Privy to the Dead (14 page)

James returned around eight. When I heard his key in the door, I had a fleeting image of greeting him wrapped in plastic wrap with a chilled martini in my hand, but I decided that was too much work, and besides, I didn't have either plastic wrap or gin. He'd have to settle for just me.

He didn't seem to mind.

The next morning James and I were running late—no time to talk over coffee and muffins. We drove in together, although James had to pay attention to crazy drivers, and I didn't want to distract him with conversation.

“How'd your meeting go yesterday?” I finally ventured when the cars on the highway started moving more smoothly.

“About what you'd expect. Before you ask, nothing I can talk about. What did you do yesterday?”

“Nothing I can talk about,” I replied, only a bit facetiously.

“Which I assume means you saw Marty.”

“Yes. Also Latoya, Shelby, and Ben. Busy day. Didn't even get out for lunch.”

“How's Ben working out? If you can talk about that?”

“Latoya actually said nice things about him, which is huge for her. He's been a big help with this planning for the shuffling of collections all over the building. And, yes,
I passed Latoya's comments on to him—I figured he should hear it, in case she doesn't tell him herself.”

“I'm glad he can handle things.” Back to silence.

After a few more miles, I said, “You know, maybe we should draw up a chart of what we
can
talk about safely.”

“Anything, as long as it doesn't involve crime,” James said.

“Even if it's a long-ago crime?”

“Probably safer to steer away from that, too. You've already seen how they bleed into the present.”

“What if we uncovered evidence of a foiled plot to assassinate George Washington?”

“Have you?”

“No. But it's possible, isn't it?”

He smiled at my persistence, without turning his head. “With you, anything is possible. My first guess would be that the crime or conspiracy or whatever would not fall under the purview of the modern FBI, given that the parties are long since deceased. They are, aren't they? No zombies?”

“Not that I know of. Who should I call if I encounter a zombie crime?”

“Not me, please. We don't handle half-dead perpetrators. Or do I mean undead?”

We piffled along those lines the rest of the way into the city. I told James to park where he normally would, near his office, because I figured I could use the exercise of walking to mine while weather permitted. “Will you be late again?” I asked as we climbed out of the car.

“Not that I know of, but I'll call you later if things change.”

We set off in our separate directions. It took me less than ten minutes to reach the Society, where I found Marty waiting for me on the front steps. That was unusual, since I knew she had keys to every door in the place, not to mention all the security codes.

“Good morning,” I greeted her. “What are you doing waiting out here?”

Up close, I could see she looked uneasy. “I wanted to talk with you outside the building. I'm not sure who to trust anymore. Coffee?”

“Sure,” I replied, mystified. I followed her around the corner to a small coffee shop, where neither of us saw anyone we recognized. When we were seated with thick mugs of bad coffee in front of us, I said, “What's wrong?”

“How many employees do you have at the Society?” Marty asked.

I had to stop and think. “Maybe forty? Of course, they're not all there at the same time. Some are part-timers. Some are cleaning staff, and they usually come in after hours. And don't forget the construction crew that Carnell worked with. Why do you want to know?”

“Because what if there was a second thing that came out of the pit? If it's related to Scruggs's death, we need to know who might have known about it. There are a lot of people who have pretty much free access to go anywhere in the Society building—and who can lurk in dark corners eavesdropping on private conversations. And whilst in hiding could have seen Carnell pocket whatever it was.”

“Marty, you're starting to sound paranoid. Can we have a reality check here? You have just postulated that someone saw what Carnell picked up, after it had sat for over a century
in a hole in the ground, and that person, rather than telling me or Latoya or someone appropriate at the Society like any honest person would do, decided to pursue Carnell for some unknown reason and quite possibly caused his death. If you heard this story, would you believe it? And what are we supposed to do about it?” I didn't point out that Marty was suggesting we might have a killer at the Society.

She didn't answer for a minute. Then she said, “I might have an idea. How about we open this up, instead of trying to keep it all secret?”

