Chapter 3 - The Audit in the Library
The library of Westbridge Military Academy was built like a Scottish keep: three-foot-thick walls of native granite, narrow lancet windows that let in thin, vertical shafts of gray light, and four thousand linear feet of leather-bound volumes on military history, international law, and navigation.
It was twelve-forty PM.
The room smelled of neatsfoot oil, floor wax, and the dry, alkaline dust of eighteenth-century treatises on ballistics.
A long table of quarter-sawn white oak sat in the center of the reading room, directly beneath the brass oil lamps that had been converted to low-wattage electric bulbs fifty years ago.
At the head of the table sat Marcus Sterling.
He had removed his linen jacket, revealing a pale blue shirt held at the cuffs with mother-of-pearl buttons, and his red silk suspenders were adjusted with mathematical symmetry over his narrow shoulders. He was reviewing the contents of my manila folder through a heavy, brass-rimmed magnifying glass, turning each sheet with the tip of an ivory bone folder.
Across from him sat Richard and Evelyn.
They had not been permitted to leave the campus. Two state troopers in high-peaked stetson hats were standing by the heavy oak doors, their thumbs hooked into their leather duty belts, their expressions blank and bored.
Richard’s hands were shaking so violently that the ice cubes in his paper water cup rattled like dice in a leather cup.
"Marcus," Richard said, his voice a hoarse, ragged scrape. "You’ve known me since I was seven years old. You handled my father's trust when he bought the shipping lanes in eighty-two. You know how he was at the end. He was paranoid. He thought the government was tracking his municipal bonds. He thought the house in Lake Forest was tapped."
Marcus did not look up from the spectral analysis sheet.
"Your father’s mind was clearer than yours is right now, Richard," Marcus murmured, his tone devoid of heat. "He came to my private residence in Winnetka at four o'clock in the morning on the day he signed this codicil. He was wearing his old naval trench coat and carrying three leather-bound ledgers under his arm."
Marcus paused, his ivory folder tapping the paper twice.
"He told me: 'Marcus, my son Richard is a thief. He has always been a thief, but he lacks the courage to steal with a crowbar. He steals with rubber stamps and power-of-attorney forms. When I die, he will try to eat his daughter alive because she looks too much like her grandmother.'"
Evelyn let out a sharp, bird-like cry. "Arthur was insane! He hated me! He hated Julian from the day he was born!"
Marcus slowly raised his eyes from the magnifying glass.
"He didn't hate Julian, Evelyn," Marcus said, looking through his bifocals with the terrible, clinical clarity of a coroner examining an exhumed corpse. "He pitied him. He knew you were feeding that boy thirty-year-old scotch when he was fourteen to keep him from joining the track team. He knew you paid the dean at Northwestern thirty-five thousand dollars to overlook his failed chemistry midterms."
Marcus turned his head slightly toward the corner of the room.
Julian was sitting in an oxblood leather wingback chair, his legs pulled up onto the seat, his forehead pressed against the cool, dark wood of the wainscoting. He had chewed three of his fingernails down to the raw quick, leaving small red smears on the knees of his white trousers.
"Julian," Marcus called out softly.
The boy flinched, his shoulders jerking toward his ears. "I don't know anything about the trust, Mr. Sterling. I swear to God. Mom just told me to sign the signature cards at the bank. She said it was an allowance from grandfather’s estate."
"You signed twelve withdrawal authorizations, Julian," Marcus said, his voice flat and unhurried. "Four of them were executed at the branch on North Michigan Avenue while you were on probation for your third reckless driving citation. Each withdrawal was for fifteen thousand dollars—the exact amount required to settle your private accounts with Mr. Dominic Rossi’s establishment in Cicero."
Julian’s face went from gray to the color of wet chalk. He looked at Richard with wide, terrified eyes.
"Dad... you said Rossi wouldn't talk. You said you handled him."
Richard didn't answer. He was staring at the floor, his jaw working without sound, his fingers digging into the fabric of his trousers.
I sat at the far end of the table, still wearing my dress whites. The stiff high collar was tight against my throat, holding the heat from my swollen cheek against the cotton, but I hadn't unfastened a single brass button. Paige was standing behind my chair, her arms folded over her chest, her service cap tucked under her left arm like a black leather shield.
