Fundraising the Dead (15 page)

“I don’t think so. And you’ve told other people now—Latoya, Charles. Whoever’s responsible may not know that I know anything, but the cat’s out of the bag anyway.”

Maybe I was tired, or maybe I was stupid, but I still didn’t get it. “So what are we supposed to do now?”

“My grandfather made the Society what it is—or was, in his day—and my father was a part of it, and now I am. I don’t want to see it go down the drain just because someone has a yen for bibelots and autograph documents. It’s bad enough that there was a death in the place, but if there has been a series of thefts, and the news gets out, the Society is in serious trouble. And you of all people should know how precarious the financial situation is. Your donors lose faith in the place, and that’s all she wrote. The current endowment will carry you maybe a year, and that’s with layoffs and cutbacks. Nope, I want to figure this out before the proverbial shit hits the fan, and then you can spin it to make us look like geniuses and everyone will be happy.”

I swallowed more wine, because I needed it. Last time I had checked, my job description had not included
sleuthing
, and I felt completely unprepared to start now. “What the heck am I supposed to do?”

Marty’s eyes gleamed. “You in?”

I didn’t have to think long about that. If Alfred had been killed, I wanted to see this through. “Yes, I am.”

“Hurray! Have another glass of wine. Look, what I need is someone on the inside. Sure, people know me, but they think I’m a meddler and a loudmouth. You, they’ll talk to. And you’re right there on the spot, and you have access—even at the highest levels.”

I knew she meant Charles. “But, Marty,” I protested weakly, “I don’t even know what I’m looking for or how to find it. Can’t the police do a better job? I’ll be happy to work with them.”

“Why would they listen to you? You’re just a fundraiser!” Before I could protest, she held up one hand. “That’s what
they’ll
say—I know how important you are to the place. But don’t worry—we have an ace in the hole.”

“What do you mean?”

Marty looked at her watch. “Let’s eat.”

She hadn’t answered my question, I noted, but I was hungry, and I didn’t want the wine to go to my head any more than it had already. So I stood up, too, and followed her to the kitchen, where she handed me a stack of plates and cutlery, and pointed to a table. Three plates, which matched the three place settings at the table. There was another guest coming?

As if on cue, the doorbell rang. “Get that, will you?” Marty said.

I found my way back to the front door and opened it. On the other side was Marty’s escort from the gala. “Uh, hello—Jimmy, isn’t it?”

He entered the hallway with the ease of long familiarity. “James. Nice to see you, Ms. Pratt.”

“Nell, please,” I said automatically, and followed him as he went toward the kitchen.

Marty greeted him with an affectionate kiss on the cheek. “Hi, Jimmy. Right on time. Dinner’s ready. Help yourselves.”

Once seated with a plate full of food, James turned to Marty. “You talked to her?”

Marty nodded. “I did. All clear.”

“Hello? I’m still in the room. You want to fill me in on what’s going on?” I was beginning to feel left out.

“Sure. Nell, I’m not sure I introduced you two properly the other night—bad manners. This is my cousin, Jimmy Morrison. Or, I should say, Special Agent James Morrison of the FBI.”

My mouth fell open. Cousin Jimmy was an FBI agent? The FBI was responsible for investigating the theft of major artifacts. The lightbulb finally went on. “You’ve called in the FBI to investigate the thefts, which are a federal offense. He’s
your ace in the hole
!” I finished triumphantly.

“I knew you were smart,” Marty said. James raised his glass to me, without comment. Marty went on. “But Jimmy’s just doing me a favor, at the moment. Since we don’t officially know there have been any thefts, he can’t officially investigate, right? And we’re still trying to work out how we can get him invited to play. That’s where you come in.” Marty refilled my glass.

“What do you mean?” I forked up a large bite of Marty’s casserole. Corn and cheese hardly described it—it had lots of butter and a dash of jalapeno pepper as well, and it was delicious.

