Privy to the Dead

by Sheila Connolly

  CHAPTER 22

  We all went our separate ways. Eric watched me as I returned to my office. “Anything I need to know?” he asked.

  “Come on in for a moment,” I told him. He followed me into my office, shutting the door.

  I waved him toward a chair, and he perched on the edge. “Your information was very helpful, Eric. I think we’ve narrowed down the time frame to right around 1907, for a variety of reasons.” Including the cartridges we had found the day before, but I wasn’t about to say that yet. “And I’m afraid it’s likely that someone on the board or among our biggest donor members back then may be implicated. Did you know that the former president here was also the governor of the state for a few years?”

  “No, ma’am, I didn’t know that. But then, I’m kind of new to Pennsylvania. You have any aspirations in that direction?” Eric grinned at me.

  I laughed. “Good heavens, no! This place is as much as I want to run. I can’t imagine dealing with an entire state, although I’d love to see a strong woman candidate run for that job.” Not that I was going to hold my breath for that. “Anyway, I’m sure you’ve been thorough in looking for relevant files, but keep your eyes open, will you? Between the lack of professional administration and the, uh, sensitive nature of some of the information, what we want could have been filed anywhere. Or it could be long gone, or never committed to paper at all. Sorry to be so vague, but now you know as much as I do.”

  When Eric left, I shut my eyes and allowed myself the luxury of reviewing what I had heard at the meeting. Possible skulduggery extending from our place here all the way to the top of the state hierarchy—oh my. Financial shenanigans and cover-ups, for a possible menu of reasons—oh dear. And, of course, no one had kindly set all this down in writing and placed it in an envelope saying In case of future unexplained murder, please open. Even if he had, where would he have filed it?

  When I opened my eyes, Marty was standing in front of my desk, and I jumped about six inches out of my seat. “You scared me! How do you move so quietly?”

  “Years of working in libraries, plus rubber soles. We need to talk.”

  “We always need to talk. What I wouldn’t give for a single month with nothing but Society administrative business to deal with.”

  Marty dropped into a chair. “This is Society business. It’s just not on your regular schedule. What’s your take on what you heard at the meeting?”

  I took a moment to line up my thoughts. “Too many coincidences for my liking. For one thing, the timing is too specific. We could probably figure out which month that pit was covered, and then we can put together a list of who had access to the building and the collections—and maybe even who was in town, other than at one of their many ‘dilatory domiciles,’ as the Social Register so quaintly puts it. So we could point fingers at a mere handful of society movers and shakers who were members here and accuse them of . . . I don’t know what, retroactively. Of course, they’re all dead now, so I’m not sure what good that does us. Unless you’d rather believe it was some poor workman back then who was responsible for the theft, took what we suspect was in the box, and then dumped it in the pit to conceal his theft?”

  “No, I think you’re right.” She lapsed into silence again.

  “Marty,” I began slowly, “what we’ve kind of tiptoed around so far is that somebody hid or destroyed an antique lap desk right around 1907, and it may have had a weapon in it. I don’t know all the details about Pennsylvania gun laws, but I’m assuming it wasn’t illegal to possess one. For some reason this weapon was either stolen or hidden, in a place someone assumed would be covered over soon and forgotten about permanently. What we don’t know, and haven’t really asked, is why that gun was so important in 1907, and why it’s still important enough today for someone to conceal its existence? We’re past considering this a string of random and unrelated coincidences, aren’t we?”

  “Yeah,” Marty muttered, avoiding my gaze.

  I wasn’t going to be deterred, even though I knew my questions must be painful to Marty. “Is there any reason to believe that your grandfather was involved in this somehow? Some sort of cover-up? Did he commit a crime, or know of one?”

  Marty was shaking her head, but I didn’t think it was at me or in response to the question. Then she faced me. “How the hell am I supposed to know? The man died before I was born. Even if he was involved in something, he would hardly have left a memo about it. I don’t know what he did with the lap desk. I’ve already said that he didn’t have a lot of cash, not the kind to endow a wing or name a hall, like some of his friends did. The Terwilligers had a rich history and some great artifacts and some good parcels of land, in the city and beyond, but they didn’t have a lot of liquid assets, if you know what I mean. I think that theory about giving the collection rather than a financial contribution makes sense, in hindsight—and I know how difficult that would have been for him. It’s like giving away a piece of your family. And that’s probably why he hung on here at the Society for so long—so he could visit those documents. He also managed to pass that attachment on to my father, and in the end to me. But I keep coming back to his inventory for the donation to the Society, and there’s no mention of a lap desk. Maybe he sold it without telling anyone. Maybe someone stole it from him.”

  “Who had the box in 1907 is only one of our questions,” I said. “If we assume that the gun was in the box then, we still don’t know where it came from or when it went into the box. Or how and why it ended up in the box. Was your grandfather interested in firearms in general?”

  “No. He was a very nonviolent man. He kept General John’s papers because they were important to local and national history, not because they were military. He didn’t hunt or fish. So, to the best of my knowledge, there is no reason to believe that the weapon belonged to him in 1907 or any time before that.” Marty’s look dared me to challenge her.

