Monument to the Dead Read online

  “Where’s Sherlock Holmes when you need him?” I muttered.

  “What?”

  More loudly I said, “Sherlock Holmes would have heard about Edith’s errant teacup and announced that the killer was a left-handed woman who walked with a limp and kept six cats.”

  I could see that James was smiling even though he didn’t turn his head. “Ah, for the good old days.”

  We arrived in the city as quickly as we could have expected, and again I asked James not to bother dropping me off but to park as he usually did. I wanted to walk, to clear my head and figure out what my next step was. James needed enough evidence, direct or indirect, to persuade his superiors to make this an active case. By God, I was going to find something. I couldn’t do nothing and wait for someone else to die.

  After arriving at the Society, I stopped at Shelby’s office on the way to my own. Luckily she was already there and the rest of her department wasn’t. I hated having to hide things from employees, or to spend too much time behind closed doors, because no matter what the facts were, employees always picked up the negative energy and then started nurturing rumors, which only made things worse.

  “Hey, Nell,” Shelby greeted me when I walked in. “Nice evening?” She looked at me expectantly.

  “James and I went out to talk to Harbeson—you know, Marty’s and James’s cousin in Wayne?”

  “Edith Oakes’s brother, got it. Did you learn anything useful?”

  I leaned against the doorjamb. “Yes and no. Harbeson is a nice man but a bit dim and he drinks. He wouldn’t know evidence if it bit him. I’m not even sure he’s processed that his sister isn’t going to come back. But we gained one whole theoretical clue: the presence of a teacup in the dish drainer. But it’s from a set that Harbeson says Edith wouldn’t have used. Either way, it suggests that she had tea with someone shortly before she died. Unfortunately, either Edith or her killer washed said teacup, so there’s no evidence to be had from it, and then Harbeson, apparently in shock, actually cleaned up the kitchen, possibly for the first time in his life.”

  “Unbelievable,” Shelby said.

  “I agree. James and I were brainstorming over dinner and came up with two new thoughts. One: if we look back a year or two and correlate obituaries with your list, we might find some more cases, and by adding cases, we might narrow the suspects, if you follow my drift.”

  “And you want me to do the correlating? How many more deaths do you think it will take to make the FBI sit up and pay attention?”

  I shook my head. “If—still a big if—the FBI accepts the four we’ve already got, a couple more could help. I wouldn’t go back too far. You can access the Inquirer obituaries online.”

  “I’m on it, no problem—I’m happy to help. What’s number two?”

  “That if, as we suspect, these victims are linked to each other by their service to the cultural community, the deaths almost have to be an inside job. Someone like you or me who has access to the information we’ve found, or knows how to find it. So now we’ve potentially narrowed down not only the pool of victims but also the pool of suspects to the greater Philadelphia cultural community. That should make our job easy,” I finished on a sarcastic note.

  “You sure know how to cheer a girl up first thing in the morning.”

  “Sorry. But if I can borrow a tired phrase, it’s a matter of life and death. I do appreciate your help, and I’m sure the FBI does. Or will. Whatever. Tell me if you find anything? I’m going to try to get some work done.”

  I headed for my office. Eric took one look at me and hurried down the hall for coffee. When I walked into my office, I glanced quickly around, expecting Marty to pop out from behind a piece of furniture, but for the moment I was blessedly alone. Now, what was it I was supposed to be doing?

  Eric returned, proudly bearing a steaming mug of coffee, which he set carefully on my desk. “Anything I can do?” he asked.

  It was pointless to deny that something was up. “I wish there was, Eric. You know I’d tell you if I thought you could help. But thanks for asking.”

