Privy to the Dead

by Sheila Connolly

  It was a blessing to have an excuse to overhaul everything in the building, even though it was going to be a heck of a lot of work. Collecting institutions like ours acquired stuff over decades or even centuries, but there were seldom enough staff members to manage said stuff, which meant that sometimes it wasn’t cataloged fully and accurately or stored in an archivally appropriate manner. Mainly, something would arrive, the donor would receive a nice thank-you note, and unless the item was of significant historical interest (and to be fair, a few of those did pop up from the most unlikely donors), a brief note would be entered in our computerized cataloging system and the item would get stuck on a shelf, wherever there was room for it. Sometimes that remained the status quo for years.

  Now that we were going to have to move these items, we’d have a chance to sort through all of the accumulation and redistribute much of it throughout the building. Some things we would likely dispose of, discreetly. Other things we might discover needed conservation, which was beyond our staff’s skills, so they’d be sent out for treatment. Yet more things would be consolidated, like with like, so we could more easily find them in the future. And everything would be cleaned along the way—that board member last night had been right to worry about dust, because we were looking at the dust of ages here. Maybe I should poll the staff for allergy sufferers and hand out dust masks. Or maybe I should trust the renovation team to have planned for all this and stop worrying.

  I was happy that Scott Warren proved to have an interest in historical objects, and he didn’t rush me through. We toured the top floor, then the portions of the third that weren’t given over to offices. The second floor housed the processing area and fewer stacks; the ground floor was the public space, with the sumptuous reading room, computers for public access, and open stacks—we didn’t plan any significant changes there. It was nearly noon by the time we made it to the basement, which was seldom visited by the staff, and never by the public.

  I hadn’t seen the lowest level lately. I’d had a regrettable experience with the former wine cellar down there some time ago, but I’d surprised myself by asking that the architect preserve it as a memorial to the original planners of the building. Nowadays there was no call for fine wines for the gentlemen who had once run this establishment along the lines of a private club, and in the past few years it had served only as storage. The rest of the basement space had until recently held a jumble of retired furniture and files. But now the files had been properly archived, and most of the usable furniture had been donated to a local charity. Anything else had ended up in the Dumpster (under the watchful eye of a member of the collections staff). As I looked around I realized how large the space actually was, and how we’d wasted its potential.

  “You’re putting shelving in here, too, right?” I asked Scott.

  “We are,” he replied. “Since this is the lowest level, it can easily tolerate the weight of that kind of shelving. It’s up to you to decide what you want to store down—it won’t be public space, right?”

  “Right, staff only. My staff and I will be discussing the best use for the space,” I told him, “but I’m sure it will be a big improvement. We won’t have a problem with damp, will we?”

  “No, it’s surprisingly dry. Well built, for its time. You know the history of the building?”

  “I know where to find it in our records, but I haven’t memorized it. What I do remember is that there used to be a nice large house here, but when the Society decided to expand they looked at the existing building and found that it was falling apart, not to mention inadequate for the growing collections, so they started fresh.”

  “Smart move,” Scott said, with an architect’s appreciation.

  We’d been alone in the basement, but now a workman stuck his head in the door and addressed Warren. “Hey, Scott? There’s something you’d better come see.”

  “Trouble?” he asked quickly.

  “Uh, I don’t really know. It’s kinda odd.”

  I felt the slightest hint of a knot in my stomach. We hadn’t even started construction. This could not possibly be a problem. Could it? Maybe we had vermin? Maybe toxic mold? I was still running through a menu of possible issues when Scott nudged me. “You okay? Let’s go check this out.”

  “Of course.” I followed the two men to a windowless room toward the back of the basement. As we walked, the man who had come to find us was saying, “So we hauled the last of the old cabinets and junk out yesterday—first time we’d seen the floor. Then we notice this wooden cap thing in the middle of the floor. Tight fit, looks like it’s been there forever. So we find us a pry bar and pull it up, and damned if there isn’t a hole going down who knows how far?”

  We’d reached the room in question, and it was easy to see the circular hole in the floor, about three feet in diameter. My first wild thought was to wonder if there was a dead body down there—clearly, I’d been through some rough times lately. I shook it off.

  “Hey, Joe,” Scott Warren said, and I recognized the construction foreman from the board meeting earlier in the week. “What’ve you got?”

  “Always surprises in these old buildings, Scott. Looks like an old privy hole.”

  I found my voice. “Can you see anything down there?”

  There were a couple of other workers clustered around the hole, and Scott moved forward to peer into the depths. “Anybody got a light? Flashlight, whatever?” Someone handed him a heavy-duty halogen flashlight, and he pointed it down the hole.

  I found I was holding my breath. “What do you see?”

  Scott squatted on his haunches. “Not much. No water, so it wasn’t a well, most likely. Probably an old privy pit.”

  Ick. “From the house that was here before?”

  “Maybe. I imagine the builders would have expanded the footprint when they put up this building, so the pit would have been outside the earlier house you mentioned.”