  “I’ll accept that, Marty. But in that case, where did it come from?”

  She slumped just a bit. “I don’t know. Look, you seemed to know what kind of gun it was—what does that tell you?”

  “I’m making an educated guess, based on the ammunition we found, that it was an early Colt pistol. Back then, each new model of weapon required a new type of cartridge, and the type we found dates very specifically to between 1905 and 1911. These days that weapon would be very collectible, but back then it would have been experimental—not in wide use, to say the least. Did your grandfather hang out with any military friends?”

  Marty sighed. “I understand why you’re asking, but how am I supposed to know who my grandfather’s pals were decades before I was born?”

  I had to smile at that. “I know, it’s ridiculous. If only he’d kept a social calendar along with all those other papers in his collection. So that brings us back to the people we can learn about, who were involved with the Society at that time. Do we have any other collections of militaria at the Society?”

  Marty cocked her head. “Actually, I haven’t looked at much of anything that wasn’t relevant to the Revolution. So I can’t help you much there, but I’m sure you can sic Rich or Lissa on looking into it.”

  I was struck by another thought. “Maybe the gun was given to the Society, in which case there might be accession records. Maybe then it was stuck into the lap desk during the construction phase—we know how sloppy record-keeping was back then—and then the box fell down the hole by accident and nobody noticed the gun falling out, and both were covered up?” I said in a rush. “So nobody was guilty of anything other than carelessness? And the fact that it resurfaced now was completely random, and some stranger saw Carnell with it and took it away from him and shoved him and he died,” I finished triumphantly.

  Marty didn’t look convinced. “Well, that lets just about everybody off the hook. You’re saying it was just chance that somebody ran into Carnell in a bar and saw he had a Colt whatever
stuffed in his pants, and decided to follow him out and take it? I thought we’d tossed out the random-collection-of-coincidences theory already.”

  “It could have happened that way,” I said, but without much conviction.

  “Then I’ll play devil’s advocate,” Marty said. “Why did the guy take the time to chat up Carnell and make all buddy-buddy and then leave with him? Once he’d seen the gun, he could have left and waited outside until Carnell came out and tackled him then.”

  “True,” I admitted, “although maybe he just wanted Carnell to trust him.”

  “And then the two of them headed for Carnell’s home, which was in a darker, quieter neighborhood—much better for a mugging.”

  “Okay,” I said. “But, Marty, what’s your point? You want this to be something other than an accident? You want to connect it to the Society?”

  “Only if it’s true, Nell. Let the police worry about the death. But for me there are things that just don’t add up. And even if the modern death was an accident, I want to know what the hell the gun was doing in my grandfather’s lap desk, which wasn’t even officially here.”

  “Fair enough. And since you’re on the board, it’s on your head that we’re devoting a lot of staff time and energy to sorting this out. Not that I begrudge you—the Terwilligers, past and present, have done a lot for the Society. And I’d like to know the truth myself.”

  I slapped my hands on my desk and sat up straighter. “If we exclude your grandfather as the owner of that weapon, which is fine by me, the list is even shorter. Even I recognize some of those names as bigwigs of the day. I assume your grandfather knew them all, to some extent. Do you have any personal correspondence between them? I know we can check the files here, but if there was anything between friends or colleagues, maybe it never made it to our files. Did they play golf together? Go sailing? Ride to hounds?”

  Marty shook her head. “No to all of those. As far as I know, my grandfather hated most forms of exercise, and he spent most of his time here or in his library at the house. Which is long gone, by the way. I can look through what I’ve got. I inherited a lot of my father’s files when he passed, but I’ve never gone through them. I’ve been too busy with the collection here . . . and I guess in the beginning it was too painful, and then I kind of got busy with other things. Maybe some of his father’s stuff is mixed in.”

  “What about other members of your family?”

  She shook her head again. “I got all the papers because I was the only one interested. Otherwise they were headed for a Dumpster.”

  “Do you want some help going through them?”

  “I’ll ask Rich—he’s pretty familiar with the different handwriting by now. And frankly, there’s not all that much. We can be done in a day or two. Who knows, maybe we’ll find some treasures.”

  “So that’s your assignment. I’ll read over what Lissa just gave us, and check with Shelby to see if she can add anything. What do we do now?” I asked.

  “Eat lunch,” Marty said firmly. “Let’s go someplace where nobody knows us and we can talk. How about that cafeteria-type place?”

  I looked at my watch and realized it was well past noon. “Good idea.” We paused our conversation until we had arrived and were settled with our food, then I said, “Our main focus at the moment is to figure out who might have owned a hard-to-get gun in 1907 and why he would have wanted to hide it. Our secondary focus is to track descendants of those board members and donors who might fit that description and who also have access to the Society now. If it was in that box in the pit, either somebody knew it was there from 1907, or somebody saw Carnell conceal it and knew what it was. What’s the time limit on this?”

  Marty swallowed the bite of food she was chewing. “Okay, it’s Thursday. I say we gather everybody’s reports tomorrow and see what we’ve got. If nothing jumps out, we go home and spend the weekend thinking it over. I’ll go through my father’s papers at home. By Monday we can decide if we’ve done all we can and it’s time to get back to our regular business.”

