Privy to the Dead (4 page)

I was about to pick up the phone and call Lissa when she showed up at my door. “This is really cool!” she said.

I could use a “really cool” diversion right about now. “Come on in and tell me all about it.”

Lissa was a relatively new contractor, a researcher-for-hire. She'd signed on to work on the Mitchell Wakeman project, which we had both assumed would be short-term. But she'd done a good job with it, and the resolution had ultimately resulted in the big bucks that were now paying for our renovations. Although the Society's budget couldn't support an additional full-time staff position at the moment, I'd been impressed by her work and wanted to keep her around in some way, so I'd suggested that we use her to work on single projects, as needed, with an emphasis on regional history and architecture. Since she was a graduate student with a flexible schedule, so far that had worked out well for everyone.

Researching construction details of the current Society building was one such project. While I knew a fair amount about it from my development days, I certainly didn't know everything—and I don't think anybody had known about
the hole in the basement floor, or at least, nobody had mentioned it in the records I'd seen (but who records the location of an old privy?). I was hoping that Lissa might be able to shed some light on it. I motioned her toward a chair in my office. When she had sat down, I said quickly, “Before you share whatever goodies you've come up with, you need to know that someone was killed next to this building late last night. I didn't know if you'd heard.”

“You're kidding. No one from the Society, I hope?” she asked.

“No, thank goodness. The man fell into the path of a car, near our back door. I thought you should know. So, back to business. What've you got on the building?” I was eager to see what Lissa's fresh eyes would find.

“I feel like I'm cheating—a lot of this information was already in the files in the development office.”

“I know,” I said, “but I didn't have the time to go looking, and I've forgotten the details. Just give me the basic story, please.”

“All right.” Lissa straightened her stack of notes and began. “Okay, so you know this site wasn't the first that the Society occupied, right? When the Society was much smaller, in the nineteenth century, the members rented space, which was okay until they received an amazing donation of William Penn's papers and things got a little crowded. When they started looking around, in the 1870s, there was a nice mansion here, maybe fifty years old, available for sale. Anyway, they had no problem raising the money to buy the site and the lot next door. It was still a mostly residential area, with trees behind. There are some pretty pictures of the old mansion, if you're interested. The Society
added an assembly hall on one side and what they called a fireproof annex on the other, and that's where things rested for twenty-some years.”

“Put together a folder on all this stuff, will you? Go on,” I told her.

“Okay. Collections kept growing, and the place kind of overflowed again. Plus people were worried that except for that one addition, the building wasn't anything like fireproof. So they started looking for money for a renovation, and they were having trouble until they appealed to the state government. The governor at the time—named Dudley Pemberton—was sympathetic, since he'd been in your shoes, Nell, before he ran for office. You have any plans along those lines?” Lissa said, smiling.

“Heaven forbid! I don't want to try to run anything bigger than this place, and certainly not the whole state! So I take it that's how they received the money?”

“Yep, and they turned around and added some new parts to the building in less than a year, if you can believe that. And that was just the first phase—there was a second one a year later, and they more or less tore down the old house and rebuilt it, incorporating the additions they'd already made. They wrapped the whole thing up by 1907.”

“Wow, that was fast!”

“It was,” Lissa agreed. “Anyway, most of the original mansion was demolished—I saw something that said they'd hoped to save more of it, but they found it wasn't structurally sound enough to support a larger building. But the foundation is original, which I assume includes at least part of the basement.”

That, I hadn't known. Of course, I didn't spend a lot of time in the basement. As far as I could tell, no one did.

Lissa went on, “There are still bits of pieces of the original mansion scattered through the building—like a couple of fireplace mantels. And that gigantic staircase that eats up so much room is kind of an homage to the old building. There are some wonderful old pictures of some of the rooms on the ground floor with leather-covered armchairs and reading lamps. You can just see the board members back then perusing some old tome, with a glass of sherry at hand.”

“Those were the days,” I agreed.

“Is that what you wanted to know?” she asked.

I thought for a moment. From what Lissa had just told me, it sounded as though the building as I knew it had been erected in stages, and in places had incorporated some of the older parts. What I was still wondering was, had the newly discovered pit been part of the original building, or had it lain outside the footprint of the mansion?
Was
it really an old privy, as the construction foreman had suggested? “Can you see what else you can find about that first building? Or anything more about the construction details in the early twentieth century?”

“Sure,” Lissa agreed quickly. “Sounds like fun. I'll have to track down the Society's own records.”

