Fire Engine Dead (6 page)

“If I remember correctly, there’s something unusual about the organizational structure of the museum. What can you tell me?”

She leaned back and stared at the wall over my head. “As I recall—and don’t hold me to it—the Fireman’s Museum was first suggested by a bunch of fire buffs in the 1960s, in advance of the 1971 centennial of the Philadelphia Fire Department. They put together the core collections from fire stations all over the city. The fire commissioner at the time offered them the use of a retired firehouse, but it took a couple of years of work before it could open as a museum. The original staffing came from the fire department and volunteers. Still does, more or less—members of the fire department still volunteer time to provide tours, which saves a lot in staff salaries.

“They’ve gotten some funding from the city and from local insurance companies. They created a nonprofit corporation to manage it, with a volunteer board of directors.”

I was impressed by her knowledge. “Interesting,” I said. “I hadn’t realized it was such a homegrown institution. Thank you, Latoya, that’s exactly what I needed to know. How do you know so much about the place?”

“I used to date a fireman.” She didn’t elaborate.

“Do you know if they’ve continued collecting, after that first effort? I know it’s not a large place, so space for exhibits must be limited.”

“In a small way, as I understand it. And of course, there was that fire engine, given by the Terwilligers.”

“Of course. Marty filled me in on that. Was that the only one they had?” She nodded. I stood up. “Well, I’ll let you get back to what you were doing.”

As I was leaving, she said, “Nell, what’s the FBI’s interest in this? I thought it was a case of arson, according to the press.”

“The FBI has a lot of arson resources, and there is a lot of information to wade through regarding whatever was stored at the warehouse. Plus the Fireman’s Museum is a public institution.” I didn’t think I should say any more, and I didn’t want to voice my suspicions about the fire engine to Latoya. “Thanks.”

While I was at it, I decided I might as well dot my i’s and cross my t’s, and sought out Shelby, stopping by my office first to retrieve the file of photographs.

“Hey, lady. You need me?” She greeted me.

I dropped into a chair in front of her desk. “I need to pick your brain, and your files. Do we have any Terwilliger wills or inventories in our files?”

“Like who gave what to whom?” Shelby asked. “Wouldn’t that be in collections?”

“Probably, but we would have copies, too, in the personal files.” I didn’t want to keep going back to Latoya. I wrestled for a moment with the ethics of telling Shelby the whole story while giving Latoya the edited version, but I trusted Shelby more than Latoya. Plus I had a feeling the
answers lay somewhere in the development files rather than the collections files.

“And might this have something to do with that real nice fire engine that went up in smoke?”

“Can’t get a thing past you, can I?” I smiled. “It would. I understand Marty’s grandfather gave it to the Fireman’s Museum, in the seventies, maybe? I’ve already got some pictures, but I wondered if any additional information had sneaked into the development files. Uh, about that fire engine…” I pulled out the two photos and laid them on Shelby’s desk, side by side. She looked confused at first, and then I could see the light dawning in her expression.

“Something funny going on here?” she asked.

I nodded. “I’m thinking insurance fraud gone wrong. Keep this quiet, will you?”

“Of course I will. So why don’t we take a look at those files? You going to help? Because you’ve got to know the records better than I do.”

“Sure.”

It took us a couple of hours to wade through the extensive Terwilliger files, since Marty was the third generation of the family to be involved with the Society. It appeared that all members of that family had been exceedingly thorough in their documentation, which shouldn’t have surprised me after what I’d seen of the historical collections. It was almost as though they knew that future generations would be looking at them. For all of that, we didn’t come up with much more than I already knew. Since the Society had not been the recipient of the fire engine, most references to it were tangential. There was, however, a copy of Marty’s grandfather’s will (which included substantial bequests
to the Society) and inventory, which described the fire engine in broad terms. It confirmed the story but didn’t provide much more information.

When I looked at my watch, I realized that it was nearly five and James might be arriving at any moment. “Thanks, Shelby. I think we’ve found whatever there is to find here. I’m sorry to leave you with all the mess, but I’m expecting someone at five.”