  “Seems fair enough.”

  Marty poked at the food on her place. “Nell, if there’s a crime that was committed with this gun, don’t the police have a right to know?”

  It took me a moment to realize what she had just suggested. “Wait—we’ve been assuming that the weapon was the motive for Carnell’s death, not the direct cause.”

  Marty wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Think about it. Why would anyone care so much now if it wasn’t involved in a crime somewhere back up the line?”

  That stopped me cold. “Marty, do you know something you’re not saying?”

  “No. I’m just guessing. But doesn’t it make sense? Why would anyone have hidden it back then, unless they wanted to ditch evidence?”

  “So now we’re supposed to look for crimes involving a gun between 1905 and 1907?” My head was beginning to spin. I seriously doubted the Philadelphia Police Department had done ballistic testing that early. And why would they share anything from their archives with me? Of course, maybe newspaper records would have something, but would they have named names? Especially if the crime involved individuals of high social standing?

  Marty derailed my thoughts. “So, why do you know so much about guns?”

  If this had been a cartoon I would have done a comic double take. Marty could change subjects with lightning speed, but she never lost sight of what she wanted to know. And I kind of felt like I owed it to her to answer her question.

  “My father and I used to shoot together when I was in high school.” That much was true. “He was kind of a gun aficionado, and I was trying hard to impress him, so I did my homework.”

  “Did you? Impress him, I mean?” Marty asked.

  “Maybe. It’s too late to ask him now.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I know a lot more about your family than you do about mine, so it seems only fair to tell you a little about mine. But that’s why I know about firearms. I certainly had never anticipated that the knowledge would come in handy years later.”

  I sat up straighter. “Let me think about the idea of an old crime, okay? We’ve got enough going on already, and maybe that will shed some light. Lissa and Shelby are tracking the donor families, and we know Lissa’s a good researcher. Okay, maybe she won’t be able to get certified copies of birth certificates and the like, but there are other ways of following kinship that are public. Wills. Property transfers. Newspaper articles, especially obituaries, which tell us a lot about family connections, as I don’t need to tell you. I’ll bet Lissa can have a rough cut by tomorrow.”

  “That works for me,” Marty said firmly. “But keep thinking about the other thing.”

  As if I had a choice.

  CHAPTER 23

  Once back at my desk, I called Lissa on her cell phone. She answered quickly.

  “Where are you?” I asked.

  “At the library, and I’ve got a class at three. Why?”

  “Have you made any progress on tracing the families of those former board members I e-mailed you?”

  “Some. When do you need it?”

  “Soonest. Look, I know it’s asking a lot, but could you have this roughed out by tomorrow morning? It’s important, otherwise I wouldn’t ask.”

  “Sure, I’ll just give up sleeping. Seriously, I did make a good start, so I can definitely finish extracting what I can from public records and give you that in the morning.” She hesitated. “It sounds like you have a pretty good idea of what you want to find.”

  Should I tell her to stick to only those families who have living descendants? I decided not to. “I don’t want to bias you. If there’s any question about what to follow, concentrate on descendants who stayed around Philadelphia. If they headed for California, put them on the back burner. Does that make your job easier?”

  “Much. Yo
u want, uh, legal proof?”

  “No, just the general descendant tree will be fine. Oh, and if you get done early, e-mail the results to my personal account, okay?”

  “You really must want this! Will do.”

  “Great. See you tomorrow.”

  One more thing checked off my list. I thought for a moment, then decided to call the bank, the same one the Society had used for the last hundred and whatever years. After five minutes of explaining who I was and what I wanted, I finally reached a knowledgeable human. “Hello, Ms.—uh, what was your name?”

  “Esposito. What can I do for you?”

  I explain my bona fides once again and could hear the woman tapping at her keyboard, no doubt calling up the Society’s information. “Yes, I see your account. Everything appears to be in order. Are you concerned about a particular transaction?”

  “I’d like to know about whatever transactions took place between, say, 1900 and 1907.”

  That startled her into silence. Then she chuckled. “Well, I can tell you that our records go back to the founding of the bank in 1853 but are not part of our electronic database. Let me check with my superior and find out where and how they might have been archived. Can you hold?”

  “I will.”

  I listened to canned music as I made yet another list on a pad in front of me. At least some items were inching their way forward, although I couldn’t claim that anything had been resolved on any of them. I wondered idly how many bank ledgers we held at the Society, for banks that had ceased to exist decades or even centuries before? Philadelphia boasted an impressive history in the banking sphere, starting with the first bank in the country. While I waited for the people at the modern bank to get back to me, I noodled around our Society database to see what records we actually possessed, and was pleasantly surprised by the scope—but “our” bank was not among them. I sighed and resumed waiting.

  Finally someone came back on the line, a man who introduced himself as Jacob Keefe, the Society’s account manager. We went through the whole “who are you” rigmarole again, until he finally accepted who I was and that I had a right to the information. “Thank you, Ms. Pratt. I know the process is tedious, but I’m sure you understand and appreciate the lengths we must go to, to protect the integrity of our clients’ accounts.”