“Exactly. And happy hunting!” I said, then sent her on her way and turned back to the papers on my desk.

I'd barely had time to read the first page when Eric answered the phone and stuck his head into my office. “Bob downstairs says there's a police detective who needs to see you. Should I go get him?”

Again?
“It's probably a her, and I'll go down.” I stood up, straightened my shirt, and headed for the elevator. I
had no idea what Detective Hrivnak could want with me now. Dare I hope she was going to tell me that they'd solved the killing and everything was hunky-dory? Yeah, right. Usually when the detective talked to me, it was bad news.

When the elevator reached the main floor, I squared my shoulders and marched into the lobby. “Detective, what can I do for you now?”

“We need to talk. Your office?”

“How about our meeting room down here? It's private,” I countered.

“Fine.”

I led her to the large room located beneath the massive main staircase, which was hardly ever used by the staff. The room I was taking the detective to had for a time served as the boardroom before board meetings had been moved upstairs, and I let Detective Hrivnak enter before me, then closed the door behind us. We sat.

“Do you have something to tell me?” I asked. No use in beating around the bush.

She sat back in her chair and looked at me. “Turns out the victim was a day laborer, worked for various construction crews around town.”

I had an inkling where she was going with this, but I wasn't about to jump in. “And?”

“His latest job was working for your contractor, right here in this building.”

I took a deep breath. “Are you telling me that the, uh, deceased, was a member of the cleanup crew?” The thought made me sad: I had probably seen him, but I hadn't noticed and didn't even remember him.

“Looks like it. We're still talking to people. Wakeman's footing the bill?”

I was surprised she knew about that. “That's right. Mitchell Wakeman made a contribution to the Society, and restricted its use to physical improvements, which in fact we need badly. The preliminary cleanup was finished yesterday, and we're supposed to be starting construction today.”

Detective Hrivnak nodded. “I've already talked with your project manager, name of”—she stopped to riffle through a pad—“Joe Logan. He confirmed that Mr. Scruggs had been here, on and off, for the last week. Including yesterday, the day he died.” She stopped and fixed me with a stony stare, and I wondered what she expected me to say.

I had nothing new to give her. “I'm sorry, I honestly didn't recognize Mr. Scruggs. As president, I've had very little interaction with the construction crew, although I've met Joe Logan, and he was present at our board meeting. If Mr. Scruggs was working here yesterday, I don't recall seeing him. Do you think his death outside the building was anything more than a coincidence?” How I hoped that wouldn't be true!

“Don't know yet. You said the building was cleared out when you left. Any reason why someone would've stayed behind?”

“Not that I know of. Bob's been careful to keep an eye on the workers. They have to sign in when they arrive, and sign out when they leave, so Bob can make sure they've left for the day. If someone wanted to steal something, there's not much here of interest to non-scholars. We don't keep a lot of money around, and most of our computer equipment and the like is out of date. If Mr. Scruggs wanted to steal artifacts or
documents, that's a whole different story. Did you find anything unexpected on him?”

“Nothing on him at all, except his wallet. Certainly nothing stuffed in his pockets that looked like it came from this place.”

“Does he have family? Where did he live?”

“He lived alone in a small place a few blocks from here, the other side of Spruce.”

“Do you know anything more about him? Had he worked for Joe Logan for long?”

“We've just gotten started with our investigation. You sure you don't know anything about him?”

“I could have seen him in passing in the building, but I haven't overseen the cleanup process, other than to make sure that nothing is damaged or misplaced. Yesterday I did a walk-through with the architect, but otherwise I stay mostly on the third floor.” I hesitated a moment before asking, “Did you talk to the staff about when they left?”

“Yeah. The ones who left last all agree—the place was cleared out. Bob says the same thing, and he's a solid guy.”

“So,” I said slowly, “even though you now know that this man had been inside this building on the day he died, you still have no reason to connect his death to us at the Society?”

“Not yet,” Detective Hrivnak said darkly.

“Well, I don't know what more I can tell you. If there's anything you need, just ask.” I suppressed a shudder, picturing Hrivnak and her crime scene crew tearing through the building, dusting our fragile collections for fingerprints of the dead man just to check where he might have been. I reminded myself that the construction team would have had
no reason to invade the stacks, and I'd made sure that our own staff had handled every move of collections materials. The workers this week had been nowhere near them.

“Has there been an autopsy?” I asked. “I mean, maybe he was reeling from a drug overdose or something, which would explain why he fell backward.”

