than life”? Well, Harry Stanford was really larger than life. If he didn’t exist, you couldn’t have invented him. He was a colossus. He had an amazing energy and ambition. He was a great athlete. He boxed in college and was a ten-goal polo player. But even when he was young, Harry Stanford was impossible. He was the only man I’ve ever known who was totally without compassion. He was sadistic and vindictive, and he had the instincts of a vulture. He loved forcing his competitors into bankruptcy. It was rumored that there was more than one suicide because of him.’
‘He sounds like a monster.’
‘On the one hand, yes. On the other hand, he founded an orphanage in New Guinea and a hospital in Bombay, and he gave millions to charity – anonymously. No one ever knew what to expect next.’
‘How did he become so wealthy?’
‘How’s your Greek mythology?’
‘I’m a little rusty.’
‘You know the story of Oedipus?’
Steve nodded. ‘He killed his father to get his mother.’
‘Right. Well, that was Harry Stanford. Only he killed his father to get his mother’s vote.’
Steve was staring at him. ‘What?’
Fitzgerald leaned forward. ‘In the early thirties, Harry’s father had a grocery store here in Boston. It did so well that he opened a second one, and pretty soon he had a small chain of grocery stores. When Harry finished college, his father brought him into the business as a partner and put him on the board of directors. As I said, Harry was ambitious. He had big dreams. Instead of buying meat from packing houses, he wanted the chain to raise its own livestock. He wanted it to buy land and grow its own vegetables, can its own goods. His father disagreed, and they fought a lot.
‘Then Harry had his biggest brainstorm of all. He told his father he wanted the company to build a chain of supermarkets that sold everything from automobiles to furniture to life insurance, at a discount, and charge customers a membership fee. Harry’s father thought he was crazy, and he turned down the idea. But Harry didn’t intend to let anything get in his way. He decided he had to get rid of the old man. He persuaded his father to take a long vacation, and while he was away, Harry went to work charming the board of directors.
‘He was a brilliant salesman and he sold them on his concept. He persuaded his aunt and uncle, who were on the board, to vote for him. He romanced the other members of the board. He took them to lunch, went fox hunting with one, golfing with another. He slept with a board member’s wife who had influence over her husband. But it was his mother who held the largest block of stock and had the final vote. Harry persuaded her to give it to him and to vote against her husband.’
That’s unbelievable!’
‘When Harry’s father returned, he learned that his family had voted him out of the company.’
‘My God!’
There’s more. Harry wasn’t satisfied with that. When his father tried to get into his own office, he found that he was barred from the building. And, remember, Harry was only in his thirties then. His nickname around the company was the Iceman. But credit where credit is due, Steve. He single-handedly built Stanford Enterprises into one of the biggest privately held conglomerates in the world. He expanded the company to include timber, chemicals, communications, electronics, and a staggering amount of real estate. And he wound up with all the stock.’
‘He must have been an incredible man,’ Steve said.
‘He was. To men – and to women.’
‘Was he married?’
Simon Fitzgerald sat there for a long time, remembering. When he finally spoke he said, ‘Harry Stanford was married to one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen. Emily Temple. They had three children, two boys and a girl. Emily came from a very social family in Hobe Sound, Florida. She adored Harry, and she tried to close her eyes to his cheating, but one day it got to be too much for her. She had a governess for the children, a woman named Rosemary Nelson. Young and attractive. What made her even more attractive to Harry Stanford was the fact that she refused to go to bed with him. It drove him crazy. He wasn’t used to rejection. Well, when Harry Stanford turned on the charm, he was irresistible. He finally got Rosemary into bed. He got her pregnant, and she went to see a doctor. Unfortunately, the doctor’s son-in-law was a columnist, and he got hold of the story and printed it. There was one hell of a scandal. You know Boston. It was all over the newspapers. I still have clippings about it somewhere.’
‘Did she get an abortion?’
Fitzgerald shook his head. ‘No. Harry wanted her to have one, but she refused. They had a terrible scene. He told her he loved her and wanted to marry her. Of course, he had told that to dozens of women. But Emily overheard their conversation, and in the middle of that same night she committed suicide.’
‘That’s awful. What happened to the governess?’
‘Rosemary Nelson disappeared. We know that she had a daughter she named Julia, at St Joseph’s Hospital in Milwaukee. She sent a note to Stanford, but I don’t believe he even bothered to reply. By then, he was involved with someone new. He wasn’t interested in Rosemary anymore.’
‘Charming …’
‘The real tragedy is what happened later. The children rightfully blamed their father for their mother’s suicide. They were ten, twelve, and fourteen at the time. Old enough to feel the pain, but too young to fight their father. They hated him. And Harry’s greatest fear was that one day they would do to him what he had done to his own father. So he did everything he could to make sure that never happened. He sent them away to different boarding schools and summer camps, and arranged for his children to see as little of one another as possible. They received no money from him. They lived on the small trust that their mother had left them. All their lives he used the carrot-and-stick approach with them. He held out his fortune as the carrot, then withdrew it if they displeased him.’
‘What’s happened to the children?’
‘Tyler is a judge in the circuit court in Chicago. Woodrow doesn’t do anything. He’s a playboy. He lives in Hobe Sound and gambles on golf and polo. A few years ago, he picked up a waitress in a diner, got her pregnant, and to everyone’s surprise, married her. Kendall is a successful fashion designer, married to a Frenchman. They live in New York.’ He stood up. ‘Steve, have you ever been to Corsica?’
‘No.’
‘I’d like you to fly there. They’re holding Harry Stanford’s body, and the police refuse to release it. I want you to straighten out the matter.’
‘All right.’
‘If there’s a chance of your leaving today …’
‘Right. I’ll work it out.’
‘Thanks. I appreciate it.’
On the Air France commuter flight from Paris to Corsica, Steve Sloane read a travel book about Corsica. He learned that the island was largely mountainous, that its principal port city was Ajaccio, and that it was the birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte. The book was filled with interesting statistics, but Steve was totally unprepared for the beauty of the island. As the plane approached Corsica, far below he saw a high solid wall of white rock that resembled the White Cliffs of Dover. It was breathtaking.
The plane landed at Ajaccio airport and a taxi took Steve down the Cours Napoléon, the main street that stretched from Place General de Gaulle northward to the train station. He had made arrangements for a plane to stand by to fly Harry Stanford’s body back to Paris, where the coffin would be transferred to a plane to Boston. All he needed was to get a release for the body.
Steve had the taxi drop him off at the Préfecture building on Cours Napoléon. He went up one flight of stairs and walked into the reception office. A uniformed sergeant was seated at the desk.
‘Bonjour.