Monument to the Dead

by Sheila Connolly

  “Thanks, Eric.” He was right—I needed caffeine. Too bad he couldn’t bring some inspiration along with it.

  He was back in three minutes. “I made a fresh pot. Don’t forget you have that meeting at the Water Works this afternoon.”

  “Thanks, Eric. I know. Four o’clock, right?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, and retreated to his desk.

  I shuffled through the papers Eric had left neatly stacked on my blotter, and found enough work to keep me busy. Actually it was rather nice to do simple, routine things. Nobody called or dropped by—not James, not Marty, not Shelby. I assumed that meant that nobody had anything new—and that nobody else had died.

  It was well past lunchtime when I realized that I hadn’t seen the report that Nicholas had promised me. I really should read that before we talked to Phebe Fleming. I went out into the hall. “Back in a sec,” I told Eric, and continued down the hall to Nicholas’s cubicle. He wasn’t there. I scanned his desk for anything that looked like a report. He was scrupulously neat, with everything stacked up in tidy piles, mostly on the credenza behind his desk, leaving his desk clear. One pile looked promising: I knew some of the Water Works files should be a century old, and I recognized the outdated folders and the file coding on them as our in-house system. I walked around the desk and picked up the top folder of that pile and opened it.

  And nearly dropped it: it contained handwritten letters—signed by Edwin Forrest. I froze, my mind racing, even as I admired the clear, bold handwriting, and the purple ink. Why would Nicholas have Edwin’s letters?

  I could feel a seed of suspicion germinating. I laid the folder down where I had found it, neatly squaring the corners. I found a scrap of paper and made a note of the call number, and then I walked calmly down the hall, past my office, and toward the elevator. I had to talk to Felicity—now.

  Luckily, Felicity was already at her high desk in the reading room. “Hi, Nell,” she greeted me. “Is everything okay?”

  So much for my poker face. “I hope so. Listen, did you have time to check the Forrest call slips?”

  She cocked her head at me. “I did. The original materials haven’t been signed out for quite some time. Everything appears to be in order. Did I forget to give you the list? I know it’s here somewhere.” She rummaged through the neat piles on her desk. “Oh, here it is. Is there a problem?”

  I took the papers she handed me, although I wasn’t surprised by what she had told me. “No. I was just following up. Thank you.” Before she could ask any more questions, I turned away and went back to the elevator. Edwin ignored me as I waited for it to arrive.

  Back at my office, I wondered what I was supposed to do next. Now I knew that Nicholas had been looking at Forrest documents, and he hadn’t signed them out officially—although he hadn’t taken them very far. They weren’t hidden, and he could have a legitimate reason to be looking at them, although I couldn’t think of one. It was an unsettling coincidence.

  I realized with a start that I might be able to add one piece of information that could either lay my suspicion to rest or confirm my fears. I reached into my desk drawer and pulled out a copy of Nicholas’s resume. Latoya was the one who had talked to his references when we were considering hiring him, but I knew that he had been at the Penn library for a couple of years before that. In fact, he was still working there when we’d offered him the job at the Society. I didn’t recognize the name of the person who had recommended him, but it wouldn’t hurt to talk to her, and I could come up with some pretext for my call.

  I punched in the number, and someone picked up on the third ring. I introduced myself, then said, “Nicholas Naylor used to work for you, right?”

  “Yes, until you snatched him away. I don’t hold it against the Society—he’s a smart one, and you were lucky to get him. How’s he working out?”

  “He’s doing great work here. He’s made amazing strides in organizing things, even in the few months he’s been here. I did have one question, though.”

  “Yes?”

  “He said that when he was working there, he’d given his database management system a test run on one of your smaller collections. Do you recall what that was? I wanted to know how it compares to what he’s working on here.”

  “Oh, sure. We have a nice collection of Edwin Forrest literature and letters, and we thought that was diverse enough yet small enough to make it a good test. You know of Edwin Forrest?”

