Razing the Dead Read online

  Praise for the Museum Mysteries

  “Sheila Connolly has written another winner in her Museum Mystery series . . . The facts and history that Ms. Connolly provides certainly adds to the charm of the story . . . [A] real page-turner.”

  —MyShelf.com

  “A witty, engaging blend of history and mystery with a smart sleuth who already feels like a good friend . . . [Connolly’s] stories always keep me turning pages—often well past my bedtime.”

  —Julie Hyzy, New York Times bestselling author of the White House Chef Mysteries

  “The archival milieu and the foibles of the characters are intriguing, and it’s refreshing to encounter an FBI man who is human, competent, and essential to the plot.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Nell is a mature and intelligent sleuth, who works with historic treasures and takes her responsibilities seriously. Great pacing and placement of clues build tension as Nell uncovers the truth in this enjoyable and sophisticated mystery.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “The practical and confident Nell Pratt is exactly the kind of sleuth you want in your corner when the going gets tough. Sheila Connelly serves up a snappy and sophisticated mystery that leaves you lusting for the next witty installment.”

  —Mary Jane Maffini, author of the Charlotte Adams Mysteries

  “[The] mystery intrigues . . . The best is the relationship between Nell and James, two people who thoroughly enjoy each other’s company day and night.”

  —Kings River Life Magazine

  “The mystery is great, and will have readers guessing all the way until the end.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “[An] engaging amateur sleuth filled with fascinating characters, interesting museum information, plenty of action including a nice twist, and a bit of romance.”

  —Genre Go Round Reviews

  “Skillfully executed . . . It’s a pleasure to accompany Nell on her quest.”

  —Mystery Scene

  “A terrific new cozy museum mystery series with a dynamic accidental sleuth . . . Nell’s strong, smart, and sassy—the kind of person you wish lived next door.”

  —AnnArbor.com

  “National Treasure meets The Philadelphia Story . . . Secrets, lies, and a delightful revenge conspiracy make this a real page-turner!”

  —Hank Phillippi Ryan, Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity award–winning author of The Other Woman

  Berkley Prime Crime titles by Sheila Connolly

  Orchard Mysteries

  ONE BAD APPLE

  ROTTEN TO THE CORE

  RED DELICIOUS DEATH

  A KILLER CROP

  BITTER HARVEST

  SOUR APPLES

  GOLDEN MALICIOUS

  Museum Mysteries

  FUNDRAISING THE DEAD

  LET’S PLAY DEAD

  FIRE ENGINE DEAD

  MONUMENT TO THE DEAD

  RAZING THE DEAD

  County Cork Mysteries

  BURIED IN A BOG

  SCANDAL IN SKIBBEREEN

  Specials

  DEAD LETTERS

  AN OPEN BOOK

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  USA • Canada • UK • Ireland • Australia • New Zealand • India • South Africa • China

  penguin.com

  A Penguin Random House Company

  RAZING THE DEAD

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © 2014 by Sheila Connolly.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group.

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-698-14317-3

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / June 2014

  Cover illustration by Ross Jones.

  Cover design by Rita Frangie.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  Contents

  Praise for the Museum Mysteries

  Also by Sheila Connolly

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Most writers use people and places they know when they write a book—it’s so much easier than starting from scratch. This was particularly true for me with this book.

  Anyone who has spent time in the Philadelphia area in the past few decades or who is familiar with the skyline will most likely recognize the man who inspired the character of Mitchell Wakeman in this book. Likewise, anyone who knows the township of East Goshen in Chester County should be able to name the individual who inspired Ezra Garrett. As it happens, I knew and respected both of them (they’re both gone now) and I hope they’d be pleased with the characters I created for them.

  My family lived in Chester County for decades, close to the Paoli Pike, so it was easy to write many familiar places into the book. But despite that long association, until recently I had never explored the site of the Battle of Paoli, also called the Paoli Massacre, even though I drove past the historic marker for it hundreds of times. Nor had I ever studied the story behind that event, but to put it in simplest terms, that small battle had a significant impact on the early course of the American Revolution. Today there is little more to see than a level grassy field, but the war memorial there is one of the oldest in this country.

  Like many battles, it was chaotic—made more so because it was a sneak attack fought by night—but that gave me the opportunity to ask, “what if . . . ?” As a result, I created a plot element that I believe is consistent with what we know. My apologies if I have offended any purists who dislike authors who tinker with hi
story—I have been one of you.

