The Phoenix Partners

The high-priced legal team that appeared in court to argue against us quickly revealed who Kathy's "someone who can do better" was.

Troy Tenneson. But you saw that coming didn't you?

I've already told you my opinion of Troy Tenneson. He thought he was smarter, richer and more powerful than you, so you should just lay down and let him walk all over you. Or rather, let those he hired to walk all over you do their jobs, because walking all over you himself was beneath him. But where our divorce was concerned, Tenneson's wealth, his power and most importantly his attitude all ended up working against him.

Alex decided that Paul should take the lead and be my attorney of record while he served as advisor and took care of the rest of his and Paul's clients. We'd be two brothers standing together against Tenneson's school of legal sharks, a pair of Davids against an army of Goliaths. The sight of a half dozen lawyers in five thousand dollar suits showing up to try to steamroll over a small town lawyer representing a newly unemployed husband and father fighting for the daughter who was all he had left that could be taken from him rubbed the county judge in the family court the wrong way from day one. The fact that the newly unemployed husband and father was being divorced and sued for custody by a wife who had left him for the wealthy man who had so recently made the husband and father unemployed and was paying for the half dozen lawyers in five thousand dollar suits did nothing to relieve that first impression. When the mother of the wife who had left the newly unemployed husband and father angrily declared to the court that she would be happy to help her son-in-law care for her granddaughter but wanted nothing to do with her own daughter, some of those lawyers in five thousand dollar suits started to look nervous. And when copies of the wife's "fuck you, loser kitchen help" farewell note threatening to keep the husband and father her lover had made newly unemployed from ever seeing his daughter again were distributed in court the half dozen lawyers in five thousand dollar suits looked as if they'd rather be anywhere else but in that county judge's family court.

Ultimately, the judge took Kathy's note at face value. She ruled that Kathy had relinquished all claim to our marital assets, not that there were all that many marital assets to claim; our house was in my mother's name, as was the family business, so the assets consisted of our cars, IRAs and the contents of our savings and checking accounts. But most importantly, the judge agreed with Paul's argument that Kathy's threat was evidence of a negative attitude toward her own child and a clear unwillingness to "facilitate and encourage a close and continuing relationship between the other parent and the child." She granted full custody of our daughter to me, allowing Kathy unlimited visitation but only with court-approved supervision. Kathy stared daggers at me as she left the courtroom, and Tenneson, who had shown up only on the last day of proceedings, probably expecting to bask in the triumph of my defeat and humiliation, had the shocked look of a hulking bully who had just been beaten by a 98 pound weakling.

We closed the restaurant that evening for a private celebration, though I seemed to spend most of the evening hugging a crying Rose O'Haney, thanking her for her support in court and assuring her that I didn't feel that what Kathy had done was in any way her fault.

A couple of weeks after our divorce was final Kathy became the fourth Mrs. Troy Tenneson, and the "happy couple" made their home in Los Angeles. Kathy actually sent her mother a wedding invitation. Rose's reaction was... colorful, and became characteristic of their relationship from that point on.

Kathy flew back to Oregon in Tenneson's private jet every week, but her visits with Callie became problematic. The court readily accepted Callie's grandmothers as court approved supervision, but their home, the house Kathy's parents had raised her in, proved to be unworkable as a visitation location. Kathy and her mother kept getting into screaming arguments every time Kathy visited, the last of which ended with Rose calling her daughter "an evil bitch she was ashamed had ever come from her womb," and declaring that Kathy "should never again dishonor her sainted father's memory by setting foot in his house." We moved visitations to the restaurant, where we rearranged one of our two private dining rooms into a play space. Rose was more restrained in the presence of the staff and customers, but every time Kathy came, she took up a position at a table just outside the door, "just in case the bitch tries to do something she shouldn't."

My idea about going back to the restaurant turned out to be premature. The reality was that having grown up in the business there wasn't all that much left for me to learn about running it, and until my mother was ready to retire, I wasn't needed there full time. And since Mom's opinion of retirement was that it was "waiting to die," retirement wasn't going to happen anytime soon. So when Marty Ball, my former boss from Maitland Operations who had been fired at the same time as me, stopped in one day to tell me that he and some of the other fired Maitland managers were getting together to talk about starting their own business and asked if I would be interested in joining them, my answer was an immediate, "Hell, yeah."

