Digging Up History Read online

  Digging Up History

  When a summer intern at the Preservation Society discovers an aged document hidden in the binding of an antique book, Society president Nell Pratt is intrigued by the possibilities: is it a valuable historic document or just a useless scrap of paper? When analysis reveals that it’s a hand-drawn map of one of Philadelphia’s oldest neighborhoods, Nell learns that the area is being excavated for a new real estate development and may hold long-buried secrets from the city’s historic heyday.

  Determined to get to the bottom of the map’s origin and what it might tell her about the mysterious plot of land, Nell will have to contend with a construction company owner who disappears, a former Society board member who’s harbored a dark secret her entire life, and a remarkable discovery that may have the dead turning over in their graves . . .

  Beyond the Page Books

  are published by

  Beyond the Page Publishing

  www.beyondthepagepub.com

  Copyright © 2019 by Sheila Connolly

  Cover design and illustration by Dar Albert, Wicked Smart Designs

  ISBN: 978-1-950461-14-1

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this book. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented without the express written permission of both the copyright holder and the publisher.

  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. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Contents

  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

  Postscript

  Books by Sheila Connolly

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  I had almost succeeded in making the columns of numbers on the Society’s estimated budget for the coming year add up when someone knocked on my door. I managed not to curse, but it wasn’t easy: the annual board meeting was coming up fast, and I needed to get the spreadsheet worked out so I could write the usual scintillating prose to go with it—the sparkling language that would inspire the board members to whip out their checkbooks and write six-figure checks immediately. Well, I could hope, not that I could remember anything like that happening at any board meeting I’d attended since I’d joined the staff of the Society for the Preservation of Pennsylvania Antiquities nearly a decade earlier. Now I ran the place as president, after a few years as Director of Development, but it hadn’t gotten any easier.

  It was time for a break anyway. “Come in,” I called out. Since my door was shut I couldn’t see who was knocking.

  The door opened slowly and I recognized Dylan Robertson, a grad student slash summer intern, the most recent in a long series of such interns. He managed to look both scared and excited, and he was gingerly clutching a paper-wrapped bundle. We’d hired him for the summer to catalogue and examine a collection of old books that had been left to the Society in the will of one of our long-term supporters. I didn’t hold out high hopes that the collection would hide anything of great value, but Harriet Featherstone had been a lovely lady, and she’d wanted us to have something to remember her by.

  I summoned up a smile. “Sit down, Dylan. I’m guessing you’ve found something interesting? Is that from the Featherstone collection?” I gestured toward his bundle.

  I could swear that Dylan blushed. “I hope so, and yes. At least I think so. I’ve been doing some preliminary sorting and cleaning of the books, and making notes of what repairs might be needed, or if they’re even worth repairing, and I found something unexpected. I think.”

  “Sounds interesting. Is that what you brought with you? Tell me about it. Oh, and please sit down—you’re making me nervous standing there.”

  Dylan sat obediently. “You know about the collection, right?”

  “Sort of. I knew Harriet, and she used to talk about the books her father had collected, and the ones that she had added, but I never saw any of them. I know she was proud of the collection, but that could mean anything. Have you made a quick pass through all the books, and can you tell me generally what’s in the collection?”

  “Sure. Mostly early-nineteenth-century books, leather-bound, not in the greatest condition. A few earlier Bibles that look like they’ve been well-used. The other books are what I’d guess you’d call serious—collections of sermons, some histories. Nothing frivolous like poetry or fiction. There are a lot of books—I can’t guess how many yet because they’re scattered all over the building. If you want to keep the collection together you’re going to have to find some serious shelf space. Some of the books are more damaged than others, or are falling apart from age, even though it looks like Miss Featherstone took good care of them. You wanted me to give you an assessment of how much conservation would be needed, right?”

  “Yes, I did. I do. And I’m hoping you can help out with that. I know you don’t have much experience in physical conservation, but it could be a good learning experience for you. You could get a feel for the process with the less-valuable books—I’d call in someone to decide which those are. If you’re willing, of course.”

  Dylan seemed to relax just a bit. “Sure—that would be great.”

  “Good,” I said firmly. “So, what’s that you’re clutching?”

  Dylan seemed surprised to find he was still holding it gently. “Well, this one has some particular problems. The cover’s kind of falling apart, which is the only reason I noticed, but I thought I should let you look at it before I tried to do anything with it.” He took off the acid-free paper wrapped around the book and held it out toward me.

