“Mr. Logan Fitzgerald is on line one, Senator,”
“Thank you, Sally.” Fletcher received over a hundred calls a day, but his secretary only put them through when she knew they were old friends or urgent business.
“Logan, how good to hear from you. How are you?”
“I’m well, Fletcher, and you?”
“Never better,” Fletcher replied.
“And the family?” asked Logan.
“Annie still loves me, heaven knows why, because I rarely leave the building before ten, Lucy is at Hartford Elementary and we’ve put her down for Hotchkiss. And you?”
“I’ve just made partner,” said Logan.
“That’s no surprise,” said Fletcher, “but many congratulations.”
“Thanks, but that wasn’t why I was calling. I wanted to check if you’d spotted the piece about Bill Alexander’s resignation in the Times.” Fletcher felt a chill go through his body at the mere mention of the name.
“No,” he said, as he leaned across the desk and grabbed his copy of the paper. “Which page?”
“Seven, bottom right.”
Fletcher quickly flicked through the pages until he saw the headline, Leading lawyer resigns. “Hold on while I just read the piece.” When he’d come to the end, all he said was, “It doesn’t add up. He was married to that firm, and he can’t be a day over sixty.”
“Fifty-seven,” said Logan.
“But the partners’ mandatory retirement age is sixty-five, and even then they keep you on as an in-house advisor until you’re seventy. It doesn’t add up.” Fletcher repeated.
“Until you dig a little.”
“And when you dig a little, what do you find?” asked Fletcher.
“A hole.”
“A hole?”
“Yes, it seems that a large sum of money went missing from a client’s account when…”
“I have no time for Bill Alexander,” Fletcher cut in, “but I do not believe that he would remove one penny from a client’s account. In fact I’d stake my reputation on it.”
“I agree with you, but what will interest you more is that the New York Times didn’t bother to report the name of the other partner who resigned on the same day.”
“I’m listening.”
“Ralph Elliot, no less.”
“They both went on the same day?”
“They sure did.”
“And what reason did Elliot give for resigning? It certainly can’t have been because he was planning to take early retirement.”
“Elliot gave no reason; in fact their PR spokeswoman is reported to have said that he was unavailable for comment, which must be a first.”
“Did she add anything?” asked Fletcher.
“Only that he was a junior partner, but she failed to point out that he was also Alexander’s nephew.”