Margaret thought a moment, then said, "I think… I suppose, his father."

"This was somehow related to the firm your husband and Phillip Fineberg started?"

"Oh… I believe most certainly it was."

"Can you explain what happened?"

Margaret waited for me to bring her the refill, then started, "As I mentioned, the fit between Calhoun and Phillip was never good or particularly healthy. Theirs was a partnership of convenience, at best. I think that with success and wealth, they needed each other less and disliked each other more."

"That's how it usually works," Jennie commented.

"Actually, I think Calhoun and Phillip were consummately jealous of each other." She paused for a moment before she added, "They grew to really hate one another."

"How long were they together?"

"Fifteen years. The last four or five were misery for them both. Calhoun complained viciously about Phillip. And I knew Phillip thoroughly despised Calhoun as well. And of course, by the seventies, the opportunities in this city toward Jews had changed greatly. Phillip knew it, and so did Calhoun."

"Was there a blow-up?"

"Oh, nothing so reckless. They were both smart men, and quite greedy. They knew to manage their situation discreetly. Richmond is a small city, after all. They would invite unwanted scrutiny, and their legal competitors would have eaten them alive." She paused a moment, then said, "Phillip finally ended it."

"How?"

"In a most interesting manner. One day, he just never came back to work."

"He… what? He just quit?"

"In a manner of speaking. He accepted a position at Yale Law, teaching, I think, tort law. Calhoun learned afterward that, behind his back, Phillip had discussed partnerships with several of those large northern firms. That proved to be fruitless. Phillip's lack of courtroom experience completely disqualified him, and he wasn't willing to again start at the bottom. In the end, I'm sure he concluded, teaching was the only respectable escape. The pay was stingy, but with the money he had made at the firm, he could live quite comfortably."

"And he of course blamed this on Calhoun."

"Well, I'm sure he did." She nodded. "Rightly so, I suppose. Though I also think Phillip would have been a miserable litigator. The man was gifted with a gloriously brilliant mind-but had no tact or charm, or even the ability to manufacture charm, the trick Calhoun so readily mastered. To be frank, both were disgustingly arrogant men, but Calhoun could hide it."

I suggested, "But there's more, isn't there?"

"Between those two, there was always more, Mr. Drummond." She sipped from her sherry and said, "Do you believe that these two very smart lawyers failed to create an agreement for what would happen in the event their firm dissolved? Both men kept all their money invested in the firm, withdrawing what was needed for their personal expenses, and left the remainder sheltered from taxes. This was another of Phillip's brilliant ideas. Don't you find that ironic?"

She looked at Jennie and me to be sure we understood. "So Calhoun simply decided to keep all the money."

"And how did Phillip respond?" Jennie asked.

"In the way all lawyers respond."

"He sued."

"With great outrage. The matter was handled in a claims court here. Phillip represented himself, which was, I think, very naive on his part. But as I said, he had a very large ego, and I think he had always felt he could do better than Calhoun in court, if only given the chance. Of course, Calhoun tore him apart. He showed that Phillip had never taken a case to court and described him as nothing but a glorified clerk."

I commented, "That's why they always say lawyers should never represent themselves."

But she wasn't interested in my insights; she looked at Jennie and said, "Afterward, Phillip swore Calhoun had arranged to have the case handled by a judge he was friendly with. He also insisted that Calhoun had blocked him from getting access to the firm's records, and the founding document Calhoun showed the court had been doctored to indicate Phillip was never a full partner."

"He got nothing?" I asked.

"Oh… not nothing, Mr. Drummond. He asked for four million. He walked away with thirty thousand."

"And about the judge being a friend of Calhoun's-was he?"

"Well… I don't know that they were friends, exactly. They attended the same private school together, and were members of the same country club, and the same church." With a bemused half-smile she concluded, "I suppose they were… acquainted."

Jennie asked, "And what was Fineberg's response?"

"As a civil case, there was no appeal. But anyway, I think he concluded the game was rigged against him in this city. He left bitter, and we never heard from him again."

"And the firm?"

"For about six months, Calhoun tried going it alone. But without its legal mastermind, he began to lose large cases, and-"

"And he arranged a judgeship," I said.

"Yes, Mr. Drummond. And frankly, it better suited his natural talents and temperament. It was said that he ran the tightest courtroom in the Commonwealth. My husband worshipped law and order, as you might imagine. Felons did not get mercy before his bar."

"I'll bet" In fact, it was all beginning to make sense. But we needed to move this along, and I said, "So the years passed, and eventually Calhoun was notified he was under consideration for the Supreme Court. What happened?"

Of course, Jennie and I had already figured out what happened: Phillip Fineberg got his long-awaited revenge. Still, it was important to understand who else was involved, and how. In general terms, we now had a partial understanding of how one victim was connected to Jason Barnes. We needed to advance that understanding, and we needed to establish connections to the others, to piece together how a family spat became mass murder.

After a moment, Margaret said, "About seven months ago, Calhoun was asked to visit the Justice Department, where he met with a smart young lawyer from the White House and several senior Justice people. They notified him he was on the President's final list. It had come down to two final candidates; the President wanted a trial judge with a strict law-and-order pedigree, and Calhoun had the inside edge. They had reached the point of no return, the lawyer advised him. So he asked two questions-was there anything in Calhoun's background they should be aware of, and was he willing to expose himself to the scrutiny involved in these matters."

Jennie commented, "Was this notification a surprise for Calhoun?"

The sherry had gone to her head, and she giggled. "Goodness, no

… he had plotted this moment for years. His father's failure to make the court was, I think, a burden his whole life. And when Phillip was brought onto the court ten years ago, it was, for Calhoun, as though he had been electrocuted. As I said, the two men were bitterly competitive."

I got up and took her glass, which was again empty, and went to retrieve another refill. Margaret looked exhausted and tipsy, and her speech was becoming slurred. Jennie asked her, "And what happened?"

"Apparently the White House circulated the list of candidates with the serving justices."

"I would've thought that was done earlier in the process," I commented.

"I would guess, Mr. Drummond, that it was done earlier."

Of course. Fineberg probably waved off on Calhoun's name in the early rounds, allowing him to become a finalist, allowing him to think the high court was within reach, and allowing his name to surface publicly. These two guys had long memories, and they played for keeps. The public humiliation of a federal judge is relevant only to his own jurisdiction, whereas a finalist for the Sacred Tribunal dances on the largest stage, and the fall from grace would be from an even loftier height. In fact, I wondered if it was Fineberg who found a way to introduce Barnes for consideration to the court in the first place. Margaret suggested she thought this was the case and added, "Phillip plotted his moment brilliantly. He began feeding damaging tales and insinuations about Calhoun, providing leads to the background investigators. Calhoun was recalled to Washington several times to offer his side of things."