Fundraising the Dead (8 page)

Felicity, her composure restored, said, “I had an interesting conversation with one woman—it seems her great-uncle has just passed away, and she remembers that he had some interesting collections. She hasn’t seen them for a long time, but she thought there were quite a lot of old books. I said we’d be happy to send someone over to help her sort through the books.”

“Good catch,” I said. “Give her a call in a day or two, to follow up. Do you want to go, or do you want to send someone from collections?”

“I can do it—I could use a field trip.”

“Great. Anything else?”

Carrie spoke up. “Mrs. Bennington didn’t pee.” There was general laughter. Poor Mrs. Bennington must be eighty-five if she was a day, and she had trouble remembering where to find the restrooms. On one memorable occasion, she had sought directions from a staff member, then said brightly, “Oh, never mind,” as a puddle spread around her feet. We tried to keep an eye on her, since other than this little foible she was a sweetheart, but sometimes there just weren’t enough people to go around. We were hoping we were mentioned in her will, and her estate was rumored to be substantial. Her father had been a board member in the 1920s.

The discussion faltered. Normally I would give a wrap-up of the financial side, mostly for Charles’s benefit, but I didn’t have any of my notes, which were still on my desk. Still, it was at least a bright spot. “This is still a rough estimate, but it looks like we should clear about thirty thousand, after we pay the bills.” Polite applause. I went on. “Did everyone like the caterer?” Nods.

“Great desserts,” someone added.

“Well, there are plenty of leftovers in the staff fridge, so enjoy. The caterer wasn’t too expensive, so if he did a good job, I’d be happy to have him back.”

Fred, the building supervisor, cleared his throat. “They were a little slow on the cleanup. I had to stay until they finished, to lock up, and it was close to one.”

“Thanks for mentioning that, Fred. Next time I’ll tell them to beef up the staff on the back end, okay? Sorry you had to hang around so late.” He nodded, mollified.

Joan Sartain, our communications director, spoke for the first time. “Nell, I’ll draft a public statement for Charles to approve. We should say something.”

She was right, but I wasn’t sure what we could or should say right now. “That’s a good idea, Joan, but can you hold off until we know a little more? Maybe by the end of the day we’ll have a clearer idea of what happened.”

I had nothing more to add, and I was worried that the meeting was going to degenerate into questions about Alfred—questions I didn’t want to answer even if I could. Luckily we were interrupted by a commotion in the hall. At first I could hear only the bass rumble of Officer Johnson’s voice, alternating with a shriller and insistent female voice. Belatedly I realized it had to be Marty, arriving for her nine o’clock meeting, which had completely slipped my mind. Rich and I exchanged a glance; apparently he had reached the same conclusion.

“Excuse me,” I said hastily to the staff, and rushed out to the lobby to rescue someone—and I didn’t think it was Marty.

“What the hell is going on here?” Marty demanded when I appeared. “I show up, say that I have a meeting with you, but this officer here won’t let me in, won’t call anyone, just keeps telling me that you’re closed. You’d better have a good explanation!”

I cast around desperately for a quiet place to talk to her. I couldn’t take her back to the conference room, so the only choice was the catalog room, blessedly empty at the moment. I looked at Officer Johnson, and when he nodded, I grabbed Marty’s arm and dragged her through the doors and around the corner.

“Marty, Alfred Findley was found dead upstairs this morning. It looks as though he died sometime last night.”

I had expected my announcement to hush Marty’s protests, but I wasn’t prepared for the peculiar shade of green that she turned—and for the expression of distress that swept across her face. “Oh, my God, no,” she whispered.

When I didn’t get any further response, I said gently, “I think we need to postpone our meeting.” When she made no sound, I added, “Marty? Are you all right?”

Color was creeping slowly back into her face. She drew herself up, and her eyes focused on me. “What? Oh, yes, of course. It was just a shock. Poor Alfred.” She stopped before going on. “You’re right—this is not the time or the place. But we still need to talk. You think you’ll be here tomorrow?”

I shrugged. “As far as I know.”

