Digging Up History Page 8

  “Are we going to the Society, to Marty’s house, or to police headquarters? Or to the work site?”

  James stood up. “Nell, I have had one three-minute conversation with Martha Terwilliger this morning, and she said she’d be at the construction site. I think we should cut to the chase and go straight to headquarters, once we collect Marty.”

  “And how much do we tell them? As in, do we include the body in the hole?”

  “We can talk about it on the way in to the city. But my first response is to tell them everything we know. Which is not much. But we don’t want to look like we have anything to hide. Because we don’t.”

  “Then it shouldn’t take long.”

  Chapter Ten

  So much for the nice, peaceful weekend I had fantasized about, the one where I planted geraniums or petunias or whatever else might grow in Chestnut Hill, and James put on an old T-shirt and mowed the lawn. Instead we were driving back to the city to meet with the Philadelphia police. What fun.

  I called Marty on my cell phone, and she answered quickly. “Where are you?” I asked before she could speak.

  “Still at my house. After I talked to James I figured it would take you a little time to reach the city.”

  “Anything from Barney yet?”

  “No. Where are you going?”

  “Police HQ. James thought we should come clean. And that means about everything. What we know about the lost cemetery, and the body we found. I’m hoping we’ll find Detective Hrivnak there.”

  “I’ll meet you there, then. You want to give up the body under the house?” Marty sounded incredulous.

  “I think we should, and James agrees. It’s not like we know anything about him, except that you can tell her how long you knew he’d been there. And we’re not responsible for him in any way. I’m hoping that we can persuade the police to treat him gently until we figure out what’s going on. But I can’t believe she’s going to want to pack up all those other bodies—they can’t possibly be evidence of anything now, and Barney couldn’t possibly have hidden their existence for long. Could be some descendent went berserk when he found out that six-times-great-grandfather Aloysius had been lying in the mud since 1820. But if we get in front of this, maybe she’ll let us help. Given the age of the bodies, we could be the best people to ask.”

  Marty gave a distinctly unladylike snort. “But I do have some concerns about the body under the house.”

  “You know any important people in the historical archeology community in the city who will answer your phone call at this ungodly hour?”

  “Probably. I’ll get to work on it.”

  “Great. We should call Dylan. But I don’t have his number with me.”

  “I haven’t heard from him. Do we need him?”

  “Not really. I just want to be sure we have all our stories straight. So, James and I will meet you at HQ in about half an hour, and we will tell them everything we know.”

  “Yes. You’re right, Nell—you and I are better equipped to figure out who the bodies are—all of them—and how they all came to be there than the police force is. And they should trust us by now.”

  “I agree. See you soon.” I hung up.

  “Any news?” James asked, his eyes on the road.

  “Ha, ha. I know Marty seems to feel some proprietary interest in the body—and I suppose in the neighborhood as well, since she has family ties there—but we haven’t done anything wrong, unless you count not reporting the body that we found the minute we discovered it. We were there yesterday because we happened to find an old map and we were curious. We didn’t exactly expect Barney to find a couple hundred skeletons, nor were we looking for a secret hidden under an abandoned building. But if the police department wants answers, we’re the best people to talk to. Except for legally, I guess. Somebody’s going to have to move all those bodies to a final resting place.”

  “What do you think happened to Barney?” James asked. “Why isn’t he at the site?”

  “I have no idea. I just met him. I’ve probably seen his name, or his company name, on signs at construction sites, but apart from that I can’t tell you if he’s honest or crooked, smart or stupid. Marty didn’t mention any problems with him, personal or professional. So he found a bunch of bones in the lot he was planning to build on. There are simply too many to hide, so one could argue that he called in the professionals—that’d be Marty and me. He figured Marty could help him, and he was hoping to make the best of things and to avoid jamming up his project. It’s not clear whether he knew about the other body, and it wasn’t on any part of his property, as far as I know. Of course, Barney may have wondered why Marty was wandering around over there—if he was even still around to notice. I’d love to know where he went, since he was the one who invited us. But I have no reason not to trust him, if that makes sense.”

  “Tread lightly, Nell. The police are going to be in charge of this investigation—Hrivnak and her crew, most likely. If you’re lucky and make nice to her, she might share details.”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  I hesitated before asking my next question. “I don’t want to be an alarmist, but do you think anybody who mattered saw us wandering around where we found the last body and thought we knew something? I mean, could anyone else know about it, apart from Marty’s cousins? Maybe Barney stumbled on it while he was just sniffing around, but didn’t want to share his information?”

  “Seems unlikely, doesn’t it?” James said reasonably. “He’s a building contractor—he builds buildings. He’s not an archeologist. Most likely his first priority at the moment is getting all those cemetery bodies removed so he can start construction.”

  “I know that. But coincidences are starting to pile up. What’re the odds that Dylan would find a scrap of paper in a book nobody had looked at in years, and it would lead us right to that particular building? Next to a whole lot of other bodies? And Barney just happens to call Marty the same day and ask for her help to deal with what used to be a cemetery?”