“Sure there's been an autopsy—preliminary only. As far we know there were no obvious drugs in his system, and he wasn't drunk, either. I'm sure you can figure out what kinda shape the body was in, after being hit by a car, so it's hard to tell if there were any other marks on his body, but we're not done yet. You got anything else you want to tell me?”

Why did she always make me feel guilty, even when I hadn't done anything wrong? “Not at this moment. But if anything occurs to me, I'll tell you. And, of course, you can ask us for anything that might help.”

“Don't worry, I will.” The detective stood up, which I took as a signal that our conversation was over.

“If that's all, I'll see you out.” I escorted her back to the lobby and watched her leave, then turned to Bob. “I've forgotten—have we been asking all the construction crew to sign in and out every day?” I'd kind of fudged my answer to the detective, because I really didn't know.

He shook his head. “Yes. Plus we have lists of who was working here from the contractor and the architect, both for payroll and for their insurance purposes—they provided insurance against theft or damage. Like I told the detective, this Scruggs guy wasn't on any of the regular lists. I guess he got a call only when they needed some extra hands. Some of the other guys knew him, though, and he'd worked for Logan before. Sorry.”

“That's not your fault, Bob. I just wondered if anybody had seen the victim here, on the job or in some other part of the building. I feel badly that I didn't recognize him.” And I was pretty sure that looked suspicious to Detective Hrivnak, but I was usually nowhere near where the work was going on. I leaned closer to Bob and lowered my voice. “As far as we know, Mr. Scruggs died where he was found. There could have been any number of reasons for him to have been on the street that had nothing to do with us.”

Most of the possibilities were not savory—behind our building, screened by the large Dumpster, it would be a quiet corner out of sight, the perfect place for a quick leak or an assignation where money changed hands—but those options were preferable to someone looking for a way to break into the building. Still, he was dead, maybe by somebody's hand, mere yards from our back door. And Detective Hrivnak clearly had suspicions, although she hadn't yet gone so far as to call the death a murder. Was it?

I didn't quite manage to stifle a sigh as I went back upstairs. I had a feeling this problem was not going to go away quietly.

The rest of the day passed without incident. James offered me a ride home and I accepted happily. It was a luxury to have time for normal, everyday activities and patterns. It probably wouldn't last: James was still being treated with whatever the modern equivalent of kid gloves was by his office mates at the FBI, who, after the most recent crime we'd both been involved in not long before, respected his abilities but felt a little guilty about the way they'd downplayed his concerns. Those concerns had ultimately been proved correct and had nearly gotten him killed. Unfortunately, I had little to say. I'd kept myself busy all day, but now I was mentally gnawing over what Detective Hrivnak had told me and what it might mean—and I couldn't see any way the outcome could be good. Hrivnak hadn't come out and called Scruggs's death a murder, but why else would she have talked to me and my staff?

James was not a chatty driver, and he gave the rush-hour
drive back to Chestnut Hill the attention it deserved. It was only after we'd pulled into the garage at our home that he said, “You've been quiet.”

“Detective Hrivnak came back to see me a second time, after I called you,” I said, unsure how to go on.

“Can you talk about it?”

“She didn't say I couldn't. But let's wait until we get inside.”

We made our way into the back of the house, where a couple of low lights over the stove in the kitchen glowed a welcome. “Am I cooking?” I asked.

“You cooked yesterday. I'll make something. You can keep me company and tell me what's bothering you.”

“Deal.”

We changed into nonwork clothes and made our way back to the kitchen. James beat me downstairs, and there was a glass of wine waiting for me on the table when I joined him. I sat and sipped and watched him assemble something or other. It was such a treat to have a man who could and would cook—and even occasionally look like he was enjoying it. I had known he liked good food (and liked sharing that enjoyment with me), but consuming and creating didn't always go hand in hand.

After a few minutes of silence, he nudged, “You know, I can listen and cook at the same time.”

“Is multitasking part of your FBI training?” I teased. I spun my wineglass. “So, as I said in the car, our favorite detective visited me twice today. It turns out that the victim
had
been in the Society building—he was a construction crew day laborer, and apparently had worked on the cleanup. So I might have seen him there and not noticed, and the same
is true for a bunch of other staff. Sad that we treat people like him as invisible, isn't it? But aside from making me feel like a bad person and looking suspicious to the detective for not recognizing the guy, I'm still hoping it's just coincidence. What am I supposed to think? As far as we can tell he didn't steal or damage anything, and there was no sign anyone else tried to get into the building last night.”

“Well,” James began thoughtfully as he sautéed onions in a skillet, “the first choice is coincidence. Did he live nearby?”