“I’ll come back tomorrow morning.” Marty’s tone had regained its usual crispness, and she was thinking like a board member again. “And make sure Rich is here, too.” She turned on her heel and left, with a withering glance at the officer.

Believing that the staff meeting was over, people were drifting out of the conference room, standing around in clumps and talking. After checking with Officer Johnson, I gave them permission to go into the reading room, where they wouldn’t have to watch the people from the medical examiner’s office cart out Alfred’s body. I didn’t want to see it, either, so I snagged Rich by the arm and dragged him in the opposite direction, to the microfilm room. Rich looked dazed.

“Are you okay? Did you know Alfred well?”

“What?” Rich’s eyes focused on the present. “Not really. But, I mean, he was at the party last night, right? Then he died a couple of hours later? That’s hard to take in. Hey, what’s going to happen with the cataloging?”

I wondered if he was thinking about job prospects. He might be qualified for the position, but it was a little early to think about filling Alfred’s shoes. “I have no idea, but that’s something to worry about later.”

He hung his head. “Sorry. That was kind of tactless, and I didn’t mean it that way. Did you need me for something?”

“Actually, yes. Marty still wants to get together, about the Terwilliger Collection. I told her we’d be here tomorrow morning at nine. Does that work for you?” It occurred to me that I had no idea where Rich lived, or with whom. “I don’t suppose you’ve had any luck finding what she was looking for?” I asked, nursing a small hope.

“Nope. I took a look at every place I’d been working on that stuff, and went over the shelves and the boxes very carefully. Those letters are
not
there, or at least, not where they’re supposed to be.” He hesitated for a moment. “You know,” he began, “I’ve been having trouble finding some other things.”

I didn’t like the sound of that, especially after what Alfred had told me. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, things I wanted to look at, that I’d heard or read about—not in the T-Collection, but in others. And sometimes they just aren’t there. Of course, maybe somebody changed the filing system and didn’t make a record of it. You know, I may not be an expert, but there’s a lot of room for improvement in the record keeping around here.”

Just what Alfred had said, and now he wasn’t even around to fix it. I sighed. “I know, I know. All it takes is staff and a lot of time. But staff costs money. We’re working on it.” Poor infant: he was going to have to learn about the realities of working at a nonprofit institution—low pay, limited staffing, and no money for interesting projects. But I didn’t think I should share my concerns about any other missing items.

Rich seemed satisfied with my answer. “You think Ms. Terwilliger is going to blame me?”

“I don’t think anyone’s blaming anyone yet. We just want to see if we can find what’s missing.” Which could be far more than Rich knew, but maybe finding something would lead to finding other things. Maybe.

The day dragged on . . . and on . . . and on. Charles had retreated to his office, with the door firmly shut. It was noon before the gurney carrying Alfred’s bundled body shuttled down the elevator and out the service entrance that opened onto the alley at the rear. There was only one news person hovering outside, and he had the savvy to stake out the back door to get a good shot. How did the media know so fast? It occurred to me that I should touch base with Joan, our communications director, about the public statement she was working on. There was no way to cast this sad event in a positive light. Alfred had died alone, and no one had noticed. I wondered if there was anyone to write an obituary for him.

But instead I sent the staff back upstairs and I went to see Charles, breezing past his loyal assistant Doris Manning, who glared at me but said nothing, her eyes pink, a tissue wadded in her sleeve. Once inside his office, I shut the door.

Charles sat behind his handsome desk, looking appropriately sorrowful. I dropped into one of his guest chairs with a sigh of relief. “No more surprises?”

“This morning wasn’t enough? No, the detective and I made nice noises, and I informed her that Alfred was a valued employee and a pleasant person. I’m not sure I ever exchanged more than ten words with Findley—he seemed to scurry out of my way every time he saw me.”

“That sounds like Alfred,” I agreed. “He really didn’t like people much, but he was good at his job.”

“You knew him well?”

“I got to know him a couple of years ago when I came to him for information I needed for a grant proposal I was working on—you know, how many widgets we had, and how many of them John Hancock had handled, that kind of thing. He always came through, and quickly. It will be hard to fill his shoes—especially at his salary level.”

