“Ever hear of Cain and Abel?”Dash asked.
“But still,” she said, color in her cheeks.“You have to be wrong.I knew both of them.Worked for both of them.There’s nothing you can say to make me believe James killed Henry.”
“We don’t think he killed Henry,” Dash said.“What he was doing was stealing from Henry through the foundation.Over a million dollars over a period of a couple of years.He confessed his affair with Jackie was very costly.”
She snorted at that.“Boy, was it ever.Man didn’t think with the brain in his head for almost three years.But he made the choice.No one put a gun to his head.”
“No,” Dash said.“But someone was blackmailing him.”
She blinked.“Blackmail?For what?Surely not for Jackie.”
“Afraid so,” Dash said casually.“Someone sent him pictures.”
“Well, it’s not like they were discreet about it,” she said.“I told you I caught them in one of the exam rooms.”
“Yes, you did,” Dash said.“Someone sent him at least five blackmail demands that we know of, increasing the amount by five thousand dollars every time.Drop locations were in Charleston.Always on a Saturday.”
“We figured the blackmailer must have a regular nine to five during the workweek,” I said.“So that’s why they collected payments on Saturdays.”
“Sounds terrible,” she said.“But it was a problem of his own making.I always worried about James.He had wandering eyes from the day I started working there.Henry used to say James thought fidelity was a brand of mutual funds.”
“And then there’s Henry,” Dash said.
“What about Henry?”she asked.
“He was being blackmailed as well,” Dash said.“By the same person.James was able to tell us that before he died.Handwriting was the same on the notes.”
Her mouth turned down in a frown at that bit of information.“What could Henry possibly have been blackmailed for?The man was practically a saint.”
“Far from it,” Dash said.“He was involved with a woman.”
She waved her hand.“Oh, that.A man’s passing fancy.His wife had been dead for years.I’m sure he had…” she gestured with her hands, “…needs of some sort.”
“You knew about the woman?”I asked.
“I knew everything that happened in that office,” she said.“And don’t think women haven’t tried to get to Henry by setting up appointments to see him.That’s just what that girl did too.Though Henry wasn’t as immune to her charms.She was a family friend of sorts.”
“Serena Jameson,” I said.“Byron Jameson’s daughter.We spoke with her.”
“She was a tramp,” Noreen said.“She was barely out of college and looking for a sugar daddy, and Henry was as weak willed as any man.Henry was the most clockwork man I ever worked for.Same schedule, week in and week out, for decades.And all of a sudden, there were gaps in his appointment book.Little mystery windows, fifteen or twenty minutes, tucked into places where he never had gaps.Like I wasn’t going to notice.”She looked at me.“He was sneaking off to Charleston.Booking hotels.Sneaking her into his house at night.”
I raised my brows at that.“Sounds like you followed him.”
“Of course I did.Someone had to look out for him.”
“But the problem was she didn’t go away,” Dash said.“She wasn’t just a fling.And when the demands for blackmail started coming Henry wasn’t as keen to keep a secret as James was.In fact, Henry only made one payment, and that was because Serena begged him to because she was afraid of her father’s response.”
“Sounds like she was right to be afraid,” Noreen said.“If he found out he very well could have killed Henry.”
“He didn’t,” Dash said.“We have an excellent researcher on our team, and last night she was finally able to find an alibi for Byron Jameson.There was an article written about a speech he gave for an award one of his colleagues was given.All the way in Salt Lake City, Utah.So no, Byron was not Henry’s killer.And he had no reason to blackmail anyone.The killer and blackmailer are one and the same.”
“Is that right?”she asked.
“Henry had asked Serena to marry him,” I said.“That’s why he didn’t care if the blackmailer told the world about their relationship.”
I could tell by the way her eyes widened that she was surprised by that bit of information.
“Despicable,” she said, shaking her head.“The scandal would have ruined anyone associated with him.Add in James’s infidelity we’d have had to close the clinic.”