She laughed, unruffled. “That’s right, leave it for me to clean up. But to tell the truth, I was glad of the chance to go through it all. The Terwilligers really were something, weren’t they? The best kind of mix—wealthy but not pushy about it, and definitely civic-minded.”

“The current generation isn’t too shabby, either, if Marty’s any indication. You can leave it until tomorrow if you want.”

“I might as well finish up now.” Shelby began gathering up the scattered files, and I left her to it.

At five fifteen Front Desk Bob, a former police officer who manned our reception desk while providing a small measure of security, called to say that a Mr. Morrison was in the lobby. I went down to escort James upstairs, and we maintained a professional demeanor as we took the elevator to the third floor and then walked to my office. Shelby looked up as we passed, and gave me a thumbs-up, which I ignored. Eric looked startled by James’s unheralded appearance after hours, but I gave him what I hoped was a reassuring smile and told him he could go home. Finally I closed the door behind us and pointed to the chair in front of my desk.

“So, what’s this about, Nell?” he asked.

“There’s something I think you should see. I’m not going
to say anything more—you can make your own judgment.”

I retrieved the folder with the pictures and, with a show of ceremony, pulled out, first, the high-quality black-and-white photo of the Fireman’s Museum engine from the Society’s files. I laid it in front of him. Then I pulled out that day’s newspaper, still folded open to the story of the fire, and laid that alongside. I sat down silently and waited.

He looked at me, then at the photos, clearly bewildered. And then I enjoyed watching the light dawn as he compared the two, once, then again, his eyes darting back and forth. Then he sat back and exhaled. “They aren’t the same,” he said flatly.

“That’s what I thought.”

“The one that burned was not the Terwilliger engine.”

“Nope.”

He rubbed his eyes. “Damn. How? When?”

“They moved the collections into storage, what, eighteen months ago? It could have been then, or any time since.”

“Somebody would have to have paid off somebody else to get it out of there. Nights, there was only the one watchman around—Allan Brigham, the one who died. Hell, could be the swap was made the night before the fire, and Brigham was killed because he was in on it and knew too much.”

Clearly James was thinking out loud and didn’t expect an answer from me. I was content to cheer him on. “Maybe.”

His eyes focused on me. “Inside or outside job? What’re these things worth?”

“How would I know? You’ll notice we don’t have anything quite that big here, and I don’t follow that market. But
I’ll remind you that to a true collector, price is no object—he’ll pay what it’s worth to him.” And I was willing to bet that there were a lot of people who were passionate about firefighting, including some collectors with money.

“Thanks a lot. I know I asked you to help, but I really didn’t think you’d open a can of worms like this. Now we’ve got to look at fraud and murder, in addition to arson. And art theft.”

“I do my best. After all, my tax dollars pay your salary.”

“Does Marty know any of this?”

“Not from me—I just figured it out this afternoon. I don’t know what she’s going to think when and if she sees the news photo. She did seem to know the original pretty well, as you did, so it’s possible she might come to the same conclusion. What’s more to the point is, what would she be likely to do about it?”

“I’ll talk to her. I don’t need her muddling this up.” He stood up. “I guess I’m going back to my office. Can I get copies of that stuff?” He pointed toward the pictures.

“Sure. Follow me.” I led him down the hall to the communal copy machines and made copies. “There you go. I’ll have to let you out—Bob should have left by now.”

“Fine.” He trailed obligingly down the hall to the elevator, and then I led him to the now-dark lobby. Before he left he turned to me and said, “Nell, I’ll take it from here. You don’t have to do anything more.”

“My, that sounds familiar. You do know I’ll be talking to Peter, right?”

“Just give him what he asked for about the collections, okay?”

“No problem. But what do I do if Marty comes tearing in and starts demanding action?”

“Send her to me. Period. All right?”

“Yes, sir. Certainly, sir.” I refrained from saluting.

“Nell, I’m serious. One man is dead, and now I’m not so sure that was an accident.”

My flippant mood evaporated. “I know. You take care, too, James.”

