“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.”