“What do you have in mind? And won't that make things worse? Either the person behind this will panic and do more harm, or he—or she—will disappear, once
they
know
we
know there's something going on.”

“You've already talked to some staff members and asked them to do something that connects to this problem, but you didn't tell them why you wanted the information, did you? You made up a nice, plausible cover story.”

“Yes, one that's more or less true. But they aren't stupid, so some of them may make an educated guess about what we're up to.”

“You think they all believed your little fairy tale?” Marty demanded.

I thought about that for a moment. “I'm not sure. Latoya wouldn't question it, I think. Eric I would eliminate up front because he's not from around here and has no history with Philadelphia. Shelby . . . She's sharp, and I'd guess she's already figured it out. Lissa, too.”

“About what I figured. I think we have to trust somebody, and we know these people pretty well. Plus we can use their help. What about if we flip it and tell them exactly
what we are doing, and what we're looking for? It'd be a heck of a lot faster.”

“You mean, there's safety in numbers? Spread the risk around? Do we go outside this circle, and how do we know who to trust?”

“I don't mean send an e-mail to everyone in the building saying, ‘We're trying to solve a murder and you can help!' but for those people who know the collections and have expertise that might be useful, it would be a lot more efficient to get them all in one room and start tossing around ideas. And then everybody will know that everybody else knows, which might actually make people safer. Unless you suspect the janitor.”

“I see your point, I guess. So that would mean you, me, Latoya, Shelby, and Eric—they're already involved. What about Rich and Ben?”

“I've worked with Rich for a couple of years now, and his expertise with the Terwilliger stuff would be important. And Ben couldn't have done the deed, physically.”

I nodded my agreement. “And Eliot?”

Marty looked startled. “Why would he be involved?”

“Because
you're
involved. Unless you're going to tell me he won't notice when you don't talk about how you spent your time on any given day? Or will you distract him with your feminine wiles?”

“Are you speaking from experience?” she shot back—avoiding the question, I noticed.

“Maybe. James has made it clear that he wants no part of this investigation, and I respect that. Or maybe that sounds too harsh. He
can't
involve himself in this investigation—those are the rules of his job, and I'm not going to ask him to bend or break those. I've told you that.”

“Ah, who needs the FBI?” Marty said with disgust. “We're probably smarter than they are.”

I looked at the clock hanging on the wall. “I'd better get to the office before people start asking questions.”

“Do you want me to wait five minutes before following you?”

I took a quick look at her to make sure she was spoofing me. “People are used to seeing you coming and going at all hours, so if we come in together no one is going to care. Shall we call a meeting for all our coconspirators?”

“I guess. What do you plan to tell them?”

Me? How'd I get that privilege? I'd rather we did it together, but I was, after all, the president of the Society, so I should be the one to do it. “I think I'll stick to the collections management procedures during the renovation as a cover for the e-mail, just to bring them together. It would be a natural thing for this group of people to confer with each other regularly to make sure everything is on track, now that construction has begun, so that wouldn't be suspicious. Then after we lock them in a soundproof room and sweep it for bugs, we can tell them what we're really looking for.”

“Bugs?” Marty looked momentarily startled, until she figured out what I meant. “Oh, right. Hey, if the Society can't afford surveillance electronics to protect its collections, I'm going to be mighty annoyed if someone has invested in high-tech spy gear, which is not cheap.”

“I think it's highly unlikely,” I said wryly. “But we should be discreet anyway.”

We walked back to the Society and entered as though it were a normal Wednesday morning. Well, it was, wasn't it?
Just the usual construction mayhem and crime-solving. Marty and I parted ways in the lobby. I went upstairs and typed out a brief e-mail requesting the presence of those people Marty and I had listed, at a meeting in the big room under the stairs on the first floor of the building. It was unquestionably quiet and out of the way, and the walls were seriously thick, so no one was likely to overhear anything. Downstairs it was. I set the time for one o'clock.