  All too well. I swallowed and tried to sound normal. “Indeed I do. We have a fair collection of our own here. Did he suggest the topic or did you?”

  “I really can’t recall, but we agreed that it was an appropriate choice. Was there anything else?”

  “I’d love to compare notes sometime on our Forrest collections. We’re thinking about putting together a small exhibit. Well, that’s all I need. Thanks for your help.”

  “No problem.”

  We hung up, and I sat staring at nothing, my mind and my stomach churning. Oh, hell. Oh, flaming bloody hell. Nicholas had been looking at Forrest materials at Penn. He’d left a good job there to work at the Society, and knew we had a comparable collection of Forrestiana for him to mine. I hadn’t known. But why should I have? The Forrest stuff was but one small collection among the Society’s many. I had known of the trust only as a line item on the Society’s annual budget. I’d never had a reason to look further.

  I shouldn’t blame myself for my ignorance, although I did. But what was Nicholas doing, hunting down all the Forrest materials? Unfortunately I was beginning to think that I could guess.

  I reached for the phone to call James, but the call went straight to his voice mail. I debated about leaving a message, but then I was startled by a rap on my door, and looked up to see Nicholas. “Sorry it took so long,” he said, “but I brought the information on the Water Works that you asked for, so you could look it over before this afternoon’s meeting.”

  I marveled that my voice stayed level. “Thank you. Why don’t you give me a few minutes to read through this, and then we can figure out how to handle the discussion?” I was torn between wanting to get him out of my sight so I could process what I’d just learned, and fearing that I’d somehow tip him off that I knew more than I should.

  “Okay. Let me know when you’re ready.” He left.

  I sat there staring at the pages but not seeing them. My mind was spinning. Nicholas had the Forrest files. Nicholas fit our generic description of our suspect: he was a polite young man, and he knew about the inside workings of a cultural institution. And he knew about the Forrest Trust. But we still had no motive, and it was a long step from that to labeling him a killer.

  CHAPTER 25

  Before I could go back to stewing, the phone rang. I grabbed it before Eric could, hoping that it would be James, but instead it was Front Desk Bob. “There’s someone here to see you—a Jacob Miller?”

  In my distracted state, it took me a moment to recognize the name of the baby-faced lawyer. “I’ll be right down, Bob.” I hurried to the elevator.

  In the lobby, I greeted him warmly. “Jacob, I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”

  “I found something in our files that I thought you might want to see,” he said. “Is there someplace we could talk?”

  I led him to the first-floor conference room. Once we were seated, he handed me a manila envelope. “You don’t have to read it now—I can give you the gist. When I started looking at the files, I realized that a couple of the members of the Forrest Trust had contacted me since their last board meeting and suggested that they’d like to be ready to make a decision about dissolving the trust by the next meeting. They asked me to draft documents for the review of the full board.”

  “Is that what you’re sharing with me?” I asked.

  “Yes. Things are moving more quickly than I recalled. And until you told me, I hadn’t realized how involved the Society is—you’ve got a large chunk of the physical collections here, and I thought it a
ppropriate that you should be kept informed. I checked with the trust members whom I could reach and they had no objections to keeping you up to speed.”

  “I appreciate that. Listen, while you’re here, may I ask if anyone else has made inquiries about the status of the trust in the past year or so? Apart from us here and the trustees?”

  “Actually, yes. There were some queries in the past few months. I didn’t see them originally because they were in a newer file. Someone named Washington, I think, had asked about any pending changes in the trust. It’s a matter of public record, but I think he received a polite brush-off letter. You know, thank you for your interest, et cetera.”

  “Franklin Washington?” I asked, although I was pretty sure I knew the answer.

  “That sounds right. You know him?”

  “I know of him. Was there anything else?”

  “No, that’s all. I take it you’re too busy to give me that tour you mentioned?”

  “Today, yes, but give me a call and we can set something up. I love to show off the Society.” True—just not today. “Let me see you out.”