  I laid in on my desk, after clearing away a couple of stacks of financial records, and then I looked at it. It was fairly large, maybe eight inches by ten inches. The edges of the paper had been gilt once upon a time; the leather cover bore the remnants of a gold-stamped pattern. Once it might have been elegant, but now it was falling apart, the back cover dangling by a few threads. Either it had been well-loved or badly abused.

  I opened it carefully to see what the text was. I was surprised: it appeared to be an early biography of some eighteenth-century person I’d never heard of, but the binding was clearly later, by maybe fifty years. Someone had cared enough to rebind the book? It didn’t look particularly valuable, but I was no expert on antique books. Whoever had repaired it had done a poor job, since the cover was splitting apart. “What is it you wanted me to look at?”

  “Inside the back cover,” he said,
then watched as I carefully pulled the layers of the cover apart. What I saw confirmed my guess that it had been rebound, because there were materials and techniques that hadn’t been used until well after the book’s original publication date. That much I knew. I was still puzzling over why Dylan had asked me to look at it until I noticed one of the layers of paper that had been used to reinforce the cover and its connection to the spine. Even I could tell that the paper was older than the book itself—it had probably been a handy piece of scrap paper that the bookbinder had salvaged from someplace else. While the paper was old, it was fairly heavy-weight and had survived well, apart from the various holes needed to anchor it to the binding. I hoped there wasn’t glue involved, but the whole piece seemed to be slightly loose. I rummaged through one of my desk drawers and came up with a magnifier and looked more closely, and thought I saw handwriting on the paper. It too had faded, but it was definitely script of some sort written by a human hand, a letter whose lines were neatly aligned.

  And illegible. I looked up at Dylan. “All right, there’s a letter bound into the new cover for the book. Is that what you wanted me to see?”

  “Yes. I’ve read about people finding all sorts of old letters or documents in books that have been repaired. Like it’s recycling—why waste a perfectly good piece of paper? It probably didn’t mean anything to whoever did it, but I thought I should clear it with you before I went any further.”

  “It’s too hard to read in its current state to know who wrote it or to whom it was sent, but it might be possible to enhance it somehow to tell. Don’t get your hopes up—it probably isn’t from anyone important—but it could be interesting. Look, I know you’re new to all of this, so I wouldn’t ask you to do any delicate work on it, but I can call a friend or two to see what they think, and if they believe it’s worth the time and effort, you can work with them. Is that all right?”

  Dylan’s face lit up. “That would be great! It’d be like getting to know a book from the inside out. Sure, I’ve read about how people assembled them and bound them, but it’s not the same as actually handling one. If you don’t mind, of course.”

  “You’re here to learn, Dylan, and this is a good opportunity. And you’re the one who found it. So if I can find someone with the right expertise, you have every right to be part of the restoration. If that’s what we decide to do with it. Worst case, we could make it a stand-alone display so people could see how books were put together a couple of centuries ago. And you were right to bring it to me.” I handed the book back to him. “See if there’s a way to remove the letter without damaging the book, then let me know what you find out.”

  Dylan all but bounced out of his chair. “Thank you! You want me to go back to gathering and inventorying the collection now? Or should I handle the letter first?”

  “If you can extract the letter easily, go ahead with that, but be careful—we don’t know what we’re looking at. When you finish that, go back to the collection so we can look at it as a whole and see where the letter might fit, and why someone cared enough to save it. Or maybe we’ll find other rebound books. So go finish up the cataloguing, write up brief descriptions of each book, and we can go over it together. Does that work for you?”

  “Oh, yes. It shouldn’t take long—I’m about two-thirds of the way through it, and I’m trying to include whatever details I find.”

  “Good. Let me know when you’re finished.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Pratt—er, Nell.”

  He pivoted and hurried out of my office, shutting the door behind him—leaving me staring at the battered book in front of me.

  People who worked with antiques—items, buildings, whatever—held a small flickering hope in their heart that they might find something wonderful. Of course, we all believed that all old objects are wonderful, simply because they had survived for a long time in a chaotic world. But there are a few treasures lurking out there somewhere. Me, I’d started out as an English major and somehow drifted into raising money for institutions, but along the way I had caught the collecting bug. Luckily I could indulge it vicariously, since I worked in a building packed to the rafters with antique things, mostly books, but also some curious antique pieces that had been given to the Society by some long-dead donor and that we didn’t know what to do with. Sometimes I fantasized that it was like a road map of history, except that all the pieces were scattered. That’s one reason that Dylan was inventorying this new collection: to try to determine where it should be added to the Society’s holdings. I didn’t think that the collection itself was important enough to command its own space, but from my brief examination I thought it was worthy of being integrated, and that Harriet Featherstone should be honored for her contribution. I sometimes wondered whether she had simply inherited the whole lot from a deceased relative—Dylan had mentioned her father—how much of the collecting she had done herself, and whether she had enjoyed her own finds. She had been a lovely lady—and she’d also had a sharp mind and a good eye for collectibles.