The idea behind the new business, which we named "Phoenix," after the mythical bird that erupts in flames as it dies and is reborn out of the ashes (we almost called it "Lazarus," but someone had beaten us to the name, believe it or not) was to bring the suppliers who had been lowballed or dropped as vendors by the "new" Maitland together to form a cooperative. We'd produce a high-quality product, and market it to boutique natural food retailers who were increasingly refusing to carry the lower quality "new Maitland" products. Our foot in the door was that we were the management group from the "old" Maitland they used to have a good business relationship with

Since we didn't have any "operations" to manage yet, and if we ever did Marty would manage them, I was tasked to apply my previously untapped MBA to devise a business plan we could present to banks to secure funding and a marketing plan to convince the people we wanted to bring together that we could actually sell what we proposed to produce. That was what I was working on the day the call came.

"Geoff!" Paul's shouting voice came from my phone when I picked up, "Where are you?"

"Meeting in Pendleton," I replied concerned at his tone, "What's up?"

"Kathy tried to take Callie! Rose tried to stop her, and... Rose and Callie are both in the hospital, it's bad, Geoff, you have to get back here!"

"On my way!" I shouted, and quickly broke up my meeting and ran for my car. I was about seventy miles from home, and probably broke every speed limit there was along the quickest route back.

As I drove, Paul brought me up to speed. Kathy had arrived for her visitation as usual, in a big, fancy car with a driver, who always waited in the lounge while Kathy was with Callie. But at the end of the visit, Kathy grabbed Callie's arm and started dragging her out the front door. Rose tried to stop them, but Kathy's driver stepped up and blasted Rose in the face with pepper spray, and as Rose started screaming the two of them exited with Callie in tow.

Somehow, despite the searing pain and being nearly blinded by the chemicals in her eyes, Rose ran after them. When Callie saw her Gramma stumble and collapse in the street, she broke free from Kathy's grasp and ran back toward Rose.

The driver of the truck wasn't speeding, talking on his phone, texting or doing anything else he shouldn't have been doing. But the realities of human reaction time and braking distance meant there was never any chance of swerving or stopping his huge, heavily loaded truck in time.

Much later, I would learn that the truck's trailer was boldly emblazoned with the logo of "The NEW Maitland Mills."

My mother-in-law, Rose Bridget O'Haney, died in the emergency room shortly after I arrived at the hospital. She was fifty-eight years old.

My daughter, Callie An Lee, lingered in a coma for eight days before her tiny body gave up fighting for life. She would have been seven in another month.

I "checked out" after that. I remember the doctor telling us Callie was gone. The next thing I knew, it was two days later and I was in the restaurant kitchen cutting up a chicken. It should have been disquieting to suddenly find myself with a razor-sharp cleaver in my hand and no memory of how it got there, or how I got where I was, but at the time it just didn't seem to register. Apparently, Mom and Paul had sort of hovered over me and made sure I didn't do anything to harm myself with sharp things as they waited for me to get hold of myself. I guess I did, but at the cost of not being able to feel much of anything for a very long while.

Arrangements were made for two more family funerals. I was surprised when I was informed that there were papers recently signed by Rose naming me as her next of kin for all legal matters and a will leaving everything to Callie and/or me, but it was something "Chinese-y" that Rose had picked up from spending so much time working and living with my Mom; I had married the daughter of a family with no sons, and Rose had disowned her daughter for leaving me. So the duty of making Rose's final arrangements and disposing of her estate fell to me as Rose's "son."

I couldn't live in the house anymore; there were just too many memories and they were all just too raw. I took Paul's apartment, and he and cousin Zhen argued over who should take the house. Zhen prevailed by insisting that he had to be close to "his" kitchen, so Paul ended up being the one living alone in a three-bedroom house. Mom was technically living alone in Rose's house, which was now legally mine, but she was spending most of her time in the restaurant or with me in my apartment and only going back to the house to sleep.