“I will. Good night, Nell.”

When Marty came stomping into my office the next
morning, brushing past Eric without even looking at him, I had a pretty good idea what she was mad about. Of course, the crumpled copy of the
Inquirer
crushed in her fist was a solid clue. She threw herself into a chair, her face flushed. “Somebody pulled a fast one!” She glared at me.

James had told me not to talk to her about this, but as I had anticipated, she’d figured it out all by herself. At this rate, it was going to be difficult to keep a lid on things, but luckily I didn’t think many people would look very hard at the picture and put two and two together. I thought briefly about playing dumb, but Marty deserved better, and I wasn’t very good at it anyway.

“Shut the door, please, Marty.” I waited until she had complied. “I think you’re right. But think of it this way—that means the Terwilliger fire truck is probably alive and well somewhere.”

“Yeah, but my grandfather gave that to the museum so people could enjoy it! And now some jerk has made off with it and destroyed the museum’s collection at the same time.”

“And possibly killed somebody in the process,” I added quietly.

Marty seemed to shrink just a bit. “Right. Sorry. I’m being selfish.” She stopped ranting long enough to realize what I’d said. “Wait—you knew? When did you figure this out?”

“Yesterday.” I waited for her wrath to descend and was not disappointed.

“
Yesterday?
When were you planning to tell me?”

“I haven’t seen you since then. And it’s not as though you’re responsible for doing something about it. That’s up to the police.”

She eyed me critically. “Does Jimmy know?”

I nodded mutely.

She jumped out of her chair. “What? You told him before you told me?”

“Marty, he’s law enforcement. This is arson and maybe murder and fraud. What do you think you can do that he and the police can’t do a whole lot better?”

She deflated again and dropped back into her chair. I was getting exhausted just watching her. “I know, you’re right. Official business and all that crap. What’s Jimmy’s take?”

I shrugged. “He didn’t tell me. Since he only just found out himself”—I thought I wouldn’t mention that I was the one who had pointed it out to him—“I don’t know if he’s had any time to get balls rolling or wheels turning or whatever it takes. At least the police were smart enough to ask the FBI for help.”

“Yeah, for once.” She thought for a few moments. “What do you think the point was? Money? Or maybe the fire was the main purpose, to cripple the museum, and whoever set the fire couldn’t bear to destroy the engine? Oh, but that would mean the person had to know it was there, which points to an inside job.”

I sat back and stared at her. “Marty, why are you assuming that the museum and its collection was the primary target? It was a big warehouse, and there were others involved. James said they had to look at everybody.”

“Unless this was one of those creepy arson-for-fun crimes, do you know of anything else there worth destroying? The fact that the prize fire engine has gone missing kind of points straight at the museum, don’t you think?”

She had a point—trust Marty to connect the dots. Interesting that she’d gone straight to motive. “At the museum, or at the warehouse? The night watchman knew it was there—it’s kind of hard to miss an antique fire engine. It’s not small.”

“And the night watchman is dead. Was he careless, or did somebody else make sure he ended up that way? You know anything about him?”

“Just that he was a retired firefighter, so he shouldn’t have been careless. The police don’t talk to me, and there’s no reason they should. James came to me to ask what I knew about the museum and their collections. Period.”

“He didn’t come to me?” Marty grumbled. “I probably know more than you do about who’s who and what’s what around here.”

She was right about that, but I wasn’t about to tell her that her cousin didn’t trust her to keep her mouth shut. “Granted. But this investigation has just begun, and things are changing
fast. It started out as a simple fire, and then the firemen found the body. The death could have been an accident, or it could have been deliberate, but the police have to investigate both the arson
and
a possible murder. Now it looks like there’s also been a theft, which complicates things. The FBI were already involved informally, and they’re just waiting to be invited to the party. Who knows where things will go from here?”

“Hey, don’t forget that the Fireman’s Museum has ties to the city. We could throw municipal corruption into the mix while we’re at it.” Marty’s usual good humor appeared to have been restored. She had little respect for the current administration.