Razing the Dead Read online

  “Not really. This may be telling tales out of class, but it looks like George was not only at the site where the bodies were found, but he was also poking around—the earth was disturbed, enough that he would have known the bodies were there. He didn’t do any harm to them, if you’re worried.”

  “Oh my,” Janet breathed. “He must have been thrilled.”

  “So he didn’t come straight here and tell you?”

  “No, this is news to me.”

  “Can you think of who he would have told? His wife?”

  “Maybe, but I doubt that she’d have cared one way or the other.”

  “Was he a whistle-blower type? I mean, would he have gone to some authority or other and tried to stop Wakeman’s building project until the site had been fully investigated?”

  “Again, maybe. Probably. Like all of us here at the society, he took our local heritage seriously.”

  My phone buzzed: Wakeman. I checked the time: I wasn’t due to meet him for at least a half an hour. Why was he calling?

  “What’s keeping you?” he said without any niceties.

  This was starting to get on my nerves. “I told you, I’ll be there at eleven,” I said, managing not to add something like Keep your shirt on.

  “Make it fast.” He hung up again. What a charmer.

  Janet and I were both startled when there was a pounding on a metal door at the back of the room, which I guessed led to the staff parking lot. We exchanged glances, and she went over to open it. Janet had barely pulled it open when a haggard-looking older woman shoved her way in, wrestling with a pair of stacked banker’s boxes. After a brief glance at me, she addressed Janet.

  “This is the last of them. I don’t want them in the house. I don’t want to see them again, ever. I’ve got people calling, and the kids are flying in, and there’s a funeral to arrange, and I can’t deal with any more of this. Do whatever you want with the stuff.” She dumped the boxes on the table next to the others, and then, as if she had run out of steam, she dropped heavily into a folding chair. I realized there were tears running down her face. Obviously, this must be Mrs. George Bowen.

  Janet took over immediately. “I’m so sorry, Pat. Of course we’ll take care of it all—you have other things you need to worry about. Can I get you anything? Water? Coffee? Maybe you should just sit here a minute and catch your breath.”

  The woman just shook her head, but she made no move to get up. The tears kept trickling down her face.

  I was torn. The woman was clearly grieving, and she faced a hellacious next few days. At the same time, I really wanted to ask if her late husband had said anything to her about a big discovery, and if not, who he might have told. But I didn’t know the woman, and she didn’t know me. I hadn’t even known her husband.

  “Pat, I know this must be hard for you, and you’re under a lot of stress,” Janet said to her, “but do you mind if I take a peek in the boxes and make sure there’s nothing you’ll regret having gotten rid of?”

  “I don’t care. Go ahead. Just don’t hand it back to me. You can keep it or sell it or pitch it—I don’t care.”

  “Thank you. Nell, do you want to help?”

  “I think I’ll keep Mrs. Bowen company.” I could ask her some questions, I rationalized, thinking that such things might be kinder coming from me than from the police or the FBI. I looked at Janet and tried to convey all this without saying anything, which was kind of absurd.

  But somehow she got my message, for which I thanked the stars. I looked around until I found another folding chair, then pulled it close to Pat’s. “Janet tells me your husband was really interested in local history?”

  “Interested—ha!” Pat snorted, then rummaged in her pocket and pulled out a used tissue and blew her nose. “Obsessed is more like it. Why couldn’t he have taken up something like golf or bridge? But no, he had to go poking around in the dirt looking for God knows what. And then he’d bring me home his new finds and expect me to ooh and aah over them. Pieces of trash, as far as I could see. Bits of this, shards of that. I wouldn’t let him keep them in the house—made him stash them all in the garage. He built a whole wall of shelves for them. He never got tired of looking—even up to this week.”

  An opening? I seized it. “Had he found something new?”

  “I’d never seen him so excited—I mean, he was practically hopping up and down. After all these years, he said, he’d finally found something big.”

  “Did he tell you what it was?”

  “If he did, it didn’t make an impression on me. There was some dirty stuff spread out on his workbench in the garage. I just threw it all into one of those boxes. I don’t know if it was what he was excited about, but it just looked like junk to me.”

  Janet and I exchanged another look, and Janet came over to join us, holding something small in her hand. “Is this what you’re talking about?”

  “Could be. I didn’t look too closely.”

  Janet held out her hand toward me. “Does that soil look fresh to you?”

  I saw some small round items encrusted in dirt in Janet’s palm. I nodded. “What are they?”

  “Metal buttons.”

  I peered more closely and made out something stamped on at least one of them. “Can you date them?”

  “I’m pretty sure they’re from the Revolutionary War. And if I’m not mistaken, they might be British.”

  We looked at each other for a long moment. “Oh my,” I said intelligently. “A British soldier buried in Ezra Garrett’s woods? This really is going to be a mess.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want them, Pat?” Janet said gently.

  Pat shook her head. “You keep them. George would probably want you to have them.” She stood up abruptly, nearly knocking over the flimsy chair. “I’ve got to go.” She was out the door before either Janet or I could protest.

  CHAPTER 15

  I was still struggling to make sense of what Janet—or rather, George—had found when my phone rang again. I walked a few feet away to answer it.

