Monument to the Dead (10 page)

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 were 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.

I made a mental note to ask Felicity, our head librarian, because she always seemed
to know where everything was. Certainly she would know if someone had requested the
material recently.

I went back to my office, feeling more troubled than I had been before. Yes, things
went missing in this building all the time. It was inevitable in collections that
numbered in the millions of items. But it was troubling to me that Forrest items were
now among the missing. Coincidence? I didn’t think so. I hated to think that the Society
was the source of the information that the killer might be using, but in a public
institution anyone could access the records and there was no way to prevent that.
Of course, the request slips might not tell me anything useful: whoever was doing
the research could have used a fake name, but if one name, fake or not, cropped up
consistently in association with Forrest items, that would be one more piece of the
puzzle.

Back at my desk again, I studied the list. I had verified that most of the physical
objects were where they should be; the things that were missing were mainly letters
and files. Not good. I put the printout with my added notes in my bag to share with
my partners in crime-solving the next day.

I checked my watch. It was after five and probably too late to catch Felicity today.
I’d have to wait until Monday.

Before heading off to catch my train, I called James at his office. When he answered,
I asked, “Did you reach Marty?”

“I did. Edith’s funeral will be Monday. Marty’s okay with getting together tomorrow
morning, but she’s meeting with Harby in the afternoon. Makes sense to get together
out your way.”

“Since I’m nearer to Wayne, you mean? I guess we can meet at my place.” I shuddered
to think how my herd of dust bunnies would react to multiple guests. “Can you or Marty
give Shelby a ride? She could take the train, but if you’re both driving that way
anyway . . .”

“Marty’s closer. I’ll ask her to swing by and pick up Shelby.”

“Anything new on your end?” James asked.

I debated about telling him about what I had found—or not found—in the Forrest hunt.
I decided against it, for now. “Nothing that won’t wait until tomorrow. Have you approached
the Big Cheeses there?”

“Couldn’t if I wanted to. They’re in secret meetings somewhere out of the office.
Don’t tell anyone, but I’m guessing those meetings involve chasing a little white
ball around. They should be in on Monday, if we have something more solid that I can
take to them.”

“Hurry up and wait, as usual. I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

“You will.”

After a few hurried stops at local shops to stock my bare
cupboards and some halfhearted swipes of the duster, I was ready to greet my—what,
coconspirators?—at ten the next morning. I had coffee in the pot and pastries on the
table. With four heads working together, I thought we had a decent chance to make
sense of this nebulous case.

James arrived first. His only concession to weekend casual was to leave his jacket
and tie off, although I suspected they might be in his car. His shirtsleeves were
rolled up, and his collar was open, and I wished we weren’t expecting company any
minute.

“Good morning,” he said before he closed the distance between us.

“What you said,” I mumbled when he let go of me and went to help himself to coffee.

“Nothing new to report since I talked to you last night. At least there haven’t been
any more . . . incidents.”

“You mean deaths. Don’t dance around it—it makes it seem trivial,” I snapped and was
immediately sorry.

“Nell, I don’t take this lightly. Nor does Marty, nor, I suspect, Shelby. We’re doing
the best we can, all of us.”

“I know, I know.” I helped myself to more coffee. I figured I’d need it if I wanted
to think clearly.

Marty and Shelby arrived a few minutes later. I could hear them laughing as they approached
my door. I opened it before they had time to knock and ushered them in. Shelby had
never seen my home before, so I gave her a couple of minutes to snoop around. A couple
of minutes was all it took: it was a very small house.

“Marty, Shelby, there’s coffee over there, and goodies. I’m a firm believer in the
theory that caffeine and sugar are essential to logic.”

“Sounds good to me,” Shelby said, helping herself to a Danish.

When we were all settled around my all-purpose table, equipped with food and coffee,
James cleared his throat. “Thank you for coming, Marty, Shelby. This meeting is not
officially happening, because if these are murders, and I still stress that ‘if,’
the FBI and the police have taken no formal notice of them.”

Marty gave a short bark of laughter. “Too much work for them, eh?”

