Let's Play Dead

by Sheila Connolly

  Could I believe him? I knew I wanted to. “Eric, I’m counting on you to be honest with me. Can you tell me a bit more about what happened?”

  “I’m not proud of it. Look, I didn’t tell you that part of why I moved to Philadelphia was because my folks didn’t want to have anything to do with me when they found out I was gay. I figured I might as well move somewhere new, and after college I ended up in Philadelphia over a year ago. I tried really hard to find steady work when I got here, but I didn’t know the place, and the economy sucks, so I ended up temping. Which meant I didn’t stay in one place long enough to make friends, and I was pretty lonely. When I had some money to spare, I’d do a little clubbing, but I wasn’t into the party scene in college, and I wasn’t looking to get into anything here. I was just trying to get out of my crappy apartment, you know?” He looked at me like a puppy, hoping for approval.

  “Go on. How did you end up being arrested?”

  “I guess I just read the signals wrong one night. I mean, I wasn’t doing anything illegal, as far as I know. I thought I’d connected with this guy, and he said, why not come to my place? We’d both been drinking, so I said, sure, why not? And after that I’m not sure who said what. I swear to God, I never asked for money or anything like that. Heck, I even paid for our drinks. But when we got outside on the pavement, he told me he was an undercover cop and I was under arrest for solicitation.”

  I’d heard about such sweeps in the city, although I would have thought the local police had enough to keep themselves busy dealing with real crime without hassling harmless hookups between consenting adults. “Why did they drop the charges?”

  “Apparently the arresting officer had a history of jumping the gun. He’s a real homophobe, plus he’d been drinking-lots of people saw him. I was turned loose after a couple of miserable hours, and I don’t think I’ve been out after dark since.”

  “So no criminal record?” I asked.

  “No, ma’am.” He swallowed. “Look, Nell, if this is a problem for you, you can let me go, no hard feelings. I don’t hide what I am, and I know that makes some people uncomfortable…”

  I stopped him there. “And I’m not one of them. Eric, you’ve done a good job for me so far, and I don’t care what you do in your personal life. But I do need you, and anyone else I hire, to be honest with me, because I’m responsible for this whole place. If you say this was just a misunderstanding, and there’s nothing else like it lurking in your past, then we’re good. Does that work for you?”

  Eric broke out in a big grin. “It sure does. I like it here, and I enjoy working for you. You ready for coffee now?”

  “I am.” I watched his retreating back and sighed with relief. I did like Eric, and I didn’t want to start hunting for another assistant. But this little tempest in a teapot had definitely put me on notice: check everything and everyone, twice. Like it or not, I was accountable for all things great and small at the Society.

  I settled down at my desk to get something accomplished. Mondays were usually so peaceful, since we weren’t open to the public-not that the patrons of the reading room downstairs were exactly a rowdy bunch. But there was something soothing about the silence of the place.

  Until Eric came back with coffee-and with Shelby. She looked worried. My heart sank into my stomach. What now?

  Before they could speak, I said, “Do I want to hear this?” I took the coffee that Eric handed me. He looked at Shelby.

  “Probably not, but you should,” Shelby said.

  I took a sip of coffee, sighed, and said, “What?”

  “Eric just told me what you just talked about. About his arrest and all.”

  “Did you know?” I wasn’t sure what answer I wanted from her.

  Shelby shrugged. “Not in so many words, but I knew there’d been some trouble. That’s why I wanted to help him if I could, and I figured this job would be a great solution for everyone.”

  So far I didn’t see any issues. “Then what’s the problem?”

  Shelby looked away. “I figured this was as good a time as any to come clean. You know that résumé of mine? It’s kind of a fairy tale.”

  Great. Another imposter. “You told me you didn’t have a criminal record. I remember distinctly asking you that.”

  “I don’t! I’m as pure as the driven snow-at least as far as the police are concerned.”

  “But Melanie checked out your references, right?”

  “She did. But… I kind of, uh, enhanced some of my experience, and then I told my friends back in Virginia to back me up. Melanie did her job, so don’t blame her.”