  He nodded, then retreated silently. I continued to sit and brood, although the coffee helped. At least for James, investigating a crime—I was going to call it that, no matter what the FBI said—was part of his normal work. Me, I had a museum to run. Fundraising: under control for the moment. Collections: on hold until we sorted out the combined mess of the Terwilliger Collection plus the FBI collection on top of it. I hated to admit it, but I was grateful that I didn’t have Latoya hovering at the moment. Special projects: ah, yes, I’d asked Nicholas to look at the Water Works materials and see what he could come up with. Not pressing, but a nice diversion, and if we presented it sooner rather than later, we’d score some points.

  When I finished my coffee, I got up and walked down the hall to the processing room. Nicholas wasn’t there, so I circled back and found him in his cubicle. “Got a minute, Nicholas?”

  “Sure, Nell. Here or your office?”

  “Here’s fine.” Since Nicholas had only half walls, anybody walking by could hear anything we said, but I wasn’t intending to say anything private. “How are things going with the Water Works materials?”

  He looked startled for a moment. “Oh, right—I promised you a first report today. I’ve pulled some of the stuff together. Fascinating material, isn’t it? I hadn’t realized there was so much controversy about the sources of contagion in the city, even as late as 1900. But that wasn’t exactly what you were looking for, was it? They wanted something about ‘green,’ right?” Nicholas gave me a tepid smile. “It’s such a classic case of the past and present colliding—you know, unspoiled nature versus the evils of industrialization. There’s a lot of impassioned Victorian rhetoric in the file about it. Interesting reading. When did you want to give this to Ms. Fleming?”

  I had to admit I was impressed by his quick grasp of the information. “Let me call her and set up a meeting for next week.”

  “Of course. I’ll have something on your desk by Monday.” Nicholas hesitated, as though squeezing out more words was painful for him. “I’m happy to say that the rest of the cataloging is going well, so we’re staying abreast of incoming material. Although, that still leaves the problem of the existing collections.”

  “One step at a time, Nicholas!” I had to laugh—accurate cataloging had been the bane of the Society almost from its founding well over a century earlier, and nobody expected Nicholas to accomplish it quickly.

  I made my way back to my office only to find Shelby hovering in the doorway, and she looked troubled. I sighed. “Come on in. Do we need to shut the door?”

  “I think so,” she said.

  I sat down and motioned her to sit. “Tell me.”

  “I started checking the obituaries, like you asked. Then I thought it might be more efficient to search by starting with the institutions we’ve talked about. I didn’t even have to do it for the Society, since we have all those records. So it was only the Art Museum and the Forrest Trust I had to look at.”

  “And?” I prompted.

  Shelby handed me a few pages of printouts. “Two more possibles, within the last year. And they were both members of the Forrest Trust.”

  I felt both depressed and elated. The good news was, I had something to give James that might be enough to use to make the higher-ups take notice. The bad news was, two more people had died, possibly at the hands of a serial killer, and once again there would be no crime scene, no evidence.

  “Good work, Shelby. I’ll call James.”

  I picked up the phone and hit the speed dial. When he answered, I said bluntly, “We have two more.”

  His reply was equally terse. “I’ll be right over.”

  CHAPTER 15

  James arrived at the front door in ten minutes, and Front Desk Bob called to let me know. I went down to let him in, no longer worried about what anybody thought about the constant presence of the FBI—by now the staff should be used to it. There we
re more important things at stake, like human lives. Shelby was waiting for us in my office, and I shut the door as soon as we arrived.

  James sat heavily, leaned forward in his chair, and said, “Show me.”

  Shelby handed him a copy of what she’d given me. James took his time looking it over. After a couple of minutes I couldn’t stand the waiting.

  “Is it enough?”

  “Maybe,” James said. “These two fit the general pattern—age, social standing, manner of death—but there’s no physical evidence so long after the fact. The victims—if that’s what they were—are long buried, and there’s no point in digging them up. But six victims make a stronger case than four.”

  “What about the connection through the Forrest Trust?” I asked.

  “You mentioned the trust before. What is it?”

  I glanced at Shelby before replying. “Shelby’s been filling me in about it. We have information in our files because we have collection items here on indefinite loan from the trust, and they gave us funds for their maintenance. This was all put in place before I started working here, so I’ve had little or no direct interaction with the trustees.”