  Many details of the story reflect real places. The Chester County Historical Society is a delightful institution with excellent collections, but I have given the place a director who is neither based upon nor resembles any actual employee there. Ezra Garrett’s farm did indeed belong to a single family for at least two centuries, until it was sold to QVC in the 1980s. The portion that lies along the Paoli Pike looks much as it always has.

  In crafting this story, what I wanted to convey was how much our history is still with us. The past is not dead but lives on in unexpected ways.

  Thanks as always to my tireless agent, Jessica Faust of BookEnds, and my eagle-eyed editor, Shannon Jamieson Vazquez of Berkley Prime Crime, for sustaining this series and giving me an excuse to visit Philadelphia regularly. Thanks, too, to the wonderfully supportive mystery community, including organizations such as Sisters in Crime and the Guppies as well as the great crowd of writers I count as friends. And of course, thank you to all the readers who follow Nell Pratt as she grapples with managing a Philadelphia museum, trying to sort out her love life, and solving those murders that keep springing up around her.

  Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.

  —Benjamin Franklin

  CHAPTER 1

  I was standing at the sink making a stab at clearing up the breakfast dishes when Special Agent James Morrison of the Philadelphia FBI came up behind me, wrapped his arms around my waist, and kissed my neck. So much for dish washing.

  “When do you have to leave, Nell?” he asked.

  “Ten minutes ago, and I still have to get dressed.”

  “Anything important on your calendar this morning?”

  I turned to face him, which put us in contact from the neck down. “I don’t want to be late.” I was lucky that I held a job that let me call my own hours—I was president of the Pennsylvania Antiquarian Society, so in theory I could come and go as I chose. But I preferred to set a good example for the rest of my staff, which meant that under normal circumstances I arrived early and left late. But circumstances over the past month had been anything but normal.

  Actually, I would be happy to be late—again—because time with James felt . . . precious. It was barely a month since he had nearly bled to death under my hands, and the scar that curved along the inside of his arm was still raised and red. The Philadelphia FBI office had been generous in allowing him a month’s leave to recover—in tacit recognition that it was their fault he’d gotten injured in the first place—but we were nearing the end of that grace period, and I had noticed James becoming increasingly restless as his health improved.

  But for now? It looked like I was going to be late again.

  * * *

  I was surprised a while later when he rolled to face me, and said, “I think we should look for a bigger place.”

  Wait—we? Admittedly, I had been spending most of my time at his apartment near the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, returning to my own small house in the suburbs only now and then to swap out clothes. Until now we’d been careful not to talk about anything long-term. We’d been living in the present, waiting until he recovered. I’d originally moved in to take care of him—I’ve always acknowledged to myself and anyone else who would listen that I’m a lousy caregiver, but I’d felt I owed it to him. Besides, there was no one else to do it. While he might have deep Philadelphia roots, on a day-to-day basis he was as much of a loner as I was.

  But a serious discussion had been looming on the horizon, like a coming storm. After all, we weren’t young, and we should be old enough to know our own minds. On the other hand, I’d been married once for about fifteen minutes and it hadn’t worked out, and I’d lived alone since, and James had never been married, a fact that continued to mystify me. I mean, he was smart, good-looking, held a responsible job, and could be tender and funny and sexy when he took off the strong-silent-FBI-agent mask.

  There was no question that the last month, here with James, had been . . . like nothing in my life. James hadn’t been a demanding patient. If anything, he’d been too stoic at first, never admitting when he was in pain, never asking for anything, not even a Tylenol. Thank goodness that phase hadn’t lasted more than a week or two. After that a new and unexpected James started to emerge, one with a sense of humor and an element of playfulness that his serious FBI persona hadn’t previously let him show.

  But we? As in together, with our names on a lease? Or even a mortgage? I fought a moment of panic and realized he was looking at me oddly because I hadn’t answered him. I scrounged up a smile, and said, “Are you asking me to move in with you? Like, officially?”

  “For an intelligent woman, you can be kind of dense. Yes, Nell, I think we should look for a place for both of us, together.”

  “Oh. Well, then, yes, you’re right.” Damn it, Nell, you were going to try to get over your fear of commitment, weren’t you? I took a deep breath and looked him in the eye. “Yes, James, I would be delighted to live with you. But right now I need to leave for work, and I can’t blame my late entrances on your medical crises forever. Because you’re about ninety-seven percent back, right?”