  “You’re late.” The ever-charming Mitchell Wakeman: no hello or anything.

  I knew I wasn’t late, but there was no point in arguing with him. “I’m on my way.” I hung up on him. If he could be abrupt, then so could I. I turned to Janet, who had come up beside me. “I’m sorry to bail on you like this, but I’ve got a press conference to attend, and Wakeman wants to talk with me before we go on the air.”

  “Are you going to talk about . . . these?” Janet asked, pointing to the dirt-encrusted artifacts.

  “I don’t know, but I think they’re important—take good care of them, will you? And do you mind speaking to the FBI about them?” I wondered if I was supposed to worry about chain of evidence or something like that, but I really didn’t have time.

  “Of course I don’t mind. I’ll see if I can find out anything else about them, maybe narrow down which group of soldiers they would have belonged to. And please let me know what’s going on.”

  “Thanks, I will. I’ve got to go find Lissa and get over to the Garrett farm, like, immediately. I’ll let myself out, okay?”

  “Sure. Go.”

  I grabbed my bag and ran for the stairs. I located Lissa and all but dragged her out of the library and out to my car, and shoved her in, and we peeled out of the parking garage, heading for the farm.

  “I know we’re late, but what’s the rush?” Lissa asked, after she had made sure her seat belt was buckled.

  “George Bowen’s wife Pat showed up with more artifacts. She said George came home all excited from one of his history hunts shortly before he died, but she had no idea why and really didn’t care. She just dragged in everything he’d collected and dumped it on the historical society because she couldn’t stand the sight of it. Janet found some bits and pieces that had fresh dirt on them, and it looks like they’re
Revolutionary War buttons, possibly British. I’m going to make a wild guess and say that they likely belonged to the bodies found up the hill, where we know the dead man had been poking around. Which means there’s going to have to be a lot more investigation of the site. It could be those are the only bodies, or it could be the fields are full of them. Wakeman doesn’t know about the buttons yet, but he’s already called twice asking where we were. Which is why I’m in a hurry.”

  “Wow,” Lissa said. “That’s amazing.”

  “It would be if I didn’t have to stand up at this press conference in about ten minutes and say something that won’t tick off Mitchell Wakeman or the FBI and all the other cops.”

  “You think Wakeman won’t be happy to learn that his new development property is an archeological site? In addition to being a crime scene?”

  “What do you think?”

  Lissa’s mouth twitched into a half smile. “Can I stay in the car?”

  We reached the Garrett farm in record time—good thing that most of the local cops were already there, or I’d probably have been busted for speeding on our way over. I pulled into the driveway near the old farmhouse and walked over to an unhappy-looking Mitchell Wakeman. “We need to talk,” I said. I figured we had at least fifteen minutes before the newsies started tuning up their equipment.

  “No time—I can’t give you more than a few minutes,” he replied curtly. He turned his back on me and resumed talking to someone I didn’t recognize, alternating with a guy with a large camera hoisted on his shoulder. I recognized one of the daytime newscasters, a pretty youngish woman in heavy makeup, clutching a microphone. Once everyone was happy with the proposed camera angles, she said, “Let’s get some background shots.”

  She and the cameraman stepped away and started panning the summer landscape. Wakeman turned his attention to me once again. “What took you so long?”

  I swallowed a sharp retort. “You said the press conference was at noon. We’ve got plenty of time. And I’ve found some information that you need to know: those older bodies they found are probably from the Revolution, and it’s possible that at least one was British.”

  “Crap,” he said eloquently. “Don’t say anything about it on camera.”

  He left me gaping at his back. And fuming. I was not about to go public with what I’d just learned, not without making sure we all had the details right. Here was a scene of possible historic significance that might be connected to a recent murder, and he was telling me not to mention it? How dumb did he think I was? I reminded myself that I didn’t work for him and we had no formal agreement, nor had any money changed hands. So I could damn well say what I wanted—but I knew better than to jeopardize this investigation, whether or not it involved Wakeman.

  I checked my watch. Nearly twelve, and since this was a local event, I guessed it would come up somewhere in the middle of the broadcast rather than lead off, unless it was a really slow news day and the Phillies were slumping. I swallowed a smile. If the story led with “multiple bodies found in Chester County field” it might get moved up front, but Wakeman wouldn’t be happy. If I were spiteful, I could probably ensure it went out like that on the five o’clock news, but that wouldn’t be professional. I sighed. I knew I would wimp out and make nice for the cameras, because whatever my personal opinion of Mitchell Wakeman, he was still a major player in the region and it wouldn’t be smart to antagonize him. I decided I would wait and see how he played it.

  We assembled in a staggered row with Wakeman in front, flanked by people who seemed to be one of his employees and someone from the township, with me at the edge of the small group. Cameras came on, the news lady perked up and raised her microphone, and we were off. I was no stranger to being on camera, so I smoothed whatever I could, stood up straighter, and waited for my turn. When it came, I was pleased that they got my name right, and my job title, and then the newscaster lobbed a softball at me: “I understand that the Wakeman Property Trust has invited you in to assess the historic importance of this site.”

