Murder at Union Station - Margaret Truman [23]
Silently, he rationalized once more on not living an active physical life. He was, after all, an intellectual, with a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Chicago. He’d played some tennis as an undergraduate but wasn’t very good at it, and managed to avoid campus softball and volleyball games by proving those few times he did participate that he was even worse at those sports. No one fought to have him on their team.
But Adam Parmele had wanted him on his team when he decided to run for president of the United States. Fletcher had generated a name for himself in political circles through publication of a book that offered a new and radical blueprint for political success in the twenty-first century. Parmele, whose curriculum vitae included elected stints in the House of Representatives and the Senate, a brief ambassadorship, and a three-year tenure as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, brought Fletcher on board for his run at the presidency, and Fletcher soon found himself virtually running the campaign.
His commitment to the Democrat Parmele wasn’t based upon a political philosophy on Fletcher’s part, who prided himself on not claiming allegiance to any political party or dogma. His fascination was with power and the use of it, no matter the cause. When Parmele emerged victorious and put together his cabinet and team of advisers, Fletcher was invited to join and didn’t hesitate to accept. The change in lifestyle for this pudgy Ph.D. was heady and took some getting used to—the easy access to the White House and the Oval Office, the respect afforded him by less influential members of the president’s staff, and the mentions in the press. Perhaps most important was the pleasure Gail took in moving to Washington and basking in her husband’s newfound importance. She almost immediately joined with other wives of important men and threw herself into the city’s social and charitable activities.
All in all, it had been a good move on Fletcher’s part to join the Parmele inner circle. At the age of fifty-one, he’d achieved an enviable position of power, and no one questioned any longer his dubious physical shape with the exception of his wife, who consistently failed to entice him into even a walk around the block, and his boss, the president of the United States, Adam Parmele, who seemed to worship physical activity.
By six, an aide had delivered an array of intelligence reports and newspapers to the house, and Fletcher took a fresh cup of coffee and the papers to a bedroom that served as his home office. Two phones sat on the desk. One was a regular home line. The other was a secure line to his office in the West Wing of the White House.
“Good morning,” Gail Fletcher said from the doorway. “Sleep well?”
“Yes, I did,” he said.
She was a short, slender woman with an easily managed brunette hairdo and a known fondness for simple yet expensive clothing. Her most visible public credential, aside from being the wife of the president’s political adviser, was as head of a nonprofit organization whose purpose was to foster political involvement by women in third-world countries, a position that found her frequently away from home. She was as social as her husband was reclusive; they were seldom seen together at the theater or concerts, although they did host occasional small dinner parties at home, where Fletcher donned an apron and chef’s hat and produced perfectly cooked meals on the grill.
“What’s going on in the world this morning?” she asked, carrying a steaming cup of black coffee into the office and sitting