Fire Engine Dead (9 page)

“I’m not going to be able to stop you, am I?” James said.

“You’re the one who asked me for insights into our community. And this is my business. Peter made an appropriate
request for information he knows we have, and I’m honoring it. It’s not like I’m stalking drug lords in dark alleys.”

“All right. You’ll tell me if you find out anything interesting, or if he turns green at the mention of the fire engine?”

“Of course. I’ll talk to you later.”

I had never aspired to be an undercover operative, and I was equal parts amused and annoyed at James’s proprietary attitude. Peter had contacted me with a legitimate professional request, and I was responding in a likewise professional manner. Period. Before I could overthink the whole situation, I picked up the phone and called him.

Peter Ingersoll answered his own phone, and I could hear sounds of construction in the background. “Nell, thank you for returning my call,” he shouted into the phone, and I winced and pulled the receiver away from my ear. “You said yesterday that you had something for me?”

“I’ve pulled together what we have here. How about we get together for lunch and I can give it to you?”

“What?”

I repeated my question, more loudly this time.

“That would be great! I can’t hear myself think here. How about the Bourse?”

“Fine. Noon, at the café there?”

“Great. See you there.”

After Peter had hung up, I called out to Eric. “I didn’t have anything planned for lunch today, did I?”

“No, you’re free. Are you meeting Mr. Ingersoll?”

“How did you guess? I’ll need you to make copies of the documents we’ve gathered, to take with me.”

“Of course.”

I pulled out the folders and started to go through them, using sticky tabs to mark the pages I wanted Eric to copy—and I made a point of including the best and clearest pictures of the fire engine. Peter would have all the information we could offer. The question was, what was he going to do with it?

It was going to be an interesting lunch.

Armed with the thick envelope Eric handed me, I left the
building a few minutes early so I could enjoy the walk. The place Peter and I had agreed to meet at lay about halfway between our two institutions, so neither of us would waste any time. It wasn’t upscale, but the food was decent, and it was busy enough that no one would pay us much attention. Along the way I took a moment to salute the odd frame structure that embodied the ghost of Ben Franklin’s house on Chestnut Street—the house had been torn down nearly two hundred years earlier, and yet it lingered on. Maybe on the way back I would stop at his grave, in the cemetery not far from the Constitution Center.

I arrived first, and waited outside since the cool air felt good. I saw Peter before he saw me, and I watched him approach, accompanied by a man I recognized as the curator Gary O’Keefe—tall and broad, with a craggy open face and grizzled hair. Peter looked predictably frazzled; his rather
nice suit showed traces of drywall dust. He smiled when he saw me.

“Nell, you remember Gary O’Keefe. I hope you don’t mind that I brought him along.”

Peter’s companion extended a hand. “Nice to see you again, Nell.”

I wondered briefly why Peter had included Gary in our meeting. Support? Or was Gary keeping an eye on Peter? “Good to see you, too,” I said.

“Shall we?” he asked, opening the door to the building for me and Peter, and I led the way inside. At the café tucked in one corner a young waitress pointed us toward a table with a view of the busy core of the Bourse, a building that had once been part of Philadelphia’s financial center but which now housed a delightful variety of shops and eateries.

We sat and ordered sandwiches and drinks. Up close, Peter looked even more tired. “I’m glad you suggested lunch, Nell,” he said. “I really needed to get out of the museum.”

“When I called you, it sounded as though construction was still going on,” I began.

“It is. Don’t take that as a good sign, but the contractors and the unions insisted that we go forward, in the event that we can reopen. We’re going to have a lovely rebuilt shell with nothing to put in it.”

“Peter, you exaggerate. People have already been very generous with in-kind contributions,” Gary said.

Peter shrugged. “I guess,” he said with little enthusiasm.

I realized I was going to have to pick my words carefully, to avoid looking like I was interrogating him. “Could you salvage anything from the warehouse?”

He shook his head. “Not a lot. They tried to keep materials from individual renters grouped together, and our area was the hardest hit. Seems odd to be wishing that they’d been a little more careless, doesn’t it?”

