Nate, Aldridge said, and the formality dropped slightly. I'm going to speak plainly. Nate said. What you have here is not nothing. It's not proof of criminal fraud without more you'd need a lawyer for that, and I'd recommend you get one regardless, but it is a documented pattern any reasonable person looking at it would find significant.
He paused. If Hargrove wants to press the note, you have grounds to counter with a claim of your own. Whether that results in the note being restructured or forgiven, I can't promise you. But it changes the conversation considerably. That's what she said, Nate said, with a sideways glance at Clara that she chose not to examine too closely.
She's right, Aldridge said, and he said it with the directness of a man who gives credit where he finds it, without ceremony. He looked at Clara. You have a good head for accounts, Mrs. Whittaker. My father was a bookkeeper, she said.
You should have been one, he said. The opportunity wasn't offered, she said pleasantly. He heard what she meant and nodded once, accepting it. I'll make some inquiries, he said, quietly. There's a lawyer in Billings who handles these matters with discretion.
In the meantime, he looked at Nate. Don't respond to Hargrove's letter yet. Not until you've spoken to counsel. And the 30 days, Nate said. The clock is running, Aldridge said.
But 30 days is enough time to make this very uncomfortable for Gerald Hargrove if your documentation holds up. Which, he added, looking again at Clara's careful columns, I believe it will. They left the bank, standing outside the boardwalk in the autumn sharp air, Nate put his hat back on and stood for a moment looking at nothing in particular. "Well," he said. "Well," she agreed.
"Aldridge doesn't give compliments." "I noticed," she said. "He gave you one." "He gave the numbers one," she said. "I just organized them."
Nate looked at her sideways. "You are the most stubborn woman," he said, "about accepting credit for things you did." She blinked. He said it with such plain, quiet certainty, not frustrated, not teasing, just observing, that she didn't have an immediate answer for it, which was unusual. "I'm practical," she said finally.
"You're stubborn," he said. "But you're also right most of the time, so I've decided it's acceptable." She stared at him. He was already walking toward the wagon. She followed, and she did not let him see that she was smiling, because she suspected he already knew.