Chapter 10 #2
“As a matter of fact, he is,” James said.
“I get a Christmas card from him every year. He’s retired now.
Once Henry died and we moved to an international board, there wasn’t really a place for Winston anymore.
The board brought in some bigwig from London with a lot of letters behind his name.
But Winston found a job with another company pretty quickly. He was very gifted.”
“What about the clinic staff?” I asked. “Anyone at the practice who might remember something from those last months?”
“Jackie Henshaw was his nurse. Good woman. Very devoted to Henry.” He swirled his bourbon.
“And there was Noreen Goble at the front desk. Though I wouldn’t put too much stock in anything Noreen tells you.
” He almost smiled. “We used to call her Nosy Noreen. She had a gift for being in the middle of things. Knew everyone’s business, or thought she did.
Half the time what she knew was a rumor she’d started herself.
Henry used to say she could take a simple good morning and turn it into a three-act play. ”
“How long did she work for the two of you?” Dottie asked.
“Twenty-some years,” he said. “She was there before the foundation got big, practically ran the front desk single-handed. Henry kept her on out of loyalty more than anything else. She wasn’t especially efficient, but she was devoted to him. Cried for a week after he died, from what I heard.”
“She still around?” Dash asked.
“Last I knew she was somewhere in the Charleston area,” James said.
“We lost touch after the practice closed. She wasn’t the type to sit still— Noreen always needed somewhere to be.
” He picked up his bourbon. “If you do track her down, just take whatever she tells you with a grain of salt.” He paused. “A large grain.”
I wrote Jackie Henshaw and Noreen Goble on my legal pad and drew a line under both of them.
The others set about the task of finding an address for Winston, and I went back to the appointment book.
It was slow going, but it wasn’t empty going. Patterns turned up the longer I looked, once my eye had learned his hand. Every second Tuesday, deacons. Every third Thursday, a T.M. that the Rolodex told me was a Theodore Mabry, a heart patient by the look of Henry’s notes who he did house calls to.
He had monthly board meetings with the foundation, and a couple of two-week-long trips he’d taken in the last six months of his life.
One to Kosovo and the other to Sudan. There were a couple of initials that I couldn’t find matches for in the Rolodex, but they only appeared once, so I put them on a list to track down later.
Then there was S.J.
The first one turned up in early August. Just the initials, S.J., and a time, with nothing around it to say what it meant. After that they came faster, and the shape of them was what told the story.
A Tuesday lunch that ran from noon clear to half past three.
A Thursday he’d blocked off the whole back half of the day, no names, no clinic, just a line drawn through it like he’d dared anybody to ask.
S.J. tucked into a Sunday after church, when a widower had every reason in the world to be alone and nobody to answer to for it.
He took his chances where he found them— hungry for something, short on time.
Then, in late September, a weekend. Friday through Sunday. There was a note below her initials that said Saint Augustine. It looked like the relationship had definitely progressed. Weekends away were serious business.
He’d gotten careful about the where, too, toward the end.
Her place, once, which meant he knew the address well enough not to need writing it down.
Never the same spot twice in a row. For all intents and purposes, the way he scheduled these times away with his lady friend screamed of a man who was trying to keep it secret.
Even restaurants that were listed weren’t in places where he was likely to be seen or recognized.
I made a list of them in another column, but the chances of anyone remembering him were slim to none.
“He was hiding her,” I said, mostly to myself.
“Or she was hiding him,” Bea said. “Takes two to sneak, sugar. We know he wasn’t married. But maybe she was.”
“Dash said the same thing,” I said.
I turned to the December after he died and worked my way backward.
The book didn’t stop at October the thirteenth.
Why would it? A man doesn’t know which day is his last. There were appointments penciled in for the weeks after he died, ordinary as anything.
A clinic schedule. A dental cleaning he’d never gotten to keep.
A board call the following month. Plans, in a dead man’s hand, for a life he didn’t get to finish.
I made myself look at every one.
And on the Monday after he died, Henry had two initials penciled in.
W.M. Ten in the morning. And under it, an address in Mount Pleasant.
“W.M,” I said. “What are the chances that’s Winston Malone?”
James frowned. “That’s odd. Henry didn’t ever have meetings with Winston as far as I knew. Not outside of board meeting reports that is.”
“He had a meeting scheduled with a W.M at ten o’clock the Monday after he died. In Mount Pleasant.”
“What’s the address?” Deidre asked.
I read it off to her.
“Well, well, well,” she said. “Looks like I just found Winston Malone. That’s his home address. And he still lives in Mount Pleasant.”
Nobody said anything for a moment. James had gone quiet across the table, the bourbon forgotten in his hand.
“Henry never told me he was meeting Winston,” he said finally. “Not a word.”
“Maybe he wasn’t planning to tell anybody.” I closed the appointment book over my thumb. The Saturday Henry died, and two days later a meeting he’d made with the one man who knew where every dollar in that foundation went. A meeting he never got to keep.
Chowder lifted his head off Hank’s foot and looked at me, like even he could feel the weight of the moment.
“I think,” I said, “it’s time somebody asked Winston Malone what that meeting was about.”