“They really don’t have enough evidence. That’s why we’re here today—to see if there’s
a case we can give them that will make them sit up and take notice. Let me summarize
what we do know,” James said. He held up one finger. “One, as many as six people have
died.” He held up a second finger. “Two, their deaths, taken individually, look unalarming.
The individuals were all older, and they all died from what could be natural causes
on first glance, or which may have been suicide, or which may have been nudged along
using their own prescriptions.” A third finger went up. “Three, apart from their age
and social standing, all six of these people are connected through local nonprofit
organizations, specifically the Edwin Forrest Trust. Some of them have other connections,
but according to what you’ve found, the trust is the only one that links them all.”

“Jimmy, stop pontificating,” Marty said. “We all agree that the deaths weren’t as
natural as they were supposed to look. Let’s just say they were all murdered and move
on.”

James looked pained. “All right. Six people, all members of the same trust, have been
killed. What does that tell us? And what do we need to know?”

“Why don’t we start with the trust?” I suggested.

“I can do that,” Shelby said eagerly. She pulled out a stack of notes and handed each
of us a sheaf of papers. “I won’t bore you with all the personal details. What’s important
here is that because he’d outlived all his family and had no children, Edwin Forrest
left most of his money to create a home for aged actors. He saw how many of them found
themselves old and sick and without money, and he donated his home in Philadelphia
plus a lot of cash so they’d have someplace to go at the end of their lives.”

“And that’s what’s in the trust?”

“What’s left of it, yes,” Shelby said. “That’s the only thing the trust supports,
except for the collections and honoring Edwin’s memory, but that’s only a small portion—that’s
why we have some of his memorabilia at the Society. The problem is, they’ve run out
of aged actors who want to use the place, and the building needs a lot of work if
it’s going to be used for anything else.”

“All that sounds harmless enough,” James said. “Was the will ever challenged?”

Shelby nodded. “It was, but only one blood relative was ever identified—or at least,
only one ever received anything from the estate. The whole issue has been dormant
now for a century.”

“Thank you, Shelby,” I said warmly. I turned to the other two. “But it doesn’t get
us any closer to identifying a reason for killing the trustees.”

“The trust is pretty closely held. Maybe someone on the board was dipping into the
pot, figuring nobody would notice?” Marty said.

“So if someone, or several others, did notice, the embezzler thought the only way
to avoid scandal was to kill the ones who knew?” James said. “Seems thin.”

“Well, people are dead!” Marty shot back. “Who ever said motives were logical? They
only have to be logical to the person who’s doing the killing.”

“That’s a fair point, Marty,” James conceded. “But as I’ve told Nell, we frown on
starting with motive and investigating from there. What we need most is evidence.”

“But we’ve been over and over this, James,” I protested. “In each and every case,
there is none. Nobody except you, and now us, thinks the deaths were suspicious, so
the victims were buried, the potential crime scenes were cleaned up, and everybody
went on their way. I can’t blame the authorities for not noticing—taken in isolation,
each death looks innocent enough. Take them as a group and things look different,
and nobody saw the whole picture. It may seem odd to us that the remaining board members
didn’t think something was unusual about all the deaths coming so close together,
but to be fair, the police declared them natural, and all the board members are far
from young, so maybe they thought it was nothing more than normal attrition.”

“Which is why we’re all sitting here getting frustrated,” Marty said. “We need a plan.
We need to do
something
.”

I stared at my ceiling, where the bright June light highlighted some substantial spiderwebs.
“Let’s look at the most recent death. We think Edith had a visitor on the day she
died. Can we prove that for any of the others?”

“Unlikely,” James said. “We do know that most of these people lived alone, except
for Edith.”

“Maybe it was some kind of suicide pact?” Shelby said. “Like, if you think you’re
ready to go, here’s a number to call, and some kindly person will show up and take
care of you, painlessly? Like a discreet Kevorkian.”

“Not the ones I knew,” Marty said flatly. “They weren’t ready to go. But like you
said, Jimmy, most people wouldn’t know that. Me, I knew most of them, and as far as
I could tell, none of them were depressed. None of them were short of money. They
were all still physically active and enthusiastic about what they were involved in.
Not the type for suicide, even assisted suicide.”

