Fire Engine Dead (12 page)

Eric appeared in my doorway with a clutch of phone message slips. “Good interview?” he asked cautiously.

“I think so, unexpectedly. There are a few details to be worked out, but we may actually have two new employees shortly, and then we can get down to some real work. Any important messages?”

“Only one that won’t wait until tomorrow—Agent Morrison.”

Again? “Thanks, Eric. I’ll give him a call.” When Eric went back to his desk, I punched in James’s office number.

“James Morrison,” he answered automatically and then caught himself. “Hi, Nell—force of habit.”

“Not a problem. You called me?”

“Yes. Do you have time for a quick drink around six? I’ve got a couple of things to discuss with you.”

“Uh, sure.” We picked a place near his office and close to my train stop, and agreed to meet at six.

Bolstered by something nice to look forward to at the end of the day, I braced myself to talk to Latoya and marched to her office, only to discover that she wasn’t there. I checked my watch and realized it was after five—we
must have spent more time in the stacks with Alice than I had realized. I was ashamed to feel relief that I wouldn’t have to explain to Latoya right now. I went back to my office and resumed writing reports, one of my least favorite activities.

Shortly before six I collected my coat and bag and walked out of the building, nodding to the few people who were still around. The evening air felt good as I walked the couple of blocks toward City Hall—which, I recalled, sat squarely upon what had been one of William Penn’s parks. He certainly had left his stamp on the city.

James was already waiting for me and graciously helped me off with my coat. “Nice to see you again, Nell.”

“Is this business, or can I have a glass of wine?” I asked, sitting down.

“A bit of business, but go right ahead. Hard day?”

“Yes and no. I think we’ve finally filled Alfred’s old position, and then some.”

A waiter approached, and James ordered for both of us before asking, “What do you mean?”

I filled him in on my unexpected employee surplus and my plans on how to utilize them both on the Terwilliger Collection.

“Speaking of the Terwilliger Collection,” James said with a grin, “I’ve got good news. We’re finally releasing the recovered goods to you, so all the collection will be together again.”

“Oh, wonderful! And perfect timing, since we’ve now got the staff to deal with them. I was just thinking that once we get done with processing it, I’d like to plan a big media blitz and maybe a party. It’s a classic collection with some wonderful material, and I think Marty—and the rest of her
family—deserve the recognition. Do the documents all seem to still be in good condition?”

“I’d say so. What we recovered came from a private dwelling, but the—well, I can’t say owner, but the person who was in possession of them took decent care of everything. Seems he was a real local history buff. That’s why he kept quite a bit of the stuff he acquired—he was a genuine enthusiast. Prosecuting him may turn out to be a little tricky because he may well have purchased his collection items in good faith, though anyone who’s into collecting and purchases materials of that caliber had to have known there was something fishy about it. Anyway, we’ve tried to treat the papers appropriately since.”

“Like not shoving them into a leaky warehouse?”

“Exactly.”

“Do you know if much is missing?” I asked, not sure if I wanted an answer, or if he could give one. I knew the thief had tried to sell some of the choicer items on the black market.

“You’d know better than I would. We still aren’t sure how long the pilfering was going on, after all. Still, you may get lucky.”

“Well, I guess that’s the upside of all this. I for one will be glad to put the whole episode behind us and move on.”

“There was something else…” James began, seeming at a bit of a loss.

“What?”

“It’s about the fire and the Fireman’s Museum.”

I took a sip of my wine before responding. “Is there something new? Are you actually on the case now?”

“Yes and no. That’s the problem, you see. You’ve told me, in confidence, that you think the fire engines were
switched, and I’m inclined to believe you. Marty came to the same conclusion, and she’s got a pretty good eye.” He stopped.

“But?”

“It’s been several days, and nobody from the Fireman’s Museum has come forward about it. They’re all busy mourning their lost treasure, as far as I know. And I don’t know a lot, since the police don’t know, and I won’t be involved unless there’s a clear case of fraud here, or the police ask us for help with the death, assuming it’s murder, which isn’t proved, either. I told you that the autopsy was inconclusive about who or what caused the blow that killed the watchman, so that doesn’t help.”