“That's what Detective Hrivnak told me. Walking distance.”

“Then it could have been something related to his home life, not his work one.”

“True.”

“Could it have been an ordinary mugging?”

“Only if he was carrying a wad of cash in his pocket—which he might have been, if it was payday yesterday. Hrivnak said he had his wallet on him—that's how the police ID'd him.” I realized I hadn't asked her if he still had any cash, but Hrivnak hadn't said it was gone.

“I assume you've come up with other worst-case scenarios?”

“Of course. That's what I do in my spare time.” The wine seemed to be doing its work, and I could feel my tension seeping away. “If we presume that Mr. Scruggs was pushed, which probably means he was having an altercation on the sidewalk with someone, why? Was it a drug deal gone wrong? Was he attempting to mug someone who fought back? Could it have been related to sex—a jilted lover, an angry spouse? Could he have been the victim of a hate crime, bashed because of his sexual orientation or his ethnic
background, neither of which I know anything about, or because somebody didn't like the way his face looked?” I realized the wine was hitting me hard and fast.

“An excellent summary, except that you left out aliens from space and terrorism.” James didn't look at me as he said that. Maybe he was trying not to laugh.

“Well, pardon me. Of course, my true worst-case scenario is that he was killed over something that has to do with the Society, except nobody has a clue what that might be, and how the heck do we look for something when we don't even know what we're looking for?”

“I understand, you know,” he said gently. He put a lid on whatever he was making, then came and sat across from me, bringing the bottle of wine with him. “We need to clear something up, if we're going to get into this.”

That sounded ominous. I held out my glass for a refill. “All right, what?”

He obliged. “You know by now that my jurisdiction as an FBI agent does not extend to Philadelphia police investigations, except under certain unusual circumstances.”

“Yes, James, I am well aware of that. And I am aware of the fact that this may be no more than an ordinary suspicious death, being investigated by the city police, and therefore not requiring your special skills.”

“Exactly. That having been said, I am more than happy to listen to your thoughts, serve as a sounding board for you, and make suggestions, so long as you don't bludgeon the detective over the head with them, because she's going to know where they're coming from.”

“You think I can't come up with intelligent theories of my own? Seriously, I don't expect you to involve yourself.
That said”—I took a sip of wine—“if my victim turned out to have a rare seventeenth-century pen wiper in his pocket, one that had once belonged to William Penn and that still had an accession label from the Society on it, would that make it your problem? Under some form of cultural theft?”

“Possibly. Or not. It depends.”

“Well, I am so glad we cleared that up! And you'd better feed me soon before this second glass of wine makes me totally incoherent.”

“I'll start the pasta.”

I watched as he moved neatly and efficiently around the kitchen. I had to say, even though it was undeniably modern and therefore wildly wrong for a classic Victorian house, I really liked this kitchen—well, except for the humongous refrigerator and the frightening stove with lots and lots of dials, both of which I assumed I'd come to understand eventually—and we were getting to know each other slowly. The room was well laid out, and it was a pleasure to work in, with plenty of room for both of us to cook at the same time, unlike either of our former homes. Large windows on two sides let in lots of light during the day; there were also plenty of well-placed lights for dark nights.

Dinner. I was still getting used to the idea of cooking regularly. James had proved to be a fair cook—after all, he had survived on his own for years, and from the look of his physique (and I did look!) he hadn't relied on junk food. I was more haphazard, making—or not making—whatever I fancied from night to night. It had always seemed extravagant to get takeout all the time, and I did enough of that for lunches anyway. But whichever one of us ended up cooking, the other
could sit with a glass of wine or Scotch or whatever and chat. It was nice, just still kind of new.

As James cooked, I turned over in my mind what he had said. I knew there were things he could not and should not involve himself in, and that included a lot of the crimes that I somehow found myself in the midst of. I didn't want to compromise his job, and at the same time I didn't want him to think he had to step in and throw his weight around and save the little woman, i.e., me. I could handle my own problems, criminal or other. But he did have a wealth of experience and a good analytical mind, so I would take advantage of whatever insights he was willing to offer.

Ten minutes later he set heaping bowls of steaming pasta and sauce in front of us both, and sat down. We devoted some serious time to eating, and after most of my bowl was empty I realized how much better I felt with some food in me. And my brain seemed to be working better, too.

“Have we mutually rejected the coincidence theory?” I asked.

“Probably. Why? Do you have a front-runner among the other theories?”

“I don't like coincidences. I still think the man was killed just outside our building for a reason, but I don't have enough information to know why.”

