A Winter Dream - By Richard Paul Evans Page 0,51

“He wanted to try something new—a bigger agency. In fact, he was hired by your agency. Leo Burnett of Chicago.”

“Then he’s with us,” I said. “Interesting. I assume he’s still employed there.”

“We’re not sure,” Rupert said. “We’ve lost contact with him.”

“I can check on that. Since he understands the Leo Burnett corporate culture, I’m sure that what he’d have to tell us about the compatibility of our two agencies will be helpful.”

Both of the men looked anxious.

I turned to Simon. “If I ask him why he left, he’ll corroborate your story?”

More silence. Then Simon said, “No, sir. He probably won’t.”

“What would he tell me?”

“He would probably say that it was my fault he left. I forced him out.”

I frowned. “Why would you do that?”

Another pause.

“This is very uncomfortable.”

“Please continue. The more I know, the better prepared I will be to make a recommendation to our CEO.”

Simon exhaled slowly. “I was jealous of him. He was more talented than me and my father knew it. I was afraid I would lose my job to him.”

I looked at him coolly. “This concerns me,” I said. “A corporate culture that punishes success will never succeed.”

“Clearly,” Rupert said.

“Have you sought to make amends with this brother?”

“We’ve wanted to,” Rupert said. I noticed the emotion in his eyes. “But we didn’t know how to reach him.”

“You just told me he was employed with our Chicago office. Certainly you could have found him.”

“The truth is,” Simon said, “we were too ashamed.”

Rupert nodded in agreement.

After a moment I exhaled slowly. “Okay. Enough of this matter.” I lifted a sheet of paper. “We had our accounting department conduct a detailed audit of the last five years of your financial books. They’ve brought something to my attention. There seems to be a discrepancy in your finances.

“About three years ago there was a sizable nonitemized disbursement to one of your employees. If my memory doesn’t fail me, his name is Benjamin.”

I noticed both of them squirm.

“This Benjamin also has the last name of Jacobson so may I assume he’s one of your family?”

“Yes, sir,” the brothers said almost in unison.

“He’s our brother,” Rupert said.

“Another brother? How many of you are there?”

“Twelve brothers, sir,” Simon said. “And one sister.”

“What a family,” I said, shaking my head as if in amazement. “But back to the company. The amount of the disbursement was thirty-six thousand dollars. What can you tell me about this?”

“He borrowed the money,” Rupert said.

“Borrowed from a public held company?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you a bank as well as an agency?”

“No, sir,” Rupert said.

“I don’t need to tell you that’s not good business practice. But, why then wasn’t this disbursement originally recorded as a loan? In fact, it would appear that there was an attempt to conceal it.”

Both brothers sat silently.

“Is this something that your father was involved with?”

“No, sir,” Rupert blurted out.

“Then your father, CEO, was unaware of what was going on at his own firm.”

Rupert looked down for a moment, then back to me. “Mr. Joseph, I know this looks bad. But it’s not my father’s fault. This whole thing was a fiasco, but it was a fluke—a one-time event. Please keep this in the context of decades of company success.”

“Noted,” I said. I sat back and looked at them for a moment. I honestly felt bad for them. For their desperation. “I noticed a strange coincidence here. The time of this ‘loan’ coincides with your brother Joseph’s departure from the firm. Was he somehow involved in this matter?”

“Yes,” Simon said.

His answer surprised me. “He was?”

“It’s just that I used that incident to coerce him to leave the firm.”

“How did you do that?”

“He wanted to just pay the money back for his brother. But I told him that if he didn’t leave the state I would file legal action against Ben. Ben is his full brother.”

“F-o-o-l or f-u-l-l brother?” I asked.

“The latter,” Rupert said.

“So, this Joseph is guilty of attempting to conceal what may be considered a fraudulent act. And he is currently working at our agency. Unfortunately, I’ll have to respond to that.”

Both brothers blanched.

“Mr. Joseph,” Rupert said, “the only thing my brother Joseph is guilty of is mercy. He had nothing to do with any of this. We put him in a horrible position. If anyone should be fired, it’s me. This is my failure. I never should have involved him in this affair.” He paused with emotion. “Let him keep his job. Please don’t punish him for my actions.”

“Unfortunately, that is the way the world works,” I