Privy to the Dead Read online

  “Not tonight—he had an all-hands faculty meeting, and I had this, so we decided we’d see each other tomorrow. How’s Lissa working out?”

  Lissa Penrose was one of Eliot’s advisees as she worked on a graduate degree. “Great. I’ve asked her to review the history of this building. She’ll be working with Shelby, too.”

  Shelby had taken over my previous position as director of development at the Society when I’d been abruptly elevated to the position of president, and we worked well together. Her dash of Southern charm had proved to be an asset when wangling contributions from our members. She had submitted a brief report on contributions and attended this meeting for purely ceremonial purposes, as a senior staff member, but had disappeared quickly while I was still saying my farewells to the board members. “I’m hoping we can put together some material on interesting building details, to use for fundraising.”

  We closed up the building behind us, making sure the security system was armed, and said good-bye at the foot of the stairs outside. Marty headed home, and I crossed the street and retrieved my car from the lot. At least this parking fee I could charge to the Society. At this time of night there was little traffic, and it didn’t take long to reach home.

  Home. I had trouble wrapping my head around that. The house was gorgeous, and I still tiptoed around it waiting for someone to tell me I wasn’t worthy of it and throw me out. It had a parlor. It had five bedrooms. It was ridiculous for two people, but James had fallen for it on sight, and I had, too, when he showed it to me. And we could afford it, mostly. Neither the government nor mid-sized nonprofit organizations pay very well, but we were managing, albeit with not much with the way of furniture. But now it was . . . home.

  I parked in the spacious three-car garage, then made my way to the back door, which led into the kitchen. “Hello?” I called out. “I’m home.”

  I could hear James galumphing down the stairs (original woodwork! Never painted!), and then he joined me in the kitchen (which had a modern stove that terrified me with its array of knobs and digital indicators). As he approached I marveled once again that this tall, dark (well, greying a bit), and handsome—and smart and successful—FBI agent had fallen for me. “How’d it go? Have you eaten?” Rather than waiting for an answer, he gave me a very satisfying kiss. I was definitely enjoying coming home these days.

  When he finally let me go, I said, “I’ll answer question number two first: no. What is there?”

  “Check the fridge. I think there are still leftovers.”

  “I’m afraid of the fridge. I keep thinking I’ll start looking in there and I’ll never find my way out again.” I walked over to the gleaming expanse of stainless steel, opened the door, and peered in. “I see . . . Ooh, Chinese. How old is it?”

  “Three days, maybe?”

  “Good enough.” I dumped a half-full carton of lo mein into a bowl and stuck it in the microwave. “As for the first question, fine. No surprises. The next couple of months will be chaotic, but we’ll survive. Wine?”

  “Way ahead of you.” James handed me a glass of white wine, and we clinked glasses.

  “Ahh, that’s good.” I sighed after downing a healthy sip and kicking off my shoes.

  He carefully took my glass and set it on the shiny granite-topped island—and repeated his earlier greeting. It took a couple of minutes before we peeled ourselves apart. “Welcome home, Nell,” he said softly.

  “You must have missed me. How was your day?”

  “Very ordinary, thank you. That’s a good thing. No crises, no disasters. I filed a lot of reports.”

  “And here I thought that working for the FBI was exciting,” I said, pulling the hot food out of the microwave. “Where did we hide the chopsticks?”

  “That drawer? Or maybe the one over there. I haven’t seen them lately.”

  Our few pitiful utensils looked like orphans cringing in the vast spaces of drawers and cupboards. It didn’t take long to look. “Got ’em. I assume you ate? Because this is all mine.”

  “I did, and it is. Enjoy.”

  When I’d all but licked the bowl, I drained the last of my wine. “Much better.”

  “By the way, the faucet is still dripping in the bathtub.”

  “Hey, you’re the big, strong man—you’re supposed to know how to fix it.”

  “You’re the historian,” he countered. “This is definitely Victorian plumbing, therefore old, therefore your territory.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said dubiously. “Well, let’s go look at it together, and maybe something will occur to us.”

  On the way upstairs, something did occur to us. It was a while before we reached the bathroom.

  CHAPTER 2

  The next morning, James and I sat at the little round table (his—my larger table took up only a fraction of the space in the formal dining room next door) at one end of the kitchen, reading sections of the paper, drinking coffee, and munching on English muffins.

  “What’s the schedule for today?” I asked.

  “The usual, I hope. We don’t usually schedule ‘crisis today’ on our calendars, you know,” James said, smiling. “You?”

  “The construction team has finished the clean-out and is going to do a walk-through today, before they start making any physical changes, and I want to tag along.”

  “Is that part of your job description?”

  “I have no idea, but I feel responsible anyway. Besides, I like to see the bones and guts of old buildings.”

  “There’s a lovely image. Listen, about this weekend . . .”

  My ears pricked up. “Yes?”

