Fire Engine Dead

by Sheila Connolly

  “I’m delighted to hear that. Please, sit down.”

  We sat and were joined at the last minute by a young woman, about thirty years old, whom I didn’t recognize. She seemed a bit breathless. “Can you fit in one more here?”

  In fact there were several seats open, but I sympathized with anyone walking into an event like this and not knowing who was who. “Of course,” I said warmly. “I’m Nell Pratt, and this is Shelby Carver. We’re from the Pennsylvania Antiquarian Society. And you are—?”

  The woman sat and flashed an uncertain smile. “I’m Jennifer Phillips. I work at the Fireman’s Museum. My boss is here somewhere, but we came separately.”

  “Haven’t I read that you’re currently undergoing renovations? Are you in fundraising?” I asked.

  “That and just about everything else,” Jennifer said. “We’ve got a very small staff. And, yes, we’re finishing up a renovation project right now, but we haven’t started to reinstall the exhibits yet.”

  “Have you had much luck finding funding for the work?” I asked with sincere curiosity. “This is a difficult time to go looking for outside support.”

  “We’ve done all right,” Jennifer answered.

  “I do hope you reopen soon. I’ve taken my grandchildren to your museum,” Craig said. “They loved it.” Conversation with Craig carried us through the appetizer course. When there was a lull, I leaned toward Shelby and pointed out several more members of the local institutional hierarchy, and with the next course came the requisite speeches from assorted coalition members, which in turn led to the keynote from a doddering local philanthropist whose name adorned several buildings in the city. Since he had a tendency to mumble, many members of the audience unconsciously leaned toward the podium where he stood speaking. I hoped they were only straining to hear, but I briefly entertained the suspicion that they were eagerly anticipating his demise: it was rumored that he had left some handsome bequests to several museums in his will, although nobody knew exactly which ones.

  I was enjoying my more than adequate chicken dish when Jennifer jumped and fished under the table for her bag. It took me a moment to realize that the bag, or more precisely, the cell phone in her bag, was buzzing discreetly. She pulled it out and answered, politely turning away from the table, but it was hard to miss the intensity of her response. “What? Oh my God. Yes, he’s here. We’ll be right there.” She turned back to the table. “Sorry, I’ve got a crisis. Nice to meet you all.” She stood up, gathered her things, and headed for the nearest exit door, all the while scanning the crowd. She stopped at the door, her eyes fixed on someone halfway across the room, who had just pulled a cell phone from his pocket and answered it. Clearly he didn’t like what he was hearing. He hung up quickly, then looked around until he spotted Jennifer near the door. She waved him over. He stood and made his excuses to the people at his table, then wove his way around several tables before stopping to lean close to Jennifer. He said a sentence or two, and she nodded before they both turned and went through the door at a brisk clip.

  Who was he? Fortyish, slender, and nicely dressed but rather washed out in coloring, he looked vaguely familiar, but he wasn’t anyone I knew personally. Most likely Jennifer’s boss, whose name escaped me at the moment. They’d both seemed extraordinarily upset, and I wondered what kind of museum crisis could inspire that strong a response. But it wasn’t really my business, so I turned my attention back to the droning speaker and tried to keep my eyelids up until the coffee was served.

  After dessert and the accompanying platitudes, Shelby and I found our way out to the sidewalk. The fresh air felt good after being cooped up in the ballroom for a couple of hours.

  “A little stuffy in there, wasn’t it?” Shelby asked as we waited for the light to change so we could cross Market Street.

  “The air or the speeches?” I smiled at her. “You’d better get used to it. A lot of these people made their money the old-fashioned way: they inherited it.”

  “Not so much of that these days, is there?”

  I sighed. “Sad to say, no. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, as the saying goes. You’d better sharpen up your grant-writing tools.”

  “I’m ready and willing. But you’ve got to tell me what we should focus on first.”

  “I know, I know.” Our needs were many and the resources few. It was hard to set priorities when what we needed to do was everything. “You’ve seen the shopping list, and now you’ve heard what the funders are looking for. See if you can match them up, and I’ll run the options by the board at our next meeting and see if they have any connections with the funders.”

  Shoptalk took us back to the Society. We went up to the administrative floor and parted ways, to our respective offices. When I settled myself at my desk, I realized that it was indeed time to set Shelby to hunting for funds. She’d been at the Society long enough to get to know us, and outside money was drying up fast, thanks to the current financial markets. I pulled out a pad and started making a list.

  CHAPTER 2

  As guardian of a building full of millions of documents on paper, I consider it my duty to support printed newspapers like the Philadelphia Inquirer. Plus reading the paper gives me something to do while I ride the train from Bryn Mawr to the city every day. This morning’s lead story, above the fold, was about a major warehouse fire that had occurred the day before and had resulted in the death of at least one person. After fire companies from Philadelphia and several surrounding communities had put out the fire, the body of the warehouse watchman had been found among the ruins.

