Chapter 8 #4
“Sounds like a very rational idea to me,” he said.
Henry’s handwriting was every bit as bad as Jackie had promised, cramped and tipping hard to the left, half of it more guess than word.
“Monday and Tuesday, nothing but the clinic,” I said, running my finger down the page.
“Eight in the morning straight through. He didn’t break for lunch by the look of it.
” I moved my finger down further. “Tuesday night, deacons at seven. That’s the meeting in the fellowship hall at St. James.
Deacons’ meetings are second Tuesday of the month. ”
“What about Wednesday?” Dash asked.
“Looks like house calls.” I squinted. “Tibbets, I think. Or could be Tibbins. I can’t read the two appointments after that. But he doesn’t have anything penciled in after noon.”
I turned to the back half of the week. “Thursday’s the clinic again, top to bottom.
Looks like Josephine was right. Work was his life.
Friday is the clinic again, but Friday night he’s got dinner with J.
and E. penciled in. Seven o’clock at SNOB in Charleston.
” I looked up at him. “Must be James and Edie. I found a card mixed in with his desk contents inviting him for dinner. Guess he took them up on it.”
“Regular workday and dinner the night before he died. And Josephine said they spoke on the phone at seven the night he died. So what happened in the in-between?”
“A magnifying glass would help,” I said, squinting at the page. “It’s really terrible writing. But it looks like there’s something else written here with his dinner notation.”
Dash handed me his phone and I realized he’d pulled up a magnifier app, and I looked closer at the scribbles.
“It’s initials, I think. Could be an S. Maybe a B. And the second letter looks like an J.”
“So he had a meeting after his dinner with James and Edie?” Dash asked. “That would make it a pretty late meeting. Does it say where?”
I tried to make out the letters and let my eyes unfocus a bit. “Wentworth.”
“What’s that?” Dash asked.
“A hotel in Charleston,” I said. “The Wentworth Mansion. It’s very old money. Expensive.”
“Oh, well that puts a different spin on things. So maybe we’ve found the woman he’d been seeing.”
“Or at least her initials. Strange he’d meet her in Charleston though.”
“Not really,” Dash said. “Especially if he was trying to keep things quiet about her. It might be too risky to bring her back to his house. Though a hotel in Charleston suggests that maybe she wasn’t from the area either. Otherwise, why bother with the hotel?”
I shook my head. “Just like a man to think that. Because a hotel is more romantic. Especially if they were having a secret romance. Reality would put a real damper on things. Dirty laundry, pets running around, or dishes in the sink.”
He looked at me with an odd expression.
“What?” I asked.
“Does that mean I’m not being romantic enough?”
“Of course not. Our relationship isn’t a secret. There’s comfort in that. I think people who have secret relationships tend to enjoy the thrill of secrecy more than the relationship itself. Otherwise, why not just come out and say it?”
“Maybe she was married,” he suggested.
My eyes widened at that. “By all accounts Henry Wainwright was an upstanding citizen and a deacon of the church. Having an affair with a married woman seems totally out of character from what we’ve learned about him.”
“Having an affair at all and getting a hotel in another city isn’t exactly up to deacon standards last time I checked either. You never really know what goes on in people’s personal lives.”
Boy was that the truth, I thought to myself.
“So if he was with her late Friday into Saturday, then he comes home, talks to his sister, and then shoots himself a short time later. It makes even less sense the more we find out. I’ll go through this later and make a chart with any initials and names I can make out.
See if we can find recurring patterns. And see if there’s anything to suggest whatever he was upset about when he talked to Josephine. ”
Dash’s phone gave a shrill ring and gave me a startle.
He looked at the screen, and whatever ease had been in his face all afternoon drained right out of it. “Beckett.”
I couldn’t make out the words on the other end, only the clipped shape of them. Dash was already up off the floor.
“How many in the crowd?” A pause. “Anyone hurt?” Another pause, and the corner of his mouth ticced. “I’ll be there in five minutes.”
He pocketed the phone and looked at me.
“Drunk driver just T-boned Harris on his way out of the marina,” he said. He scooped up the three paper bags. “I have to go.”
“Of course you do.” I got to my feet and followed him to the door. “But I have to say it’s mighty convenient.”
He stopped with one foot on the porch and looked back. “What is?”
“Seems fishy you’d get a call that needs your personal attention when there’s a casserole waiting for you in the refrigerator.
He grinned and then leaned down and gave me a quick kiss. “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”
And then he was gone.