As he began listening to the voice mail message, he said, “I’ll be damned . . .”
He held out the device, put it on speakerphone, then replayed the message. A male voice with a slight lisp announced: “Mr. Payne, Mason Morgan calling. My executive assistant just phoned me with some disturbing news, if true . . .”
[ FOUR ]
One Freedom Place, Fifty-sixth Floor
Center City
Philadelphia
Friday, January 6, 7:21 A.M.
“I’m not surprised at all that I wouldn’t be listed as her next of kin,” Mason Morgan said, solemnly. “As a matter of fact, I would be surprised if I was listed at all. As far as she’s been concerned, I’ve long been dead.”
Matt Payne and Tony Harris were seated in a pair of overstuffed, leather-upholstered armchairs in front of a gleaming desk made of highly polished granite. Morgan’s residence took up the entire fifty-sixth floor, three floors shy of the top of the glass-sheathed skyscraper, which was midway between Rittenhouse Square and City Hall. Payne estimated that the high-ceilinged office alone was at least four times the size of his garret apartment. He smelled a light vanilla-like fragrance and decided it was from the blooms of the potted plants in the corner of the room.
Behind the desk, Morgan, wearing a baggy suit and tie, paced the enormous wall of windows that reached floor to ceiling. His hands were clasped behind his back as he focused on Rittenhouse Square. Bright rays from the sunrise cast a warm, reddish orange glow over the city. From unseen high-fidelity speakers, classical music was playing at a low volume. Payne picked up on the distinct strings and thundering percussion of Mozart’s Requiem Mass in D Minor and wondered if Morgan had chosen that or it was simply coincidence—and thought it to be dark irony, in either instance.
The forty-four-year-old chairman of Morgan International was big-boned and carrying at least two hundred fifty pounds on a five-foot-seven frame. He was pyramid-shaped—thick, tree-trunk legs and wide, heavy hips and narrow, sloping shoulders. He had a pointed head, bald except for a band of thinning, close-cropped hair that wrapped from ear to ear. His cleanly shaven face was florid, with pronounced jowls that tended to bounce at the slightest movement.
Payne idly wondered how someone the size of Mason Morgan managed to navigate the lobby’s revolving glass door without getting wedged in it. And how he could possibly share any of the family genetics that had created the incredibly beautiful Camilla Rose.
Mason’s mother must have been a gnome.
No wonder the old man dumped her for a younger model.
Morgan had had an elaborate coffee service waiting on the desk when they arrived, and now Payne leaned forward and picked up the silver-plated carafe. After Harris waved him off, declining more, he refilled his cup.
He returned the carafe to the desk, then sat with his elbows resting on his spread knees and sipped from the cup.
“From Camilla Rose’s viewpoint,” Payne then said, “she felt fully justified. She believed you were behind her being cut out of the family business. And responsible for the changes in how her trust was structured.”
Morgan turned and looked at him. Then he walked past a credenza, on top of which were at least a dozen framed family photographs, and over to the gray granite desk. He wedged himself in the high-backed black leather chair. He locked eyes with Payne.
“You’re calling my reputation into question,” Morgan said, coldly, “and I will not stand for it.”
“I’m not calling you out at all,” Payne said, uncowed. He casually took a sip of coffee, and added, “I’m simply repeating what Camilla Rose told me yesterday. Actually, one phrase she used was ‘brazen betrayal.’”
Morgan blurted, “I will—” then caught himself.
He narrowed his eyes as he looked off in the distance. Then he looked back at Payne.
“Don’t you even begin to suggest where I may have failed my sister,” he said, his voice trembling. “Everyone knows Camilla Rose as gregarious, larger-than-life. While her kindness and selflessness were genuine—she got that from our father—almost no one saw the other side of her that we did. No one, including her own mother.”
He paused to let that sink in, then went on. “It was my wife who took time away from our young children to help Camilla Rose when her mental demons became too much. We accompanied her to see the doctors, and when the diagnosis pinpointed that she suffered from bipolar affective disorder, we then escorted her through the hell of rehabilitation clinics. Not once, but five times—and once after she overdosed!”
Morgan spun in his chair and went over to the credenza. He opened a wide lower drawer and dug around and then produced a brown folder. He opened it as he returned to the desk and spun back around in the chair.
The folder held a photograph, which he put on the desktop and slid toward Payne.
“Look at her!” Morgan said.
Payne put down his coffee cup and took the photograph in hand.
Two women, smiling awkwardly, stood on a curved concrete path leading up to an elegant light blue, two-story Mediterranean-style building. Above the red-tiled roof, tall palm trees soared into a cloudless, bright blue sky. The female on the left looked to be in her mid-thirties—and, clearly, the same woman who appeared in the family photographs on the credenza—and the other was an overweight strawberry-blonde in her mid-twenties who held a bouquet of yellow flowers. Beside them was a small wooden sign on a four-foot-high post. Its carved lettering read SANCTUARY SEASIDE GUEST PICKUP.
Jesus! The fat one’s Camilla Rose?
