Monument to the Dead

by Sheila Connolly

  “I won’t forget. Let me walk you out.” As I escorted Phebe down the hall to the elevator, I saw Nicholas slip out of my office, heading toward his cubicle down the hall. When I’d waved good-bye to Phebe at the front door, I went back to talk with him.

  “Think you can handle this?” I asked

  “Of course. I think I know what she has in mind, so I can tailor my search. I’ll have something in your hands in a couple of days.”

  “That would be great, Nicholas.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Anyone who approaches Philadelphia by way of Amtrak or in a car on the Schuylkill Expressway would have to be blind not to notice the Fairmount Water Works, which stretch along the river in all their Neoclassical glory, next to the more garish illuminated Boathouse Row. Philadelphia was the first major American city to consider safe municipal water as the city’s responsibility, spurred by the yellow fever epidemics at the end of the eighteenth century (reading the Society’s documents about the victims, often letters to and from affected loved ones, can be heart-wrenching). Of course, the city fathers didn’t settle for building a humdrum and utilitarian monument. Instead they created a three million gallon reservoir on the hill where the Philadelphia Museum of Art now sits, and a pump house with two steam engines. Then they built a dam along the Schuylkill, which directed the water to a mill house with waterwheels to replace the steam engines, and later turbines to lift the water. The whole thing was embellished by a Classical Revival exterior, and it became a major tourist attraction. Sometimes I wished for simpler days, when an excursion to look at some pretty water pumps was enough to please travelers.

  The place was closed in 1909, and languished for decades, housing a variety of organizations such as an aquarium and a swimming pool. Then a major restoration was undertaken, an interpretive education center was added, and behold, it became a tourist destination once again, complete with a highly regarded restaurant.

  I was always surprised that Ben Franklin hadn’t had a hand in it somewhere, since he seemed to have prompted almost every other “first” in the city and even the country. He missed the “Watering Committee” by only a few years, since he died less than a decade before it was created.

  Asking Nicholas to work on this project was not just me creating busywork for him. Phebe and I had posed an interdisciplinary question to test the scope of his data management software, and also to give him a taste of the kind of real-world questions we regularly faced from patrons and scholars. And while it wasn’t listed anywhere in the job requirements, I wanted to see him show some passion for the materials he was working with, beyond the mere physical descriptions and categorizations. Not for the first time I wished that he would show some sign that he was enjoying his work, maybe even a smile from him once in a while. But if he was doing his job well, I wasn’t going to complain.

  I sighed. Being part of upper management, even in a small place, carried a lot of different responsibilities, including supervising employees and making sure they all worked well together. Not an easy task, I had come to realize.

  The rest of the day passed in a blur. No major crises, no big decisions to be made. The next board meeting was still a few weeks off, and I looked forward to reporting that we had had a quiet and productive quarter. Then I knocked on the wood of my desk: the quarter wasn’t over yet.

  At least the day was broken up when Eric informed me that there was a Jacob Miller downstairs and he wanted to see me. “Who?” I said, searching my brain for the name. “Does he have an appointment?”

  “No appointment. He says he’s with the firm of Morgan, Hamilton and Fox? He promised not to take much of your time.”

  Whirr, click—that name I recognized. Morgan, Hamilton and Fox was the Society’s law firm, when we needed one for institutional business. Not that we’d had any legal problems recently, thank goodness, because they charged by the minute. “You can bring him up, I guess.”

  Two minutes later, Eric returned with Jacob Miller in tow. “Sorry to barge in on you unannounced,” he said, his smile ingratiating, his hand extended.

  Since I hadn’t met him before, I studied him for a moment before I stood and shook his hand. He was young, eager, nicely dressed, and clean-shaven—just what I’d expect of a baby lawyer at a major law firm. “Please, have a seat. What brings you here?”

  “Nothing bad, I promise you! I’m an associate with Morgan, Hamilton and Fox,” he began. From the way he said the name, I guessed he was still enjoying the novelty of it. I knew it was a prestigious, long-established firm, and he must be smart if he’d landed a job there. “I’ve just been assigned to help Courtney Gould with the Society’s business, and I wanted to take this chance to introduce myself, since I was in the neighborhood. You’re the president of this organization?”

  “I am, for the last few months. You’ve gone over our files?”

  “I’ve just begun.”

  “What exactly has Courtney asked you to do?” I’d worked with Courtney on and off for several years, and I had found her efficient and pleasant, although I wouldn’t call her a friend.

  “First, familiarize myself with the scope of your needs. Then she wanted to do a review of the legal status of some of your internal trusts. You know—laws keep changing, and as I understand it, some of your funds and bequests are virtually moribund. If their terms permit, there might be a way to consolidate and streamline your holdings.”

  I didn’t doubt that what he said was true, but I had to wonder if he was here trying to generate billable hours for himself and the law firm—and I didn’t want to incur any more bills right now. But that probably wasn’t something I should take up with this young, eager lawyer. I made a mental note to check with Courtney before he got too carried away. “That sounds like a good idea,” I said noncommittally. “Are you interested in history?”

  “Oh, sure. I love old buildings and stuff. Maybe you could give me a tour of this place? Not today,” he hastened to add, “but sometime?”