Kathy and her driver had been arrested at the scene the day of the accident when the restaurant staff and witnesses on the street told police what they had seen. The DA charged Kathy with "custodial interference in the first degree," and her driver with "kidnapping in the second degree," for their attempted abduction of Callie, and the driver with "assault in the third degree" for macing Rose, all felonies, which enabled her to charge them both with two counts of "felony murder" for the deaths of Rose and Callie. They were both facing mandatory prison sentences as high as 25 years, and when the DA had Paul and Alex appear at their arraignments to provide the judge with information about Kathy's previous threat to take Callie and the fact that Kathy had left me for a multimillionaire from out of state and her driver was employed by that same person, both were deemed flight risks and denied bail pending trial.

"I need to tell you that they probably won't be convicted on these charges," the DA told us, "though I certainly think they're guilty of them. The vast majority of cases like this end in plea bargains."

"I don't suppose there's any chance of tying Tenneson to this," Paul asked. "It had to be his money behind it."

"I doubt it, but we could take a shot at offering them more generous plea bargains if they'll implicate him."

"If you think you can get them to do that, try," I said, still devoid of emotion, "Otherwise, nothing you do can bring Rose or Callie back, and I don't care."

The DA proved to be correct. Neither Kathy nor the driver could implicate Tenneson, and they eventually entered guilty pleas to two counts of "second degree manslaughter." With concurrent sentencing they'd be eligible for parole after serving the state mandated minimum sentence of six years and three months. I chose not to speak or submit a "victim's statement" at either of their sentencing hearings. I've heard that some people feel a sense of satisfaction, justice or closure when those who have harmed them or those they love are sentenced. I felt nothing.

The first months after that were a blur. When I was working, whether in the restaurant or on Phoenix business, time seemed to fly by. When I wasn't, it slowed to an interminable crawl. The nights were the worst, and sleep was hard to come by. I finally decided that flying by was better than crawling, and worked as much as I could. I was digging a hole in the tea garden to plant a new shrub when my phone rang.

"Hello," said a female voice with an accent. French, I thought. "My name is Sofie Soulis. Am I speaking to Mister Geoffrey Lee of the Phoenix Group?"

"Yes, you are," I replied. Soulis, named sounded familiar.

"I am calling for Mister Arnau Soulis. Mister Soulis would like to meet with you to discuss a partnership opportunity." Arnau Soulis, that name I knew. Multi-billionaire Greek shipping magnate.

"Well," I said, "I am not really the person you should be speaking to about a partnership with Phoenix."

"We would prefer to discuss this with you first, for personal reasons."

"Oh," I said, unable to think of anything that a billionaire Greek shipping magnate would want to talk with me about for personal reasons. There were a few moments of dead air, and then another voice came on the line.

"Mister Lee, this is Arnau Soulis. I believe we have a common interest and may be able to be of assistance to one another...

"Troy Tenneson."

Timberline Lodge is situated on the south side of Mount Hood, about 60 miles east of Portland. It was built and furnished by local artisans during the Great Depression under the sponsorship of the Works Progress Administration, and dedicated September 28, 1937 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The lodge is a National Historic Landmark within the Mount Hood National Forest. If you saw Jack Nicholson in The Shining, the resort was the exterior of the "Overlook Hotel."

I checked in three days after the call from Arnau Soulis, ostensibly needing to "just get away and clear my head" of my black cloud of sadness in Rose Valley. I didn't mention to anyone that I'd be meeting someone else there. There was a message waiting for me at the front desk inviting me to dinner at one of the luxury condominiums at the nearby Lodge at Government Camp, and the lodge's concierge had arranged for someone to drive me there and back.

Upon my arrival I was greeted by Arnau Soulis, a dapper looking elderly gentleman. Sofie Soulis, his companion, was a woman a few years older than me who bore no family resemblance whatsoever to Soulis and turned out to be his daughter-in-law. They both insisted we all use first names, and we sat down to be served a sumptuous dinner. All mention of business, whatever that was going to be, was deferred until after the dishes had been cleared away.