  I sighed. I’d have to think about who I could call, who might have any expertise in antique bookbinding. After I’d finished the financial reports.

  • • •

  I arrived home almost on time, and when I opened the back door after parking, I was hit with a delightful blast of something that smelled wonderful. James had cooked! I didn’t care what it was, as long as I didn’t have to deal with it.

  James and I were still kind of feeling our way through a relatively new relationship. Buying a house together had definitely kicked things up a notch, but I couldn’t say that we’d established a basic routine. James is an FBI agent, so the demands of his job are very different from mine, but that gave us plenty to talk about (as long as his current assignment wasn’t hush-hush). We’d worked together on more than one—what? Case sounded too formal, but there seemed to have been crimes involved. Still, I would say we worked well together.

  “Anything interesting you can talk about?” I asked as he set a full plate in front of me, as well as a glass of wine.

  He went back to the kitchen to retrieve his own meal. “Not much of anything going on. Didn’t someone write a book called Death Takes a Holiday?”

  “That was a movie, back in the thirties, I think, but I couldn’t tell you who. But speaking of books, my summer intern Dylan found something interesting today. I was bored silly working on the Society’s budget, so I let him explain it all to me.”

  “And this was?”

  “I think I told you we received a bequest from one of our long-term members, who just died. I asked him to catalogue it and assess the individual volumes, see if they needed conservation and so on. He brought me an old book that was in bad shape, but the cover had already been replaced once. But that’s not the interesting part. The newer cover was in bad shape, and apparently the bookbinder had kind of stuffed the new cover with whatever he could lay his hands on, to stiffen it up. From what little Dylan and I could see, there seems to be a letter inserted among the stuffing that looks older than the cover and maybe even the book itself.”

  “And what was it about?”

  “That’s what we don’t know. We didn’t want to rip it apart to find out, but there wasn’t enough of it showing to make a guess. It may never be possible because it’s so faded anyway. Which leads me to wonder if it’s worth taking apart to see.”

  “Sounds like it should be rebound anyway, if the Society is planning to keep it.”

  “True. But I guess I’m naturally curious—I want to know what’s in the letter.”

  “What would a conservator do?”

  “I don’t have a clue. That’s the problem. I know the theory, but I’ve never done it, and I don’t think this is a good way to start. I could call for outside help—I know a few people . . .”

  “May I make a suggestion?”

  “Of course. What?”

  “This is on paper, right? With ink that looks brown now?”

  “Yes,” I said cautiously.
“So?”

  “It could be that the FBI lab would be able to help, without destroying the evidence, er, letter.”

  “Okay, I’m interested. But won’t your office have a problem with you bringing something from the Society for them to analyze in your super-duper high-tech lab?”

  “They could. But a few people owe me favors, and it wouldn’t take long. And it wouldn’t be invasive, which I believe matters to you.”

  “Well, yes—that’s a good point. If it’s a secret message from George Washington, we’d all be drooling. If it’s somebody’s shopping list from 1800, not so much.”

  “You’ll never know until you get a good look at it.”

  “True. Maybe I could bring it over to your office at lunch tomorrow, and we shall see what we shall see.”

  “Great. You doing the dishes or am I?”

  “Is there dessert?” When James nodded in the affirmative, I said, “Then I’ll do them. I’d like to eat dessert before I fall asleep.”

  Chapter Two

  James and I did get some sleep before the sun came up. Our relationship was still kind of new, and some might say we had rushed into things, but neither of us was young, and we knew our own minds. We’d also been through some challenging times—like when I’d had to shoot someone to protect him—so we knew we could handle it. And I had to admit that it was kind of fun having an FBI agent on call as needed. It was surprising how many times I’d called him in to help with something odd happening at the Society—most people don’t think of our library as a crime scene, but there had been at least one body since I’d been working there.

  “Breakfast?” he mumbled into his pillow.

  I rolled over to face him. “Is that a request or are you volunteering to make it?”

  “I made dinner.”

  “That’s right, you did. Do you have any early meetings or can I take my time?”