Monument to the Dead (16 page)

“A guy named Alvin Washburn. Works out of his home in Bala Cynwyd. Everything’s electronic
these days, so he prefers not to have to come into the city. He’s not real mobile
since the accident.”

I caught Courtney’s look of annoyance; she was signaling to Jacob that he was saying
too much. I was glad, though, since if the auditor was disabled in any way, it was
unlikely that he was traveling around poisoning elderly board members. Unless he was
faking it. People would generally open the door to someone in a wheelchair, wouldn’t
they?

“Nell?” Courtney’s voice broke into my speculations. “Was there anything else you
needed?”

I stood up briskly. “Not right now. Thank you for seeing me on such short notice,
Courtney. Jacob, I’d appreciate it if you’d get back to me with more details about
the trust, and the status of our agreement with it.”

Jacob had risen politely when I had. “No problem. I’m happy to help. Maybe when I
deliver them, you can take me on that tour you promised?”

“I hope so, Jacob. I’ll find my way out, Courtney. I’d say I hope I’ll see you again
soon, but since that usually means we’re in trouble, I won’t.”

Courtney laughed. “I understand completely! Bye, Nell.”

Back on Market Street, trying to decide if it was still too
early for lunch, I reviewed what I had learned. Jacob had confirmed that the idea
of dissolving the Forrest Trust had been floated, but not much had been done to pursue
it—or so he said. He was a young man, looking to make his mark at the law firm. How
could he handle the trust to place himself in the best possible light? Or if he was
on the dark side, had he been dipping into it himself? Perhaps to pay off what must
be hefty law school debt?
Nell, you’re being ridiculous! You meet a perfectly nice young lawyer, and immediately
you start looking at him as a potential criminal?

But still . . . He was the right age and fit the vague definition of the killer. He
was certainly in a position to know all there was to know about the Forrest Trust,
including the identities and whereabouts of the trustees. I couldn’t say whether he
had any direct access to the funds, but I couldn’t rule it out. Maybe he and the crippled
accountant were colluding in siphoning money out of the trust. But how would killing
any of the trustees help? Jacob had admitted in front of Courtney that at least two
trust members had put forward the idea of dissolving the trust. Had she known before
today’s meeting? It was out in the open now, in any case, and she would likely be
watching when any audit was done, if Jacob worked for her. If he was the killer, what
would Jacob do next?

Nell, you’re losing your grip!
We had to sort out these murders before I became completely paranoid.

I decided to find a quick sandwich and eat it in my office. I went back to the Society,
helped myself to another cup of coffee, then sat down at my desk with my sandwich.
Now what? I was frustrated; I hated this waiting, jumping every time the phone rang,
expecting to hear that some other person had died because we couldn’t seem to figure
out who wanted them dead. At the moment, it looked as though the surviving trustees
were safe, either far removed or protected. But there were ways to get at people,
even those who thought they’d taken precautions. Still, would killing more of them
serve a purpose? Right now the trust was vulnerable because the surviving trustees
had to fill the vacancies or risk seizure by the city, at the request of the mayor.
But if they were planning to dissolve anyway, did that matter? If the city took over
by inserting its own representatives, it wouldn’t change the terms of the trust, would
it?

It was the “why” of it all that troubled me. I couldn’t figure out who benefited.
If the trust liquidated its assets and had money to give away, where would it go?
I’d guess the dispersal would have to be approved by the courts, and I doubted that
the trustees would do something frivolous with the cash. Maybe someone at the city
thought they could divert those funds to something dear to their hearts—and there
was no shortage of worthy projects in the city of Philadelphia—but the trust money
was so comparatively small, and the city’s needs were so large . . . It didn’t make
sense.

All I was accomplishing sitting here was driving myself crazy. Six possible murders
for no apparent reason, and Marty, Shelby, James, and I seemed to be the only people
who’d noticed or cared. I had better find something useful to do, and fast. I took
a look at my calendar: my next appointment was a meeting at the Water Works later
in the week, and I needed to find out what more Nicholas had collected since our last
meeting. Voilà, a distraction.

Since I couldn’t sit still any longer, I headed down the hall to find Nicholas. He
was at his desk in his cubicle, peering intently at his computer screen. He looked
up when I came around the partition to his desk.