  I escorted him to the front door and went back to my office. No phone messages, and it was already past three. Nicholas and I would have to leave for the Water Works very soon. I considered briefly pleading illness—and my stomach was certainly tied up in knots—but I was afraid that might arouse his own suspicions. Plus it would be rude to the staff at the Water Works to blow them off at the last minute, and it was never smart to annoy a city official.

  Of course Marty chose that moment to show up at my door. She took one look at me and shut the door behind her. “Something’s up,” she stated flatly, which didn’t increase my confidence in my acting abilities.

  I ached to tell her what I suspected, to share the burden, but I hadn’t even told James yet—and I still wasn’t one hundred percent sure I was right. I ducked the question.

  “The lawyer who’s handling the trust stopped by. He said a couple of the trustees asked him to pick up the pace with the dissolution, so they could consider it at their next board meeting. Rodney thought that would be pretty soon, didn’t he?”

  “He did. Wonder if our killer knows that?”

  I thought briefly before answering. “Maybe. Jacob said that someone named Franklin Washington had been making inquiries about the future status of the trust.”

  Marty’s eyes widened. “Franklin Washington, as in the guy at the rehab center?”

  “The same.”

  “This is not good. Have you told James?”

  “Not yet. He’s not picking up on either of his phones.”

  “Maybe he’s wrestling with his bosses to get them to take this seriously.”

  “I hope so!” I said fervently. “Was there anything else? I’m supposed to be prepping for a meeting at the Water Works in about thirty-six minutes.”

  “Sounds like fun—or more fun than sitting here worrying. Call me if you learn anything new.”

  “Of course I will, Marty.”

  After she left, I checked my watch. It was already three fifteen. I grabbed Nicholas’s report and started reading.

  Nicholas appeared at my door just past three thirty. “Should we head over there now?”

  I met his eyes. He didn’t look any different to me. Maybe I was way off base. Maybe the overlap between his job at Penn and the one he held now was coincidental. Yeah, right. “Yes, we should. We’ll have to take a cab—I didn’t drive in today.”

  “No problem. Let me go get my folders.”

  When he’d left, I took a deep breath. So far, so good. I sat for a moment to collect myself, then stood and gathered up my bag. I walked out of the office and stopped at Eric’s desk. “Nicholas and I are headed off for the Water Works for our meeting, and I don’t think I’ll be back today. You can go home whenever you’re ready.” I leaned closer and said quietly, “If Agent Morrison calls, you can tell him to call my cell—I need to talk to him.”

  “Got it. Thanks, Nell.” He stopped to take a look at me. “Are you okay?”

  Great, I’d blown my “normal” cover again. “I’m fine, Eric. Anything I need to worry about for tomorrow?”

  Eric glanced at the calendar on his desk. “No, ma’am, looks clear. Have a nice evening.”

  “I’ll try, Eric. See you in the morning.” I hoped.

  Nicholas joined me in the hall, carrying a battered soft leather case with its strap slung over his shoulder, and together we took the elevator downstairs. Was I imagining things, or did his glance linger on Edwin’s statue on the first floor for just a moment? Outside, we walked over to Broad Street to find a cab in front of the hotel there.

  The ride across town to the Water Works was a short one, despite the growing late afternoon traffic, and we pulled up in front of the administration building with a few minutes to spare. Once I’d paid the cabbie, we took a moment to orient ourselves. The Schuylkill looked placid today. The ensemble of buildings that stretched out along the waterfront faced west, so they caught full sun at the moment, and if you squinted just a bit, you didn’t see the dilapidation caused by a couple hundred years of weathering and neglect; instead, you saw the monumental ensemble as its planners had intended, a series of modern temples. I had to admit I was impressed, and the feeling seemed to have infected Nicholas as well. He came up beside me and said, “It’s a handsome place.”

  “Have you been to the Water Works before, Nicholas?” I asked.