"Your recent experiences with Troy Tenneson are known to us," Arnau finally began, "But I doubt that Sofie's and my experience with the man are known to you.

"Troy Tenneson is responsible for the murder of my son, Armand," Arnau flatly declared, "Sofie's husband."

Arnau Soulis was a man with a checkered past. The son of a Greek fisherman who had no wish to inherit his father's life, he instead used his small fishing boat to carry cargo, almost none of it legal. In time, he owned a fleet of such boats. In more time, he owned a fleet of freighters and oil tankers. He was ambitious and ruthlessly avaricious in his pursuit of wealth... until he met and married his wife, Manon.

Manon Soulis was a woman of compassion and charity. In order to win her love, Arnau had to put aside many of his ambitions and become "a good man" in her eyes. That meant no more illegal shipments, treating his workers, business partners and even his competitors fairly and, eventually, dedicating his vast fortune to attempting to make amends for the worst of his past sins. He funded the Soulis Foundation, with a mission to combat poverty and exploitation, and Manon raised their son Andre to share her passion for making that mission a success. Upon Manon's death, the foundation became the Manon Soulis Foundation, and Andre was its chairman.

The foundation had become involved in the affairs of San Lorenze, a small, impoverished South American state whose government was negotiating a deal that would fund schools and hospitals for all its citizens. But the cost would be the granting of over a half-million acres of rainforest to an energy and mining cartel that would, over the next ten years, deforest almost all the land, turn it from an environmental treasure into a wasteland of oil fields and mining pits and displace the indigenous tribal peoples who made their homes there. It was truly a deal with the devil, but it was also the needs of the many today vs. those of the few and the future.

The foundation had submitted a competing proposal to fund those schools and hospitals. Not as many as the corporate land deal would provide, but enough to make the destructive land deal unnecessary. The president of the country was receptive, and Andre travelled to San Lorenze to join him for a summit with local officials and tribal leaders. Their aircraft dropped off radar over the rain forest, and soon after the vice president assumed the presidency. The aircraft's disappearance was blamed on unidentified "ecoterrorists." All discussions with the foundation were terminated without explanation, the deal with the cartel was rushed through and another rainforest was promptly signed away into oblivion.

The funder of the energy and mining cartel?

Tenneson Equity Partners. You saw that coming too, didn't you?

"You believe that Troy Tenneson assassinated the president of San Lorenze and murdered your son?" I certainly had a low opinion of Tenneson, but this was far beyond my imaginings.

"I believe the vice president of San Lorenze was the person directly responsible," Arnau replied, "But Tenneson's money was the prize that motivated him." I nodded as I recalled what Paul had said to our county DA about Tenneson and the deaths of my daughter and mother in law: it had to be his money behind it.

"I was enraged," Arnau continued, "I wanted to crush the life out of all of them. I considered making calls to... people I know." His eyes seemed to become lifeless, and I recognized that look; I had seen it a lot in mirrors in recent months.

"But my Manon would not have approved. My Andre would not have approved."

"And I would not have approved," Sofie added.

"Sofie made it clear that she would not have Andre's memory sullied by violence," Arnau explained, "Nor would she allow her children to be near anyone who would do so." He reached into a pocket and handed me a photograph of a boy and a girl both about my Callie's age.

"Little Arnau and Manon," Arnau told me. "Arnau is five, Manon is six. If I were to yield to my baser instinct, I have every reason to believe that Sofie might never allow me to see them again." His daughter in law said nothing, but the resolute expression on her face told me that that might very well be true.

"And so we are meeting because...?" I asked. I had not the slightest concept where this conversation was going, since if anything I had less power to act than they did.

"Sofie has accepted that I must do something," Arnau explained, "But she has insisted that any action I take must be within the law, and may not harm innocents."

"Ideally," Sofie added, "I should like it to be something that might serve as a memorial to my Andre. And perhaps, it might also do the same for your loved ones?" She handed me a folder with what appeared to be news clippings in it.