  “How many board members are there?”

  I looked again at Shelby, and she said promptly, “Ten. Or there should be. Some of them have been replaced, but they’re still not at full strength.”

  James turned back to me. “And six have died, within the last year or two? We definitely need to focus on the trust, since that seems to be the one common factor. I want to know what the trust does, what kind of money they have, how it’s controlled, who they give it to.”

  “I’ll pull the 990s,” Shelby volunteered. When James looked blank, she explained, “That’s the IRS reporting form for nonprofits. It’s public record.”

  “I’m looking into what information we have on Edwin Forrest,” I said. “According to our agreement with the trust, the funds that they have given us specify that we must spend a portion on displaying the Forrest materials to the public, so I can poke around here without setting off any alarms. You know about Edwin?”

  James’s expression brightened. “That giant marble statue in the hallway? That’s Forrest?”

  I nodded. “In one of his signature roles—a somewhat obscure Shakespeare play called Coriolanus.” I stopped for a moment to think. “James, we have to put together a lot of information in-house here, and it’s coming from a lot of directions: development, collections, outside sources like the IRS. Why don’t we collect as much as we can, then sit down and go through it all in one go? And if you think we have enough, we really should find the surviving board members, talk to them, and maybe alert them that there’s a problem. Surely they must have noticed that an unusual number of their colleagues have died recently?”

  “I agree. I need to talk to them,” James said.

  I stared at him. “How do you plan to do that? Knock on the door of some frail octogenarian and say, ‘I think someone might try to kill you’?”

  “I wouldn’t do that. I can be tactful, you know,” James protested.

  “Why not let Marty and me look at the list? Odds are, she knows most of them, and I can break the ice by talking about our custodianship of the collection items.” Another thought popped into my mind. “Will they come to Edith’s funeral, do you think?”

  “If Marty’s handling the arrangements, she’d probably ask them. I can’t tell you if all or any of them came to the others’ funerals—some of them don’t travel much anymore. Why, are you thinking of staging a Sherlock event?”

  Shelby raised an eyebrow, so I explained, “I mentioned Sherlock Holmes earlier today, and I’d guess that James is thinking of one of those grand finales when the omniscient sleuth gathers everyone in the library and points the finger at the killer. Right?”

  Even James had to smile at my lame description. “Something like that. Unless you’re subscribing to the theory that the killer will show up to gloat over his success, unbeknownst to the mourners.”

  “Unbeknownst?” I said.

  “Well, this whole case does have a slightly archaic flavor, don’t you think? A mysterious vendetta for reasons unknown?”

  “Well, we are, after all, an historic institution. To answer your question, what I was considering was meeting tomorrow and pooling everything we have. We can use the rest of today to pull together our facts. Marty should have a handle on the funeral by then, too. Shelby, do you mind giving up part of your weekend?”

  “No, ma’am! This is important, and I didn’t have anything planned.”

  “Good. I’ll put together what I’ve found on the collection so far. If we can make a strong enough case, can you take it to your bosses and open a real investigation?”

  “I’ll do my damnedest. I don’t like having a serial killer in my own backyard.”

  Shelby shivered involuntarily. “Sounds more serious when you say ‘serial killer.’”

  “That’s what we’re looking at, Shelby,” James told her. “If what we guess is true.”

  “Does that mean we’re at risk?” she asked.

  “I hope not,” James said. “The targets seem to be board members. I can’t make any promises, but whoever it is seems pretty sure of himself, and isn’t likely to believe that anyone is onto him. Certainly not at this place.”

  I wasn’t so sure. The Society seemed to have become Crime Central over the past year, which clashed with our reputation as a sleepy—all right, stuffy—institution. I hoped that Shelby had gotten the message: be careful. She didn’t have her own personal FBI agent to watch her back the way I did. “All right, then. James, do you think Marty is out in Wayne now with Harbeson?”