  “Nell, are you looking for something to worry about? Don’t go overboard until you have all available information. Maybe Barney is exactly who he appears to be, and he already knew Marty and she was the first friend he thought of to call. End of story.”

  We’d reached the city, and I told him Marty was going to meet us at police headquarters. James found a parking space near the Roundhouse, Philadelphia’s distinctive police headquarters, and we walked to the front entrance, where we found Marty waiting. There was no sign of Dylan, so Marty hadn’t been able to reach him, and I wondered if Detective Hrivnak even knew of his existence. It wasn’t as though we’d all signed a register to look at the field of bones.

  “Hi, Marty,” I said. “Any word from Dylan?”

  “No,” she said tersely. “I don’t have his phone number, and he doesn’t have mine. Anyway, we can describe how we found the map—which will also explain why James was there—and why Barney called me.”

  “It shouldn’t seem mysterious, Marty. We were doing our jobs, or at least I was. I suppose I’m the one who started the whole thing. I could have told Dylan to ignore that pitiful piece of paper he’d found and get back to work, and that would have been the end of it. Or I could have let him show me and seen that the note was unreadable and filed it away for some future research, rather than asking James’s people to take a look at it. But I decided to call you, and you know what happened after that. None of us thought anything we were doing was important—we were just curious about why it had survived and what it might mean.”

  “I know, I know. But then it got more complicated. And personal.”

  “Marty,” James said, “did Barney see the map?”

  “No. I might have mentioned it, but he was much more interested in the bones, and in getting his project started—he’s got money invested in it. He thought I might be able to speed things up.”

  “Did he say whether anyone has an issue with the building project?” James asked. �
��I mean, before the bones were found.”

  “Not that I know of,” Marty told him. “It’s not too large, and it’s in a desirable part of town, and Barney told me he filled out all the right forms. I’ve seen some of the plans and drawings for the project and it looks like it fits the neighborhood. And as far as we know, nobody else—living, anyway, except my cousins—knew about the other body, so they couldn’t complain about it. Maybe they will now, when the news gets out. Nobody’s going to be able to keep this quiet.”

  “And here we are, talking to the police once again.” I sighed. “Another item that wasn’t in my job description.”

  Like good schoolchildren the three of us marched into the vestibule, and James explained to the officer on duty what we were doing there. Somebody called upstairs, and we waited until we saw Detective Hrivnak emerge from the elevator. I tried to remember the last time we had seen her but couldn’t. All I knew was that it was too often, although she was competent and good at her job. I hoped we’d be in and out quickly.

  “Well, well,” she said when she greeted us. “Nell, James and Ms. Terwilliger, together again. I thought things were a little too quiet. You’re here about that cemetery that got itself discovered?” When we all nodded, she added, “Come on upstairs and we can talk.”

  We all were silent in the elevator, and when the doors opened she led us to a small conference room and shut the door. We found seats around a table and stared at her.

  I decided to get things moving. “So you know why we’re here?”

  She nodded. “I figured you had to be involved somehow. Besides, you ran into two street cops when you were there yesterday, right? Agent Morrison here flashed his FBI credentials, and the cops remembered. I figured the two women had to be you and probably Ms. Terwilliger here. You happen to know where Barney Taylor is? The police need to talk with him, since he’s in charge of that project.”

  “No, Detective,” I said. “He was around for a while, after we arrived, but he left the place before we did.”

  “He didn’t happen to mention where he was going? He’s not at home or at his office.”

  “Nope. We were kind of busy counting corpses, and he didn’t say goodbye. Have you looked at the site?”

  “You’ve really outdone yourselves this time. You didn’t find just one body, you found a couple of hundred all in one place. Yes, I took a look early this morning. Creepy. Care to explain what you were doing there?”

  Marty and I exchanged glances, and I launched into the explanation of my intern Dylan finding the piece of paper and extricating it from the binding, and then the two of us taking it to the FBI lab, and then showing it to Marty, and then our plan to go look at the site, after Marty had talked with Barney. “So we spent most of yesterday afternoon trying to assess just how many bodies there were in this plot of ground that nobody seemed to know about. Barney disappeared at some point midafternoon, but none of us noticed he was gone, and he didn’t tell anyone he was leaving. But he seemed to be grateful that we were there and checking things out, because between us Marty and I have a good chance of determining why there were bodies there at all, much less so many. We have a lot of records at the Society, and we know people we can talk to in the city. But Barney did say he’d checked the official records when he filed for a building permit, and nothing out of the ordinary turned up.”

  I relaxed just a bit. “Okay, your turn, Detective. What happened?”

  She leaned back, stared at the ceiling, and started reciting. “I understand that Barney called Ms. Terwilliger here first, and you went to the site with Barney yesterday to check it out. The police were not aware of the discovery of human remains at the site until Saturday, when they found you at the site. Our department was kind of busy—tourist season, you know—so we couldn’t send anyone to check it out right away. All this was after you found this map you were talking about? Then Barney left midafternoon and you didn’t see him after that. Is that correct?”

  Marty, James and I looked at each other, and I responded, “Yes. We left the site about four, and he hadn’t returned by then.”

