Chapter 3 #3
“He was my doctor for fifteen years,” Walt said. “Gave me the physical that cleared me for my bypass surgery. Because of him my ticker is still ticking.”
“I’d venture to say anyone who’s lived on Grimm Island more than thirty years knows of Henry,” Dottie said. “He was attending physician on a few autopsies I’d done.”
“He treated half the island,” Bea said. “Or at least the sane half that didn’t go to that quack Middleton. Remember back then the island only had about two thousand full-time residents. His death was a terrible tragedy.”
“Never understood it,” Walt said gruffly. “A man like that taking his own life. He wasn’t a coward. Even after Charlotte died he didn’t stop living. He just changed the kind of living he did.”
“Got very involved in different charities if I recall,” Deidre said.
“And sat on several boards. I remember Josephine too. She married very well and moved off island. I believe they had a home in Charleston as well as several others around the world. I heard something about him passing a decade or so ago. Why’d she come to see you? ”
“Because she believes Henry didn’t kill himself. That he was murdered. She’s spent twenty-five years trying to get someone to listen, and after she read about us in the Gazette she decided maybe we were the answer to her prayers.”
“Can’t say I’ve ever been the answer to anyone’s prayers,” Bea muttered.
The ceiling fan turned above us and the jasmine drifted across the lawn, and I could feel the evening shifting around us, the air tightening with something that hadn’t been there five minutes ago.
“Henry was fifty-five and left-handed,” I continued. “And the gunshot wound was to his right temple.”
Dottie’s head came up like a bird dog catching a scent. “What? Was there an autopsy?”
“No autopsy,” I said. “Milton never worked it as a homicide. It was ruled suicide without any investigation or autopsy. Death certificate was signed by Dr. Keats.”
Deidre snorted. “That makes sense. Milton and Keats were birds of a feather. Keats would do whatever Milton told him to do.”
“Is it possible he could have shot himself with his other hand?” Bea asked. “What if he’d been injured?”
“Impossible,” Dottie said. “Pick up a pen with your left hand and try to touch it to your right temple. Deidre, I know you’ve got a thousand pens in that bag of yours.
Pass them out.” She waited a few seconds until everyone had a pen in their head.
“Now go ahead and try it. Feel how wrong it is and how unsteady your hand is? Now imagine doing it with a loaded gun.”
“Morbid,” Deidre said. “But a valid point. Do we know if the gun belonged to Henry?”
“Josephine said it was no secret that Henry kept a pistol in the top drawer of his desk,” I said.
“I knew about it,” Walt confirmed. “He mentioned it once at a dinner party. Some patient had made threats once when Henry wouldn’t prescribe him narcotics, and the clinic got broken into. Henry bought it not long after that.”
“I remember that,” Hank said. “Was a drifter that ended up getting arrested just on the other side of the bridge. Got caught with pill samples and a bunch of other things from Henry’s clinic.
The island was a much safer place back then, but from time to time things like that would happen.
There’s a lot of money here on the island, so it became a target of sorts for theft. ”
“She brought a portfolio,” I said. “And she said she has more where that came from. Boxes from what it sounds like. Dash said we can officially take the case. If y’all are in agreement.”
“Of course we’re in agreement,” Dottie said.
The others chimed in as well, looking properly outraged and ready to solve another case. Hopefully this time without anyone ending up in the hospital.
“Deidre?” I asked. “You’re awfully quiet.”
“I’m thinking about the book,” she said. “The Bellwood family. A death that everyone accepted because the truth was too uncomfortable. Twenty years of the wrong answer because nobody wanted to ask the right questions.”
She looked at me over her glasses.
“How many cases like that did Milton leave behind?”
It was a question I’d asked myself more than once since being privy to the box of cold cases left behind at the sheriff’s office.
“The tea shop reopens Saturday,” I said. “I’ll get everything I have photocopied in the morning so you all have your own copies. Then we can meet at the tea shop.”
“I’ll do the photocopying,” Walt said. “You don’t always align the pages properly. And I’ll deliver the packets personally and return your originals.”
“Thank you, Walt,” I said, more than happy to give him the task.
“What time?” Bea asked. “You know I don’t like early mornings.”
“How about ten,” I said. “That’ll give a chance for the breakfast rush to pass.”
I gave Walt the portfolio to make copies, and everyone filed out after that. I locked up behind them. Exhaustion hit and I realized it was far past my bedtime. I didn’t know how the Silver Sleuths stayed so spry at this time of night.
I turned back to the porch and started clearing plates and cleaning up the kitchen.
There were no leftovers, which was fortunate because I didn’t have the energy to wrestle with the cellophane.
I pulled the glass walls back into place in the sunroom and made sure the latches were secure.
And then I carried Chowder inside because he’d gone completely boneless and wasn’t budging on his own.
All seventeen pounds of him snored into my collarbone while I navigated the stairs.
I laid him on his bed, stripped out of my clothes and fell face first into bed. I was too tired to be scandalized that I hadn’t washed off my makeup or put on a nightgown.