Morning, Noon and Night

Chapter Thirty-four

The day before the reading of the will, Kendal l and Woody were seated in Steve's office. ' don't understand why we're here,. Woody said. ' reading is supposed to be tomorrow."'s someone I want you to meet,' Steve told them. " sister.' They were both staring at him. ''ve already met her,' Kendall said. Steve pressed a button on the intercom. ' you ask her to come in, pleaset Kendall and Woody looked at each other, puzzled. The door opened, and Julia Stanford walked into the office. Steve stood up. ' is your sister, Julia."

"What the hell are you talking aboutt Woody exploded. ' are you trying to pulff ' me explain,' Steve said quietly. He spoke for fifteen minutes, and finished by saying, ' Winger confirmed that her DNA matches your father's.' When he was through, Woody said, "Tyler! I can't believe it!" it." don't understand. The other woman's fingerprints prove that she is Julia,' Woody said. ' still have the fingerprmt card.' Steve felt his pulse pounding. ' dot "Yeah. I kept it as kind of a joke,-" 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. ' 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."'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 Im going to destroy you bastards. Simon Fitzgerald nodded. ' well.' In front of Fitzgerald was a large file marked HARRY STANFORD - LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT. ''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 9ve already told you that Harry Stanford's children ill equally inherit the estate.' Julia glanced over at Steve, a look of bemusement on her face.

Fm gladfor her, Steve thought. Even though it puts her way out of my reach. Simon Fitzgerald was going on. ' 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 ' 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. ' Mr. Fitzgerald said, there are six billion dollars in assets. However ... 9 , was a pregnant pause. He looked around the room. ' Enterprises is in debt in excess of fifteen billion dollars.' Woody was on his feet. ' the hell are you sayine.' Tyler's face turned ashen. ' this some kind of macabre joket ' has to be!' Kendall said hoarsely. Mr. Parker turned to one of the men in the room. '. Leonard Redding is with the Securities and Exchange Commission. I'll let him explain.' Redding nodded. ' 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." other words,' Patrick Evans interjected, ' was pyramiding his debts, operating illegally." 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. ' 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 Sftret6. Inspector, would you explain the rest of it, pleaset Inspector Patou spoke English with a slight French accent. ' 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. ''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 Ren6 Gautier at Cr6dit 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, `:4