  The watchman had left no close family. No firefighters had been hurt in fighting the fire, which was the only bright note. The warehouse was not a total loss, but it would take time to assess the damage. Arson was suspected, but authorities would not say whether they had any leads, only that the investigation was ongoing. The article mentioned that a string of similar fires had occurred recently in various parts of the city, although none quite as spectacular as this one—and no one had died in those earlier fires. There was a sad footnote: the late watchman, Allan Brigham, had been a retired firefighter himself.

  As the train pulled into Suburban Station, I folded up the paper and tucked it in my bag. I enjoyed the brief walk to the Society, especially now that the weather was improving, and I stopped to pick up a cappuccino along the way. As far as I knew, my calendar was clear for the day, and even for the week. The next Society institutional event was still several months off, although planning was already under way; the next board meeting loomed, but it was still a couple of weeks distant. This would be Eric’s first exposure to the full board. He already knew the members by name, and more important, knew which ones required special handling. I was trying to ease him slowly into the process of gathering information and distributing it to board members in a timely fashion. Not that they’d read it until the day before the meeting, but at least we in administration were holding up our end. Eric had proven to be a quick learner. In spite of his youth and lack of experience, he had shown good judgment about what to pass on to me and what to divert to other departments, for which I was grateful. And he was discreet. I was glad I had taken a chance on hiring him.

  He was, as usual, at his desk when I arrived. “Mornin’, Nell.”

  “Good morning, Eric. Anything I need to know about?”

  “Only one change to your schedule. A Mr. Peter Ingersoll from the Fireman’s Museum called and asked to see you, and I penciled him in for eleven. That work for you?”

  I couldn’t recall having met anyone named Peter Ingersoll—but I could hazard a guess that he was the man who Jennifer had huddled with at the luncheon yesterday. They had both looked upset then, and I had to wonder if whatever he wanted to talk to me about was related to those frantic phone calls yesterday afternoon. “That’s fine. I’ll be in my office.”

  I managed to accomplish quite a bit before Eric stuck his head in my door to say, “Mr. Ingersoll’s here. You want me to go down and bri
ng him upstairs?”

  The third floor, where our administrative offices were located, was off-limits to the public, although they could circulate freely in the reading rooms on the first and second floors. It wasn’t much in terms of security, but it was the best we could afford for the time being. “Please.”

  Eric disappeared and returned quickly, followed by Peter, who was indeed the man I’d seen the day before. I mentally patted myself on the back for identifying him correctly. But yesterday he had looked concerned; today he looked strained. He strode into my office and extended his hand. “Peter Ingersoll. Thank you for agreeing to meet with me on such short notice. I’m so sorry to barge in on you like this, but there’s something that I hope you can help me with.”

  I rose to shake his hand. “I hope I can help, Mr. Ingersoll. Please, sit down. Would you like some coffee?” I noticed Eric was still hovering in the door.

  “It’s Peter, please. No, caffeine is the last thing I need right now, I’m so wired.” He dropped into a chair in front of my desk.

  I sat in my own chair and nodded at Eric, who closed the door quietly behind him. “And I’m Nell. What can I do for you?”

  “As I told your assistant, I’m the president of the Fireman’s Museum. Do you know it?”

  I smiled. “Indeed I do—I went to an event there, what, two years ago now? It must have been around the time of the Ben Franklin bicentennial.” I tried to remember details about the museum. I knew it was housed in a former firehouse, and I remembered the collections—what could be seen through the substantial crowd at that event—as a charming assemblage of equipment, emblems, and old photographs.

  “Ah, yes—I hope you had an enjoyable evening.”

  “I did. I’d heard you’re closed for renovations at the moment?”

  He nodded. “We are. We’re almost through. We’d hoped to link the opening of the refurbished museum with some sort of tribute to the firefighters of 9/11, but between permits and planning—and, of course, fundraising—we fell behind. We’re scheduled to open shortly. Or we were.”

  I watched in dismay as Peter struggled to control his emotions. “Are you all right? You sure you wouldn’t like a cup of tea or something?” Or maybe a Scotch, straight up?

  He waved a hand. “No, I’m fine. It’s just so new, I’m having trouble getting my head around it. Give me a moment.” He looked down at his lap, his eyes closed, for maybe thirty seconds, before facing me again with a much calmer expression. “I apologize—you have no idea what I’m talking about, of course. Did you hear about the warehouse fire yesterday?”

  “Yes, I read about it in the paper this morning.”

  Peter glanced around the office, as if to confirm that we were alone. “Please don’t spread this around, but…” He swallowed. “That warehouse was where we were storing the museum collections during renovations.”

  I felt as though someone had punched me in the gut. Questions tumbled through my head, and I waited to speak, trying to sort out which to ask first. “Are they all gone?”

  He shook his head. “We don’t know yet. Parts of the warehouse were spared from the fire, although there may be secondary damage to the stored items that survived—smoke, water. But we don’t know where our particular collections were. I’m still hoping for the best.”

  Some small hope, at least. Then the practical side of me took over. “What were you thinking? This was a public warehouse, right? No climate control? What about security? What kind of safety record does the warehouse management have? How could you have put the collections at risk like that?”