“Nicholas, do you have a minute? I want to talk about our presentation at the Water
Works this week. You owe me a preliminary report, and we’ve got a meeting scheduled
there tomorrow afternoon.”

“I apologize,” he said, contrite. “The research took longer than I expected, but that’s
no excuse. I should have let you know.”

Yes, he should have. “Let’s use my office—there’s more room there.”

“Fine.” Nicholas gathered up a couple of folders and followed me down the hall. Once
we were seated, I said, “What have you got?”

“As I understood it, Phebe Fleming at the Water Works wanted us to put together historic
material that could be reinterpreted in light of current ‘green’ concerns, for benefit
of certain corporate interests. What I’ve been looking at is things like the Water
Works’ early recognition of potential sources of infection and how they addressed
them with the technology available to them at the time.”

“Have you found any examples?”

Luckily I had pressed the right button, and Nicholas was happy to show off the information
he had assembled. All I had to do was throw in a reasonably intelligent comment now
and then. He had accomplished quite a bit since he’d been handed the assignment, and
I could see the potential for an interesting display. As for Nicholas, he was positively
animated. Maybe he’d found something historic that actually interested him.

When he finally wrapped up, he looked at me squarely and said, “Again, I apologize.
I’ll have something on your desk by the end of the day, or tomorrow morning at the
latest. I guess I got so caught up in the material that I misjudged my time.”

Strangely enough, that was a good excuse. “I understand, and I’m glad that you found
it absorbing. That’s what we hope for around here, but not everyone feels that way
about old documents.”

Since he seemed to be in an expansive mood, I decided to press a little further. In
fact, he was due for a three-month review, and I did want to hear his opinion about
how the work in the processing room was going—without his colleagues overhearing.
“So, Nicholas, how’s the job going?”

He looked at me quickly. “Have there been any complaints?”

“No, nothing like that. I’d like to hear your general assessment. Have you mastered
what your predecessor developed in the way of cataloging?” Poor Alfred—his heart had
been in the right place, but he’d been slow to adapt to the new electronic world.

Nicholas seemed relieved to be on familiar ground now. “Of course. I’ve already transferred
all of his material into the new database. I’m afraid he had barely scratched the
surface.”

“You didn’t need to start over with the items he had input?”

“No, he handled those adequately. But he was old-school, and there are better ways
of doing things now. I’ve now completed his material, and I’d say I’ve finished maybe
twenty-five percent of the new material. You wanted me to begin with the FBI trove,
correct?”

“Yes, there are strategic reasons for getting a handle on the contents. One, we need
to give the FBI a list that’s detailed enough to enable them to compare our listings
to reports of missing items. Two, we want to keep them in our debt, so that if anything
remains unclaimed we have first crack at keeping it. So getting the information to
them sooner rather than later would benefit everyone.” Maybe I was telling him too
much, so I was relieved when he nodded in agreement.

“I see your point, and I’m happy to expedite the process.”

I shifted back to practical matters. “How long do you think it will take you to complete
the assessment and data entry?”

“Realistically? Another six months. The balance will go faster because I’ve familiarized
myself with the parameters and adapted my program to the Society’s use.”

That was about what I had expected, so I wasn’t disappointed. “I think you’ve made
great progress, all things considered. After all, you weren’t expecting your task
to triple overnight.” Nicholas had been working for me for months, but I realized
once again how little I knew about him, apart from what I saw when he was at work.
“Did you grow up in this area?”

He didn’t appear startled by my shift of subject. “In the suburbs, mainly.”

“Oh? Where? I live in Bryn Mawr.”

“Mostly north of Philadelphia—Jenkintown, Abington, that area.”

“Ah. I don’t know that area well. You live in the city now?”

“Yes, a few blocks from here. I walk to work—it seemed inefficient to waste time commuting.”

“What do you like to do, when you’re not working?”

“Read, mostly. Books, not digital.”

I thought about asking more questions, but this one-sided conversation was too much
work. I’d have to give Nicholas points for doing his job well, but he was never going
to win prizes for Mr. Congeniality. Still, that had never been part of the job description.
His position was glorified technical support for collections management. “Well, Nicholas,
thank you for the Water Works update. I’ll let you lead the discussion when we’re
there. And I’ll look forward to reading your report,” I reminded him.

“Thank you, Nell,” Nicholas said.

I stood up as he left, wondering what it would take to get him to loosen up.