  I smiled. “Yes, that’s correct. This area is rich in history, and Mr. Wakeman wants to preserve the integrity of any historic structures, such as the old farmhouse. I hope the Society will be able to provide documentation for him.”

  “What about the body found here this week?”

  Ulp. Why hadn’t she asked anybody else? Did I look like a softy who would spill whatever I knew? “I can’t comment on that.”

  “Weren’t you present when the body was found?”

  Double ulp. “Yes, because Mr. Wakeman was giving me a tour of the site at the time.”

  “And haven’t you been involved in more than one Philadelphia-area homicide in the past?”

  I could feel Wakeman glaring at me as I was apparently hijacking his moment in the press sun. I was trying to figure out how to answer her when someone else on her crew started making hand signals that I interpreted to mean something like “wrap it up.” The woman looked frustrated, but turned back to the camera and made some chirpy noises tying up loose ends. She didn’t look at me. Did she need my permission to quote me? Or was I now “news” myself? That was a depressing thought.

  Wakeman stalked over to me. “What the hell was that about?”

  I wasn’t in a mood to make nice. “Hey, if you’d done your homework, you’d know what she said is true. And I hate to tell you, but this is probably going to get worse before it gets better. The dead man knew where those bodies were buried. And it’s likely that he knew what they were. The question is, who did he tell? You?” I glared at him.

  His complexion reddened and his jaw clenched, but he didn’t speak for almost thirty seconds until he got himself under control. “Nobody told me anything about all that. You thinking that’s what got him killed?”

  “The FBI just figured it out this morning. It could be a motive. And the authorities may think the same thing. So you’d better be ready for more questions.”

  “Ah, crap,” he muttered. His vocabulary was a bit limited; I had a feeling he’d had a stronger epithet in mind.

  I wasn’t interested in coddling him at the moment, if ever. “Who are all these other guys? Did you invite them?”

  Wakeman looked around him. The television crew had packed up and vanished, but there was still a small crowd of others milling around in the field, apparently not sure if they had been dismissed. “Couple of guys who work for me. The others are from the township.”

  “Introduce me,” I said. “They might be able to help with our report.”

  Wakeman nodded his head, then beckoned the group over. They came quickly, like well-trained dogs: Wakeman’s project mattered to them. “Guys, this is Nell Pratt, from the historical society in the city. She’s doing some research for me. You want to tell her who you all are? And answer whatever questions she’s got. Thanks.” He turned and strode off, followed by his own employees.

  I turned my attention to the remaining people. “Sorry—I should have introduced myself sooner, but things have been kind of rushed. As Mr. Wakeman said, I’m Nell Pratt. And you are?”

  One man stepped up first. “Ms. Pratt, good to meet you,” he said eagerly. “I’m Mr. Wakeman’s project manager, Scott Mason. We’ll probably be seeing a lot more of each other. Let me introduce you to the team from the township here. Marv?”

  A slightly portly middle-aged man wearing rumpled khakis held out his hand. “I’m Marvin Jackson, Goshen Township manager. This guy here is Joseph Dilworth, who heads up the Goshen historical commission. Oh, hi, Eddie—didn’t see you arrive.” That was addressed to a short stocky man who had hung back. “This is Eddie Garrett—Ezra was his father.”

  Ah, one of the offspring who had watched their father sell the farm. “Hello, Eddie.” I extended my hand, and he took it unwillingly. His grip was strong, his skin surprisingly thick and rough, and I remembered that until fairly recently he had been a da
iry farmer on the land where we now stood. What was he doing now? Or had he inherited enough from his father that he didn’t need to work anymore? “I’m glad to meet you. I’d love to talk to you about your father and the farm, if you have the time.”

  Eddie mumbled something vague and backed off once again to hide behind the group—not exactly a sociable guy. I wondered briefly why he had been the only Garrett to show up today and why he had shown up at all, since he was so clearly uncomfortable. I suspected that Wakeman had ordered, er, asked him to be there to put a right spin on the family’s participation.

  Having struck out with Eddie Garrett, I turned to Joseph Dilworth, a tall greying man in his early sixties. “Mr. Dilworth, you’re head of the historical commission? Would you have time to speak with me?”

  He glanced at his watch. “Want to grab a sandwich? And who’s your colleague here?”

  As Lissa slid up alongside me, I realized I hadn’t even had time to introduce her. “This is Lissa Penrose. She’s researching the history of Mr. Wakeman’s property for us. But she’s only just started, and I’m sure you could help point her in the right direction.”

  “No problem. The Salt Shaker up the road does good sandwiches. You want to follow my car? Marv, you want to come, too?”

  “Can’t do it, Joe,” Marv said. “I’ve got budgets to go over. But if you want to talk with me, Ms. Pratt, give me a call. Happy to help.” He held out a business card, and I took it.

  “I’ll do that, Marv. And we’d love to have lunch with you, Joe. Thank you.” We all trudged up the hill to where the cars were parked, and I waited until Joe pulled out and turned down the hill, then followed.

  “I hope you don’t mind taking the time for lunch,” I said to Lissa.

  Lissa said, “Of course not. I’d be speaking with Joe Dilworth in any case, so it might be good to get to know him. That is, if I still have a job?”