Monument to the Dead (9 page)

James caught my eye, and we stood up. “Harby, if you think of anything else, please
let me or Marty know, will you?” James said.

“I will. She said she’d come back tomorrow to help me. I think I’ll just have one
of my dinners and watch a little TV. You’ll come to the funeral, won’t you, Jimmy?”

“Of course I will, Harby. I’ll see you soon. Don’t get up, we’ll find our way out.”

On the porch James paused a moment, looking out over the rolling expanse of lawn,
seeing nothing.

“Will he be all right by himself?” I asked softly.

“What? Oh, I think so. He’s fine as long as he does what he’s familiar with. Edith
was always smarter than him—she took care of things like the bills and getting the
lawn mown. He may need some assistance going forward—I’m not sure he even knows where
the supermarket is.”

“Poor man. Did you accomplish what you wanted to there?”

“Yes. I needed to talk to Harby as soon as possible. You’ve seen him—would you trust
his memory for more than a day? And I wanted to check the crime scene, except there
isn’t one. Damn. Are you hungry?”

I thought about what I had in my larder: not much. “Do you know the hotel in the center
of Wayne? We could get dinner there.”

“Fine,” he said absently. “Just give me directions.”

I took his arm. “First you get in the car . . .”

The restaurant in the old but nicely refurbished hotel in
the center of Wayne proved a good choice: there were enough people there to make it
sound successful, but not enough that it felt crowded or loud. The crowd was moderately
upscale. An author years ago had labeled those who lived in Wayne “Bobos”—bourgeois
bohemians—and the label fit. The restaurant offered some light dishes, and that was
all we were in the mood for. We sat at a small table in a corner and ordered, and
started with a glass of wine each.

I settled more comfortably in my chair and looked at James. He looked . . . tired,
distracted, frustrated. “Anything I can do?” I asked.

He finally wrenched his attention back to me. “Sorry, I’m not very good company, am
I? I’m just trying to work out a way to get involved with this officially. If there
is a killer at work here, he’s very good.”

“Do you think there’s a chance it’s an ‘if’?”

“No, I don’t. There are four people dead. Heck, there may be more, if I go through
that list of yours.”

“I can ask Shelby to cross-reference the names with obituaries. These people are clearly
the type to have had detailed obituaries. That is, if you want more bad news?”

“Comes with the job, unfortunately. I hate to ask for it, but I need to know. But
as I started to say, if these people were deliberately killed, our killer knew something
about the targets. There have been no signs of violence. All the victims were found
in their homes, and either the killer is a brilliant lock-picker or the victims all
let him or her in.”

“Do you think this teacup thing is important?”

“Maybe. Both Edith and Harby were—or are—very set in their ways. Edith always insisted
on a cup of tea in the late afternoon. Always black Indian tea, and always with a
splash of milk.”

“James, how much time did you spend with her?”

He looked at me and smiled. “You mean, how do I know details like this? Within the
family Edith was famous for her insistence on social rituals, never mind that she
was the only one left who followed them. If you were in her home at four o’clock,
by God you were going to have a cup of tea. I was always terrified that I’d break
a glass or drop the sugar bowl.”

“You’re scarred for life.” I took another sip of wine. “But if Harby, who may spend
most of his time on another planet, noticed the wrong cup, which Edith would never
have chosen for herself, then it must mean that the, uh, guest was there around four
and grabbed the wrong one.”

James nodded. “Yes. A guest who took the time to fix her a cup of tea. It could have
been a man or a woman—clearly these hypothetical crimes don’t take a lot of physical
strength. So she had her tea, said good-bye to her guest, washed the teacup, started
feeling woozy and lay down for a nap, and never woke up. Of course, we’ll never know
what was in the tea, though, because either Edith or her visitor washed the cup.”

“Whatever Edith was dosed with, she was already out before Harby came home,” I said.

“I’ll check back with the ME and see if he can narrow the time of death.”

The waiter arrived with our food, and I wondered what he would make of our rather
odd conversation. He retreated quickly; good server manners, or had he overheard too
much? I tasted my food: very nice. James looked down as if surprised to find a plate
in front of him. “Try the veal. It’s excellent,” I told him.

We devoted a few minutes to eating, which impeded talking. I think we both needed
a little time to wrap our minds around what we’d learned from Harby and what we could
infer from it. Did this case really hinge on an out-of-place teacup? How many other
small details like that had been overlooked in the earlier deaths?