  “What should we do?” I asked. I wondered why the pit hadn’t been filled in and covered with concrete when the floor was poured a century ago. “Can you see anything down there?”

  “Not much. Looks like trash from here, but it’s maybe twenty feet deep. You want us to clean it out?”

  I thought for a moment. “Actually, yes. If it’s old, who knows what might have been thrown down there? One of our former members coauthored a wonderful book on the archeology of privies in the city. They found all sorts of interesting stuff in them. Well, interesting to an historian, anyway. Is it, uh, sanitary? Any health risk?”

  “I doubt it. Anything, uh, biological should be long gone. Okay, then . . .” Scott turned to the work crew. “Can you guys clear it out? But keep whatever you find—don’t just pitch it.”

  The guy who had announced the find to us looked skeptical. “You want us to keep the trash?”

  “That’s what I said. Fred, make sure it gets set aside rather than tossed.” Scott turned to me with a smile. “Sorry, Nell—we can’t do a formal dig, with strata and all that. Are you okay with that?”

  “Sure. I’m just being nosy,” I said. “But if anything interesting turns up, maybe we can use it for our promo pieces. Thanks, guys.”

  Fred peered down into the hole. “Shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours. You want we should seal it up when we’re done?”

  “Let me take a look at it when you’ve finished cleaning it out,” Scott told him. “It might be a good chance to see what the underlying soil and rock look like. I’m surprised it wasn’t affected when the PATCO line went in.”

  I knew the PATCO line ran along Locust Street, practically under the building. It was easy to tell when a train went past. “You got it.”

  Scott turned to me. “Seen enough, Nell?”

  “I think so. Are you going to stick around for the rest of the day?”

  “I’m got to put in some time at the office, but I’ll probably be ba
ck later in the afternoon.”

  “Then I’ll walk you out, if you’re ready to go.”

  We returned to the first floor and I escorted him to the lobby. Before he left, Scott said, “You know, we’ve talked about the dust, but it’s going to be noisy, too. There’ll be equipment out back to get the roofing materials up to the top. There’ll be pounding. There’ll be people hauling shelving and stuff through the building—and those shelving units are heavy. So you maybe should warn your staff and your patrons that things will be less than peaceful for a few months.”

  “Thanks for thinking about that, Scott, but we’re already on it.” We’d been warning our patrons for months through letters and our newsletter and our website, so they could plan around the construction, but that didn’t mean they’d paid attention to the warnings. We planned to apologize a lot to disgruntled researchers. “And we know it will be great in the end. I’m looking forward to working with you.”

  “Me, too. See you later, Nell.” As he went out the front door, I turned to go back to the elevator. I paused for a moment at the door to the reading room. There were perhaps fifteen people at the large tables lined up there, all silently reading or taking notes, their books and laptops and research materials laid out around them. I sighed: they would not be happy about working in the midst of a construction site. But at least we’d stay open. Maybe we should keep boxes of earplugs handy, too. I turned and went back to my office.

  I found Marty Terwilliger waiting for me there. Marty had an unnerving ability to pop in unexpectedly, and when I’d first gotten to know her, I’d sometimes wondered if she actually lived in a burrow in the stacks somewhere. She was at the Society early and late, and any time between. Since Eliot had appeared in her life, her appearances were less frequent, but her passion for the place—and in particular, the Terwilliger collections of letters and memorabilia donated by generations of her family—was undiminished.

  “Hi, Marty. What’s up?”

  “You free for lunch?”

  “I think so, unless Eric tells me otherwise.” I turned to my assistant. “Am I free for lunch?”

  “You are.”

  “That’s fine. Marty, I’m all yours.”

  I gathered up my things and we went downstairs and strolled along the sidewalk outside, talking of nothing in particular. “You have some ulterior motive, or is this really just lunch?” I asked as we crossed the street.

  “Hey, I just wanted to catch up. You’ve been busy with your new place, I’ve been busy, and then there was the board meeting. Now it’s clear sailing until the holiday party, right?”

  “In terms of running the place, yes. I don’t know how our patrons will react to the construction, but Scott Warren says we’re good to go.”

  We went into the sandwich place a block away and ordered. “So how’re things going?” Marty asked, once we were seated with our food.

  “With the house, you mean? Good. Although things still feel unsettled.”

  “Still unpacking?”

  “No, because we don’t have that much to unpack. And that’s a problem. We need more furniture. What few pieces we have look kind of lost in all the space.”

  “What’re you looking for?”

  “I have no idea. Something that doesn’t look out of place in a grand Victorian house with nine-foot ceilings and oodles of carved moldings. Oh, and that we can afford.”

  “Those two may not go together,” Marty commented, munching on her sandwich.

  “I had that feeling. You have any ideas?”

  Marty got a faraway look in her eye. “Maybe. Let me think about it. You looking for Victorian furniture, or earlier?”

  “The real stuff? I don’t think we’re that picky, but if I could choose anything, then sure, probably Victorian. Why, do you have a warehouse full somewhere?”

  “Not exactly, but I do have a lot of relatives, as you know.”

