“Correct.And realistically, to move money the way it was being moved, you’d need to understand the reporting structure from the inside.This was pre 9/11, so bank regulations weren’t as strict.”He picked up his mug.
“How did Henry take the news?”I asked.
“I went to him in person.Drove over to his house one evening and laid it all out.He didn’t even get the chance to invite me in off his front porch before I was telling him everything I found.”He looked at his hands.“I wasn’t calm about it.I was understandably upset.It was my reputation at stake, and honestly, I was embarrassed I hadn’t caught it sooner.I raised my voice.I’m not proud of that.”
“What did he do?”
“Just stood there and listened.The more he didn’t react the more worked up I got.”He paused.“When I finally ran out of steam he was quiet a long time.He wasn’t angry at me.He just didn’t want to believe it.Henry had built that foundation on the idea that people were fundamentally good, that if you gave them meaningful work and a mission worth believing in, they’d rise to it.The thought that someone entrenched in all of it, someone he’d trusted, had been quietly stealing from sick children in those clinics.”He shook his head.“It broke something in him.I could see it.”
“What did you drive back then?”I asked.
He looked up, mildly surprised by the shift.“A Cadillac.Navy blue.”He paused.“Why?”
“Just filling some missing pieces,” I said.
“He asked me to give him a little time before we brought anyone else in.Said he needed to be sure.I told him I’d give him whatever he needed to find out who it was.”
“You never found out who it was?”Dash asked.
“Henry said if we were going to accuse anyone we needed to be certain, because a wrong accusation in an organization that size would destroy everything he’d built.”Winston set the mug down and pushed it away slightly.“So he agreed to a forensic audit.An outside firm, no connection to the foundation, would be brought in to go through every account and every transaction.”
The sitting room was quiet except for the hum of the air-conditioning and the distant sound of a lawn mower two streets over.
“We were going to set the whole thing in motion that Monday,” he said.“Henry wanted to tell the board himself.He wanted to be the one to look them in the eye and say we have a problem and we are fixing it.That was Henry.He never sent anyone else to do the hard thing.”
“He died on Saturday before your meeting,” Dash said.
Winston was quiet for a moment.“I got the news Sunday.James called me.”He looked at the floor.
“Did the audit ever happen?”Dash asked.
“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.”