  This day just kept getting better. I slumped back in my chair. “Tell me.”

  “Well, the general outlines are true. I didn’t even lie about my age! I’ve lived here for two years, and I’m married to John and I have a daughter, Melissa. But a year ago John got laid off, and we spent a whole lot on Melissa’s education, and now she wants this no-holds-barred wedding, so I’m really, really hard up for money. So when I saw this job listing, it sounded perfect.”

  “Do I dare ask what real experience you have?”

  “Back in Virginia, I was a society wife-lots of parties and good works. I helped raise money for a lot of things, and I did a good job of it. Except I didn’t get paid for it.”

  “So you’re saying you have no professional experience in development?”

  She shook her head. “Sorry, Nell. I was a member of my local historical society but never in any official capacity-not that they did much anyway. But I do love history,” she ended lamely.

  Great. I’d made a total of two new hires, and both had turned out to be keeping secrets. What was I supposed to do now? One part of me said I should boot them both out because they hadn’t been completely honest with me. Another part said that I didn’t have time at the moment to dump them and try to find two replacements. Still another part of me told me that I didn’t want to fire them because I liked them both, and my gut said they were decent people who’d happened to get themselves into difficult situations and were just doing the best they could. Which sounded rather familiar.

  Shelby and Eric were watching me like two cats keeping their eye on a large dog. I didn’t want to be a dog; I wanted to be on the side of the cats. But I’d given up that option when I’d said yes to the board last month.

  I laid both hands flat on the surface of my desk. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. I’m angry at both of you for misrepresenting yourselves to me, even though I understand the circumstances. I appreciate your coming forward, even though you might have been forced into it. To be honest, I need you both. Let’s just leave things the way they are for now, okay? And if either one of you has forgotten to mention some other big black hole in your past, or if I catch you taking any shortcuts now, or lying to me or to anyone else, you’ll be out of here so fast you won’t know what hit you. With no severance and no recommendations. Got it?”

  Eric nodded.

  “Thank you, Nell,” Shelby said softly. “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s all we need to say. Now go get some work done, will you?” I said, trying to sound both benevolent and authoritative at the same time. It wasn’t easy.

  They left, contrite. I looked at my watch: it was barely nine o’clock. What else was this day going to bring?

  CHAPTER 25

  I decided to work through the lunch hour, and sent Eric out to find a sandwich and bring me something back whenever he was done. He was still acting like a whipped puppy, and he was thrilled to be able to do something for me. He’d been gone for half an hour or so when Front Desk Bob called up to say that Caitlin Treacy was in the lobby. What did she want this time? “I’ll be right there, Bob.”

  When I entered the lobby I found Caitlin standing there, dwarfed by a large basket of not only cookies and flowers but also what appeared to be a stuffed animal lurking amidst the greenery. “Hi, Nell,” she said. “Mother wanted to thank you for helping sort things out over the weekend.�
� She held out the basket. I took it-and nearly dropped it. Arabella must have been really grateful.

  “So she told you about it?”

  “You mean about my father? Yes. Anyway, I’ve got to get back to Let’s Play. And I’ve been using the advice you gave me the other day. It’s been a big help. Bye.” She turned to go, leaving me with a hefty basket and a lot of unanswered questions. Not much of a response for a woman who hadn’t seen her father in twenty years.

  Eric pulled open the door from outside and stopped to hold it for Caitlin. He continued to hold it, staring after her, until I called out to him. “Eric? Is that my lunch?”

  He started, then turned to me. “Oh, sorry, yes. Who was that who was leaving?”

  “That was Caitlin Treacy, Arabella’s daughter. She works at Let’s Play-she’s the person who’s handling the Harriet exhibit.”

  “Huh,” Eric said, still looking puzzled. “I thought she looked familiar, but I’ve never been to Let’s Play. Anyway, I assume you want to eat your lunch?”

  “Definitely.”

