Fundraising the Dead

by Connolly, Sheila

  She waited before answering, even more stiffly, “No. And Alfred never made an issue of it. Perhaps I should have questioned him more closely, but I had no reason—”

  I interrupted her. “Latoya, Alfred was a very careful man, and I’m sure he didn’t want to make any claims until he felt they were substantiated. He was also rather shy and didn’t like to make waves. That’s probably why he never said anything to you. But I think the number and the quality of the missing items had really started to bother him. The question is, what do we do now? If you ask me, I think we need to get to the bottom of this very quickly, for all our sakes.”

  “Of course. Providing there is any substance to his concerns.” Latoya looked as troubled as I had ever seen her. Maybe the message had finally hit home? “Who else have you talked to about this?”

  “I asked Rich and Felicity specifically if they knew if any part of the Terwilliger Collection had been moved recently—they both said no. But I haven’t spoken to anyone about the larger issue, the other things that might be missing. Alfred left the list on my desk before he ...” I stopped, swallowed, then plunged on. “And now I’m bringing it to you. So, no one else knows—yet.”

  Latoya looked over my head, thinking. Finally she said, “Nell, thank you for bringing this to my attention and for being discreet about it. This certainly deserves a closer look. Let me handle it from here.”

  Was she dismissing me? Well, I wasn’t done. “Latoya, Marty Terwilliger wants an answer about her collection in the next few days. She’s not stupid, and I think she’ll see through any phony excuses we might come up with. She’s not afraid to make public noise about something like this, and she’s extremely well connected in Philadelphia. She can make a lot of trouble for us, if she wants to.” I paused, then looked her straight in the eye. “What do you want me to tell her?”

  “Let me deal with Marty,” Latoya said. “And I’d prefer it if you refer any more questions from her directly to me. Okay?”

  Her request was reasonable, at least on the surface. After all, it was a collections issue, right? But Marty had come to me rather than to her, and I felt a personal responsibility to follow through. And I had a strong feeling that Latoya would act to cover her own derriere. Which most likely meant dumping the blame on Alfred. I wasn’t going to sit here and let that happen.

  “I’ll be happy to let you deal with her, but she did come to me first. And what about the bigger issue?”

  “You have a copy of the list that Alfred gave you?” she said finally.

  “Of course.” I handed Latoya a new photocopy.

  She scanned it quickly. “Let me look this over and think about it, and then I can decide what to do next.”

  I summoned up a smile. “That’s all I ask, Latoya. Please let me know what you decide.” I stood up. As far as I was concerned, the meeting was now over.

  But Latoya was not finished. “You will keep this between us, won’t you?”

  She gave me another long look, and I felt a small chill. Who else did she think I would tell?

  “Latoya, it would be unprofessional of me to do otherwise.” With that, I swept out of the room, before things could get any more complicated.

  All right, I had done what I was supposed to do about the institutional problem of the missing items. What next? No matter what Latoya thought, I felt I should talk to Charles; he shouldn’t walk blindly into this situation, and he would need some time to consider all the ramifications, plan for a defensive strategy if necessary, to nip the issue in the bud, as it were. Maybe Charles would have some insights into how best to deal with this, too—after all, he was hardly a novice to administration, and he must have encountered difficult situations like this before. I felt a small lightening of my burden: maybe he could help. Heck, he should help—that was why he got paid the big bucks.

  I squared my shoulders and took a deep breath, trying to organize my thoughts. I was just going to give him a friendly warning—nothing in writing, nothing inflammatory. I was taking advantage of our relationship to slip him this piece of information so that he could work out how he wanted to handle it. And, oh, how I looked forward to sharing the responsibility!

  I strode to his office, nodding pleasantly at Doris, and knocked on his open door.

  “Charles? Are you busy?”

  He looked up from his desk. “No more than usual.”

  “There’s something we have to talk about. Now.” I walked inside and shut the door behind me.

  He chuckled. “My, this sounds serious. And you, my dear, are looking positively drained. Tell me, what’s so urgent?”

  “Charles, I’ve encountered a problem that I think you should know about,” I began.

  “Go on—I’m at your service. Unless you’d rather talk over dinner?”

  “I don’t think this can wait.” I decided to ease into it. “You remember I told you that I needed to tell you something that Marty Terwilliger had said to me? Well, she came to me before the gala and said she couldn’t find something in the Terwilliger Collection—something that definitely should have been there. I told her I would look into it and get back to her. I didn’t have time to talk with her on Friday, what with Alfred and all ...” We both observed a moment of respectful silence, and then I went on. “But since then, I’ve talked to Rich, Felicity, and Latoya. Her missing documents are nowhere to be found.”

  Charles appeared unruffled. “Well, that’s unfortunate but not unheard-of. Do you want me to talk to Marty, see if I can smooth things over?”

  I shook my head. “At some point that might be a good idea. But, Charles, it’s not that simple. You see, I asked Alfred about it last Thursday, and he told me that there are a lot of other things that don’t seem to be where they should be.”

  Charles went still. “I thought we recognized that we had issues in that area—hence the new cataloging software. And a certain amount of inconsistency is to be expected in a mature organization like ours.”

  So everyone kept telling me. Still, I nodded. “Yes, but that’s just made the underlying problem more obvious.”

  “And you think there is more to this than a century’s worth of carelessness?”

  I looked him in the eye. “Yes, I do. You see, Alfred gave me the list of missing items. If these, uh, disappearances were random, I would be more than happy to write it off to human error, and hope or assume that a number of the things will turn up eventually as we continue to catalog our holdings. But the items on that list are definitely all desirable, potentially high-value pieces.” I swallowed. “I think we’ve been robbed.” There, it was out.

