Morning Noon & Night (22 page)

T
he day before the reading of the will, Kendall and Woody were seated in Steve’s office.

“I don’t understand why we’re here,” Woody said. “The reading is supposed to be tomorrow.”

“There’s someone I want you to meet,” Steve told them.

“Who?”

“Your sister.”

They were both staring at him. “We’ve already met her,” Kendall said.

Steve pressed a button on the intercom. “Would you ask her to come in, please?”

Kendall and Woody looked at each other, puzzled.

The door opened, and Julia Stanford walked into the office.

Steve stood up. “This is your sister, Julia.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Woody exploded. “What are you trying to pull?”

“Let me explain,” Steve said quietly. He spoke for fifteen
minutes, and finished by saying, “Perry Winger confirms that her DNA matches your father’s.”

When Steve was through, Woody said, “Tyler! I can’t believe it!”

“Believe it.”

“I don’t understand. The other woman’s fingerprints prove that
she
is Julia,” Woody said. “I still have the fingerprint card.”

Steve felt his pulse pounding. “You do?”

“Yeah. I kept it as kind of a joke.”

“I want you to do me a favor,” Steve said.

At ten o’clock the next morning, a large group was gathered in the conference room of Renquist, Renquist & Fitzgerald. Simon Fitzgerald sat at the head of a table. In the room were Kendall, Tyler, Woody, Steve, and Julia. In addition, there were several strangers present.

Fitzgerald introduced two of them. “This is William Parker and Patrick Evans. They’re with the law firms that represent Stanford Enterprises. They’ve brought with them the financial report on the company. I’ll discuss the will first, then they can take over the meeting.”

“Let’s get on with it,” Tyler said impatiently. He was sitting apart from the others.
I’m not only going to get the money, but I’m going to destroy you bastards
.

Simon Fitzgerald nodded. “Very well.”

In front of Fitzgerald was a large file marked
HARRY STANFORD
—
LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT.
“I’m going to give each of you a copy of the will so it won’t be necessary to wade
through all the technicalities. I’ve already told you that Harry Stanford’s children will equally inherit the estate.”

Julia glanced over at Steve, a look of bemusement on her face.

I’m glad for her
, Steve thought.
Even though it puts her way out of my reach
.

Simon Fitzgerald was going on. “There are a dozen or so bequests, but they’re all minor.”

Tyler was thinking,
Lee will be here this afternoon. I want to be at the airport to meet him
.

“As you were told earlier, Stanford Enterprises has assets of approximately six billion dollars.” Fitzgerald nodded toward William Parker. “I’ll let Mr. Parker take it from here.”

William Parker opened a briefcase and spread some papers out on the conference table. “As Mr. Fitzgerald said, there are six billion dollars in assets. However…” There was a pregnant pause. He looked around the room. “Stanford Enterprises is in debt in excess of fifteen billion dollars.”

Woody was on his feet. “What the hell are you saying?”

Tyler’s face turned ashen. “Is this some kind of macabre joke?”

“It has to be!” Kendall said hoarsely.

Mr. Parker turned to one of the men in the room. “Mr. Leonard Redding is with the Securities and Exchange Commission. I’ll let him explain.”

Redding nodded. “For the last two years, Harry Stanford was convinced that interest rates were going to fall. In the past, he had made millions by betting on that. When interest rates started to rise, he was still convinced they would
drop again, and he kept leveraging his bets. He did massive borrowing to buy long-term bonds, but the interest rates went up and his borrowing costs jumped, while the value of the bonds tumbled. The banks were willing to do business with him because of his reputation and his vast fortune, but when he tried to recoup his losses by starting to invest in high-risk securities, they began to get worried. He made a series of disastrous investments. Some of the money he borrowed was pledged by securities he had bought with borrowed money as collateral for further borrowing.”

“In other words,” Patrick Evans interjected, “he was pyramiding his debts, operating illegally.”

“That is correct. Unfortunately for him, interest rates underwent one of the steepest climbs in financial history. He had to keep borrowing money to cover the money he had already borrowed. It was a vicious circle.”

They sat there, hanging on Redding’s every word.

“Your father gave his personal guarantee to the company’s pension plan and illegally used that money to buy more stock. When the banks began to question what he was doing, he set up decoy companies and provided false records of solvency and fake sales of his properties to drive up the value of his paper. He was committing fraud. In the end, he was counting on a consortium of banks to bail him out of trouble. They refused. When they told the Securities and Exchange Commission what was happening, Interpol was brought into the picture.”