She looks terrible. At least fifty pounds overweight.
But now I can see a very slight family resemblance.
The older one has to be Mrs. Mason Morgan.
Payne handed the photograph to Harris as he said, “That’s Camilla Rose?”
“And my saint of a wife, Claire,” Mason said, his voice calmer. “That was the second time we picked up Camilla Rose when she got out of rehab. She had been in rather worse-looking condition when she went in. She always ate heavily in her periods of depression. And, of course, all the alcohol she consumed was high in calories.”
Payne thought, That’s one photo that never made the papers.
Harris used the camera on his cellular phone to snap a shot of it.
Morgan went on. “Father set up the trusts for us when we were children. Camilla Rose’s was set up separately, a decade after mine. She was Daddy’s girl, and he made sure that she wanted for nothing. However, her trust stipulated that upon her death, if she were to leave no issue, her trust shares would remain in the family trust, eventually transferring to any nieces and nephews.”
Payne’s eyes drifted to the credenza of framed photographs.
“Just your children, correct?”
“Correct. My wife and I are blessed with four, two boys and two girls.”
“Camilla Rose said that if she had had access to her full trust, not just these quarterly dividends, then she could have built whatever new facility for the disadvantaged kids at once. She said she wanted to name it after your father. I would assume in the same manner as the new cancer research wing going up at Hahnemann.”
“No,” Mason Morgan said, bluntly. “If she had access to the principal, she would have pissed it away, if you will pardon the phrase, or had it stolen from her.” He paused, then added, “No money for her charity work and, worse for me, no money for her.”
Payne looked puzzled.
“Worse for you? How?”
“Who the hell do you think she would have come to for funds when hers were all gone? She would have looked at what I have, decided that it came from family wealth, and, ergo, it was hers, too. With a name like Morgan, there would have been a long line of lawyers anxious to sue me to get her—and them—that money. I would have been forced to settle, if only to make the obscene flood of lawyers’ fees
stop.”
He paused, looked off in the distance, then went on. “No, the old man had it figured out when he structured it that way. She got a quarterly check—a very nice quarterly check—guaranteed, but absolutely no access to the principal.”
“Which was declared to be not hers?”
Morgan shook his head.
“And it’s not hers. Father wanted it to remain in the family—for the family—as his legacy, forever. And, properly managed, it will.”
Payne, deep in thought, sipped his coffee.
“She told me,” he then said, “that when she was in high school, she wanted to join the family business.”
“That’s right. I saw to it that, every summer she came from California, she had a different job she could learn. She particularly wanted to run the hotel chain we had at the time because she said she believed she understood the hospitality industry. Mind you, this was at age fifteen.” He snorted. “That’s like every blonde coed with Daddy’s credit card devoutly believing she is God’s gift to the fashion design industry. But she eventually proved herself. There was absolutely no question of her high intelligence.”
He paused, then said, “Perhaps you have heard the phrase ‘no good deed goes unpunished’?”
“Once or twice,” Payne said.
Morgan nodded. “I actually was the one who lobbied our father to give her more responsibility. But her personal habits, her poor decisions, overshadowed things. That, more than anything, upset him. He was a private person, as I said, a kind man, who wanted the family name to be synonymous with good things, such as medicines that saved lives, and with philanthropic endeavors.”
“And there went Camilla Rose making those headlines.”
“Embarrassing headlines.”
“What will happen now with the philanthropies she was running?” Payne said.
“The ones funded by Morgan International have board members who will come up with an interim head, then I’m sure I’ll help recruit a permanent replacement. I can only assume that the same will happen with the other ones, such as Camilla’s Kids, that she has independent of Morgan International.”
After a moment, Payne said, “You’re familiar, I’m sure, with a fellow by the name of John Tyler Austin.”
Mason Morgan’s eyes narrowed.
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“And you heard what happened to him?”
Morgan shook his head.
“Something recently, you mean?” he said.
Payne said, “He and an associate were leaving The Rittenhouse yesterday afternoon at two o’clock in Camilla Rose’s new Cadillac Escalade when parties unknown blocked their path, then shot at them with at least two rounds of buckshot.”
“That was Austin?” Morgan said, evenly. “I saw the TV news.”
“You didn’t see the smoke and fire from the burning SUV?” Harris said, gesturing toward the window.
“I wasn’t in the city yesterday.”
“Mr. Austin’s associate was killed,” Payne said.
“And Austin?”
“He suffered some minor injury. We left him at Hahnemann just before coming here.”
“Interesting,” Morgan said.
Payne studied him.
“You don’t seem at all surprised or concerned,” Payne said.
“Excuse me? I’m absolutely upset about Camilla Rose. I will do everything necessary to find out how and why she died.” He paused, then added, “She was family, for God’s sake!”
Payne nodded.
Morgan then said, “Is there a connection between her death and this associate of Austin?”
“We’re looking into that,” Payne said. “What are your thoughts on Austin?”
“Right now?” Morgan said. “I hold him responsible. I’m sure he somehow shoulders a great deal of the blame.”
