The Simeon Chamber (3 page)

But it had not always been so. Samuel Bogardus was born to working class parents and had learned the adversities of life at a young age.

Sam’s father, Joseph, had been a farmer in the hills above Colma and Daly City before the postwar housing boom. He suffered the fate of virtually all of the small ranchers and farmers in the doomed regions south of San Francisco. Joseph Bogardus had watched in bitter resignation as one after another of his leased farms were devoured for new subdivisions and commercial development. In the mid-fifties his last ranch became an island surrounded on all sides by tract homes. When the owner of the land, a crusty Greek farmer, refused to sell, the money men merely reached deeper into their pockets, turned their largess on the city fathers and the ranch was taken by eminent domain for the construction of a school. For ten years Sam watched as his father wandered through a maze of unfulfilling jobs in construction and trucking, always living with the dream that he would one day own his own farm. But the dream went unfulfilled when in 1965 Joseph died of a heart attack at the wheel of a lumber truck on its way to San Jose carrying materials for still more new homes.

For Bogardus, the love of his father was invested in memories of Joseph’s oversized callused hands and the weathered furrows of his face under a Western-style straw hat. In his mind the lawyer swore undying enmity to the developers and the harbingers of progress. He left the public defender’s office where he’d cut his teeth trying misdemeanors and had worked his way to major felonies. Four years after his father’s death he took his first revenge in the form of a million-dollar class action judgment 5

against four large contractors for shoddy workmanship and for using substandard building materials on three hundred homes in the San Mateo hills.

Two more similar but smaller judgments followed, and in time Bogardus found himself sought after by homeowners’ associations, conservation groups and other lawyers offering referrals.

For six years the firm prospered, but increasingly Sam found that the fire had gone out of his soul. Money could never replace the memories of an unspoiled coastline, or bring back the long lazy days when as a child he’d walked the plowed fields next to his father. He was restless, and his mind searched for something new to do with his life, something that would quell the fires of bitterness and occupy his mind with thoughts other than those of revenge. There was no denying that in recent months his thoughts had wandered increasingly from the partnership and the practice of law.

The brass wall plaque under the huge arched doorway leading to Pier Nine read: Bogardus and Paterson Attorneys and Counselors-at-Law

The “Counselors” was an affectation insisted upon by Susan Paterson, the more serious half of the partnership—and, all would agree, the better-looking of the two lawyers. Susan Paterson, “Pat” to all who knew her, was a striking five-foot-eight-inch brunette with a feline form that excited youthful fantasies in old men. She possessed a tenacious singularity of mind and a first-rate legal intellect masked behind angelic blue eyes.

The partnership had begun as an amorous adventure in law school, where Bogardus had met Pat during his first year. He never stopped questioning his inexplicable good fortune in winning the statuesque beauty, who by her second year had rejected no fewer than three proposals of marriage from prominent attorneys and had shattered the boundless ego of a contracts professor intent on an extracurricular tryst.

Through three years of law school Sam and Pat shared a crowded single-bedroom flat in Berkeley in a tempestuous on-again-off-again romance. In the end, love had deteriorated into friendship, and while the stable base for a 7

solid marriage had eluded them, a firm platform for a business and professional life together was not an unpleasant consolation.

Bogardus sauntered up the stairs and through the door to the office and was immediately confronted by a frizzy mop of brown hair hanging over a typewriter.

“Morning, Carol. How was your weekend?” Bogardus plucked his telephone messages from the tray on her desk and began to pick through them.

Carol Brompton was a plump girl in her early twenties with dark hair and a mouth overflowing with braces. She filled the inevitable role in a small law office, providing both clerical and paralegal services while attending law school in the evenings.

“Good morning, Mr. Bogardus.” The genuine good nature of the girl beamed in her metallic smile. But her formality alerted Sam to the fact that a client was near. To Carol, Bogardus was always “Sam” unless a client was around. It was a practice no doubt drummed into her during one of the many staff meetings presided over by Pat and attended only by Carol, who left frequently to answer the phone. Sam refused to participate in office affairs, assuming that if he had anything to tell the other two souls in the office it could be done at any time.