  “We need to think about furniture,” James said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Look around. Your stuff looks fine, but my IKEA-type pieces look like fish out of water in this place. And there isn’t enough of any of it. We’ve got an average of two-point-two pieces of furniture in each room—and some of those rooms could host an army. If we invite anyone over, they’ll have to sit on the floor.”

  I couldn’t disagree. And if we didn’t fill in a few things, this place wouldn’t really feel permanent. Apparently I was missing a nesting gene, because I hadn’t really noticed until now. I was surprised that James had, but, of course, FBI agents were trained to be observant.

  But then, I’d never really paid much attention to furniture. Most of my own furniture I’d inherited from one grandparent or another, and there had been more than enough to fill the small carriage house. I hadn’t realized how sparse it would look in a different, bigger space until we moved in and discovered that we could hold bowling competitions in the front parlor on the lovely parquet floors. And those five bedrooms? We’d each brought along double beds—two of mine, one from James—but what we really needed together was a queen or a king, since neither of us was exactly slender (although I had to admit, James was more fit than I was). The doubles would work fine for guest rooms, but that still left our loosely defined “offices” with nothing but boxes in them. James was right: we had to do something. But what?

  “You have any ideas?” I asked.

  “Go to a furniture store and look?” he suggested, with a gleam in his eye.

  “We have a lot of rooms to fill, or at least start to fill,” I reminded him, “and not a whole lot of money. I suppose that rules out antiques.”

  “Well, there are auctions, and some big antiques fairs. I don’t have a lot of experience, but I’d guess that’s kind of a long-range issue. Basically, though, I want this place to feel like home. Our home. And that means we have to choose things together.”

  I loved the thought that we had a long range—I was still getting used to that. One more reason to love the man. He was brave, steadfast, and true; he served his country loyally at the risk of his own life; and he wanted to look at furniture with me. Life was good.

  “I’m almost afra
id to bring this up,” I said, “but we could ask Marty for advice. She has some nice stuff.”

  “She does, and some of it is worth more than this house, although you wouldn’t know it from the way she treats it.”

  I’d been to Marty’s home more than once, and even to my eye she had some impressive antique pieces. I assumed they’d been passed down through the family, which extended back centuries in Philadelphia. I gave him a big smile. “Okay, let’s start looking this weekend. If I see Marty, I’ll ask her for advice on where we should look. And I know we’ve got some members with expertise in that area—although they know more about eighteenth-century stuff than modern, and as I said, I’m guessing that’s well beyond our wallets at the moment. Oh well. We should make a list and set a budget. How does that work?”

  “Sounds good to me.” James stood up and carried his cup and plate to the sink. His mama had trained him well. He even did his own laundry. “Want a lift to the city?”

  “I’d love one.”

  It was nice to arrive at work at a reasonable time, and to be delivered to the Society’s door (or at least the nearest corner—the street ran one-way opposite the direction to James’s office). It was also nice to walk into the building without worrying about which disaster was looming. I had been honest with the board the night before: things were good, as good as I could remember them being in the five or more years I’d worked at the Society. I hoped it would last.

  Upstairs on the administrative floor, I found I had arrived before Eric Hampton, my indispensable administrative assistant. I hung up my coat and made my way down the hall to the staff room, where I filled the coffeemaker. We’d made a pact when he started working for me: whoever arrived first made the first pot of coffee. I thought that was fair, although Eric was better with the temperamental coffeemaker than I was; it had begun to make ominous gurgling noises, and I wondered if it was time to upgrade to something more modern. Maybe one of those single-serving-type things, so nobody would have to argue about who had emptied the last of the pot. Why not? I was feeling flush, on behalf of the Society. That’s what having a seven-figure balance in the bank did to me.

  Ben Hartley rolled in as I watched the coffee dribble into the pot. Ben was our most recent hire, the new registrar. He’d been badly injured in an auto accident several months back, before he started at the Society, and he was still coming to grips with the day-to-day realities of being confined to a wheelchair. “Morning, Nell,” he said.

  “Coffee’ll be ready in a minute. You’re in early,” I commented.

  “I was up, figured I’d come in. Sometimes I have trouble sleeping—it’s hard to find a comfortable position. Better now that the weather’s cooling off.”

  The machine sputtered, signaling that coffee was ready. “Can I pour you a cup?” When Ben nodded, I filled a mug and handed it to him, then filled one for myself and added sugar. “Are you ready for the construction to begin?”

  “I plan to stay out of the way as much as possible. But Latoya and I have worked out a schedule for keeping one step ahead of the work crew without misplacing half the collections.”

  “Good! Because that’s what I told the board last night,” I said. “I’m hoping everything goes smoothly, but you never know. In the meantime I’m sure we’ll field complaints from angry patrons who can’t get access to that one document they’ve waited years to lay hands on, but it’s a small price to pay, as I’m sure they’ll agree—eventually. The good news is, the renovations are already paid for. Do you have any idea how rare that is in the nonprofit world?”