Once Nicholas was gone, I wanted to lay my head down on my desk and not think. But
that wasn’t a good idea—I might drool on the priceless eighteenth-century mahogany
with the original finish. No polyurethane here. Then I remembered that I had told
James I’d look into any other people associated with the Society who had access to
our collections. I thought about asking Shelby to come to my office but decided I
needed to get the blood flowing to my head again, hoping that would help. I stopped
at Eric’s desk and said, “I’m going to have a word with Shelby. You can call me there
if anything critical comes up. Or if Marty stops by before I come back, you can send
her down.”

“Will do, Nell.”

I walked down the hall and rapped on Shelby’s half-open door. She looked up from a
pile of documents. “Hey, Nell. You slumming down here?”

“No, I’m doing a nostalgia tour for the good old days. Got a minute?”

“Sure do. Is this about the . . . you know what?”

“It is. After all, we don’t have anything else important to do.” I dropped into one
of the chairs in front of her desk, after closing the door.

“You sound discouraged,” Shelby said, studying me.

“Don’t encourage me to feel discouraged. You remember we thought it might be a nice
idea to use Edwin Forrest as the theme for the Board Bash? Whenever I’ve had a free
moment, I’ve been trying to pull together what we had on him so we could take a look
at it. And I can’t find the documents. I even asked for Felicity’s help, without exactly
telling her why. All the documents have vanished, although most of the artifacts are
where they should be. What do you make of that?”

“That’s a stumper,” Shelby said. “But how many people can there be who could get at
all that stuff? You’ve got our board, all of whom have free access to the stacks.
You’ve got a bunch of researchers, mostly local college professors or historians working
on a book, plus a few genealogists for hire who come in and out. They’re all on record.
Maybe someone has been secretly copying the keys of one of those people and using
them behind their backs, in which case we’ll never find them. And don’t forget people
who have left over the last few years. Have you collected all their keys? Or had the
locks changed?”

“Of course not. We trust people here, which is why we keep losing things,” I said
bitterly.

“That’s what I thought. And then we’d have to look at spouses, roommates, siblings,
and so on, both past and present. And don’t forget our staff. Even you, Nell. I’ve
seen you eyeing that statue downstairs. Maybe you have an unhealthy passion for Edwin,
even though he’s dead. You sleep with his correspondence under your pillow.”

“I’m
so
glad I’ve made you discouraged, too. My work here is done,” I said. It seemed that
my frustration was making me snarky.

“Ha! Well, for your information, lady, I’m way ahead of you—I already have the list
of people we know have access.” She flipped through a pile of papers on her desk and
pulled out two pages stapled together. “Here. You’ll probably recognize more names
than I would.”

“Probably,” I said absently. “And I should have told you to eliminate the older ones—I’m
pretty sure some on this list are too old to fit the bill.”

“Huh?” Shelby said, looking bewildered.

“Oh, shoot—did I forget to fill you in on that?” I quickly told her about the phone
calls that Harby had finally remembered, and the mysterious visitor at Louisa Babcock’s
rehab center. “So we’re looking for a thirtysomething guy, although I’m sure we have
researchers that fit the bill.”

I scanned the list. As Shelby had suggested, there were few names I didn’t recognize,
although I might be hard-pressed to put faces to all of them. As far as I could recall,
most were sedate middle-aged people who wanted nothing more than to spend a quiet
afternoon sitting in the library reading James Monroe’s correspondence.

I handed it back to her. “Okay, I’m out of ideas. Maybe Marty’s been killing people
because she doesn’t have enough excitement in her life. You could mistake her voice
on the phone for a young man’s. And all we know about any phone calls is what Marty
said Harby told her, and if Marty’s the killer, she could have made up anything she
wanted. Although there was that night attendant at the nursing home . . . I know,
Marty dressed up in drag just to confuse people.”

“You’re right—you’re out of good ideas, and you’ve gone straight to the lousy ones.
Speak of the devil . . . hi, Marty,” Shelby said.

Marty dropped heavily into the other chair. “You were talking about me?”

“Yes,” I replied. “I just accused you of murder. Heck, at this point framing you would
be easier than finding the real killer. Please tell me you have something new,” I
said.

Marty slumped even lower. “Not a thing. Nor have I heard from Jimmy today.”

“Neither have I. He’s probably busy working on things that
can
be solved. That would be the sensible and useful thing to do.”