biggest problem. Sloane still needed evidence to back up Beckman’s opinion.

After Beckman had departed, Sloane retreated to his office with Jake to return a phone call he’d received while working with the psychiatrist. Sloane had hired investigator Peter Vanderlay to run a reverse directory search on the telephone number Carl Emerson had given Charlie. Sloane hoped it would provide evidence that the number belonged to Emerson. Vanderlay answered on the third ring. Sloane put him on the speaker so Jake could hear the conversation.

“Mr. Sloane,” Vanderlay said. “I was going to call you in the morning. I just arrived at my daughter’s basketball game.”

“I’m sorry to intrude on family time.”

“No worries. They’ll be warming up for another ten minutes. I got a hit on that number you provided. You have a pen handy?”

Sloane grabbed a pen and a pad of paper. “Fire away.”

“The number belonged to a man named Richard Peterson of TBT Investments.”

Sloane had never heard of the person or the company. He looked to Jake, but at the mention of the name, Jake had left his chair and hurried from the office.

“Anything else?” Sloane said.

“That’s it. No forwarding number. No address.”

Sloane asked Vanderlay a few more questions before disconnecting.

Jake reentered the office and slapped LSR&C’s incorporation papers on Sloane’s desk. He stabbed at the documents with his finger. “TBT Investments was a subsidiary of LSR&C. It’s right there. And the COO of TBT Investments was Richard Peterson.”

Sloane read the document carefully to be certain.

“You think Carl Emerson could be Richard Peterson?” Jake asked.

“Sure looks that way,” Sloane said. “And if we can prove that he is, it’s tangible proof to argue that Charlie met Emerson. The question is, How do we get it into evidence? Even if we can find Emerson, there’s no guarantee he’ll acknowledge the card or the number.” Sloane thought of Beckman’s statement that he should put Charlie on the witness stand, but that was always a dicey proposition in a criminal matter. He paced his office, thinking. He stopped at the round table in the front corner and saw the Seattle Times. The Times had reported that morning that Mitchell Goldstone, the former COO of LSR&C, had accepted a plea agreement that called for substantial prison time. He turned to Jake. “You read that Mitchell Goldstone agreed to a plea deal?”

“Sentencing is within the month,” Jake said.

“And until then, Goldstone is at the Federal Detention Center in SeaTac. He might know if Carl Emerson is Richard Peterson.”

“He might, but the government will argue Goldstone is a liar,” Jake said. “His plea required that he admit he’d lied about LSR&C being a CIA proprietary.”

“Yeah, but we now have a number on a business card, and an expert who will testify that the number belonged to Richard Peterson of TBT Investments, and we have documents that TBT was a subsidiary of LSR&C. If Goldstone says Peterson is Emerson, it would prove that a CIA officer was acting as the head of an LSR&C subsidiary. It’s solid evidence that what Charlie is saying is true.” Another thought came to him. “The LSR&C documents—what documents existed anyway—were classified in the Goldstone matter, right?”

“Yeah.”

“But with that matter final when Goldstone signed the plea deal—”

“The government will never give up LSR&C’s documents,” Jake said.

“They’re not the government’s documents. Those documents belong to a Washington State corporation that is currently in bankruptcy. The firm handling that bankruptcy has control over the documents. With the plea by Goldstone, the criminal case is over and it is now a straight bankruptcy matter. I’m betting the government is no longer even thinking about those documents.”

Jake smiled. “You want me to prepare a subpoena to get them?”

“There’s no need for a subpoena. The government is arguing that LSR&C has nothing to do with this case, that this is a straight espionage case. We don’t have to go through the government to get LSR&C’s documents. We can go straight to the law firm handling the LSR&C bankruptcy and get the documents without the government ever knowing it.”





58



Sloane left his office and drove to the Federal Detention Center, referred to as the “airport prison” because of its proximity to SeaTac Airport. For the first time, he saw a faint glimmer of hope. Goldstone could fuel that glimmer into a full-blown flame, or extinguish it.

The exterior of the beige building—two cubes with wings and an awning over a glass-door entrance—gave the prison the appearance of a hospital. After the usual red tape, and a lot of forms, Sloane found himself in a beat-up room behind a plexiglass window with several holes that allowed him to speak to the prisoner.