  “Of course,” I agreed. “I love to show this place off.” And it wouldn’t hurt to keep our lawyers happy and show them that we had nothing to hide. Just not right now.

  He said quickly, “I won’t keep you any longer, but I’ll hold you to that. Great meeting you!” He all but jumped out of his chair to shake hands yet again.

  I came around my desk to take his hand this time, and gently guided him toward Eric’s desk. “Eric, will you take Mr. Miller downstairs, please?”

  “I’ll be happy to.”

  I watched them go down the hall, and returned slowly to my desk. I couldn’t even remember what I’d been doing before Jacob Miller had appeared. Great. I scribbled a note to myself: call law firm. I wasn’t sure whether Courtney was trying to send a message by stepping back and letting a junior member take over our business, or if she was just busy and needed some help, but I thought I should find out.

  Shelby came by late in the day, looking pleased with herself.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve got results already!”

  “I sure do.” She smiled. “Once I figured out where to look, it went fast. I went back as far as fifteen years, which is about as long as people have been putting that kind of institutional information online. Hard to remember the world before the Internet, isn’t it?”

  I had to agree. “I don’t know whether that’s good or bad for places like ours. On the one hand, the documents and materials we have will become more and more precious. On the other hand, people will be so accustomed to calling up quick answers and images online that they’re going to be less likely to make a trip to look at the real thing. Not much we can do about it, though, except put as much of our stuff online as we can so we look proactive.”

  “Amen!” Shelby said. “Anyway, I made you a copy of what I’ve got so far. Consider it a first draft.” She passed me a sheaf of papers. “That includes all Philadelphia institutions and those in the near suburbs, and those that kind of compete with us or complement us, like Valley Forge. That
’s one column. Then there are the board members for each, over the past ten years and currently, with another column for their years of service. What else would you like to see?”

  “Great start, Shelby!” I thought for a moment. “How about their age when they joined each board? And when they died?”

  “You mean, did they die with their boots on, still on the board, or did they know enough to pass the torch to someone else?”

  “You’re mangling your metaphors, but yes, I think you’ve got the idea.”

  “Want me to add how they died?” Shelby asked with a gleam in her eye.

  Shelby could see right through me. “Maybe. How about whether the places they’d served were included in the will?”

  “Lady, you don’t make this easy, do you? How about shoe size and hair color while I’m at it?”

  “No, but you might go back through the last twenty or so years of society columns and see who was seen with whom at whose parties.” At Shelby’s dismayed look, I burst out laughing. “Just kidding. But is there any way to figure out who knew who, retroactively? I know some of that is in our files, and you can check the reports from our annual galas. You could put in a ‘Friends With’ column.”

  “I sure hope all these board members don’t know that we archive gossip!” Shelby shot back.

  “It’s not exactly a secret, even if we don’t go around pumping folks for information. They can’t really think we come up with our funding requests out of thin air, or with a Ouija board.”

  My phone rang. I checked my watch and was surprised to see that it was after five. I’d heard Eric leaving while I was talking to Shelby, so I picked up and said, “Nell Pratt.”

  “It’s James. We need to talk.”

  That sounded ominous, and I thought I could guess why. “Another one?”

  “Possibly. Can I meet you there?”

  “Of course.” I thought for a moment before saying, “James, can I bring Shelby into this conversation?”

  I could hear his sigh. Heck, Shelby, sitting across the desk, could probably hear it, too. I waited while he thought it through. “I suppose it will be faster to talk to you both and just say this once.”

  “I think she can help.”

  “All right. I’ll be there in a half hour.”

  “I’ll wait in the lobby and let you in.”

  When I hung up, I found Shelby watching me with an amused smile. “I knew there was something going on. You going to fill me in before Mr. Agent Man shows up?”

  Now it was my turn to sigh. “James thinks Adeline Harrison’s death was suspicious and may be related to at least one other death from a couple of months ago. Apparently now there’s a third that he thinks might also be linked. That’s why he asked me to sniff around.”

  “And why you asked me for this information,” Shelby said, nodding to the spreadsheets she had given me.

  “Yes. And that’s why I’m including you now. You’ve got access to the information he needs, and I know I can trust you. I can’t do this all by myself and still run the place.”

  I was hardly surprised when Marty showed up in the doorway. “Jimmy just called and said we were getting together here. Somebody else is dead?”

  I nodded. “So I gather, but I don’t know who yet. Marty, I asked Shelby to put together a matrix of local board members, and I’d like you to look at it and see what you can add. If what James thinks is happening really is happening, it may be useful for us to have that information in one place.”

  Shelby stood up. “Let me run off a couple more copies for y’all.” She headed down the hall toward the copy machine, leaving Marty and me staring at each other silently until Shelby returned. She handed Marty a packet of papers and explained to her what she had done. Marty nodded in agreement and made some good suggestions.