James finally inserted himself into the conversation. “You know how the Society works, and who does what and goes where. And if you don’t know, you can ask without raising any suspicions. We’ve got a delicate situation here. Most likely with Alfred’s death, whoever is responsible for the thefts will go to ground, which will make it that much harder to ferret him or her out. But you can keep pressing for an inquiry into the thefts, quite innocently, and if you do it right, somebody up the food chain is going to have to ask my office to look into it. Maybe with a little nudge from Marty.”

“Uh-huh.” I picked up more food, chewed, swallowed. I was in no way prepared to play undercover agent. But Alfred certainly hadn’t deserved to die, and even more frightening was the thought that if he had died because somebody was pilfering important historic artifacts, and trashing the Society’s good name in the process, then that person might not stop at one murder. It seemed as though I really didn’t have a choice, and I
was
already involved. I looked up to see both Marty and James staring at me. “I take it you’re assuming the two events are connected?”

“Aren’t you?” James countered.

I nodded reluctantly. “So what do we do next?”

For the next few days it was business as usual—
except I had the gnawing feeling that something awful was going to happen. It was like having a weird bin-ocular vision: on the one hand (or did I mean eye?), everything seemed just as it always had, with people doing their jobs, visitors coming and going, meetings, minor crises; while out of the other eye, there were faceless people skulking around the corners, grabbing things and stuffing them into their pockets or down their shirts, and sneaking out the door—and nobody seemed to notice. And even though the puddle of blood had long since been scrubbed from the floor, I kept seeing it there.

It was unsettling. I had trouble believing any of our staff could be a thief—I wouldn’t even let myself think of anyone as a killer—but I’d noticed them eyeing each other oddly, and there was a lot of whispering going on in corners. The atmosphere of mistrust was contagious and could do a lot of damage, and I wanted to nip it fast. But how? I didn’t have any ideas.

There was no further word from Marty. There seemed to be nothing else I could do except worry, so I did that. I do it well.

I was heartily glad to see Friday roll around. I had no plans for the weekend, other than to be somewhere other than at the Society. Maybe a couple of days off would clear my head, give me perspective. Maybe. I ran through my list of household tasks and decided that I’d use this weekend to paint the walls and trim in my tiny second bedroom. I could put a CD on my little boom box and crank up the sound as loud as I wanted, paint the endless nooks and crannies of the Victorian moldings, and not think about the problems at work.

Saturday morning I was up early to buy paint, a creamy ivory that would be warmer and more cheerful than plain white. It was barely ten in the morning when I came back, swinging my heavy gallon of paint, to find Rich sitting on my doorstep. He bounced up when he saw me coming.

“Hi, Rich,” I greeted him, trying to remember where he lived. “What brings you out here?”

“Hi, Nell. I wanted to talk to you, and I didn’t want to do it at the Society. Do you mind? I’m sorry I just dropped in, but I couldn’t make up my mind if this was a good idea or not. So I just came.”

By now I was thoroughly mystified. “No problem.” I unlocked my door and ushered him in. “You want some coffee or something?”

“Yeah, sure, coffee’d be great. Hey, I like your place.”

I looked around at my comfortable clutter. “Thanks. Make yourself comfortable.”

As I boiled water and ground coffee beans, I tried to figure out what Rich might need to talk about without being overheard. Maybe he was going to confess to taking Marty’s documents? Or maybe he had found them? I could only hope. “You want sugar or milk?” I called out.

“No, black’s fine.”

I carried two filled mugs out to the living room and handed him one. I sat down in one of my armchairs and tried to look sympathetic and approachable. “What did you want to talk about, Rich?”

“It’s about the Terwilliger Collection. Or, well, it’s kinda more about the job, I guess.” He took a deep breath. “Look, I really like working at the Society and handling all this really great stuff. The Terwilliger Collection—it’s like a peephole into Philadelphia history—heck, even American history. So you’ve got to believe that I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize this job—it’s important to me.”

“Okay,” I said, wondering where he was headed with this.

“The thing of it is”—he swallowed—“when I was in high school, I was arrested once. It was really stupid—I took something dumb on a dare, and I got caught. Luckily I lived in a small town and the cops all knew my family, so I got off with community service, and when I turned eighteen the record was expunged or whatever they call it. So when I was applying for this job, I figured I didn’t need to mention anything about a record, you know?”