Redding indicated the man seated next to him. “This is Inspector Patou, with the French Sûreté. Inspector, would you explain the rest of it, please?”

Inspector Patou spoke English with a slight French accent. “At the request of Interpol, we traced Harry Stanford to St.-Paul-de-Vence, and I sent three detectives there to follow him. He managed to elude them. Interpol had put out a green code to all police departments that Harry Stanford was under suspicion and should be watched. If they had known the extent of his crimes, they would have circulated a red code, or top priority, and we would have apprehended him.”

Woody was in a state of shock.
“That’s
why he left us his estate. Because there was nothing in it!”

William Parker said, “You’re right about that. You were all in your father’s will because the banks refused to go along with him and he knew that, in essence, he was leaving you nothing. But he spoke to René Gautier at Crédit Lyonnais, who promised to help him. The moment Harry Stanford thought that he was solvent again, he planned to change his will to cut you out of it.”

“But what about the yacht, and the plane, and the houses?” Kendall asked.

“I’m sorry,” Parker said. “Everything will be sold to pay off part of the debt.”

Tyler sat there, numb. It was a nightmare beyond imagining. He was no longer Tyler Stanford, Multibillionaire. He was merely a judge.

Tyler got up to leave, shaken. “I…I don’t know what to say. If there’s nothing else…” He had to get to the airport quickly to meet Lee and try to explain what had happened.

Steve spoke up. “There is something else.”

He turned. “Yes?”

Steve nodded to a man standing at the door. The door opened, and Hal Baker walked in. “Hi, Judge.”

The breakthrough had come when Woody told Steve that he had the fingerprint card.

“I’d like to see it,” Steve told him.

Woody had been puzzled. “Why? It just has the woman’s two sets of fingerprints on it, and they matched. We all checked it.”

“But the man who called himself Frank Timmons took the fingerprints, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then if he touched the card,
his
fingerprints will be on it.”

Steve’s hunch had proved to be right. Hal Baker’s prints were all over the card, and it had taken less than thirty minutes for the computers to reveal his identity. Steve had telephoned the district attorney in Chicago. A warrant was issued, and two detectives had appeared at Hal Baker’s house.

He was in the yard playing catch with Billy.

“Mr. Baker?”

“Yes.”

The detectives showed their badges. “The district attorney would like to talk to you.”

“No. I can’t.” He was indignant.

“May I ask why?” one of the detectives asked.

“You can see why, can’t you? I’m playing ball with my son!”

The district attorney had read the transcript of Hal Baker’s trial. He looked at the man seated in front of him and said, “I understand you’re a family man.”

“That’s right,” Hal Baker said proudly. “That’s what this country is all about. If every family could—”

“Mr. Baker.” He leaned forward. “You’ve been working with Judge Stanford.”

“I don’t know any Judge Stanford.”

“Let me refresh your memory. He put you on parole. He used you to impersonate a private detective named Frank Timmons, and we have reason to believe he also asked you to kill a Julia Stanford.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“What I’m talking about is a sentence of ten to twenty years. I’m going to push for the twenty.”

Hal Baker turned pale. “You can’t do that! Why, my wife and kids would…”

“Exactly. On the other hand,” the district attorney said, “if you’re willing to turn state’s evidence, I’m prepared to arrange for you to get off very lightly.”

Hal Baker was beginning to perspire. “What…what do I have to do?”

“Talk to me…”

Now, in the conference room of Renquist, Renquist & Fitzgerald, Hal Baker looked at Tyler, and said, “How are you, Judge?”

Woody looked up and exclaimed, “Hey! It’s Frank Timmons!”

Steve said to Tyler, “This is the man you ordered to break into our offices to get you a copy of your father’s will, to dig up your father’s body, and to kill Julia Stanford.”

It took a moment for Tyler to find his voice. “You’re crazy! He’s a convicted felon. No one is going to take his word against mine!”

“No one has to take his word,” Steve said. “Have you seen this man before?”

“Of course. He was tried in my court.”

“What’s his name?”

“His name is…” Tyler saw the trap. “I mean…he probably has a lot of aliases.”

“When you tried him in your courtroom, his name was Hal Baker.”

“That…that’s right.”

“But when he came to Boston, you introduced him as Frank Timmons.”

Tyler was floundering. “Well, I…I…”

“You had him released into your custody, and you used him to try to prove that Margo Posner was the real Julia.”

“No! I had nothing to do with that. I never met that woman until she showed up here.”