Payne and Harris exchanged glances.
“Do you have any information that points to why he’s responsible?” Payne said. “He was at the hospital when she died.”
“He’s a danger. I knew it from the minute they met in Florida. And so I had my security people check him out.”
“You vetted Austin?” Harris put in.
“You are goddamn right I had him vetted, Detective. I knew he was—is—a danger.”
“Would you say you in any way consider him a personal threat to you?” Harris said.
Morgan was quiet for a while, then said, “Financially? Absolutely. As I said, lawsuits can get expensive and time-consuming. But a personal threat physically? No.”
“Where did you meet him?” Payne said.
Morgan gestured at the photograph.
“In West Palm, at the rehabilitation facility,” he said, “when we went to pick up Camilla Rose. He came on so strong and charming that I felt he was trolling. I’d seen that behavior in others and naturally suspected that Austin smelled the money, a lot of it, and was working on getting his claws in Camilla Rose.”
“It wasn’t possible there was a genuine attraction?”
“Did you get a good look at her in that photograph?” Morgan said. “Let’s be candid, Matthew. Please!”
Payne considered that, then said, “And so you had him investigated.”
“For her sake, first and foremost, as well as the family’s.”
“And you found what? Did he just happen to wind up in Florida, in this particular West Palm rehab, or did he go there, as you say, trolling?”
Morgan took a sip of coffee, then said, “Aren’t I doing your job for you?”
“I’m just asking questions.”
Morgan made a sour face.
“And so you are,” he said. “My apology. I said I would help and I will. I learned that Austin’s wild side went back to at least age sixteen, when he caused an automobile accident that killed a young man. He had been drinking.”
“He was found guilty of vehicular homicide, felony DUI?” Harris said. “Do you have the name of who died?”
“The name’s in the file; I’ll get it for you. But, no, Detective, Austin’s parents had the financial wherewithal to hire that hotshot, high-profile Houston criminal defense attorney. He pled to a lesser charge and got off with probation. It didn’t hurt his case that the driver of the other car, the one who died, also had a blood alcohol level in the double digits. And then there were lesser wild episodes during his college years.”
He took a sip of coffee and then continued. “When Austin wound up in West Palm, it was because he had gone back to self-medicating the chemical imbalance in the brain, which is a fancy way of saying he was drinking away the mood swings. He had just spent three months at the Henninger House on Galveston Bay—arguably among the top-five clinics, if not the best—but because those who are bipolar tend to believe they have all the answers to everything, he said his diagnosis was suspect and wanted a second opinion.”
“Three months?” Payne said.
“Yes. And, understand, that is at seventeen hundred dollars a day. West Palm runs around twelve hundred. Another clue that he has some money. Insurance does not cover such facilities.”
Payne quickly did the rough math.
Jesus. That’s close to a hundred fifty grand for ninety days.
All wasted when he went back to the booze . . .
“After the last time we got her out of rehab, which had been Henninger House,” Morgan said, “she announced that she needed time for herself. I suspected she took off with Austin, but don’t really know.”
“Where did she go?”
“I’m not exactly sure. At some point—toward the end, I believe—back to California, to the Napa Valley and Carmel. One of her kids’ camps is out there, on Monterey Bay. But, I think, first Santiago, Chile, then Mendoza, in Argentina.”
“And she was clean and sober?” Payne said. “In all thos
e wine countries, of all places?”
Mason Morgan shrugged. “All I know is, I did not hear a word from her. She communicated only through her lawyer, who handled her affairs, including her quarterly payments.”
“You weren’t bothered by that?”
“Absolutely not. Why would I be? Have you any idea what it’s like waiting for a surprise call in the middle of the night, knowing you have to drop everything and rescue someone? Only to know that once you get them clean and sober, they’re just going to relapse? It sucks the life out of you.” He paused in thought, then finished. “So, no, it was a welcome relief not to hear from her. No news is good news, they say. Besides, my conscience was clear. We had time and time again rushed to her rescue. No good deed . . . et cetera, et cetera.”
Payne nodded.
“How long was she gone?”
Mason Morgan rubbed his chin, then said, “A little over two years, I believe. Then I received a letter from her lawyer—an e-mail—that she was ready to return. And within days she was back in full form, once again overseeing the day-to-day running of her charities and the company philanthropies.”
“Mr. Morgan,” Harris said, “when was the last time you saw Austin and your sister?”
“Austin was four, maybe five years ago?” Morgan said. “Then he was out of the picture—I just assumed whatever relationship he and Camilla Rose may have had had run its course—but then recently she dropped his name during our discussions. So, I assumed they were back together . . . unfortunately. And now this happened . . .”
He was quiet as he looked across the room, then said, “To answer your question, the last I saw Camilla Rose was a couple months ago. Our corporate counsel had some papers for her to sign concerning one of the philanthropies.”
He paused, then added, “To be clear, I only saw her; I didn’t speak with her in person. As I said, we communicated by e-mail only, which was her decision.”
“And she brought up Austin’s name?” Harris said. “What did you think about that?”
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