“Hmm.” Charles seemed distracted. “I don’t suppose we could divvy up his tasks among other staff members?”

“No,” I said firmly. “You know that as well as I do. It takes a specific mix of skills to do what he did. But I’m sure we don’t have to rush to advertise the position, at least until he’s been properly buried.” The Society’s cataloging had waited years already, and another week or two wasn’t going to make any difference. Unless that list he’d left me . . . no, I wasn’t going to go there, not now. “We need to release a statement of some kind, and it should go out under your name. You want me to work with Joan to put it together?”

“Fine. I trust your judgment. What a tragedy.” Charles lapsed into silence, and I studied him. He looked weary—and he had had more rest than I had.

“It is.” I stood up. For a brief moment I wavered, wondering if I should tell him about Marty’s concerns, but looking at his face, I decided it could wait until after I had talked to her and really scoped out the extent of the problem. If it was a false alarm, or if I could make it just go away, it would save wear and tear on everyone. “Well, let me get to work on that with Joan. She’ll have a contact list—I don’t know what the deadline is for tomorrow’s
Inquirer
. Drat—she’ll have to get something onto the website, too. And you should tell Doris to start contacting the board members—we don’t want them to get blindsided by this.”

“An excellent point.” Charles, ever the gentleman, stood up to see me out. He laid a reassuring hand on my arm. “And, Nell? I am sorry you had to be the one to stumble onto this. I hope you’re not too upset, because I need you to help me—help the Society—through this difficult time.”

Well, it was nice that he had thought about it. But I had no intention of lapsing into a fit of the megrims, whatever they were. I would soldier on, and I would save any mourning for poor Alfred until later, when I got home. Which might be a while.

The next day was Saturday. The Society was usually
open to the public on Saturday, for benefit of those researchers who (heaven forbid) had normal jobs during the week. The staff had agreed that the sooner we got back to business as usual, the better. Generally only the library staff, not the administrative staff, was required to put in an appearance on Saturdays, but the story of Alfred’s death had appeared briefly on the news the night before—“Tragic Accident at Local Institution Claims Life”—and I thought I should be there to help Joan deal with any inquiries from the public—and our donors. And there was a lot of follow-up for the gala that I needed to attend to: writing thank-you letters, paying the bills, summarizing results, and recording comments from the rather fragmented staff meeting. How long ago the event seemed, though it had been only two days! First, of course, there was the meeting with Marty, which I knew she wouldn’t cancel. So I went in to work.

As I walked to the front entrance, I was relieved to see that everything looked completely normal. Rich was waiting for me in the lobby, fidgeting. We had barely exchanged greetings when Marty arrived, dressed in jeans, apparently ready for a hands-on attack of the stacks. “Hi, guys. Rich, Nell told you what we’re looking for?”

Rich nodded diffidently. “I haven’t seen the stuff, but I’ll do my best to help.”

Marty said crisply, “Okay, let’s go.” Then she took off toward the rear of the building, with Rich and me trailing behind. He and I exchanged a wry glance behind her back, then hurried to catch up. We headed for a room that had once been the heart of the Society—the fireproof vault, built in 1905 with a special endowment from a then-board member who was concerned about the vulnerability of our largely paper-based collections to fire and theft. At the time the room had been state-of-the-art. Now it was just a closely sealed room with metal doors, which made it marginally safer than some in the building. A newer fire-retardant system had been installed sometime in the last fifty years, but it would probably do more harm than good in the event of a fire. One more item for the capital budget. The Terwilliger Collection took up approximately half the room, some four hundred linear feet of books, folders, boxes, and miscellaneous bundles.

Most people either love or hate old libraries. To some, a room like this—dim, high-ceilinged, dusty, smelling of old paper and crumbling leather—would be oppressive, a place to flee from in search of sun and air. To others, like me, it was a wonderful cave filled with unimaginable treasures and unexpected treats. I always found myself inhaling deeply when I entered the stacks, as if trying to absorb part of them into my bloodstream.