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” I said, still mystified. “Why do you think it’s important now?”

He stood up and began pacing around the room; with his long legs it didn’t take him long to make the circuit. “Look, if the stuff from the collection really is gone, I didn’t want anybody to look at me for it. I mean, sure, I know that a Washington letter would be worth good money, and anybody would think I could use the money, what with student loans and stuff. But I wouldn’t do that, honest. And I wanted to tell you first, in case somebody said something. Do you believe me?”

In fact, I did. “Rich, I appreciate your telling me, and I don’t think you had anything to do with this. I won’t let anyone point a finger at you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Apparently it was, because all of his joints suddenly seemed looser. “Thanks a lot, Nell. Look, if there’s anything I can do to help find the missing stuff, just say the word. I’ve been looking everywhere I can think of, but so far there’s nothing. Really weird, you know?”

Tell me about it.
“Oh, I know. And thanks for coming all the way out here. I can understand why you wouldn’t want to talk at work. Are you okay for getting home?”

“Oh, sure. Actually I’m doing a ten-mile bike ride today, so I thought I’d ride out this way. I’ll get out of your hair now. See you Monday!”

“Right.” I showed him out, marveling at the energy of youth. Ten miles on a bike? For fun?

After he’d left I changed into my grubby painter’s pants and a stained T-shirt. I slapped a throwaway painter’s hat over my hair (I have been known to add creative streaks, inadvertently, when painting), gathered my brushes, threw down my drop cloths, stirred, and dug in, with a CD blaring.

I had just finished two out of four walls when I thought I heard something, and turned down the music. Yes, it was my doorbell. I wasn’t expecting any deliveries, and didn’t have neighbors of the type who dropped in for a cup of sugar, so I had no idea who it could be. Two unexpected visitors in one day? I put down my brush, wiped the worst of the paint off my hands, and went to the front door.

It was Charles.

Now, this was a real shock. Charles had never been to my place in the more than two years that we had been seeing each other. Likewise, Charles never did anything unannounced—he wasn’t a very spontaneous person. I took one despairing look at myself—paint-stained, baggy clothes, no makeup, unwashed hair—sighed, and opened the door.

“Charles,” I said brightly, “what a delightful surprise! What brings you out to the wilderness?”

For a brief moment I swear he recoiled at my appearance, but he recovered quickly. “Nell, my dear, may I come in?”

“Of course.” I stood back, careful not to let him brush against my paint-covered clothes. I would’ve hated to sully the magnificent tweed jacket he had chosen for this expedition to foreign territory. He stepped into my tiny vestibule, then into the main room, which I laughingly called the parlor.

“What a charming place this is.” His eyes swept the room, which was filled with my yard-sale finds, lovingly refinished and reupholstered, and my eclectic collections of prints and objets trouvés hanging on the walls. I hoped that he was ignoring the dust bunnies in the corners and the stacks of books and magazines that I never seemed to finish reading or put away.

“Thank you. I like it.” I trailed after him as he wandered into the room, through the archway that set off the eating area (well, it did have a table and chairs), into the tiny kitchen. He did seem positively intrigued. Finally, I couldn’t wait any longer.

“Charles, it’s lovely to see you, but what are you doing here?”

He turned to look at me, then said, with touching concern in his voice, “I thought you might enjoy a diversion, after this past week. A friend of mine offered to lend me his car—it’s a Jaguar—and it would be wasted in the city. A car like that really needs an open road. So I thought of you, way out here, and took the chance that you’d be home, and free. Shall we go explore the winding lanes?”

How sweet. I beamed at him. “That sounds wonderful—if you’ll give me time to clean up a bit?”

“Of course. I thought we could go investigate Chester County. I’ve heard there are some interesting antique places out that way. And perhaps we could finish up at a restaurant? I’m told the Dilworthtown Inn has an excellent cellar.”

I, too, had heard of the Dilworthtown Inn, but my budget did not extend to trying it. Rustic it might be, but sloppy? I doubted it. I had better plan on changing into something a cut above blue jeans. “That sounds wonderful. Oh, and do you know the Brandywine Museum?”