  I left them in peace while I worried. Marty was right: James was not an alarmist, and he preferred to keep his business life and his personal life separate. At least, as far as I knew—I’d been part of the latter for only a few months. When we did get together outside of work, we both avoided talking about professional issues—him because he couldn’t, and me because . . . I didn’t think they would interest him, compared to the things he dealt with daily. And because I wanted to get to know him better, and let him get to know me. So we spent a lot of time talking about what books and movies we enjoyed and what restaurants we went to. We also spent some quality time not talking, engaged in nonverbal but mutually satisfying activities.

  “Yo, Nell!” Marty’s voice interrupted what had been becoming a very nice daydream. “You going to go downstairs and let the man in?”

  Where had the time gone? “Oh, right. We can use the old conference room downstairs to talk.” The ground floor of the Society was long on grand, soaring spaces but short on places to meet privately, to sit and talk. The exception was the old conference room, tucked under the sweeping mahogany and stone staircase. “Let’s head down there now.”

  Our timing was perfect: by the time we emerged from the sluggish elevator and reached the front door, James was waiting on the front steps. I let him in and wished that I could greet him with proper enthusiasm, but we had an audience (who knew perfectly well what was going on between us, but still) and this was a professional call.

  When we were settled around the conference table, I said, “All right, James. You requested this meeting. Tell us what’s going on.”

  “Let’s talk about Adeline Harrison first. I have the preliminary results for cause of death: an overdose of a prescribed heart medication. We were lucky, because all her medications were neatly lined up in her bathroom cabinet, and we talked to her primary doctor. Marty, you knew her. Was she getting forgetful? Could she have miscounted pills or taken a dose twice?”

  Marty shook her head vehemently. “I saw her a few weeks ago and I didn’t notice anything like that. We talked about a bestselling nonfiction book she had read recently, and she made some excellent points about its weaknesses. And before you bring it up, I don’t know of any reason why she could have been suicidal. Unless her doctor told you about some terminal illness?”

  “No, nothing like that. Then there was the earlier case that I mentioned to Nell. I can’t give you the official records, but I can summarize. Frederick Van Deusen, age eighty-three. Impeccable social connections, served on various boards, lived in north Jersey. Not particularly wealthy. Tox screen showed only the drugs you’d expect, including the same heart medication that Adeline was taking, and the level of that one was a bit higher than it should have been. Nothing out of place in his home. Wife’s been dead for years, grown children who live out of state and aren’t in financial trouble. Again, no motive, and no evidence, except for slightly elevated drug levels in his system.”

  “I knew Freddy,” Marty said. “He was about as interesting as oatmeal, but a nice guy. I never heard anyone say a bad word about him. I went to his funeral.”

  “So no secret life, no blackmail?” James asked with a small smile.

  Marty snorted inelegantly. “Freddy? Not likely.”

  “Was he ever on the board of the Society?”

  I looked at Marty, since her memory went back further than mine. “Nope. Don’t even think he was asked. Freddy, rest his soul, was kind of thick, and he had no interest at all in history. That’s not to say he didn’t have other interests, or get involved in something in New Jersey.”

  “Marty,” I interrupted, “how did you know Freddy Van Duesen?”

  “His father and mine used to own a boat together—sold it years ago. The Van Duesens had a place on the Jersey shore, and that’s where they docked it. Took Freddy and me out a time or two, until we both made it clear that we hated sailing. But I think he was still on the board of some yacht club, thanks to his father—I went to a fundraising event there, maybe a decade ago.”

  It figured. Marty continually surprised me with the breadth and depth of her social network—the real one, not the digital one.

  James nod
ded once. “So Freddy had local social connections. That’s about what I figured. It’s a pretty thin file.”

  “Then why did you even bring him up?” Marty demanded.

  “Because he’s part of your crowd, and I’m getting leery of anything that involves the greater Philadelphia cultural community. I wouldn’t have given him another thought if it hadn’t been for Adeline’s death, which is remarkably similar.”

  “Similar in that there’s nothing suspicious about either one?” I asked. “That’s an odd reason to look at anything.”

  James looked at me in turn. “I was prepared to write off these two deaths as a coincidence. As you’ve pointed out, they were both far from young, and there’s no damning evidence, apart from elevated levels of a legally prescribed medicine. Look, I don’t mean to be an alarmist. I’m trying to be thorough. Two elderly people die, months apart, from an overdose. Nothing extraordinary there. Then I find that both had various ties to local cultural institutions, and that Martha here knew both of them. And then Adeline ties into the Society. Can you blame me for wondering, at least off the record? And when I go looking for additional information, I find that since everything looked so simple, nobody bothered to do a thorough investigation of either of them, and now there’s no way to retrieve evidence. Dead ends, both, if you’ll pardon the expression.”

  “Do your bosses know about this?” I asked.

  “No, and I wasn’t planning to say anything to them—I was just satisfying my own curiosity.”

  “But you said there was a new death?” I prodded gently.

  “Yes. Benton Snyder was found dead this morning.”

  Shelby gasped, and Marty paled. “Benton?” Shelby said. “But he’s a neighbor! I saw him just last week, when he was weeding his window boxes. What happened?”

  “Found dead in his bed, no signs of forced entry, no struggle. Marty, did you know him?”

  “Sure. We used to play bridge together, but I haven’t seen him lately. But Jimmy, why do you think his death is suspicious?”