Both James and I accepted the waiter’s offer of coffee, and while we waited for it,
I said, “You told me that our hypothetical killer used drugs that had been prescribed
for each victim. Have I got that right?”

“Yes, that’s right. We already checked whether the amounts of the drugs on hand were
about right, given when the prescriptions had been filled. The quantities matched
up, except in Adeline’s case. Which suggests that the killer knew something about
the drugs people in that age group were likely to use.”

We both fell silent as the waiter appeared with coffees, sugar, cream, and spoons
and set each out.

“Where would he get the medications?” I asked when the waiter had finally left.

“It wouldn’t be difficult. On the street, or if he had some medical connection. Most
of the time he could have used what he found in the house but the snafu with Adeline’s
prescription suggests that he may have brought the drugs with him. Maybe he was getting
cocky since no one had noticed. But then, he never expected anyone to look too closely
at the manner of death.”

The poor waiter appeared at that moment to offer a dessert menu. James and I turned
in unison to bark “No” at him, and he fled. I laughed. “We’ll have to leave him a
nice tip. What must he think of us?”

“That either we’re plotting murder or we’re law enforcement officials. Which at least
I
am. Seriously, Nell, you raise some good points. At a minimum we can say that this
killer is careful and methodical. There’s only been that one slip. These aren’t random
victims, as you’ve already figured out. There seems to be a plan. The problem is,
we don’t know what the plan is.”

“I know. Is there anything else I can do?”

“You’ve done a lot already. Just keep thinking—and watch yourself.”

“Maybe I’m safe. Whoever it is hasn’t gone after any administrators,” I said.

“Yet. Are you ready to go?”

“I suppose.”

We drove along Route 30 back to my tiny Bryn Mawr home. When he’d pulled into the
very small space behind my car, I turned to him and said, “Nightcap?”

He hesitated. “I should get home.”

“Why? So you can pace around your apartment and worry? You can worry here. We can
worry together. Two heads are better than one.”

He smiled. “You’ve convinced me.”

I smiled back. “Good. I hate to think alone—always gets me into trouble.”

Inside, I opened some windows for air, then turned to James. “Coffee? Liqueur? Some
combination of the two?”

“I’ll go for the last one—maybe they’ll cancel each other out.”

“Coming up.” I retreated to my definitely one-person kitchen and set a kettle on to
boil for coffee.

James came up and leaned in the doorway. “How is it that you keep getting involved
in my cases?” he asked.

“Karma? I bet you never knew there was so much crime in the cultural community until
you met me.”

“No, I didn’t. I still don’t understand it. It seems like there’s so little at stake.
I mean, nobody is getting rich, and there’s not much power to go around. Most people
in the city walk by the museums and libraries around here without even noticing. And
if they do go in, they complain because you charge too much, especially for a stuffy
old place that’s probably filled with mold.”

“All too true,” I said, measuring ground coffee into my French press. “I know there
are courses and even degrees in arts administration, but I’m not sure what they’re
good for. I understand that if you want to stay solvent, you have to operate your
institution as a business, with budgets and all that. But there are so many variables
and so many unknowns. How do you place a financial value on three hundred years of
history? What do you do when the roof collapses because you’ve deferred maintenance
for a couple of decades?”

The kettle boiled, and I poured water into the coffee press before going on. “At least
you know that your job won’t go away—there will always be crime, and we’ll need someone
to track down the villains and see that they’re prosecuted. With a museum, if it goes
belly-up, a few people will say, oh, what a shame, and go on with their lives.”

“But you love it,” James said.

“I do. At least, most of it. I feel like a guardian, fending off the enemies wielding
budget axes. I believe that what we do at the Society matters.” I turned to pull cups
from the upper shelf of my cabinet; James came up behind me and kissed the back of
my neck. I managed not to drop the cups, but set them carefully on the countertop
before pivoting to face him. “So we make a good team, right?”

“We do.” We stopped talking for a while, but managed to peel ourselves apart before
the coffee was entirely cool. Heck, it was summer: who needed hot coffee? I filled
two cups, handed one to James, and led the way to the living room, which was indistinguishable
from the dining room—all one big room. I pointed to the antique secretary—an inheritance
from a grandmother—and said, “The liqueurs are in there, in the top part.”

Once we were comfortably settled, side by side, I asked, “If you have no physical
evidence, does that make motive more important?”

“In a way. Sometimes if you know the why, you can figure out the how. Sometimes it
works the other way around.”

