Might as Well Be Dead

Wolfe was taking them in. “I’m going to begin,” he said conversationally, “by reporting a coincidence, though it is unessential. It is unessential, but not irrelevant. Reading the Times at breakfast this morning, I noticed a Washington dispatch on page one.” He picked up a newspaper from his desk. “If you’ll indulge me I’ll read some of it.

‘A total disclosure law requiring all private welfare and pension plans to open books to governmental inspection was recommended today by a Senate subcommittee. The proposal was based on a two-year study that disclosed practices ranging from sloppy bookkeeping to a $900,000 embezzlement.

‘The funds have grown to the point, the committee said, that they now provide benefits to 29,000,000 workers and to 46,000,000 dependents of these workers. Assets of the pension funds alone now total about 25 billion dollars, it was said.

‘The Senate group, headed by Senator Paul H. Douglas, Democrat of Illinois, said: “While the great majority of welfare and pension programs are being responsibly and honestly administered, the rights and equities of the beneficiaries in many instances are being dangerously ignored. In other cases, the funds of the programs are being dissipated and at times become the hunting ground of the unscrupulous.”‘“

Wolfe put the paper down. “It goes on, but that will do. I read it for the record and because it juxtaposed two things: the word ‘welfare’ and large sums of money. For a solid week I had been trying to find a hint to start me on the trail of the man who killed Michael Molloy-and subsequently Johnny Keems and Ella Reyes-enough of one at least to stir my pulse, to no avail. This, if not a flare, was at least a spark. Patrick Degan was the head of an organization called the Mechanics Alliance Welfare Association, and a large sum of money had been found in a safe-deposit box Molloy had rented under an assumed name.”