“It must be devastating to lose so much, all at once. I can only imagine how I’d feel.”

“But we look after our own,” Gary said. “We’ll have no trouble with the reopening.”

I wondered briefly who he was trying to convince: me, Peter, or himself? “Peter, remind me how long you’ve been with the museum?”

“More than five years now. Before that…” We rambled on about our respective careers, which carried us through the sandwiches. When the table was finally cleared, I wiped it off with a clean napkin and laid the envelope I’d brought on the table, pulling out the thick stack of photocopies. Both men leaned forward. “Here’s what my staff pulled together for you. It looks like you have—had—a very diverse collection. A mix of large and small items, including ephemera. I hadn’t realized how competitive the early firefighters were—all these contests!” I waved at an array of copies of newspaper clippings and color lithographs depicting large groups of firefighters trying to outdo each other, and spreading a lot of water in the process. “The Society might be able to lend you some broadsides and posters, if you’re going to try to recreate what you had.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Peter replied. “You know, when we decided to renovate, we did review our display concepts. We have such limited space, and it’s important to use it effectively. At the same time, we have to appeal to a broad audience. As you might imagine, school groups are an important part of our programming, and they tend to
have different interests than visiting fire buffs, say. You don’t have that problem, do you?”

“No, we’re not really display oriented, although we’ve done some small exhibits highlighting one or another aspect of our collections. But most of what we have is paper-based, and that’s usually neither eye-catching nor sturdy enough to be exhibited. But since we do have objects as well as documents, we still qualify as a museum, and you’d be surprised how many people walk in expecting to see things in cases somewhere.

“Did you have any particular interest in firefighting when you joined the museum, or was it primarily a professional move?”

“A bit of each. My father was a fireman in a small town, one of only a couple of full-time employees—the rest were volunteers. And of course most kids are fascinated by fire. A lot of adults, too.”

“You didn’t want to follow in his footsteps?”

“I couldn’t—I have asthma.”

“Then the construction at the Fireman’s Museum must be hard for you.”

“It has been. That’s why I really need to get out of the building every day. If I don’t, my lungs just close up. I’ll be glad when it’s finished.”

“I was a firefighter myself,” Gary said, joining the conversation. “I had to retire after an accident on the job—that’s where I got this gimpy leg—but I’ve been with the museum since it was incorporated as a nonprofit, back in the seventies. Going on forty years now, longer than I’ve been married.”

Gary must be older than he looks
, I thought. While Gary was talking, Peter picked up the sheaf of papers and leafed through it briefly, without stopping to examine any particular
item—including the fire engine pictures—then returned it to the envelope. “I really appreciate your putting this together for me, Nell. We’re going to be a lot more thorough with our documentation, going forward—and we’ll back things up, off-site, from now on. Talk about putting all our proverbial eggs in one basket! I knew it was poor practice, but until now, it was hard to convince the rest of the staff to do it properly. No offense, Gary.”

“None taken, Peter. I’ve never been good at the paperwork side of things, and I’ve never had formal training in museum management. I just picked it up along the way.”

“Did I read somewhere that you still use active firefighters on your staff?” I asked Peter.

Peter nodded. “We do, to some extent. Mostly for school tours. The children love talking to a real fireman.”

“They’re municipal employees, aren’t they? How does that work?”

“It’s a little complicated. The city created a nonprofit organization to manage the museum, but its history goes back further than that. In some ways the city still feels it has some rights to the place. And a lot of our employees and members of the board have come to us through the city and the fire department.”

Was it my imagination, or did Peter look less than happy with that situation? How much say did he have in who was hired? Was the museum a nice cushy niche for people who left the city employ? Or to put it another way, was I catching a whiff of political patronage? I didn’t know Peter well enough to ask any more about this, but I could probably find out from other sources. Like Marty.

Peter checked his watch and started to stand. “I’ve got to go—I have to review the contractor’s list of things that still
need to be done.” He held up the envelope. “Thank you again, Nell, especially for putting this together so quickly. I’ll take care of the lunch tab. It’s the least I can do.”