  “More than once, but not lately. My school included it in its educational field trips. It’s an impressive site, isn’t it?”

  “It is. I’ve always been amused at the effort to give the whole thing a classical air while addressing such nasty problems as yellow fever and sludge. Quite incongruous,” I said. “Shall we go in?”

  We found our way to the administrative offices, where Phebe was waiting for us. She led us down the stairs to the department’s small, windowless conference room.

  “Good to see both of you again,” she said. “I’m really getting excited about the possibilities for this project. So, what luck have you had with finding information for us in your documents?” she asked.

  “I’ll let Nicholas tell you—he’s been doing all the work,” I replied, then sat back and gave Nicholas a nod. As he spoke, I had to admit that he’d been thorough, and he presented some creative possibilities that showed surprising insight. All in all, he’d done a good job, and I could tell that Phebe was pleased.

  “You know, I see real potential here,” she said. “Let me look at our long-range calendar and we can figure out a timeline for the next step—assuming, of course, that the funding comes through, but I’m pretty sure it will. I think with one figurehead company on board, we can approach some of our other industrial donors on this one. Supporting this kind of project will make them look sensitive to environmental issues, which never hurts. Nicholas, would you mind sending me a written summary of your ideas that I can take to my staff and board? It should be shorter than this one, and less detailed. Nell, can you think of any potential funders? That is, if you don’t mind sharing? Of course the Society will receive recognition for your participation.”

  “I think it’s a great idea, Phebe. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve learned something just listening today, and we’re happy to help out.” With a start I realized that it was after five, closing time for the Water Works. “Good heavens, we should be going. I hadn’t realized it was so late.”

  “No rush,” Phebe said cheerfully. “I never seem to leave on time, and while we say the place is closed, it’s hard to make sure all the visitors are gone. You know how that goes, right, Nell?”

  “I do indeed. And your restaurant is open for dinner, right?”

  Phebe nodded in response. “Yes, it’s become very popular. Have you tried it?”

  “I haven’t had a chance, but I’ve heard good things about it.” It comforted me to know that there would be other people on the grounds.

  I was surprise
d when Nicholas interrupted. “Do you mind if I spend a little time looking around? As I told Nell, I visited here on school trips years ago, but not recently. And it’s such a treat to see it without tourists.”

  “Of course, no problem. Nell, would you like a tour?”

  “I don’t want to put you out, Phebe, and I’ve probably seen it more recently than Nicholas.” I turned to Nicholas. “Nicholas, why don’t you go on and take a look at the buildings. There are a couple of administrative issues I wanted to talk to Phebe about. You don’t need to wait for me—take a cab and keep the receipt, and I’ll make sure you get reimbursed.” He’d given me the perfect opening to separate myself from him.

  “All right. Phebe, I’ll send you my summary early next week, after I run it by Nell, and I’ll flesh out some of the details we’ve talked about. I’ll see myself out.”

  I watched him go, then turned back to Phebe, who said, “What an interesting young man! Has he been with you long?”

  “Only a few months. He is indeed interesting.” Phebe had no idea just how interesting. We covered a few more details about local funders, which I knew well. Only half my mind was on our discussion: I couldn’t see outside the building from where we sat, so I couldn’t see where Nicholas had gone. I had no desire to spend any more time with him today; I wanted nothing more than to tell James what I’d learned and let him run with it. After a few minutes, the chitchat with Phebe was driving me crazy. I stood up. “I’ve taken up too much of your time, but thank you so much. I’m looking forward to working with you.”

  “As am I, Nell. I’ll see you out—I think everyone else is gone.” I followed her back upstairs to the reception area. Outside, we could see a staff member or guard, maybe a hundred feet away—the tourist-herder? Phebe waved at him, then pointed at me, and he nodded, which I presumed meant that I was approved to stay a bit longer. We parted ways at the door, after more effusive thanks and promises. Had this been a normal occasion, I would have felt well satisfied, but my mind was elsewhere at the moment.