Chapter 11 #2
“I don’t know. Things were in a bit of an upheaval after Henry’s death.
” He paused. “I went to James, like I had Henry. I had to. I couldn’t sit on what I knew.
James was devastated. We both were. But he handled the news differently than Henry had.
Henry wanted certainty before he moved. James wanted action.
He said the foundation had grown beyond what either of us could manage alone, that it needed new leadership and a full financial team who’d dealt with something like this before.
He was going to bring in people who could run it to ground and expand the mission at the same time.
More countries, more resources. He said it was what Henry would have wanted. ”
“And your position?” I asked.
“Gone. But James called me himself and he was decent about it. He said it wasn’t about what I’d done or hadn’t done.
The organization had outgrown us both.” He was quiet a moment.
“I believed him. I still do. We’ve stayed in touch.
I get a Christmas card every year. I was disappointed, of course.
But I understood the why of it. Henry was gone and the foundation was his legacy.
James was going to protect it the best way he knew how. ”
“Did the new CFO find anything?” Dash asked.
“I only know what I heard. Two board members told me the audit turned up evidence of fraud.” Winston looked at Dash over his glasses. “And those same two people told me it all pointed to Henry.”
I kept my face very still.
“That Henry had been embezzling from his own foundation,” Winston said. “And that the shame of it being discovered was why he’d killed himself.”
“You believed that?” Dash asked.
Winston looked at him for a long moment.
“I believed it for about three weeks. It was a very convincing story, and I was grieving, and I was angry at myself, and when you’re in that state you’re not always thinking as clearly as you should be.
” He took off his glasses and cleaned them on the hem of his cardigan, slow and thorough.
“And then I stopped grieving long enough to think. And I knew it wasn’t true.
Henry didn’t steal. He was the best man I’ve ever known, still to this day. ”
The morning light had shifted through the front windows.
“Winston,” I said. “Was there anything else? Anything that’s stayed with you all this time that didn’t fit?”
He put his glasses back on and adjusted them once. “There was one thing. It probably means nothing.”
“Tell us anyway.”
“There was a fundraiser. August, I think. A donor reception at the Wainwright house.” He looked at his hands.
“My wife, Linda, came with me. She was much better at those evenings than I was. At some point she nudged me and nodded toward the garden. Henry was standing near the rose beds with a young woman.”
He paused.
“I wouldn’t have thought anything of it.
Henry had his hand at the small of her back, just briefly, and most people wouldn’t have given it a second look.
But Linda leaned over and said, ‘Winston, men don’t touch women like that unless there’s something going on. ’ Linda was rarely wrong about people.”
“Do you know who she was?” I asked.
“Linda recognized her straight away. Byron Jameson’s daughter.
Jameson was on the board at the time, had been since the early days.
One of Henry’s oldest friends. His wife had passed when the girl was young, so she’d grown up accompanying her father to foundation events.
Dinners, galas, that sort of thing.” He paused.
“She couldn’t have been more than twenty-two, twenty-three.
Young enough to be Henry’s daughter. That’s what had Linda so scandalized. She said it twice on the drive home.”
The air-conditioning hummed.
“Linda and I never said a word about it to anyone. It wasn’t our business.” He paused. “But after Henry died I kept coming back to it. Jameson would have been somewhere at that reception. If he’d seen what Linda saw—”
He let it trail off.
The room had gone very quiet.
Dash leaned forward and set his forearms on his knees. “Is Byron Jameson still living?”
“I don’t know. He left the board sometime after Henry died. I don’t know where he landed.”
We didn’t stay much longer after that. Winston walked us to the door and shook both our hands. When he shook mine he held it a half second longer than necessary.
“Thank you for your time,” I said.
He nodded once, and held the door until we reached the steps.
I walked back to the car in the hot midday sun and didn’t talk, and Dash didn’t push. He started the engine and let the air blow cold and pulled away from the curb, and we were back out onto the main road before either of us said anything.
“Jameson’s daughter,” I said finally.
“We need a name.”
He glanced over. I already had my phone out.
My phone buzzed before I could dial, so I answered. It was Dottie.
“How’d it go?” I asked.
“About as well as you’d expect.” Her voice was dry.