“You’re welcome, and thanks for the lunch. Let me know if I can be of any further help.”

Gary had stood up as well, but he was hesitating, so I seized the opportunity. “Gary, do you have to leave, too? I’d love to hear more about your collections. There’s a lot I don’t know about Philadelphia firefighting history, but I was intrigued by what I found in our files.”

He sat back down willingly. “And I’d be delighted to fill you in, Nell. Peter, I’ll see you later?”

“You know where I’ll be.” Peter strode off toward the cashier.

Gary signaled to the waitress, then looked at me. “More coffee?”

“Sure.” After the waitress had topped off our cups, I said, “Can you give me the nickel tour of Philadelphia firefighting?”

“Of course—I could do it in my sleep, after all these years. Let’s start at the very beginning. When William Penn created the city in 1688, he planned his new home to be as fire resistant as possible. Of course, in those days that meant wide streets and open spaces. That’s why he created the parks, you know—as firebreaks.”

“Fascinating!” I was already impressed. “I did not know that! I knew it was Penn who laid out the city, but I hadn’t realized that fire management was a major factor.”

“Indeed it was. Then in 1696 the Provincial Legislature passed a bill about chimney cleaning and required that each household have two leather fire buckets. Plus people were fined if they were caught smoking on the street.”

“I take it that’s not enforced anymore.” I laughed.

“Regrettably, no. Now, the city’s first fire engine was purchased from England in 1718, but nobody tried to use it until 1726, at which point they discovered it wasn’t in working order. They fixed it, but another fire in 1730 showed how poorly suited that machine was to the task, so they ordered three new ones, along with four hundred fire buckets.”

“Where did Ben Franklin come in?” I asked.

“Ah, you know about that? Well, by the early 1700s the city owned equipment but had no organization to run it. So in 1736 Ben Franklin and twenty-nine other prominent citizens got together to form the Union Fire Company. This was intended at first to serve only its members, though they very quickly decided to expand to protect the entire city. But their charter limited the number of members, so other fire companies formed quickly. By 1771 almost every city official belonged to one or another of them.”

I enjoyed watching Gary warm to his subject. I had to admit, much of the information was new to me. Listening to him, I was amazed that there hadn’t been a fire museum much earlier, since Philadelphia had led the way, setting an example for urban firefighting. When I next looked at my watch, an hour had passed.

Gary noticed. “I’m sorry—I’m keeping you too long. People tell me I get carried away when I start talking about firefighting.”

“Don’t apologize! I’ve learned a lot. If there’s any way the Society can help, please let me know.” I stood up and pulled on my coat, with Gary’s courteous help. “It was nice talking to you, Gary.”

“I’ve enjoyed it, Nell,” Gary said.

As I walked back to the Society, I tried to figure out what the dynamic was between the two men, while also trying to make up my mind what I’d tell James.

Peter had looked drained, but that wasn’t surprising. My impression was that Gary had tagged along to support Peter. But I was troubled: it was hard to believe that these two men, who were intimately familiar with the museum’s prized fire engine, had not seen the newspapers and were oblivious to the differences. Maybe they didn’t want to call attention to the issue or discuss it with me, regarding it as an internal matter they didn’t need to include me in.

Or maybe they were trying to hide something.

I decided to skip my visit to Ben Franklin’s grave. After all, he wasn’t going anywhere. Back at my desk, I was still debating about what to tell James when Eric told me that Agent Morrison was on the line.

I picked up a tad reluctantly. “Hi, James. I just got back from lunch.”

“Oh, right, with Ingersoll.”

As if that wasn’t why he’d called. “Yes, and his curator, Gary O’Keefe. I thought that’s what you wanted to hear about.”

“Did either one mention the fire engine?”

“No, it didn’t come up. I gave them the materials we’d collected, and they barely looked at them, although there were pictures of the engine in there.”

“Anything else?”

“I don’t think so. Peter seems to be on the up-and-up. The only hint of any discontent was the impression I got that the city might be packing his board with ex-municipal employees. If it wasn’t about my lunch, though, why did you call?”