Chapter 15 #2
“No time like the present,” I said, but Dash was already out of the car and had his umbrella up before he came around to open my door.
We were halfway up the walk when Dash slowed.
The front door was standing open.
“Stay close,” he said, handing me the umbrella and unholstering his weapon.
He pushed the door open wider and called out. “Mr. Everett? It’s Sheriff Beckett.”
I closed the umbrella and left it out on the front stoop so not to track in the rain, and I stepped in behind him.
There was no answer.
The foyer had dark wood floors and a staircase rising along one wall, with framed photographs running the length of the hallway. A lifetime of family and documented good works lined up on both sides.
“Mr. Everett?” he called out again.
Still nothing.
Dash moved deeper into the house and I followed, past the photographs and through a sitting room that was cool and dim with the curtains open and the rain casting odd shadows across the furniture.
There was a half-finished crossword on the side table.
A pair of reading glasses folded on top of it.
The ordinary evidence of a morning that had started like any other.
The kitchen was at the back of the house, with a wall of windows facing the river.
James Everett was sitting at the kitchen table.
I breathed out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding when I saw he was alive.
He wore pressed khakis and a white linen shirt. There was a bottle of whiskey at his elbow, a good single malt, and a glass with a little amber left in it.
He looked up when we came in.
“Right on time,” he said, his voice slightly slurred. “Edie’s gone to visit our daughter in Savannah. Sent her off this morning. Seemed like the right time.”
“James?” Dash holstered his weapon and pulled out the chair across from him. “You doing all right?”
“For the first time in a long time.” His smile was faint and dreamy. “Sit down, Dashiell. I’ve been expecting you.”
Dash sat. I stayed in the doorway.
James looked over at me. “You too, Mabel.”
I pulled out the chair across from him and sat down, mostly because it seemed important to be at eye level with whatever was about to happen.
“Walt told you about the affair with Jackie?” he asked.
Dash nodded.
“Who could have ever thought that one woman could cause so much trouble in one man’s life.”
“I don’t know, James,” Dash said. “Was it the woman or the choices you made?”
James laughed, but it didn’t sound right. “I knew you were a sharp one. Leaps and bounds above Milton. I knew my days were numbered once I found out you were poking around Henry’s death. I knew the money would come to light.”
“The account,” Dash said. “The one from Henry’s records. He’d discovered what you were doing?”
James looked at the bottle on the table. “Yes.”
“How long were you stealing from the foundation?”
He let out a slow breath. “Longer than Henry knew. Longer than even Winston knew. Almost two years.” He turned the glass in his hand once and swallowed the rest of the amber liquid. Then he tried to pour himself another glass, but his hand shook too badly.
Dash took the bottle from him and set it out of reach. “Start at the beginning.”
“It all started with Jackie,” he said, looking at the bottle longingly.
“We were involved a few months after she started work at the clinic. You have to understand. My marriage wasn’t in a good place.
I was working a lot and traveling a lot, and Edie wanted me home more with the kids.
They were in middle school and high school.
I think people now would call it a midlife crisis.
“And then, all of a sudden, there was Jackie,” he continued.
“Beautiful. Sexy. Funny. Smart. And boy, did she know how to work a man into knots. Except for Henry. It always frustrated her she couldn’t charm him the way she could other men.
But there’s a price to pay with a woman like Jackie. Could I have more to drink please?”
“Water,” I said, and got up to find a glass and fill it with water.
“Jackie had plans and ambitions,” he went on after taking a shaky sip. “She didn’t want to be a wealthy man’s mistress. She wanted to be a wife. And when I couldn’t give that to her, her demands increased. She was very expensive.”
“You could have said no,” Dash said.
“With all due respect, Sheriff,” he said. “A saint couldn’t have said no. She was very gifted in certain areas if you get my drift.”
I did my best to keep my face blank, but I wasn’t sure I was successful.
“I come from wealth, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep certain expenditures from Edie for long.
Weekend trips and jewelry were one thing, but I knew Edie had access to some of the accounts I was drawing money from, even though she rarely, if ever, checked them.
So I started running expenses through the foundation.
The jewelry got more expensive. The vacations more luxurious.
And then I bought her a house here on the island. The same one she lives in now.”
“Nice house,” I said, remembering when we’d initially gone to question her.
“I’m sure her husband has always thought so,” he said unironically.
“By that point I’d been falsifying trip reports for eighteen months.
The expenses kept piling up. The affair kept going.
And then someone found out about Jackie.
” He stopped, and sweat had beaded on his upper lip and his breathing was labored.
“I’d really like another drink,” he said, staring at the bottle.
“No,” Dash said firmly. “Finish it.”
“They wanted money to stay quiet. So I paid. And then they wanted more.” His words were more slurred now, and he seemed even more unsteady than when we’d arrived. “It never stops, once it starts. I don’t know why I thought it would.
“And then Henry found out and confronted me. He said Winston told him. I knew the jig was up, and everything would come crashing down. He ordered the audit.”
“And then he was murdered and you put the blame on him,” I said, unable to keep the anger out of my voice.
“Henry was my oldest and dearest friend. But I had to protect myself and the foundation.” The words came slower. More stilted.
I watched his eyelids droop and recover and droop again and thought about Josephine, waiting all those years for someone to listen and believe that Henry didn’t kill himself.
“James,” Dash said. “Did you kill Henry?”
James raised his head just enough to look Dash in the eyes. And then he drew a ragged breath.
“No,” he said.
I wasn’t able to keep my face neutral anymore.
“Someone killed Henry,” Dash said. “It was murder. And the most likely person is you based on the evidence against you. Are you sure you don’t want to change your story?”
“I’ve got nothing…” He took another labored breath and I was starting to worry at the pallor of his skin. “Nothing to lose.
“I didn’t kill him,” he said. “You should ask Jackie.”
And then he collapsed out of his chair and to the floor.
“Mabel.” Dash was already on the ground next to him. “Call it in. Now.”
I called 911 and talked to the dispatcher while Dash gave him CPR.