  “I am, and I don’t want you to use that as an excuse to move out again. My lease is up the end of August, and I’m sure someone would grab this place in a minute. So we’ve got a little time to work out the details.”

  “Good.” I leaned over and planted a kiss on him, then backed away so he couldn’t pursue it. “Then I’m going to work. Shoot, look at the time!”

  “I can drop you off,” James volunteered.

  “Then you’d better put some clothes on.”

  Ten minutes later we were out the door. Normally I could have walked to the Pennsylvania Antiquarian Society from James’s apartment, especially in the nice summer weather. I’d found I enjoyed the walk—unless it was raining, in which case I could drive—and all the walking was doing wonders for my waistline. Well, that and all the worrying I’d done over the past month. If you’re not a stress eater, worrying is a rather good way to lose weight.

  “You have plans for today, apart from your meeting with your boss?” I asked, as he pulled up in front of the bluestone portico of the venerable Society building. It was only an hour later than my normal arrival time. Well, maybe an hour and a half.

  “Get a haircut. See if any of my suits still fit. Talk to Cooper and see when I can start back at work. I feel ready, and my doctor’s okayed it. You want me to call a Realtor?”

  “Oh. Uh, yes, I guess.” Nothing like showing unbridled enthusiasm, Nell. “See you later.” After a serious kiss, I climbed out of the car and went up the steps. I nodded at Front Desk Bob, a retired policeman who staffed our reception area, and headed toward the back hall. While I waited for the balky elevator to make its stately descent, I greeted the massive marble statue of Edwin Forrest in his role as Coriolanus that guarded the back hall. “Don’t worry, Edwin—I’m going to see to it that you get moved to a better place, where more people will see you.” Luckily, there was no one around to hear me talking to a sculpture, but I had a lot of strong feelings about Edwin.

  Upstairs on the third floor, I stopped by my assistant Eric’s desk. “Good morning, Eric. Anything I need to know about?”

  “Mornin’, Nell. Actually, there is. Mitchell Wakeman called and asked for an appointment with you, so I penciled him in for eleven. Is that okay?”

  That left me all of half an hour to get my head around this meeting. I didn’t know Wakeman personally, but I knew that he was a major player in Philadelphia development and construction—he’d had a finger in every major building project that had happened in the city for the last couple of decades. I’d have to Google him to remind myself of the details. “Did he say what he wanted?”

  “No, he just said there was something he wanted to discuss with you. The man himself, not his assistant. I can cancel if
you want.”

  Based on his comment, Eric must have recognized the name, and Eric was a lot newer to Philadelphia than I was. Maybe Wakeman wanted to give the Society a whole lot of money—or upgrade our creaky century-plus-old building. Hey, I could dream. But his visit could be an opportunity, and if it was, I was going to grab it. “No, that’s fine. I’ll be happy to talk to him. Do you know if Latoya’s in?” Latoya was the Society’s vice president for collections, who managed all the stuff that was inside the building, and there was a lot of it.

  “I believe so.”

  “Then ask her if she can come see me ASAP.”

  “Will do.”

  “Thanks, Eric.”

  I barely had time to sit down behind my desk when Shelby stuck her head in the door. “Everything okay?” she asked. “’Cause you’ve been keeping kind of irregular hours. For you, that is.”

  I gestured her in, and she pulled the door shut behind her. Shelby had been one of my first hires at the Society. In fact, she had replaced me as development director when I was unexpectedly bumped into the corner office. But more than that, we were friends. “Everything is peachy-swell. Hunky-dory. Pick your own term.”

  “Things are going well with Mr. Agent Man?”

  “Swimmingly.” I hesitated, then said in a lower voice, “He wants us to find a place together.”

  “About time!” Shelby said, grinning. “So, he’s back in fighting form?”

  “He is, and he’s talking with his boss today about going back to work. I have to say we’re tripping all over each other at his place, and mine’s not any better, plus it’s kind of out of the way for him. We need more space. And more closets.”

  “Well, congratulations. I’m happy for you. He’s one great guy.” She cocked her head. “But you don’t look exactly thrilled.”

  “Is it that obvious? Look, I know he’s a terrific guy and we get along pretty well, but . . . what happens if it doesn’t work out?”

  “Then you find another place to stay. You gonna sell your house?”