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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.”