  “I tried calling him after I got home,” Marty volunteered, “but he didn’t answer. He hadn’t left a message on my phones either.”

  The detective nodded. “We have regular patrols for that area, especially in the summer, because it’s so busy, but no one saw or heard anything unusual, so maybe he didn’t come back later.”

  “Was there anything missing? Machinery or equipment?” James asked.

  “Was it a robbery, you mean? Not that we could tell. Work hadn’t really started, except for removing the parking lot paving, so mostly there were shovels and wheelbarrows. Nothing valuable.” Hrivnak slumped in her chair. “This investigation is going to be a bitch, er, bear. I almost hate to admit it, but since you and Ms. Terwilliger know so much about old Philadelphia, I figure you can help. James here is just a bonus.”

  “Thanks . . . I think,” I told her, and then I glanced at Marty, who gave a small nod. “But there’s one more piece of the puzzle that we ought to tell you about, although it may not have anything to do with the construction site.”

  “There’s more? Okay, I’m listening.”

  Marty finally spoke up. “There’s another body that you may not have found yet, but it’s close. And it’s an old body—I mean, really old. But it could be important, and we need to tell you about it.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “So spill it. I’ve got a couple of hundred bodies to investigate,” Detective Hrivnak said impatiently.

  Marty took a deep breath and started. “When I was a kid, my cousins and I used to hang out in that neighborhood and explore. One day we were snooping around one of the falling-down buildings on the east side of Arch Street. There was a hole in the foundation big enough for a skinny kid to crawl through, so of course we did. And we found a body.”

  Detective Hrivnak didn’t seem surprised, but then, she knew Marty. “And who did you tell about this?”

  “Nobody. Maybe we weren’t sure it was real or that we’d really seen it, but it scared us. And it was an old body—still had what was left of its clothes on. Or at least it did nearly half a century ago. My cousins and I agreed not to talk about it, and to the best of my knowledge no one ever did. That was one of the reasons I wanted to go back and see the place now, to see if maybe I’d just imagined it.”

  “So now I’m supposed to add another body to the list of unknown victims?” The detective did not seem pleased.

  “That’s not all,” Marty said reluctantly “First, let me say that I didn’t tell Barney about it yesterday. I figured the place where I’d seen that body wasn’t on his lot anyway, so he didn’t need to know. Second, it was too far away to have been part of the cemetery, if that’s what it was. It was under a house, and the house was old.”

  “Go on,” Hrivnak said.

  “So Nell and Dylan and James and I went looking for the house. I was pretty sure it was still standing, though nobody’s lived there for a long time—one of those unclaimed buildings in the city that nobody knew what to do with. I had sort of been keeping an eye on it when I happened to be down there, but I never went near it again. Well, we found the house, and we found the hole in the house that we’d climbed into all those years ago. Of course, now we’re a bit older and definitely larger, but Dylan volunteered to see if he’d fit through the hole, and he’d brought a camera with him.”

  “Detective,” James added, “that’s not as stupid as it sounds. I was there, and I kept hold of Dylan’s legs, so if it looked like things were going south I could haul him out quickly. Luckily I didn’t have to.”

  Hrivnak glared at him briefly before going on. “And? Should I guess that he found something?”

  “Yes, he did,” Marty said. “When Dylan crawled out he showed us the pictures he’d taken. Remember, we were looking at small screenshots only, but they showed that he found a body. The body, the one I remembered.”

  “Hold on,” H
rivnak said. “You’re saying there really was a body in that hole? The same one you remembered?”

  “Yes. The cousins and I had been so panicked that we got out of there fast. And we hadn’t brought flashlights or anything like that. We’d never planned to go exploring—our parents would have pitched a fit if they had known.”

  “Not a new body?”

  “From Dylan’s pictures we didn’t think so. They were only snapshots. But the body definitely was not modern. Not some poor homeless guy who wandered in there and never came out, or a tourist who got mugged and was stuffed away out of sight.”

  “And you didn’t see any reason to mention this?”

  “Well, no—we were still debating about what to do. Barney didn’t seem to know anything about it—at least, he didn’t say anything about it—and I had my own reasons for wanting to know more. I figured once the body was officially found, we’d lose any chance to learn anything from it. I’d like to think it’s historical, but we haven’t had time to check. We need better pictures. Dylan’s pictures were good enough to identify what’s in there as a body, but that’s about all.”

  Hrivnak shut her eyes for a moment, then looked at us again. “Let me get this straight. Barney wants to build apartments on that main lot, but when he started digging he finds a couple of hundred skeletons. He stops digging and talks to you because he knows you know a lot about local history plus you’ve got connections with the city. You and your pals here come trotting over to see what’s what. Ms. Terwilliger, you don’t bother to mention the other body stuffed under a nearby house, but you invite your friends here to check it out, to see if you really saw what you thought you saw. You never mentioned it to Barney, and he left before you found it. Have I got it right so far?”

  We all nodded like marionettes.

  Hrivnak continued, “So then you got Dylan to sneak under the house and take some pictures and they confirmed it was a body. And you still didn’t tell anyone.”