  Upstairs I took my lunch to the staff room at the rear of the building, both to keep my desk clean and to hide out from anyone who might come looking for me. Since it was past the lunch hour, there was no one around, and I managed to enjoy a few minutes of peace and a good sandwich. I was just folding up the wrapper to throw it away when Eric appeared, looking triumphant.

  “I knew I’d seen her somewhere!” he announced.

  “Who? Caitlin?”

  He dropped into a chair across from me. “Yes, only when I knew her she was Kathleen Treacy. I didn’t put it together with Caitlin, or with Heffernan, her mother’s last name.”

  “I thought you grew up in Virginia. How did you know Caitlin?”

  Eric looked around, then leaned toward me. “It’s kind of complicated. Maybe we should take this to your office. And ask Shelby to join us. I think she knows Kathleen, or Caitlin, or whoever she thinks she is, too.”

  “Okay,” I said, mystified. I gathered up my trash, threw it out, and followed Eric back down the hall. As we walked, I asked, “What’s with the confusion of names?”

  “Something about honoring her Irish roots, I think. That’s what I heard.”

  As soon as we reached his desk, Eric dialed Shelby, who appeared a few moments later. I led them both into my office and shut the door, and we distributed ourselves between the damask-covered visitors’ settee and the matching armchair. “What’s going on? Why so hush-hush?”

  “Let me back up a minute,” Eric began. “Shelby, you can fill in as I go. You’re right, Nell-I grew up in Virginia. I knew pretty early that I was gay, but my folks thought that maybe a good private school could straighten me out-uh, pun intended-so for high school they sent me to Bishop’s Gate School. It’s a boarding school, and I think they were glad to have me out of the house. It was a good school academically, but it also had a reputation for helping out kids with issues, which I guess is what they thought I had. I did well enough there to get into a good college, even though it didn’t change the fact that I liked boys. I met Shelby’s daughter, Melissa, at Bishop’s Gate, although she was a year behind me-and Caitlin or Kathleen or whatever she wants to call herself was a year ahead. But it was a small school, so everybody knew everybody else.”

  “Okay,” I said cautiously. “So Kathleen Treacy from Philadelphia was at your boarding school in Virginia?” Something seemed odd there. “What’s the problem?”

  “Kathleen-can I stick to that for now? Because that’s how I knew her.” When I nodded, he continued. “Kathleen didn’t want to be there any more than I did. She was one of the ‘difficult’ kids”-Eric made air quotes-“that the school took on. She didn’t hide that.”

  I still didn’t see where this story was going. “Look, you two, this is all very nice, but what’s it got to do with anything?”

  “Because Kathleen hated her mother, and she was always talking about it to anybody who would listen.”

  It must have been a small school. “Lots of teenagers claim to hate their parents, or so I’m told-obviously I can’t speak from experience.”

  Shelby spoke for the first time. “Kathleen was there for four years, and I never once saw Arabella at any school event, and I was at most of them. Melissa wasn’t a boarder, and she always brought home the kids with nowhere to go for Thanksgiving. And Kathleen was always among them, not that she was exactly sociable. But I really couldn’t understand Arabella. Kathleen’s an only child, right? Doesn’t that seem rather harsh, to send her off and not even visit? The school wasn’t all that far from Philadelphia.”

  I was beginning to understand their concern. “You’re saying that Arabella, who runs a children’s museum, didn’t spend any time with her own child?”

  Shelby nodded. “That’s about the size of it. Of course, Kathleen said she didn’t care. She didn’t want to see her mother anyway. But that’s what a lot of the so-called orphan kids said. I even took her out to dinner once, along with Melissa, but she wasn’t exactly easy to talk to.”

  “It was more than teenage sulking?”

  “I think so. I asked Melissa about it after we got through that endless dinner, and she said Kathleen was like that most of the time. Melissa said she had real trouble making friends, and she was always blurting out the most inappropriate things. You know, I’m going to say what I think and I don’t care who it hurts.”

  “Interesting. She graduated, right?”