  “I can guess,” Ben said. “You did Wakeman a good turn, and it paid off—literally, in this case.”

  And changed a little piece of history along the way, I reminded myself. That made me feel good, too. “Every now and then the gods are kind. Well, I’d better get my day started. I’m supposed to walk through the place with the architect and the contractor one last time, to see what they’ve got planned. See you later, Ben.” I topped off my coffee and went back to my office, where Eric had just arrived.

  “Coffee’s ready, Eric,” I told him. “Oh, could you do some research on current coffee systems? The one we’ve got has been here since before I started working here, and I think coffeemaking technology might have improved just a bit.”

  “You don’t like my coffee, Nell?” Eric smiled.

  “Hey, I love your coffee, especially when you bring me a cup. I’m so happy you don’t mind doing that. But I just thought we could check out the new technologies. Maybe even get a new fridge for the staff room. Wouldn’t that fall under the ‘physical improvements’ mandate?”

  “Whatever you say, Nell. Oh, Scott Warren left a message saying he’d be here at ten for the walk-through. Does that work for you?”

  “Unless you tell me something different. You haven’t seen Marty Terwilliger yet this morning, have you?”

  “No, ma’am. You need her for something?”

  “I’ll give her a call later, if she doesn’t come in. This isn’t about Society business anyway.” I went into my office and surveyed the scene: a beautiful antique mahogany desk I was terrified of spilling something on or scratching, and a damask-covered settee and flanking chairs. All these were for show, designed to impress people with the president of this venerable institution’s importance and good taste. The filing cabinets were more practical, as was the sleek laptop computer (the connected printer was out near Eric’s desk, so as not to mar the elegance of the ensemble). At the moment what pleased me most was the absence of any important “must do immediately” papers and messages cluttering up the desk. It looked serene.

  But I found enough to keep me busy until Eric popped his head in and said, “Mr. Warren is here.”

  “Can you bring him upstairs, please? I want to talk to him before we start rambling around the building.” The administrative floor was off-limits to the general public, so anyone without an elevator key had to be escorted upstairs.

  “Will do,” Eric said and darted down the hall. He returned a couple of minutes later with Scott Warren, one of the senior partners of the architectural firm he had helped found. He was an attractive man, older than I was, with an unassuming manner—and I appreciated that he treated me as an equal yet was also happy to answer any construction-related questions I had.

  “Hey, Scott. You want some coffee?” I welcomed him.

  “No, thanks, I’m fine. You ready for the tour?”

  “Sure. By the way, I just wanted to thank you and your construction contractor for delivering all the documentation for the board meeting early enough so the members might actually read the material—they don’t always, you know. And you made it clear and simple. Well done! As you saw, the final approval sailed right through, and we’re ready to go.”

  For a moment he looked like he wanted to hang his head and say, Aw, shucks. But instead he said, “It’s a pleasure to work with the people here, and it’s a great old building.”

  “Before we start, can you give me the high points one more time, so I know what to look for?” I asked.

  “Of course,” Scott said politely. “As you know, with the help of some of your people we’ve had the construction crew clear out the non-collection items—”

  “Otherwise known as trash,” I interrupted, smiling.

  “Exactly,” he replied, matching my smile, “and we’ve completed all the stress analyses. We’ve mapped out the new ventilation system and how it will integrate with what is in place. The roof replacement will happen first, since you’ve got a lot of leaks as it is, and we want to seal up the building better and reassess before we can fine-tune the ventilation. Only after all of that has happened will you need to start moving collections around so that the compact shelving can go in.”

  “I know that compact shelving won’t work everywhere. What increase of shelving space can we expect?”

  “Probably
twenty percent, give or take.”

  “I love it! We get that much more space without altering the building—it’s win-win.”

  Scott nodded. “I agree. You ready to see it now?”

  I stood up. “Yes. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve visited everything, and I can’t wait to see the place stripped down. You’ve taken pictures, I assume?” I wanted to be sure that the Society had a complete record of what had been done to the building, in case future generations needed to know.

  “Of course. We always document each step of our projects.”

  “Then lead the way!”

  CHAPTER 3

  As we walked down the hall, Scott asked, “Do you want to start at the top or the bottom?”

  “Top, I guess,” I told him. “Although you don’t have to point out all the leaks—I know them all too well.” There were some areas of the stacks on the top floor that were draped with plastic, to keep the collections dry, and it broke my heart every time I went up there. But that was going to change, thank goodness. “You mind walking up?”

  “Of course not.”

  We took the side stairs up to the top floor, and meandered through the forest of shelves, which held a wide variety of items—books, of course, often old leather-bound ledgers from nineteenth-century companies long gone, but also boxes that held china and fabric items and various oddities that had been given to the Society over its long history and we’d never had the time or the heart to get rid of (at least, not as long as any of the donors or their heirs were still living). It was an intriguing jumble, but its storage was unprofessional and messy—another thing that would change soon.