The Testament Read Online Free PDF Page B

usual?”
    “Exactly. This board remains intact; everybody keeps his job. The company does tomorrow what it did last week.”
    This sounded fine, but no one believed it. Ownership of the company was about to change hands. Troy had never believed in sharing stock in The Phelan Group. He paid his people well, but he did not buy into the trend of allowing them to own a piece of the company. About 3 percent of the stock was held by a few of his favored employees.
    They spent an hour haggling over the wording of a press release, then adjourned for a month.
    Stafford met Tip Durban in the lobby, and together they drove to the medical examiner’s office in McLean. The autopsy was finished.
    The cause of death was obvious. There was no trace of alcohol or drugs of any kind.
    And there was no tumor. No sign of cancer. Troy was in good physical health at the time of his death, though slightly malnourished.
    ________
    T IP BROKE the silence as they were crossing the Potomac, on the Roosevelt Bridge. “Did he tell you he had a brain tumor?”
    “Yes. Several times.” Stafford drove, though he was oblivious to roads, bridges, streets, cars. How many more surprises did Troy have?
    “Why did he lie?”
    “Who knows? You’re trying to analyze a man who just jumped from a building. The brain tumor made everything urgent.Everybody, including me, thought he was dying. The wackiness made the panel of shrinks seem like a great idea. He set the trap, they rushed in, and now their own psychiatrists are swearing that Troy was perfectly sound. Plus, he wanted sympathy.”
    “But he was crazy, wasn’t he? He did, after all, take a leap.”
    “Troy was weird in a lot of ways, but he knew exactly what he was doing.”
    “Why did he jump?”
    “Depression. He was a very lonely old man.”
    They were on Constitution Avenue, sitting in heavy traffic, both staring at the taillights in front of them and trying to think it through.
    “It seems fraudulent,” Durban said. “He lures them in with the promise of money; he satisfies their psychiatrists, then at the last second he signs a will that completely guts them.”
    “It was fraudulent, but this is a will, not a contract. A will is a gift. Under Virginia law, a person is not required to leave a dime to his children.”
    “But they’ll attack, won’t they?”
    “Probably. They have lots of lawyers. There’s too much money at stake.”
    “Why did he hate them so much?”
    “He thought they were leeches. They embarrassed him. They fought with him. They never earned an honest dime and went through many of his millions. Troy never planned to leave them anything. He figured that if they could squander millions, then they could waste billions as well. And he was right.”
    “How much of the family fighting was his fault?”
    “A lot. Troy was a hard man to love. He told me once that he’d been a bad father and a terrible husband. He couldn’t keep his hands off women, especially ones who worked for him. He thought he owned them.”
    “I remember some claims for sexual harassment.”
    “We settled them quietly. And for big bucks. Troy didn’t want the embarrassment.”
    “Any chance of more unknown heirs out there?”
    “I doubt it. But what do I know? I never dreamed he had another heir, and the idea of leaving her everything is something I cannot comprehend. Troy and I spent hours talking about his estate and how to divide it.”
    “How do we find her?”
    “I don’t know. I haven’t thought about her yet.”
    ________
    T HE STAFFORD law firm was in a frenzy when Josh returned. By Washington standards, it was considered small—sixty lawyers. Josh was the founder and principal partner. Tip Durban and four others were called partners, which meant Josh listened to them occasionally and shared some of the profits. For thirty years it had been a rough-and-tumble litigation firm, but as Josh approached sixty he spent less time in the courtroom and more time behind his cluttered