  Eric answered. “Yes, she did, and she went off to college. She had good grades, and she worked hard-maybe because she didn’t have many friends. I certainly wasn’t one of them.”

  “So let me get this straight. We’ve got a young woman who had a few difficult years in her teens, and who said things that sound like what a lot of moody, resentful teenagers say. Her mother sent her away to school and didn’t visit her much. But Arabella was a single mother after her husband left, and I heard she took a lot of night classes while she was working full-time. And she must have found a way to pay Caitlin’s tuition. Sure, maybe Caitlin resented it, but now she’s here working for the mother she claimed to hate back then. You don’t think she just grew up and got past whatever her earlier problems were?”

  Eric and Shelby exchanged a glance. “Maybe,” Shelby said. “Look, I’m no expert, but I am a mother, and I think Kathleen might have needed more help than the school gave her, at least early on. Maybe you’re right, and she grew past her problems and patched things up with her mother, and everything’s peachy. And I’ll admit it’s been a few years since I saw her, but she’s the last person I would have expected to move back and work for her mother. I would have imagined she’d head for someplace like California, to get as far away as she could.”

  I looked at each of them in turn. “Okay, let me say what you’re not saying. You think Arabella’s daughter could be behind the incidents at Let’s Play?”

  Shelby said carefully, “I wouldn’t rule it out, based on what I know of her.”

  “But her boyfriend Jason was the first victim! And she’s got to have been working at Let’s Play for at least a couple of years. Why now?”

  “That’s true. But maybe the incident with Jason was a mistake or a warm-up for the real thing. Or maybe it’s because Daddy’s back in town and that’s reopened a lot of old wounds.”

  We all fell silent, briefly. Nolan had implied he hadn’t been in touch with his daughter since he’d arrived. Maybe he had ducked the question because he didn’t want to upset Arabella further. “What is it you think I-or we-should do, then? Talk to Arabella? Ask Caitlin directly if she’s killed anyone lately?”

  “I don’t know,” Shelby said. “But it’s better to have the whole picture, don’t you think?”

  “I guess.” I didn’t want to know this. I didn’t want to have to go to Arabella and ask her whether her daughter was a potential murderer, and I wasn’t about to complicate things by taking a vague suspicion to the police. So I made an executive decisio
n: I would sleep on it. Maybe in the cold light of morning the situation would look clearer, or at least different. “I’d like a little time to think it over before I go to Arabella. She’s got enough to worry about right now as it is. Are you comfortable with that?”

  Shelby stood up. “I think that’s fair, Nell. Maybe I’ll call Melissa tonight and see if she knows anything more.”

  “Eric, are you good with this?”

  “Sure. Let’s hope it’s just one of those weird coincidences.”

  I hated that word.

  CHAPTER 26

  At home that night I kept vacillating. I was not a mother, and I had little insight into the complexities of a mother-daughter relationship. But I had, of course, been a teenager once, and I knew it was a time of extremes, often hormone inspired, that led teens to say and do things that were overdramatic and sometimes irrational. Most of us survived the teen years and became normal, reasonable adults. Since Caitlin was working daily with her mother at the museum, I had to assume that they’d patched things up. I also had to believe that Caitlin was professionally competent; the exhibit planning and installation had gone smoothly… up until the point where someone had died, of course. And she’d managed to handle Hadley, which was definitely a plus in my opinion. Running a small museum was challenging under the best of circumstances-it seemed that the less money, the more internal clashes, as each department fought to defend its turf and compete for the small pot of available funds.

  The next morning I woke up late. One look out the window and I decided that I couldn’t face walking to the station and waiting in the spitting icy rain and gusty wind, so I decided to drive into the city. I went to work and threw myself into the day, and by the time I looked up it was lunchtime. How did that keep happening? At least if I kept skipping meals like this, I might lose a few pounds, which wouldn’t be a bad thing. Of course, if I kept sitting at my desk digging through piles of papers that needed my signature or my sage comments, my derriere was going to spread far and wide-one reason why I tried to walk as often as I could around the city.