"The Legacy Principal," I said, my voice cutting through the dry air of the library.
Marcus looked up.
"Six million four hundred thousand dollars," Marcus recited from memory. "Invested in thirty-year Treasury bonds and prime municipal paper from the Cook County Water Reclamation District. Maturing at twelve noon today, with the final probate certificate scheduled for filing at five o'clock this afternoon."
"Under the original terms," I said, "if Julian and I both graduated from accredited institutions by our twenty-third birthdays, the principal was to be divided equally: three point two million each."
"Correct," Marcus said.
"And if one grandchild abandoned their education?"
"The entire sum—the full six point four million—reverted to the surviving grandchild who fulfilled the condition, provided that if both abandoned their studies, the principal passed to your father as the residuary legatee."
Marcus set the ivory bone folder down on the oak table with a soft, final click.
"Your father’s plan was remarkably economical, Lieutenant," Marcus said. "He didn't just want your three point two million. By arranging for Julian to fail out of the agricultural institute in Ohio last November, he ensured that neither grandchild would hold an active degree as of five o'clock today."
I looked at Julian.
The boy was staring at his mother with his mouth hanging half-open, a strand of saliva glistening on his lower lip.
"You failed me out?" Julian whispered. "You told me the dean was an anti-Semite. You told me the registrar lost my transcripts."
"Be quiet, Julian!" Evelyn hissed, her eyes wild, her hands clawing at her seafoam lapels. "You don't understand how business works! You don't understand what we owed!"
"She didn't lose your transcripts, Julian," Marcus said, his voice dropping into that chilling, rhythmic cadence he used in chancery hearings. "Your mother paid the academic review board's legal counsel nine thousand dollars to expedite the administrative dismissal on grounds of non-attendance. She filed the dismissal order with my office on December third."
Marcus leaned back in his leather swivel chair, folding his blue-veined hands over his stomach.
"If Audrey had indeed dropped out in 2022, as your father’s fraudulent affidavits claimed, then at five o'clock today, there would have been no eligible grandchildren holding an accredited degree."
"And the six point four million," I said, "would have passed directly into Richard’s personal checking account at the Northern Maritime Bank."
"At five-fifteen this afternoon," Marcus nodded. "Leaving you with forty thousand dollars in student debt, Julian with an outstanding balance with a bookmaker in Cicero, and your parents on a flight to Zurich."
The double oak doors of the library creaked open.
General Prescott stepped inside, accompanied by a civilian in a dark gray suit carrying a black leather courier pouch with a steel lock on the zipper.
The civilian walked to the table, unlocked the pouch with a small silver key, and extracted a single sheet of heavy cream bond paper bearing the blue embossed seal of the Circuit Court of Cook County.
"Mr. Sterling," the courier said, his voice flat. "From Judge Alistair Vance. Signed twenty minutes ago."
Marcus took the paper, held it beneath his reading lamp, and read it in silence for thirty seconds.
Then he looked across the table at Richard.
"The emergency petition for an ex parte injunction has been granted," Marcus said. "The assets of Vance Commercial Development LLC have been frozen under a federal sequestration order. Your passport, Evelyn’s passport, and Julian’s passport have been revoked by the Department of State."
Marcus stood up, his five-foot-eight frame casting a long, thin shadow across the leather volumes behind him.
"You have four hours to reach the Dirksen Building in Chicago, Richard. If you are not standing in Judge Vance’s courtroom when the clock strikes five, the warrant for your arrest under the federal wire fraud statutes will be executed by the marshals currently parked at the end of the academy driveway."
Richard didn't stand up. He couldn't.
His legs gave out completely as he tried to shift his weight, his torso sliding forward until his forehead hit the quarter-sawn oak with a dull, heavy thud.
May you like
Evelyn didn't help him.
She pulled her leather handbag into her lap, turned her back on her husband, and looked out the lancet window toward the parade field, where four hundred families were currently taking photographs in the June sunshine, laughing, completely oblivious to the fact that sixty feet away, an entire dynasty was being chopped into scrap iron.