“Huh,” I said intelligently. I needed a moment to think this through. “You don’t want to take your suspicions directly to them?”

“I could, but if I’m wrong there are quite a few people who wouldn’t be very happy with me—my boss, the city of Philadelphia, the entire fireman’s union, the museum…The FBI is on a pretty tight leash these days, along with everyone else, so I can’t indulge in an investigation just because I have suspicions. But it’s difficult, because without revealing my doubts, it’s less likely that I’ll be asked in to investigate that aspect.”

I nodded. “I see your problem.”

He sighed. “I hate to say this, but I may need your help on this again.”

This was interesting. I sat up straighter in my chair. “Seriously? I thought I’d done all I could.” Or all that he would let me.

He was shaking his head, more to himself than to me. “I really hate doing this. Involving civilians is never a good
idea.” He took a swallow of his own drink, then looked at me. “As I see it, we’ve got a limited number of possibilities. One, it’s simple arson with an accidental death, and we’re wrong about the charred skeleton of a fire truck—maybe the fire warped it or something. Two, someone switched the machines, then torched the building to cover it up, and the death was an accident—the watchman heard something, ran to investigate, and tripped and hit his head and died. Three, same as two except somebody killed the night watchman with a blow to the head because he knew something or he’d seen something, or he was even in on it and someone wanted to cut him out, which adds murder to the mix.”

“That sounds like it about covers it. So, who are you looking at?”

“That’s the kicker—I don’t know. An anonymous arsonist or someone connected to the museum? Or another one of your rabid collectors who really wanted an antique fire engine?”

“I’m sorry—I still don’t see what you want me to do, now that I’ve handed the materials over to Peter.”

He looked away, barely stopping short of rolling his eyes. “Do you think he really doesn’t see the difference? Is he hiding something? Or covering for someone else?”

“James, I’ve spent maybe two hours total with the man. How am I supposed to tell you what’s going through his mind? And whether he’s involved in a major theft and cover-up, and maybe a murder?”

“The FBI can look into Ingersoll’s background and the rest of the board members for the nonprofit—or I should say, I can do that much on my own time without alerting anyone that I’m investigating. But you are part of the museum
community, and you can ask different questions, come at the problem from a different angle, right?”

“I suppose. Although how I’m supposed to determine who at the museum is capable of committing or initiating a major crime isn’t exactly clear to me.”

“I know. Just nose around and see if there’s any talk about the place. I mean, you know how boards are put together. Are there any people who stand out as inappropriate at that museum?”

“What—you think a board member might have engineered this? With or without Peter’s participation?” I wasn’t quite sure what an inappropriate board member would look like. I knew that the Society’s board was pretty homogeneous—that is, older white men with money—but there were some oddballs in the mix. I gathered there were plenty of people involved in firefighting one way or another on the Fireman’s Museum board, but not knowing much about that profession, either, I couldn’t guess who didn’t fit in. “I don’t know. I do know that it’s kind of a cushy position for some city employees, current or former, but that’s not all that unusual.”

“Does any money change hands?”

“You mean, do the board members get paid? Generally not, but I’d have to check the details. Certainly not at the Society. We’d rather they give
us
money.”

“Well, maybe that’s part of the problem at the Fireman’s Museum. Maybe somebody’s expectations were not being met and he saw a quick way to make some money.”

“What an awful idea! I mean, to kill a man and destroy a city collection for a quick payoff?” It occurred to me that I had no idea what the fire engine might be worth.

“I know it’s not something you would do, Nell, but someone might.”

I sighed. “So what do you want me to do? Tell Peter Ingersoll what I suspect?”

“No! At least, not yet. We don’t want to tip anyone off. If he comes to you with a question about the fire engine, since you were the one who gave him the documents, that’s a different story. You play dumb and let me know ASAP.”

“I’m so flattered that you think I can appear stupid,” I said.

“Nell,” he began to protest, and I held up a hand.