The periodic office conferences said as much about the divergent personalities of the partners as anything else. Pat’s guiding stars were organization and preparation, often to the point of compulsion. In contrast, Sam was impulsive, preferring to act on instinct, which had served him well over the years. He reveled in the unanticipated and cloaked himself in the unorthodox.

Bogardus moved past the secretary’s desk toward his office. Turning his head slightly, he caught a glimpse of a woman seated to the left of the office entrance. She never looked up from her magazine.

Sam’s office was a spacious room with a wall of high windows providing an oblique view of the bay and the tip of Yerba Buena Island under the Bay Bridge. Bobbing outside at the dock were two tugs and the pilot boat used for ferrying bar pilots out beyond the Golden Gate.

The office itself displayed a full-wall photograph of early San Francisco, made of a mosaic of smaller pictures 9

pieced together to form a panorama of the city in 1902.

The office furnishings, a mahogany desk and matching chair and credenza, were not expensive, but the pieces had been old when Sam had purchased them for his apartment during law school. They were slowly taking on the charm of antiques as the years passed. A brass floor lamp stood behind his desk to one side, along with a large black-cushioned executive swivel chair.

The walls were cluttered with various license certificates, diplomas and two expensive framed lithographs that Sam had purchased on a binge after receiving a healthy personal injury settlement.

The office was devoid of any greenery. Sam had tried his luck with a Boston fern that he hung from the ceiling, but the beautiful plant began to wilt and die from lack of attention. Pat accused Bogardus of torturing the thing and removed it to her own office, where it thrived under the nurturing care of a woman’s hand.

Sam just had time to settle into his chair and take stock of the phone messages when the intercom buzzed. He picked up the receiver.

“Ms. Davies is here for her nine o’clock appointment, Mr. Bogardus.”

“Davis?” It wasn’t a continuing matter. “What’s the case?”

“The file’s on your desk,” said Carol.

“Just a minute.”

Sam pushed the messages aside and scanned the assorted files spread out on the desk. He caught the name “Davies” on the tab of one of the folders and read upside down the description typed under the name “Adoption.”

“Damn it,” Sam muttered under his breath. The least she could have done was to wait a couple of days. He sighed, opened the file and resigned himself to be done with it as quickly and painlessly as possible.

“Send her in.” His tone was impatient.

A moment later the door to his office opened and through it walked the woman he had seen in the waiting room earlier. Framed in the doorway with the light behind her, her silhouette immediately captured Sam’s complete attention. She was tall, slender and quite attractive. She moved gracefully from the door toward his desk. Almost absentmindedly Sam rose and extended a hand in greeting.

“Good morning, Ms. Davis is it?”

“Davies,” she corrected him. “Jennifer Davies.”

“Can I offer you anything, coffee, tea?”

Sam made a quick appraisal. The woman was well-dressed, well-mannered and well-heeled.

“Thank you, no. I had coffee in the outer office.”

“Please take a seat.”

Jennifer Davies slid gracefully into the plush-cushioned client chair and crossed one leg over the other. The silk dress clung to the contours of her body, the hem sliding partially up a well-shaped thigh. Sam made no effort to conceal his downward gaze. When he looked up her eyes had engaged his as she tugged the hem gently toward her knee, a slight smile evident on glistening raspberry lips. Her complexion was clear and tawny, her brunette hair short, cut just off the shoulders and swept back. Her jewelry, like the woman herself, had an air of elegance: a gold bracelet, a pearl necklace and matching earrings. Her face was gentle, with high cheekbones, thin lips and well-defined lines. Sam guessed her age to be mid-thirties. This was not the usual referral from his mother, and he began to recant his earlier remonstrations.

“Well, what can I do for you?” He studied the ring on her left hand. It was becoming impossible to tell, even for an experienced bachelor. She wore a simple gold ring on her third finger—

not exactly a wedding band, but close.

“I’m not really sure where to begin. I’m trying to find my father.”

Sam looked again at the file laying on the desk blotter. “I was led to believe that this was an adoption matter.”

“It is. At least in part.”

“Is your father missing?”