  If possible, Peter looked even more distraught than he had originally, and I immediately felt guilty. “Don’t you think I’ve asked myself the same questions?” he said. “You’re absolutely right: those collections should have been in a safe and secure location. But it all came down to money. The better the storage, the more expensive it is. We just didn’t have the money, not with all the construction costs and the lost income while we were closed. Surely you can understand that?”

  Unfortunately I did understand, only too well. A limited budget could stretch only so far, and corners got cut. “I’m sorry—it’s rude of me to second-guess you now.” Especially since the worst had happened. “You thought the collections would be there for only a short time, right?”

  “Exactly,” he said, somewhat relieved. “We thought they’d be in and out just a few months at most, but then the whole process kept dragging on and on and our reopening kept being postponed. There’s nothing you can say that I haven’t already said to myself. I feel terrible about this. I feel I’ve let the museum down, and the fire department, not to mention the city.”

  We both fell silent for a moment, in mourning for the lost collections. Then I gathered myself up. “So, what brings you here, Peter?”

  Peter gave himself a shake and straightened his tie. “I’m hoping you have some records about the museum, its founding and its collections, here at the Society.”

  “Ah,” I said. “I see. But don’t you have those records?”

  “Some of them. The older, archived ones…”

  I completed his sentence. “Were sent to the warehouse along with all the other stuff.”

  Peter held up his hand. “I know, you don’t have to tell me how stupid that was. But I was overruled by my board. They were looking at the bottom line, period. They’re firemen and bureaucrats mostly—not collectors or museum people.”

  “May I ask why you want this, right now?”

  “Because we need to get a handle on what we’ve lost, and what we should look for, if anything in the warehouse survived. I have to report to the board.”

  A task I didn’t envy him. “What about insurance?”

  “You mean, did we insure the collections? Only minimally. I’ll admit a lot of items weren’t worth much on the open market—you know, antique fire axes and old helmets and the like. It was the collection as a whole that was valuable, at least to us. So much of it was donated by local firefighters—things they had collected or salvaged over the years. Again, the board balked at the premiums. If I recall, a few of the key pieces were covered, although I haven’t had time to check to see for how much. No doubt it’s well below replacement value. And certainly those items are irreplaceable in any case.”

  “What is it you think I can provide?”

  “As much information as you have about the individual items, I guess. That would help us to file a claim, and it would also enable us to drum up sympathy from the public when we try to rebuild the collections. Or maybe I should say, if we try. For all I know the board may decide to scrap the place.”

  He looked so miserable I scrambled to find something positive to say. “Well, until someone has been through the warehouse, you don’t know how much you’ve lost, right? Maybe you’ll be lucky. And in the meantime, I can ask our librarians to see what we’ve got on the collections. I’d hate to see the museum fold—it’s a gem of its kind.”

  “I certainly think so.” Peter stood up. “Thank you, Nell. I appreciate your willingness to help, even if you don’t find anything. I feel just sick about the whole thing.”

  “I’m happy to help—that’s what we’re here for, as a repository of local archives. Let me walk you out.” I guided him back to the elevator and down to the lobby. Peter said little along the way, apparently sunk in his own misery, and I couldn’t blame him. At the door I said, “I’ll give you a call as soon as I know anything. Try not to take it too hard.” I watched him stumble down our stone steps and pause at the bottom, as if he’d lost his way.

  He really did seem like a man in shock. I wondered how I would feel in his shoes. Of course, our collections were much more extensive, and probably more valuable than his. Not to mention far more vulnerable to fire—all those tons of paper, hanging over my head. I resolved to check the state of our fire suppression systems. As far as I knew, no one had looked at them for a while.

  Back upstairs, Eric looked up when I walked past
his desk, questions in his eyes. I debated whether to share with him what Peter had told me about the behind-the-scenes mess but decided against it, so I just shook my head slightly. “Eric, I’ll fill you in when I can, but right now I’ve got to keep what Peter Ingersoll told me in confidence.” I checked my watch—almost lunchtime. “I’m going to go out to get some lunch, and then you can go eat. I need to talk to Felicity after lunch, and maybe Latoya.” Felicity Soames was our all-seeing, all-knowing head librarian, who could lay hands on anything that was in the building, as she had demonstrated on more than one occasion. Latoya Anderson was our vice president of collections; her knowledge of our records was less encyclopedic than Felicity’s, but I thought I should keep her in the loop, since this was an outside request for items in our collections. Latoya and I had a slightly rocky professional relationship, but I knew she could be closemouthed about things and wouldn’t let this go beyond the walls of the Society. “I don’t have anything else scheduled for today, do I?”

  “No, you’re clear.”

  As I left the building in search of a quick sandwich down the block, I realized that Peter hadn’t said anything about whether the fire had actually been a case of arson, although the newspaper article had clearly indicated it most likely was. Not that it would make a difference to Peter, since the collections were gone either way, whether the cause was arson or an act of God.

  CHAPTER 3

  Once I’d eaten lunch, I went looking for Felicity. I was caught up on my administrative responsibilities for the day, and I always enjoyed the librarian’s company. She’d been at the Society forever; her love for information in any form was obvious, and she was unfailingly thrilled to pass it on. Any hapless visitor who approached her with a simple question usually walked away with a stack of references and photocopies an hour later.