“Yes, I know this is serious. Just give me some time to think about it, all right? I want to help, but I don’t want to go blundering in and make things worse.”

“Understood. But you know as well as I do, the longer this drags on, the less likely it will be solved.”

“What, now I have a deadline? Tell me, can your art theft guys trace where that fire engine might have gone? I mean, it’s not like you can stick it in a tidy box and put it in the mail. It’s big, but at the same time, it’s fragile. Somebody would have to have had a really large truck of some sort, to get it away from the warehouse. Don’t the police have spy cameras on every corner? I thought I remembered reading about the city installing those, a few years ago.”

“Some. Not everywhere. This isn’t one of those television shows where you can follow a single car for miles through the city.”

I grimaced. “I know—this is Philadelphia. So you don’t know how the piece might have left the building?” If it really was gone.

“Not yet—we’re still collecting information. And again, we don’t even know when it might’ve happened, either. The
night before the fire? Six months? We don’t even have footage going back more than a couple of weeks.”

“You’re certainly making it easy.” I laid my hands firmly on the table. “Let me see what I can come up with. What would I get out of the FBI?”

James’s mouth twitched. “Only our deepest respect and gratitude—off the record, of course.”

“Is that like a get-out–of-jail-free card the next time I have a problem?”

He shrugged, which was not helpful.

“All right,” I pressed, “let’s talk about something more solid. When will you be delivering the wandering Terwilliger documents?”

“Is tomorrow soon enough?”

“Perfect. I’ll tell Rich to get ready for them. And Marty. Thank you.” I checked my watch: I could just make the next train. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” I said as I stood up and started to pull on my coat.

James appeared startled. “You’re leaving already?”

I smiled. “Hey, if you wanted a date, you should have said so. Call me tomorrow and we can make plans. Good night, James.”

My departure may have seemed a bit abrupt, but I wanted time to think about what James had asked me to do. Regardless of whatever tenuous personal relationship we were nursing along, this was business, and I needed a clear head to consider what he had suggested. On the brisk walk to Suburban Station and during the ride home, I had plenty of time to go over what James had said. I’ll admit I didn’t have a very clear grasp of how the FBI worked, but I knew enough that it wasn’t like in the movies—they couldn’t just swoop in anytime they wanted. I’d already learned that, at
least in some cases, they had to be invited by the local authorities before they could act. In this case, people were still questioning whether there was a crime at all, let alone one that fell under FBI jurisdiction, or at least they hadn’t said so publicly. So James couldn’t do much more than he was already doing, sniffing around the edges. If we could prove there was an art theft and/or fraud involved, that would be different.

Could anyone autopsy a dead fire engine?

I awoke with the word
fire
running through my head.
Fires were fascinating, primitive. Why else did so many people gather to watch a fire in progress? I’d been guilty of that myself, when years earlier a house in my neighborhood had been struck by lightning and the attic caught fire. I’d felt a mix of fear and fascination. From what little I’d read about the subject, firemen had always been kind of macho types. I mean, really—they used to hold competitions to see how far they could squirt their hoses?

I spent my days amidst literally tons of dry, old paper, which anyone could ignite with a single match and which could quickly burn out of control, and if I allowed myself to think about it, that made me very uncomfortable. Note to self:
Look up the status of the Society’s fire control systems.
Second note to self:
Make sure my home fire extinguisher is in working order and figure out how to use it.
Once a fire
had started, it would be a little late to stop and read the instructions.

As I ate breakfast, I continued to puzzle over James’s request. The FBI strongly discouraged its agents from involving civilians in investigations, with good reason—and James himself had told me so on more than one occasion. On the other hand, I had insights into a particular community that most agents lacked, so I could make a contribution. On the third hand, someone had died, which made this situation more critical. On the fourth hand—or was I up to feet now?—I didn’t want to betray any confidences that a colleague might share with me, because I had to keep working with these people in the long run. I didn’t know Peter Ingersoll well, so I was unlikely to receive any particularly personal revelations. All I had to do was listen and ask a few innocent and appropriately professional questions. Right?