“That’s not helpful. We know the how: prescription drugs, coupled with access to the
victims, all of whom were elderly and apparently offered no resistance. We don’t have
a clue about the why.”

“What does the ‘how’ tell us?” James prompted, looking like he was enjoying himself,
leaning back, tie askew.

I thought for a moment. “The killer is intelligent and educated. He either knows something
about pharmacology or knows enough to learn what he needs. Right?”

James nodded. “Go on.”

I swatted his arm. “Hey, don’t I pay tax dollars so you can do this? All right, I’ll
call your bluff. He has access: he can gain entry to a variety of people’s homes without
force, and without raising suspicion. He must be presentable, nicely dressed. Well-spoken.”

“Good. Maybe you have a future as a profiler.”

“Maybe I already am. You have to know people in order to ask them for money successfully.”
I thought again. “I keep saying ‘he,’ but as you noted earlier, there’s nothing so
far that a woman couldn’t do. In fact, a woman might have a better chance of not raising
the victim’s suspicions. And they say poison is a woman’s weapon.”

“You’re right. Anything else?”

An idea was beginning to grow inside me—one I didn’t like. Unless James and my diligent
crew had missed a huge subset of deaths, this killer of ours had targeted a very specific
community. Leaving aside the “why” for a moment, how had he—or she—known who to go
after? And where to find them? If we knew that, it might get us a step closer to that
elusive “why.” I turned to James and said flatly, “He’s one of us.”

“Us?” James replied, startled.

“He’s got to be connected to a museum or a cultural institution, or to fundraising
somehow. You agree that he’s targeting members of various nonprofit boards? If he’s
an outsider, why would he even know boards exist and how they work and who is likely
to be on them? I’m not saying an outsider wouldn’t be able to collect the information
over time, but he’d have to know where to start and what to look for. I think our
killer already has a connection. He’s got to be a museum professional of some sort.”

James looked at me, and I could almost see his thoughts spinning around like a roulette
wheel, slowing, slowing, until the ball dropped in a single slot. “I think you may
be right,” he said with something like wonder. “Why didn’t I see that? Let’s walk
through it again. All the people who have been killed are members of local cultural
institutions. As far as we know, they have no other links other than general social
status.”

“Right,” I said cautiously. “And the four we’re talking about overlapped at only a
few of those institutions, and of those, the most likely one is the Forrest Trust.
For reasons we don’t understand.”

“So we focus on the Forrest Trust, at least for now. What kind of assets does it have?
Who controls it? Who are the other board members? And you’re in the perfect position
to do just that, because you and the Society benefit from the trust.”

“I am,” I said with more confidence.

He grabbed me and planted a kiss on me, which more or less put an end to our brainstorming.

Being stuck in a car with someone in early rush-hour
traffic on the Schuylkill is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, the other person is
a captive audience and can’t go anywhere, so you can hash out whatever you want; on
the other hand, if murder is on your mind, and you have no idea who the killer was,
there’s only so much dissecting of the evidence you can do. We didn’t have enough
evidence to point a finger. Maybe a whole hand, which ended up pointing in five directions.

“Any brilliant insights by light of day?” I asked James once we were on the road.

“I think your conclusion that the killer is connected to some sort of cultural institution
holds up,” he said, keeping his eyes on the road and his speed a conservative three
miles over the posted speed limit, except when our progress could be measured in feet
per minute, which was normal for the Schuylkill at rush hour.

“Great. That limits the suspects to a few hundred,” I said, frustration creeping into
my voice. “I keep coming back to the question, why? What have these nice older people
done to anyone that would inspire murder? How the heck do we figure that out?”

“Look at it as a data analysis problem. You’ve got four data points, potentially.
Isn’t it the theory that it takes only two to draw a line? Maybe you should be looking
harder and deeper into the points you have, rather than trying to find more points
to fine-tune your line. Am I making sense?”

“You mean, shift to digging into the individuals, rather than looking for more possible
victims?”

“Exactly. Of course, if I could point to additional murders, I’d have a better chance
of making a case to be allowed to participate officially, but that might not give
us your ‘why.’”

I thought for a moment. “How about this: I ask Shelby to go through the obits, to
see if she can find anyone else who fits the victim profile, and Marty and I’ll do
the deeper digging on the ones we have.”

“That could work. At least it’s a plan.”

I turned toward him, as far as my seat belt would allow. “James, I can’t stand waiting
around to see who’s next. I don’t want anyone else to die. And I don’t want to think
that anyone I know could do something like this.”