Not surprisingly, Eric was the first to respond. He poked his head in my door. “You want me there, too, Nell? What about the phones?”

“Yes, I want you there. Forward the phones to voice mail—this shouldn't take long. If anyone else asks, tell them the same thing.”

“Will do,” Eric said and retreated, shutting the door behind him.

Alone for at least a few minutes, I pondered what I wanted to say at this meeting. The chain of events leading from the discovery of the pit, to its contents, to the death of the cleanup worker, was clear enough and could be simply stated, although I harbored a fear that if I spoke them out loud to a group of people, the fragile links Marty and I had forged might disintegrate. Well, if the reasoning was that flimsy, it deserved to be shot down. Assuming we all passed that first test and everyone bought into the theory that Marty and I had concocted, the logic that led from the murder to the shattered box and its theoretical contents was even shakier. And how anybody could come up with a motive that connected the unexpected find in the basement to a murder last week was beyond me—which was exactly why I wanted to
hold this meeting. Maybe younger, fresher eyes would see something Marty and I hadn't—or maybe we would be laughed out of the room.

I wolfed down a quick takeout lunch and was downstairs early, as was Marty. The others trickled in, looking a little bewildered. I plastered on a fake smile and avoided answering any questions before the entire group was assembled. When everyone had arrived—Latoya, Shelby, Lissa, Ben, Rich, and Eric—I looked at Marty, and she silently closed the substantial doors to the hallway, then took a place at the far end of the table. I waited until everyone was settled and had stopped rustling papers before I began.

“You're probably wondering why I gathered you here today,” I began, then stopped when confronted by uniformly blank stares. “Uh, that's a joke? A catchphrase beaten into the ground in mysteries and on bad television shows? Think Hercule Poirot and Nero Wolfe?”

“Nell, I don't treat collections management as a joke,” Latoya said stiffly.

So much for my attempt to lighten the mood. “All right, then, I'll come right to the point. We're not here to talk about shuffling collections around in the building, we're here—”

“To look at that death from last week,” Shelby finished the statement before I could. “Am I right?”

“Uh, yes?” What else could I say?

“Pay up, guys,” Shelby ordered, and some bills changed hands.

I gave her a mock glare. “You were betting on what I wanted to talk to you all about?”

“Nope, we were betting on whether you two could stay
out of this investigation. I put my money on ‘no.' By the way, is Mr. Agent Man going to play?”

“No, he is not,” I said. “The FBI has no jurisdiction in this matter, and the Philadelphia Police Department has not requested their assistance. This is a Philadelphia homicide, period.”

“So it's officially a homicide now?” Shelby said with some surprise. “The papers have been pretty quiet about it—you know, tragic death, unavoidable accident, it was dark, et cetera.”

“Yes, according to Detective Hrivnak, who many of you have spoken with in the past, it looks like the victim was pushed in front of the car, following some kind of confrontation. But keep quiet about that, please. If the police aren't spreading that around, I certainly won't.”

“Do the police know we're on the case?”

That was a bit harder to answer. “They have asked me some questions tangential to the death, but we have not been officially involved—with one exception, and I'll tell you about that now.”

I proceeded to outline the events we knew about, and the conjectures Marty and I had put together. Marty threw in a few clarifications, but by and large everyone listened respectfully until I wound down. “Any questions?” I finally said.

I was surprised that Latoya was the first to speak. “Why are you telling us this at all? It seems to me that you and Martha could have carried on quite well without involving us.”

I weighed my answer carefully. “Two reasons. One, you all know about different aspects of the collections, and Marty and I are convinced that this has some connection to the
Society's holdings in the early twentieth century. We can use your input and insights and undeniable research skills. Two, this may be dangerous. One man has been killed. If we have stumbled onto something that can inspire murder, I'd rather you all know what you're facing so no one bumbles into this unprepared. You're safer this way. I don't want anyone to get hurt.”