Jonathan watched Ann walk out of the precinct and was tempted to go after her. It was late and he was past the point of being tired. Too much had been spoken in the heat of anger. He wanted to apologize. But the predicament his brother had put them in weighed heavy on his mind. Personal feelings would have to be ignored.
He said goodnight to the lawyer and went outside to hail a cab. It was getting colder. Winter wasn’t too far away. He didn’t need to think twice about where he had to go. If he was going to find a way to exonerate his brother he would have to do so fast.
The street was deserted when the taxi left him off at Hart Toy’s office. He reached into his pocket to retrieve a set of keys his mother had recently provided him, then entered the elevator and pushed the button for his floor. What would he find? Would it be worthwhile? He didn’t know, but anything was better than just sitting around, waiting for events to play themselves out.
He hit the light switch, walked into Patrick’s office and right over to the three-drawer gray file cabinet next to his brother’s desk. He put the key in the lock and pulled the top drawer open.
Almost an hour later, having waded through file after file of bank dealings and financial reports, Jonathan was past the point of boredom. He finally removed his coat and sat down in the chair behind Patrick’s desk.
Leaning back, he allowed his mind to drift. It didn’t take long for him to remember the horrible look on Ann’s face when she confronted his brother at the police station. It only made matters worse that Jonathan had wrongly insinuated that she had never pulled her own weight, or that she was somehow implicated in Matthew’s death. What the heck was he trying to pull?
That damn pride of his. Familial loyalty overriding his feelings for Ann. Sooner or later he would have to come to grips with those feelings. Sooner or later he would have to face the truth. But not now. Now he had to focus on the situation at hand.
New York was the least likely city in the civilized world where someone would call the cops because a man staggered out of a bar drunk. After all, there were always cabs available. So Patrick had to have been drinking with someone, someone who set him up. His brother admitted taking the hundred thousand dollars to pay off the lawyer who had helped him solidify the loan with the bank. But he vehemently denied any knowledge of the cocaine and whatever it was that the Hong Kong authorities were trying to implicate him in. It was a stretch to think that Patrick had suddenly gone from being a common drunk to a drug dealer and conspirator.
Reluctantly, Jonathan stood and went back to his chore at the file cabinet. He began examining each of the bank covenants they had agreed to over the years, the lines of credit that had been approved or disapproved. This took the better part of another hour. The second drawer revealed the agreements they had signed with the retail trade, be it Walmart, Toys ‘R’ Us, Target, or Browns. Warehouse allowances, advertising allowances: all documented and set in stone. The only time he paused was when he found the letter from Gerry McGuire, about Hart Toy being fined because they had shipped one day early. He remembered Ann’s conversation with the man, and McGuire’s promise that this fine and others would be reversed.
The third drawer contained most of the contracts they had signed with inventors and manufacturers. There was one for their line of basic dolls. Another detailed the acquisition of Moonlight, their hugely successful board game. It was no surprise to Jonathan that most of what he was looking at originated in Eastern Asia, predominantly China. While Hong Kong still contained many of the head offices, manufacturing facilities had gravitated to areas that had sprung up and blossomed in recent years: Shenzhen, just across the Hong Kong border and designated as a Special Economic Zone, being the most notable.
Baby Talk N Glow had come to them from an inventor in Hong Kong. Despite the doll’s many merits, they had encountered serious problems. Still, Ann had persevered. And with each additional step taken, the obstacles had become greater. And now this. It suddenly occurred to Jonathan that this latest incident involving his brother may have been another attempt to keep this project from moving forward. Perhaps Pat’s situation had nothing really to do with Pat at all, and everything to do with Baby Talk N Glow? Jonathan realized how crazy that seemed. Did it have something to do with the inventor? The competition? Or was someone out to get Pat, as he suggested? That did seem to be the most viable scenario. Pat had alienated a lot of people over the years. Not only in business, but in his personal life as well.
Jonathan shook the cobwebs free. With some speed he took hold of the remaining files in the bottom drawer. He slapped them down on Patrick’s desk and reclaimed his seat. Then he began to thumb his way through, uncovering one contract after the other. He was nearing the end when he pulled out the Baby Talk N Glow file. Opening it, he practically jumped back in alarm. The folder that should have contained the contract was empty.