The Eighth Sister (Charles Jenkins #1)(99)

Several minutes after Sloane sat, the door on the other side of the plexiglass opened, and Mitchell Goldstone entered with his hands cuffed to a belly chain at his waist and white bandages wrapping each wrist. Goldstone looked younger than in newspaper photographs and on television. He parted his hair in the middle and it extended over his ears. His complexion was pale and his cheeks flushed. He did not look like a chief operating officer of a multimillion-dollar investment company, and maybe he never had been. According to Jenkins, if LSR&C was a CIA proprietary, then Goldstone was just a figurehead. Decisions came from Langley.

Goldstone gave Sloane a quizzical look.

“I’m David Sloane, the attorney for Charles Jenkins.”

“Do you have a card?” Goldstone asked.

Goldstone had every reason to be paranoid. Sloane pushed his card and his driver’s license against the plexiglass.

Goldstone leaned forward and considered them closely. Then he said, “I’m sorry about what’s happening to him. Tell him I wish him the best.”

“He feels the same about what’s happened to you.”

Goldstone sat back. He looked like he wanted to say something, but he refrained. “What’s your question?”

“I wanted to know if the LSR&C documents at the bankruptcy attorney’s office make mention of its subsidiaries.”

“I’m sure they do. Which subsidiary are you interested in?”

Sloane watched Goldstone closely. “I’m interested in a company called TBT Investments.”

Goldstone’s eyes flickered and the corner of his mouth inched upward, though he suppressed a grin. “I don’t know for certain,” he said.

“But TBT was a subsidiary of LSR&C,” Sloane said.

Goldstone nodded. “Yeah. It was.”

“And were you the chief operating officer of TBT Investments as well as LSR&C?” Sloane knew the answer, but he wanted Goldstone to talk.

Goldstone shook his head. “No.”

“The incorporation papers say it was run by someone named Richard Peterson.”

Goldstone smiled, as if bemused by the information, but didn’t otherwise comment.

“I’m having difficulty locating people to corroborate Charles Jenkins’s story,” Sloane said. “Do you know how I would find Richard Peterson?”

Goldstone sat back, head tilted, evaluating Sloane.

“Charlie has a wife and two children,” Sloane said, knowing Goldstone also had a family. “A new baby girl just a couple weeks old.”

Goldstone appeared to be thinking carefully. Sloane thought he was about to leave the window, but he sat forward and said, “Ask Carl Emerson about Richard Peterson.”

Sloane did his best to keep a poker face. “He would know?”

Goldstone nodded. “Ask him.”

“Have you ever met Carl Emerson?”

“Once. He flew out when we were trying to get money out of the Philippines.”

“Can you describe him?”

“He’s older. I’d say late seventies, maybe even early eighties. He’s tall. Six two or three, and thin. Has a head of white hair and dark eyes. Not brown. Darker. He’s also tan.”

The description fit the one Jenkins had provided.

“I understand he’s retired. Any idea how I might find him?”

Goldstone shook his head.

“You said he flew in to Seattle. Do you know from where?”

“I assume from DC, but I understood from talking to him that he golfs a lot. He talked about the golf courses he’d been playing and it was the middle of winter. So it was someplace warm.”

“You don’t happen to have any LSR&C documents, do you?”

Goldstone’s eyes sparkled, and the corners of his mouth again inched into an impish, boyish grin. Just as quickly, the grin faded. Goldstone rubbed the bandage on his left wrist. “As part of my plea deal with the government I had to relinquish anything I had related to LSR&C.”

Sloane realized the facial expression was intended to convey what Mitchell Goldstone could not say. He was savvier than the newspapers had portrayed him. Sloane suspected Goldstone held leverage over the government, documents he had likely secured someplace that would inflict damage if exposed. He suspected that was the reason for the plea deal, and maybe why Goldstone was still alive. He also suspected that Goldstone, not the government, had pushed for that deal. He had no doubt that Goldstone would be sentenced to a long prison term, but Sloane doubted he would spend much time behind bars, and likely at a minimum-security federal penitentiary. The government would wait until all the investor suits against LSR&C concluded and everyone had gotten their pound of flesh and moved on with their lives. When they did, Mitchell Goldstone would come up for parole, and quietly slip back into society.





59



Early the following morning, Jake drove downtown dressed in his best navy-blue suit, white shirt, and red power tie. He’d learned the name of the paralegal in charge of the LSR&C documents and looked up the woman’s profile on the law firm’s website. She’d been employed for three years, which meant she wasn’t fresh out of law school, but she wasn’t well seasoned either.

He entered the building and spoke to the receptionist. “Molly Diepenbrock, please. I’m Jake Carter, here to see the LSR&C documents.”