“Well, you don't have to do anything right now. You watch and wait, and either the information floats to the top and you have more to work with, or no information ever emerges and the crime goes into the unsolved pile. And you go on about your business.”

“You make it sound simple. Call me self-centered, but if
there's a dead man a few feet away from the Society, I'm inclined to believe it has something to do with the Society, and therefore probably involves something historical. We know Mr. Scruggs had been working in the building, on a crew he'd worked for in the past. Nothing unusual there. But I know next to nothing about the man. Was he honest? Did he have any interest in history? Was he gullible enough to do a quick job for someone who asked?”

James smiled. “You wouldn't buy that he was merely curious about a grand old building and was hoping to prowl around after hours?”

“You mean, he might have snitched a key or found a way to wedge open a door, and he planned to come back and enjoy the place alone? But as far as we know he never made it inside, and there was no key on him. I'm sure Hrivnak would have asked if she'd found an odd key. But who would have stopped him? And is that enough to explain how he ended up dead? Is there ice cream?”

James looked momentarily startled by my quick segue, but he rose to the occasion. “There is. But before I allow you access to the ice cream, let me say that you need to let the police finish their canvass and collect some more information. That's what they do, and they do it better than you could. If you're lucky, Detective Hrivnak will share some info with you, and then maybe you can offer her some suggestions—tactfully, of course.”

“And you will be free and clear of any involvement whatsoever. That's fine by me. We are in agreement to do nothing right now except eat ice cream. And maybe watch a rerun of
Law & Order
.”

“Wise decision.”

We settled in for the evening. We still hadn't sorted out where we “lived” in the house—the parlor was gorgeous, but I felt like an interloper sprawling on a couch watching television in there. There was a nice sunroom at the rear, but it wasn't heated and the old windows weren't double glazed or even airtight (note to self: buy some putty before winter sets in!). If we wanted to spend serious time there, we'd have to make some changes. For that matter, the couch we were using was both ugly and too uncomfortable for two, plus it sullied the majesty of the parlor. But I didn't want to relegate either of us to one of the overstuffed chairs we'd brought along; I liked the physical closeness of sitting next to James.

“James, are we looking at furniture this weekend?”

“Huh?” he said, half dozing. “Furniture? Sure, I guess. Where? Auction? Department store?”

“I don't know. But we're intelligent people—we should be able to figure that out, right?”

“Okay,” he said agreeably. I'm not sure he had heard me.

—

The next day started normally enough—the new normal, that is—but when I arrived at the Society, Bob nodded toward the corner of the lobby, where once again Detective Hrivnak graced our premises—the second day in a row. She did not look happy.

“Good morning, Detective. Did you want to see me again, or were you just browsing?”

“Ha!” she barked. “I need to talk to you. We've found out some new stuff.”

Of course. “My office? We can have coffee.” Of course, if I took her upstairs it might be harder to get rid of her again,
but on the other hand, she might be more relaxed and forthcoming.

“Sure, sounds good.” She followed me to the elevator.

While we waited for it, I said, “This investigation is really moving fast, isn't it?”

She looked around before answering, but there were no staff members in sight. “Yeah, but we only had to look a few blocks in any direction. Not like you—you seem to find trouble spread over a couple of counties.”

“And don't forget New Jersey,” I added with forced cheerfulness. She was right, but she should be glad, since that put a lot of the Society's issues outside of her jurisdiction, thus saving her work.

Eric had already arrived and looked startled to see my companion. “Eric, could you please get us some coffee? How do you like yours, Detective?”

“Black's good.”

Eric raced off toward the staff room, and I escorted Detective Hrivnak into my office. “So, are you asking me questions or telling me something?” I began.

“Both. Like I told you yesterday, we know who the guy was. You still don't remember him?” When I shook my head, she went on, “Okay, so you said everyone had cleared out of this building by, what, six? Nobody saw him go home—he lived over past Spruce—not that that means anything for sure. But say he didn't go straight home after work. The guy didn't look like the fancy-restaurant type, and he was still wearing his work clothes, so where did he go? Had to be either a cheap restaurant or a bar—no shortage of either within a coupla blocks. So that's where I had my people look first, talking to people, seeing if anybody remembered our vic.”

“Okay,” I said cautiously. “And?”

“Found him. Bar over on Chestnut, the opposite direction from his house, and apparently his favorite, because the bartender knew him. Scruggs sat at the bar and had a burger and fries. Alone, which was normal for him. Or at least alone at first.”