What a glum group. “Come on, we can do better than this!” I said firmly. “What about
the ones who aren’t dead? We can still talk to them, can’t we? See if anyone has approached
them lately, for any reason. It might not have been connected to the trust—it could
have been to sell them insurance or to discuss a state-of-the-art tombstone. But if
more than one had the same person show up, it could lead somewhere.”

“We could check to see if they all used the same mortuary,” James said grudgingly.
“That would be public information. I can’t ask if they all took out new life insurance
policies in the last few months of their lives.”

“Elwyn can,” Marty said. “You know, my brother? The insurance agent?”

James looked pained again—this was fast becoming a standard expression. “Marty, you
know I can’t ask you to ask your brother to find private information. It wouldn’t
be admissible in court.”

“Who cares about court?” Marty shot back. “We’re trying to keep the rest of the board
alive!”

“Can you please hold off on pumping Elwyn?” James said. Marty grumbled but said nothing.

“What about the living ones?” I repeated. “Can’t we talk to them?”

“Of course you can. There’s nothing stopping you,” James said. “Do you know any of
them, Marty?”

“Yup, three of them. One’s in a nursing home. She’s sharp as a tack, but she broke
a hip recently and she’s still recovering. But what the heck are we going to say without
scaring them to death? And how can we tell them anything if we can’t mention that
we think their lives are in danger?” Marty looked exasperated. “Jimmy, these people
are old, but they’re not stupid. And I’m not going to treat them like they’re stupid.
I show up out of the blue, pretending to be all nicey-nice and then start asking them
about the Forrest Trust, what are they going to think? I have to give something to
get something.”

James was shaking his head without looking at anyone. “I shouldn’t have started this.
You’re going to screw up an investigation that hasn’t even started.”

“Jimmy, we’re trying to save their lives!” Marty all but yelled.

I laid a hand on his arm. “James, do you have any better ideas? We can’t just sit
here waiting for the next obituary.”

He finally glanced at me and smiled, even if it was a poor excuse for a smile. He
turned to Marty. “Who do you know?”

“Rodney Lippincott. Louisa Babcock—she’s the one in the nursing home, in Devon. Irving
Sedgwick, but he moved to California a few years ago. You think he’ll be safe there?”

“Maybe,” James said. “So far the deaths have been pretty localized. Where does Rodney
live?”

“Delaware. DuPont country.”

James shook his head again. “Another jurisdiction heard from. Why am I not surprised?”

“What do you want me to do?” Marty demanded.

“When we’re done here, maybe you and the girls can go out for lunch. South of here.”

“And visit an old friend I haven’t seen in a while?” Marty smiled. “Then maybe also
pay a visit to that nursing home? How’s that sound to you, Nell?”

“I’d love to meet friends of yours, Marty. I’m sure they’re very interesting people.”

“Oh, they are, believe me. Shelby, you in?”

Shelby looked between us, torn. “Do you really need me? Wouldn’t three visitors at
once just complicate matters?”

“I’ll take you back to the city, Shelby,” James said.

“Oh, would you? That would be great. Do you mind, Nell?”

“Of course not.” There was no reason to drag Shelby in any deeper.

“Don’t forget Edith’s funeral is on Monday morning,” Marty reminded us.

“Oh, right,” I said. “When and where, Marty?”

“St. Mary’s, in Wayne. Not far from the house. It’s at ten.”

“Why don’t I attend and then head into the city after? James, does that work? Or were
you planning to go to the funeral? You were related, after all.”

“I’m not sure yet,” he said, with no further explanation.

“Okay, so it’s a plan,” I said firmly. “Marty and I will go to Delaware and talk to
Rodney, and James and Shelby will go back to the city. Then Marty and I will talk
to Louisa after we see Rodney. I’ll attend Edith’s funeral on Monday, and then we’ll
all meet Monday afternoon at the Society and figure out what we know. Right?”

“And I don’t know anything about your plans, and you can’t tell me anything when we
have dinner tonight,” James wrapped it up.

I loved the way he’d sneaked that last part in. “Uh, okay. Where?”

“I’ll drop you back here, Nell,” Marty said. “I should stop by and see how Harby’s
doing, and make sure he has a clean shirt for Monday while there’s still time to do
anything about it.”

“Sounds good,” James said.

Only I wasn’t sure if anything about this was good.