  “Probably. I’ll call her. I’ll let you know if she has any issues with meeting tomorrow and where she wants to do it. And I’ll find out when and where the funeral will be.”

  We all stood up, awkwardly. Shelby glanced between James and me, then said, “I guess I’ll go start looking for . . . whatever. Let me know what the plan is for tomorrow, Nell.” She opened the door and left, closing it behind her.

  Which left James and me alone. “Are we getting closer?” I asked, hating how plaintive I sounded.

  “I think so. You and Shelby have been a big help.”

  “You can give us a commendation when we find the killer. We will find him or her, won’t we? With or without the agency’s help?”

  “I certainly intend to,” he said grimly. He crossed the distance between us and pulled me close. “Just be careful, please? We know this guy is smart. If he gets even a hint of what you and Shelby and Marty are up to, I don’t know what he might do. I’d rather not find out.”

  “I get it. I think we all do. Let’s hope tomorrow yields some results.” I leaned into him, thinking how nice it was not to be facing this alone. What would I have done if something like this had come up and I didn’t have an FBI agent in my corner? Well, I realized, for a start I wouldn’t have gone digging for other murders. I would have looked at the individual deaths of several elderly people I might have known only slightly and said to myself, what a shame, then forgotten about them, never connecting them or looking for hidden motives. I wondered if I would ever be so innocent again.

  “Uh, Nell?” James’s voice came from some distant place. “I should be going now.”

  I pulled myself away. “I know. Call me when you’ve talked to Marty, and we’ll decide where to meet. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I watched him leave, and I watched Eric watch him leave. Damn, I hated to think what Eric must be imagining by now, but I couldn’t say anything. Bad enough that I’d dragged Shelby into this. I didn’t want to put anyone else in danger.

  But I was my own mistress, and I was already in danger, so I decided I might as well spend a little time checking out our Forrest collection. The artifact collections area would be the best place to start. Fourth floor, then. I grabbed my inventory list and headed for the elevator.

  The physical collections actually were
the smallest part of our overall collections. Most of what the Society held was paper-based, but often we were given items—like that statue downstairs—by donors, or by bequest. Most were not valuable enough to sell. Many came with strings attached: the donor wanted to know we valued it, so we couldn’t just get rid of it, in case that person wanted to come visit the family heirloom. But that created yet another problem: storage requirements for a hodgepodge of physical items—wood, fabric, and a few unidentifiable oddities—were complex, so we kept those collections segregated from the books and documents.

  An hour later, I was convinced that either the inventory was way out of date or I wasn’t reading it right. I wasn’t willing to contemplate the third alternative—that collection items were missing—not after the problems we’d had in the recent past. I had found most of the objects without any difficulty, and I knew where to find the statue, of course, and a gorgeous theatrical makeup case that was on permanent display on the first floor. But some of the paper records—letters, handbills, and the like—I was having trouble finding. Collections-related files were kept outside Latoya’s office on the third floor, opposite Nicholas’s cubicle. The filing cabinets took up a full wall. I went over there to double-check. Yes, there were Forrest folders, and lists inside them that pointed toward documents filed in other parts of the building. I made a quick copy. The paper files weren’t where the finding aid said they should be.

  A little alarm bell rang in the back of my head, and I quashed it. Before I started really worrying, I decided to check the sign-out slips. Official procedure dictated that if an employee took something from a shelf to look at, he or she was supposed to fill out a routing slip for it and leave in its place. Likewise, if a library patron requested a document or book, the librarian or the shelver should have left a slip on the shelf. But I knew staff sometimes “borrowed” things without following procedure. Heck, I’d been guilty of that myself a few times. But after a number of items had disappeared, I’d treated the staff to more than one lecture about following protocol, and I’d thought they’d gotten the message. Maybe the Forrest items had simply been mis-shelved? It wouldn’t be the first time that collection items wandered around the building.