  I wasn’t sure of her point, and Marty didn’t elaborate. Was she thinking donations or loans? Or were we supposed to pay for the furniture? If so, who was going to set the price? I decided it wasn’t worth pursuing yet. If Marty came up with some real items, then we could haggle. “Oh, guess what? We found something interesting in the basement at the Society this morning.” I proceeded to outline the discovery of what I was mentally calling The Pit.

  “Huh. A privy?” Marty asked, chewing.

  “Scott said maybe. Hey, we could add a bathroom down there and call it historical, if we modified the plumbing discreetly.”

  Marty snorted. “Lots of history for that site, even before the Society bought the land. You never know what might turn up.”

  “Well, I told Scott to have the crew clean it out and save whatever they found, so we could take a look at it. If it’s just trash, it goes straight to the Dumpster.”

  As we ate we discussed the timing of the project and the events we were planning around it and other normal Society business, as appropriate between the president and a long-term board member. As we were finishing, Marty said, with unusual hesitation, “What would you think about asking Eliot to join the board?”

  I considered. “Does that mean you think this thing you’ve got going will last? I think as a candidate he’d be great—his scholarly connections and his area of expertise would be big plusses for us. Who’s planning to leave the board?”

  We hashed over board prospects and plans, then walked back to the Society. Before we reached the building I asked, “Have you talked to Eliot about this?”

  “Not yet. I’m just thinking about it. But you’re good with it?”

  “I am. Go for it,” I said firmly.

  “Maybe I will.”

  Back at the Society we went our separate ways. As I’d told Marty, I’d already asked Lissa to look into the history of the building. I was reasonably familiar with it, having used the boilerplate about it often when I was in development, but nobody had been looking for surprises in the basement, and maybe Lissa could shed some light on the pit. When I got back to my office, I called Lissa, who answered quickly.

  “You know we’re using the Wakeman money to make physical repairs to the building,” I began, “and we’ve been clearing out about a century’s worth of junk before the construction crew starts—you might have noticed the Dumpster outside. The workers were finishing up in the basement today and they found some kind of pit in the floor. It had a wooden lid on it, and it had been covered who knows how long by some ancient wooden filing cabinets. I’ve asked the construction guys to save whatever they pulled out of it, just to see if it was anything more than a trash pit.”

  “I haven’t seen any mention of a pit in the records so far. It’s not a well?” Lissa asked.

  “No water in it now, although it’s possible. I don’t have any idea about things like that. I know there were tunnels to the river under some of the older houses east of here, so I’m guessing the water level was below the level of the pit. But I’m wondering if it was originally outside the building, and in that case, if it might have been a privy.”

  Lissa said, “Ew,” and I laughed. “Don’t worry,” I said, “if that is the case, it hasn’t been used for a long, long time. I think any . . . waste products are long gone. You know the Cotter book?”

  “Of course!” Lissa replied eagerly. “The Buried Past. I’m glad to hear that you know about it, too.”

  “Mr. Cotter used to be a member here—he was a delightful man. If I remember correctly, he included a section on Philadelphia privy pits and what was found in them. You can skim through it again and see if there’s any helpful information there. Oh, and look for the original plans for the mansion and for this building, to see where the perimeters were, and how they line up with our current plans. No need to rush, I’m just satisfying my own curiosity. And of course I’m always on the lookout for interesting little bits of information like this, to put in the
newsletters or online. Although I’m not sure our patrons would be charmed to learn that they’ve been working above an antique loo—we might have to do some fancy rephrasing.”

  “I hear you,” Lissa said, laughing. “Let me see what we’ve got. Surely there must be some plans for the building?”

  “Ask our architect—he must have them, or copies of them. Start with him.”

  “Will do. I’ll get back to you if I find anything interesting.”

  CHAPTER 4

  James picked me up after work and we rode home together. As we pulled into the driveway, I noticed how dark the house looked. “We need to put some lights on timers,” I told him. “Of course, that also means we have to get lamps for the inside.”

  “Don’t we have some already?” James said.

  “About one per room, which is not enough. Do we have an alarm system?”

  “Yes, but it’s not connected. Besides, we have nothing to steal.”

  “True, but anyone who broke in wouldn’t know that, and they might get annoyed and start smashing things out of pique.”

  He parked and turned off the engine. “Pique?” He raised one eyebrow.

  “What, burglars don’t get piqued? How about pissed off?”

  “That’s a more likely response for a burglar, I think. What should we do for dinner?”

  “I haven’t a clue. Do we have raw products in the fridge? Because I think we finished off the leftovers last night.”

  “We did and we do. Or vice versa.” James went ahead of me and unlocked the back door, then graciously let me enter before him. I hung up my coat and bag, and went to the refrigerator to forage. Ah, chicken breasts and some shriveled mushrooms. I could work with that.

  Less than an hour later we were settled at the table with wine and food in front of us. After a few bites of the improvised dish I had concocted, I said, “I had lunch with Marty today and I mentioned that we were furniture-challenged.”