“Hank and I drove out to see Edward Fairchild. He was one of the original board members, been on since the early days. He’s been in memory care for three years.
Lovely facility. Very nice staff.” A pause.
“He didn’t remember Henry. Didn’t remember serving on the board.
Didn’t remember what year it was. We had a pleasant enough conversation about his dog, which passed away in 1987. ”
“I’m sorry, Dottie.”
“Don’t be. At least we know.” I heard Hank say something in the background and Dottie laughed. “Call me tonight.”
I dialed Bea.
“Robert Ainsley grows roses. Did you know that? Sixty-seven varieties. I know because Deidre has named every single one of them out loud since we left his driveway. Which is only one of the reasons I want to throw myself out of this car.”
“Did you learn anything other than varieties of roses?” I asked.
“I liked him. He was spunky. He joined the board in the mid-nineties. Sharp. Remembers everything. He said after Henry died things were in an upheaval. Henry was the heart of the foundation. James was more of the businessman. But he said James did a good job steering the ship in those weeks after Henry died.”
“Did he mention the embezzlement?”
“Boy, did he.” A brief commotion on her end. “For goodness’ sake, Deidre. You’re not in NASCAR. Slow down.”
Deidre said something I couldn’t make out, but I got the gist. Bickering was their favorite pastime.
“Anyway,” Bea said. “Ainsley said James called an executive session board meeting. Very hush-hush. That’s when they found out Winston had uncovered discrepancies across just about every area money came in and out of.
Ainsley said it wasn’t just discrepancies.
It was outright embezzlement. But he could tell James wasn’t comfortable using the word.
Especially since all the evidence was pointing back at Henry. ”
“You’re kidding,” I said.
“Serious as a church picnic without potato salad.” There was a startled yelp and Bea said, “For heaven’s sake, Deidre. I’m going to have your license revoked.”
I looked at Dash. He was smiling. He could hear the whole conversation without being on speaker.
“Did Ainsley believe it?” I asked.
“He said he was shocked. Hard time for all of them with Henry’s death, and then this on top of it.
James insisted everything discussed stayed between them.
Didn’t want Henry’s legacy tarnished with donors catching wind of it.
His suggestion was to bring in a new CFO with more experience dealing with this kind of thing, let him sort it out, cover the discrepancies for the sake of Henry and the foundation, and move on to a new chapter.
They all agreed. Unanimously. Ainsley said James is very protective of Henry. ”
“It makes sense,” I said. “We got something too. I need you to find out what you can about a past board member. Byron Jameson. We think his daughter may have been Henry’s secret lover.”
“Now that does make things interesting,” she said. “If I make it home alive I’ll start digging first thing.”
The call ended on another reprimand to Deidre, and I looked at Dash.
“Are you planning to feed me before we go see Jennifer Hollis?” I asked.
He grinned and reached over to take my hand. “You’ve had a good day. You deserve it.”
“Good. Because you’ve got about eleven minutes before my hanger kicks in.”
We found a sandwich place on the water between Mount Pleasant and the Isle of Palms and sat outside with the breeze coming off the sound and ate until I stopped being a danger to polite society.
Dash had a Cuban. I had a shrimp po’boy that dripped down my wrist twice and I didn’t care even a little.
Jennifer Hollis lived in a pale green house three blocks from the beach with a wide front porch and mature palms in the yard.
She was somewhere in her late fifties, lean and no nonsense, with dark hair pulled back and reading glasses pushed up on her head.
She came to the door in jeans and a linen blouse and shook both our hands before we’d said a word.
“Sheriff Beckett,” Dash said. “Thank you for agreeing to see us.”
“Come on in,” she said. “I just made tea.”
Her kitchen table was where she took us. She poured without fussing about it and sat across from us.
“We’re looking into Henry Wainwright’s death,” Dash said. “We understand you served on his foundation board.”
She nodded. “Six years. I was the youngest member when I joined. Thirty-two years old. I’d been doing medical research in Charleston— decided early on I didn’t want to practice, but I wanted to stay close to medicine somehow.
Henry thought my background was a good fit.
” She looked at her glass. “I thought the world of him.”
“What was he like to work with?” I asked.