“I know. I don’t want that any more than you do, Nell. Just keep digging, and I’ll
keep the pressure up from my end. That’s all we can do for now.”

We were still moving at a snail’s pace. I decided to look at things from a different
point of view. “Tell me more about the FBI’s view of serial killers. Why do these
people do it?”

“There’s no simple answer to that, because there are a lot of factors that may play
a role. But the most important is that the serial killer makes the decision to kill
and kill again.”

“Well, duh. So this person is not acting on behalf of someone else? Like a hit man?
Or what about if he’s hearing voices that tell him to kill X, Y, and Z?”

“That’s a different category.”

“So there’s no single profile that fits all serial killers—not even gender or age?”

“Nope.”

“Shoot, why do we even need the FBI?”

“Don’t be so quick to dismiss us,” James said, giving me a quick smile. “The behavioral
people earn their salaries. There is consensus about the characteristics of a serial
killer. For example, they feel a need for control. They can also be glib, and charming,
they lie easily, and enjoy manipulating people. They tend to lack remorse or guilt
for their crimes. Most fall under the heading of psychopathy, but not all serial killers
are psychopaths—they just share some of the traits. And they like to think they’re
smarter than the rest of us. But a lot of those same traits are shared by successful
businesspeople—heck, most executives on Wall Street. And they’re not all
American Psycho
s.”

“Great, now I can’t even eliminate anyone I know. But again, do you guys know
why
these people kill?”

“We admit that motive is the hardest thing to determine. A single killer might have
multiple motivations, or they may evolve over the series of murders. For example,
a second murder might be committed to cover up the first, and so forth. And you won’t
like to hear it, but the experts caution us against working to identify motive rather
than looking for the killer.”

“Yes, but in this case there’s no evidence to work with.”

“Nell, there’s never
no
evidence. We’re limited in physical evidence here, but we could pursue how and where
the killer obtained drugs, for example, and how he knew what drugs his victims took.
That’s tangible and something that can be investigated. And you’re looking at demonstrable
connections between the victims. In many cases of serial killings, that might not
exist, but I’ll agree that there’s a common thread here—if we’re right about all or
any of what we’ve deduced.”

“Where’s Sherlock Holmes when you need him?” I muttered.

“What?”

More loudly I said, “Sherlock Holmes would have heard about Edith’s errant teacup
and announced that the killer was a left-handed woman who walked with a limp and kept
six cats.”

I could see that James was smiling even though he didn’t turn his head. “Ah, for the
good old days.”

We arrived in the city as quickly as we could have expected, and again I asked James
not to bother dropping me off but to park as he usually did. I wanted to walk, to
clear my head and figure out what my next step was. James needed enough evidence,
direct or indirect, to persuade his superiors to make this an active case. By God,
I was going to find something. I couldn’t do nothing and wait for someone else to
die.

After arriving at the Society, I stopped at Shelby’s office on the way to my own.
Luckily she was already there and the rest of her department wasn’t. I hated having
to hide things from employees, or to spend too much time behind closed doors, because
no matter what the facts were, employees always picked up the negative energy and
then started nurturing rumors, which only made things worse.

“Hey, Nell,” Shelby greeted me when I walked in. “Nice evening?” She looked at me
expectantly.

“James and I went out to talk to Harbeson—you know, Marty’s and James’s cousin in
Wayne?”

“Edith Oakes’s brother, got it. Did you learn anything useful?”

I leaned against the doorjamb. “Yes and no. Harbeson is a nice man but a bit dim and
he drinks. He wouldn’t know evidence if it bit him. I’m not even sure he’s processed
that his sister isn’t going to come back. But we gained one whole theoretical clue:
the presence of a teacup in the dish drainer. But it’s from a set that Harbeson says
Edith wouldn’t have used. Either way, it suggests that she had tea with someone shortly
before she died. Unfortunately, either Edith or her killer washed said teacup, so
there’s no evidence to be had from it, and then Harbeson, apparently in shock, actually
cleaned up the kitchen, possibly for the first time in his life.”

“Unbelievable,” Shelby said.

“I agree. James and I were brainstorming over dinner and came up with two new thoughts.
One: if we look back a year or two and correlate obituaries with your list, we might
find some more cases, and by adding cases, we might narrow the suspects, if you follow
my drift.”

“And you want me to do the correlating? How many more deaths do you think it will
take to make the FBI sit up and pay attention?”

I shook my head. “If—still a big if—the FBI accepts the four we’ve already got, a
couple more could help. I wouldn’t go back too far. You can access the
Inquirer
obituaries online.”