Steve turned to Lieutenant Kennedy. “Did you get that, Lieutenant?”

“Yes.”

Steve turned back to Tyler. “We checked on Margo Posner. She was also tried in your courtroom and released into your custody. The district attorney in Chicago issued a search warrant this morning for your safe-deposit box. He called a little while ago to tell me that they found a document giving you Julia Stanford’s share of your father’s estate. The document was signed five days before the supposed Julia Stanford arrived in Boston.”

Tyler was breathing hard, trying to regain his wits. “I…I…This is preposterous!”

Lieutenant Kennedy said, “I’m placing you under arrest, Judge Stanford, for conspiracy to commit murder. We’ll arrange for extradition papers. You’ll be sent back to Chicago.”

Tyler stood there, his world collapsing around him.

“You have the right to remain silent. If you choose to give up this right, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to talk to a lawyer and have him present with you while you are being questioned. If you cannot afford to hire a lawyer, one will be appointed to represent you before any questioning, if you wish one. Do you understand?” Lieutenant Kennedy asked.

“Yes.” And then a slow triumphant smile lit his face.
I know how to beat them!
he thought happily.

“Are you ready, Judge?”

He nodded and said calmly, “Yes. I’m ready. I’d like to go back to Rose Hill to pick up my things.”

“That’s fine. We’ll have these two policemen accompany you.”

Tyler turned to look at Julia, and there was so much hatred in his eyes that it made her shudder.

Thirty minutes later, Tyler and the two policemen reached Rose Hill. They walked into the front hall.

“It will take me only a few minutes to pack,” Tyler said.

They watched as Tyler went up the staircase to his room. In his room, Tyler walked over to the bureau containing the revolver and loaded it.

The sound of the shot seemed to reverberate forever.

W
oody and Kendall were seated in the drawing room at Rose Hill. Half a dozen men in white overalls were taking down paintings from the walls and starting to dismantle the furnishings.

“It’s the end of an era.” Kendall sighed.

“It’s the beginning,” Woody said. He smiled. “I wish I could see Peggy’s face when she finds out what her half of my fortune is!” He took his sister’s hand. “Are you okay? About Marc, I mean.”

She nodded. “I’ll get over it. Anyhow, I’m going to be very busy. I have a preliminary hearing in two weeks. After that, I’ll see what happens.”

“I’m sure everything will be all right.” He rose. “I have an important telephone call to make,” Woody told her. He had to break the news to Mimi Carson.

“Mimi,” Woody said apologetically, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to go back on our deal. Things haven’t worked out as I had hoped they would.”

“Are you all right, Woody?”

“Yes. A lot has been going on here. Peggy and I are finished.”

There was a long pause. “Oh? Are you coming back to Hobe Sound?”

“Frankly, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“Woody?”

“Yes?”

Her voice was soft. “Come back, please.”

Julia and Steve were out on the patio.

“I’m sorry about the way things turned out,” Steve said.

“About your not getting the money, I mean.”

Julia smiled at him. “I don’t really need a hundred chefs.”

“You’re not disappointed that your trip here was wasted?”

She looked up at him. “Was it wasted, Steve?”

They never knew who made the first move, but she was in his arms, and he was holding her, and they were kissing.

“I’ve been wanting to do this since the first time I saw you.”

Julia shook her head. “The first time you saw me, you told me to get out of town!”

He grinned. “I did, didn’t I? I don’t ever want you to leave.”

And she thought of Sally’s words.
“Don’t you know if the man proposed?”
“Is that a proposal?” Julia asked.

He held her tighter. “You bet it is. Will you marry me?”

“Oh, yes!”

Kendall came out to the patio. She was holding a piece of paper in her hand.

“I…I just got this in the mail.”

Steve looked at her, worried. “Not another…?”

“No. I’ve been voted Women’s Wear Designer of the Year.”

Woody and Kendall and Julia and Steve were seated at the dining-room table. All around them workmen were moving chairs and couches, and carrying them off.

Steve turned to Woody. “What are you going to do now?”

“I’m going back to Hobe Sound. First, I’m going to check in with Dr. Tichner. Then a friend of mine has a string of ponies that I’m going to ride.”

Kendall looked at Julia. “Are you going back to Kansas City?”

When I was a little girl
, Julia thought,
I wished that someone would take me out of Kansas and bring me to a magical place where I would find my prince
. She took Steve’s hand. “No,” Julia said. “I’m not going back to Kansas.”

They watched two men take down the huge portrait of Harry Stanford.

“I never did like that picture,” Woody said.