“Not exactly.” The woman pursed her lips and in a matter-of-fact tone said, “He’s dead —at least according to the United States Navy, my mother and my stepfather.”

Sam shot her a quizzical look.

“Perhaps I’d better explain.”

“It would help.”

“I’m adopted, Mr. Bogardus—or at least I have an adoptive stepfather. My mother died last year. I’m interested in finding out who 13

my natural father is. I believe the term they use today is birth parent.”

“You say `is.` A moment ago you said he was dead.”

“I have reason to believe that he’s alive.”

The woman shifted in her chair, uneasy with the conversation. “It’s a rather long and involved story.”

“Take your time.” Sam was only half listening, for while her voice was not unpleasant it was no match for her other attractions, and his imagination had already begun to wander.

She took a deep breath. To those in the trade it might have been construed as the “gasp of guilt” —the last suck of honest air before the criminal client unburdens himself and tells his lawyer what really happened. It was common fare for the public defenders working the county jail, and Sam had been fed a steady diet during his time with that office. In the case of Jennifer Davies he attributed it to a slight case of nerves.

“For many years, through most of my childhood, I accepted the fact that my father was dead. My mother told me that he’d been killed during the war. I had no reason to question her. Well”—she paused, a pained expression in her eyes—”almost no reason.” Davies took a slender gold cigarette case from her purse. “Do you mind?”

Sam shook his head.

“It happened when I was thirteen or fourteen. I overheard an argument between my mother and stepfather. She was shouting that it was unfair to me, insisting that they tell me who my father was. She said I had a right to know. But my stepfather said no, I was too young and that I wouldn’t understand. I didn’t hear enough of the conversation to know exactly what was going on, but I always assumed my father was in prison or shut away somewhere in an asylum, and that they—my mother and stepfather—wanted to shelter me from the shame and embarrassment.” Davies lit the cigarette.

Her hands trembled slightly. She dropped the lighter into her purse and took a shallow draw, immediately expelling the smoke.

“What makes you think I can help?”

“Well your mother was so nice. When she heard about my problem she was certain you could find the answer. In fact she was quite insistent.”

“That’s my mother.” Sam rubbed his forehead and eyes with both hands. “How did you meet her?”

“Oh, I’ve never actually met her.”

For a fleeting instant the thought flashed 15

through his brain that the old lady had placed an ad —”Have lawyer—can help.”

Jennifer Davies interrupted his waking nightmare. “I have an elderly aunt here in the city. She works at the hospital auxiliary and she’s quite friendly with your mother. The two of them got to talking one afternoon …”

“I see.” She was single, all right. The equation suddenly made sense—the two old ladies, the beautiful niece and the eligible bachelor lawyer. His mother would never quit. Ever since he and Pat had split up Angie had spewed venom at the woman who jilted her son. She tried to fill the void with matches made over her dining room table, enlisting the aid of friends and family. Under other circumstances he might have been angry. But looking at Jennifer Davies, Bogardus found hostility to be one of his more remote emotions.

“Let’s get back to your father.”

“Yes, well, I’ve tried to get information from a number of public agencies—Social Welfare, the State Bureau of Vital Statistics. But I keep running into a stone wall. They all tell me the same thing, that adoption records are sealed and not public.

I’ve been told there’s no way I can find out who my father is unless he decides independently that he wants to see me.”

Bogardus leaned back in his chair and coupled his hands behind his head. “Have you talked to your stepfather? Have you asked him for information?”

“Yes, repeatedly. But the story is always the same. He says my father died during the war.

When I press him he becomes angry. He knows more than he’s saying and I can tell that he’s frightened.” The woman’s gaze dropped to the large handbag on her lap. “I think as long as my mother was alive, the two of them shared the secret. But now that she’s gone, he’s afraid of the responsibility, afraid he might hurt me by telling me the truth.”

She paused for a moment. “He believes that he and my mother were my only real parents, and for me to search for my natural father now is somehow disloyal to her memory and our years together as a family.” Her voice broke and trailed off. She shifted in her chair as she regained her composure. “But now I know he’s not telling the truth.”