“I’m on it, no problem—I’m happy to help. What’s number two?”

“That if, as we suspect, these victims are linked to each other by their service to
the cultural community, the deaths almost have to be an inside job. Someone like you
or me who has access to the information we’ve found, or knows how to find it. So now
we’ve potentially narrowed down not only the pool of victims but also the pool of
suspects to the greater Philadelphia cultural community. That should make our job
easy,” I finished on a sarcastic note.

“You sure know how to cheer a girl up first thing in the morning.”

“Sorry. But if I can borrow a tired phrase, it’s a matter of life and death. I do
appreciate your help, and I’m sure the FBI does. Or will. Whatever. Tell me if you
find anything? I’m going to try to get some work done.”

I headed for my office. Eric took one look at me and hurried down the hall for coffee.
When I walked into my office, I glanced quickly around, expecting Marty to pop out
from behind a piece of furniture, but for the moment I was blessedly alone. Now, what
was it I was supposed to be doing?

Eric returned, proudly bearing a steaming mug of coffee, which he set carefully on
my desk. “Anything I can do?” he asked.

It was pointless to deny that something was up. “I wish there was, Eric. You know
I’d tell you if I thought you could help. But thanks for asking.”

He nodded, then retreated silently. I continued to sit and brood, although the coffee
helped. At least for James, investigating a crime—I was going to call it that, no
matter what the FBI said—was part of his normal work. Me, I had a museum to run. Fundraising:
under control for the moment. Collections: on hold until we sorted out the combined
mess of the Terwilliger Collection plus the FBI collection on top of it. I hated to
admit it, but I was grateful that I didn’t have Latoya hovering at the moment. Special
projects: ah, yes, I’d asked Nicholas to look at the Water Works materials and see
what he could come up with. Not pressing, but a nice diversion, and if we presented
it sooner rather than later, we’d score some points.

When I finished my coffee, I got up and walked down the hall to the processing room.
Nicholas wasn’t there, so I circled back and found him in his cubicle. “Got a minute,
Nicholas?”

“Sure, Nell. Here or your office?”

“Here’s fine.” Since Nicholas had only half walls, anybody walking by could hear anything
we said, but I wasn’t intending to say anything private. “How are things going with
the Water Works materials?”

He looked startled for a moment. “Oh, right—I promised you a first report today. I’ve
pulled some of the stuff together. Fascinating material, isn’t it? I hadn’t realized
there was so much controversy about the sources of contagion in the city, even as
late as 1900. But that wasn’t exactly what you were looking for, was it? They wanted
something about ‘green,’ right?” Nicholas gave me a tepid smile. “It’s such a classic
case of the past and present colliding—you know, unspoiled nature versus the evils
of industrialization. There’s a lot of impassioned Victorian rhetoric in the file
about it. Interesting reading. When did you want to give this to Ms. Fleming?”

I had to admit I was impressed by his quick grasp of the information. “Let me call
her and set up a meeting for next week.”

“Of course. I’ll have something on your desk by Monday.” Nicholas hesitated, as though
squeezing out more words was painful for him. “I’m happy to say that the rest of the
cataloging is going well, so we’re staying abreast of incoming material. Although,
that still leaves the problem of the existing collections.”

“One step at a time, Nicholas!” I had to laugh—accurate cataloging had been the bane
of the Society almost from its founding well over a century earlier, and nobody expected
Nicholas to accomplish it quickly.

I made my way back to my office only to find Shelby hovering in the doorway, and she
looked troubled. I sighed. “Come on in. Do we need to shut the door?”

“I think so,” she said.

I sat down and motioned her to sit. “Tell me.”

“I started checking the obituaries, like you asked. Then I thought it might be more
efficient to search by starting with the institutions we’ve talked about. I didn’t
even have to do it for the Society, since we have all those records. So it was only
the Art Museum and the Forrest Trust I had to look at.”

“And?” I prompted.

Shelby handed me a few pages of printouts. “Two more possibles, within the last year.
And they were both members of the Forrest Trust.”

I felt both depressed and elated. The good news was, I had something to give James
that might be enough to use to make the higher-ups take notice. The bad news was,
two more people had died, possibly at the hands of a serial killer, and once again
there would be no crime scene, no evidence.

“Good work, Shelby. I’ll call James.”

I picked up the phone and hit the speed dial. When he answered, I said bluntly, “We
have two more.”

His reply was equally terse. “I’ll be right over.”