  Charles’s face showed all the concern that I had hoped. “Oh, my dear Nell, I can see why you’re worried. But we can’t allow ourselves to leap to conclusions. Do you have any idea when this happened, or how long it has been going on?”

  I shook my head. “No. Alfred gave me a rough list. Even he couldn’t say whether it was recent or ongoing. I’ve just filled Latoya in on the situation—I thought she needed to know, since this falls under her purview. Look, I know how sensitive this is and how harmful it would be if it’s true, and if it got out. Our reputation, and the goodwill of the historical community, are essential to our operations. I’m telling you now so that you won’t be surprised when Latoya brings it to you, and you can begin thinking about how to address the problem.”

  I lapsed into silence. On some level, I felt relieved: I had discharged my duty, and it was out of my hands. I realized Charles had not yet said anything.

  “Earth to Charles?” He gave a small start, then focused on me with a wry smile.

  “I’m sorry. Thank you for bringing this to me—I know it must be difficult for you.”

  “And for you, too, Charles. I can only guess what kind of scandal might arise if this weren’t handled properly. That’s why I thought you should be involved as early as possible, if there’s any way to resolve this quickly and quietly. Should we tell the board?”

  “That seems premature. L
et me see what Latoya can assemble, and make my own assessment.”

  “Of course,” I said. “But ...”

  He cocked his head at me. “More problems?”

  “It’s Marty Terwilliger. She wants answers, and you know Marty—she’s persistent. I don’t think I’ll be able to stall her. Perhaps if you spoke with her, off the record, it would help—or at least prevent her from making a large stink.” And informing the rest of the board personally , I added to myself.

  Charles nodded in approval. “An excellent idea. I’ll call her in the morning and see if we can meet. Thank you, Nell—I truly appreciate your discretion. Not that I would expect anything less.”

  We smiled at each other as I stood up. Charles stood as well, then laid a hand on my arm. “Nell, are you sure you don’t want to come over this evening? I know how upsetting this past week must have been for you.”

  I looked at him and softened. He was right. Finding Alfred Findley dead and then uncovering what might be a major mess in collections had disrupted my sleep and distracted me at work. It would be nice to have him pamper me a bit, but I needed time to think about what I’d learned.

  “I’m sorry, Charles, but not tonight. But keep that thought in mind.”

  “Of course I will.” He opened the door and ushered me out—carefully avoiding any physical contact in front of any staff members who might have seen. But as I passed Doris’s desk, the expression on her face told me that we weren’t fooling anyone.

  As I made my way back to my office, I wondered why I hadn’t mentioned to either Latoya or Charles that I was seeing Marty the next night.

  CHAPTER 13

  I slept restlessly. When the alarm went off in the morning, I swatted it blindly, sending it halfway across the room. I dragged myself out of bed and made myself some coffee—strong—but it barely made a dent in the haze that seemed to surround my head. I went through the motions: brushed, washed, dressed, collected my stuff, stumbled out to the train station. Good thing I could operate on autopilot.

  The world today was not the world of yesterday or last week. Poor Alfred Findley was dead under possibly suspicious circumstances, and today he would be buried. We were losing valuable materials from our precious collections, and nobody at the place wanted to hear about it, either. I felt like Chicken Little, declaring that the sky was falling, while all those around me kept patting me on the head and telling me not to worry about it. But I was worried. And, thank goodness, so was Marty.

  The train made its slow way into Suburban Station, and I followed the herd up to the main station level, then to the outside world. I always enjoyed emerging from the low, dim tunnels below into the light, to be immediately confronted by the absurdly ornate bulk of City Hall. It was cheering, somehow—even if Philadelphia’s government had seldom lived up to the grandeur of its house. I stopped for another coffee—large—before climbing the stairs at the Society and struggling with the heavy door.

  The usual piles of things to be done sat before me on my desk, but I couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that to draft yet another donor letter would be like fiddling while Rome burned. We could have a serious problem on our hands. I was definitely a supporter of the cool, calm, and collected approach to things, but it seemed that we should feel some sense of urgency now, even though the Society’s normal response was to pull our head into our shell like a tortoise and hope it would all go away.

  But this wasn’t going to go away—not if Marty Terwilliger had anything to say about it. She was a board member, which gave her a fiduciary responsibility to act in the Society’s best interests, and she also had a personal stake in the Terwilliger Collection. She had every right to be outraged if it was being plundered. She was also more perceptive than I had given her credit for being.

  I jumped when my phone rang, interrupting my brooding.

  “Good morning, Nell,” Charles said formally. Speak of the devil. “I just wanted to alert you that Marty Terwilliger will be coming in this morning.”

  Well, that was fast. Was Marty that impatient?

  “I’m glad to hear that, Charles. I think it’s important that you speak to her. What time?”

  “Elevenish. But, Nell? I think I should meet with her alone—you don’t need to sit in.”

  Oh. All right. Keep me out of the loop. But I knew what was going on, nyah nyah. “Fine, Charles—whatever you think best. Please let me know what she has to say.” I could play my role here. Dumb and ignorant.

  “Of course.” He hung up.

  I sat back and stared at the phone. Maybe he would finally take this problem seriously. Well, let him try to work his magic on Marty, and then we’d see what the next step would be. I sighed and reached for the top pages in my in-box. Somehow the morning passed. I saw Marty arrive, headed for Charles’s office; she didn’t so much as nod in my direction. I kept myself busy, but I had to admit I was nervous. I assumed Charles would handle the situation with his usual tact and diplomacy, but I wasn’t sure how Marty would respond. I wondered what Charles would say. Would he try to smooth things over, or even bury them? Make nice and hope it would all go away? He could be very soothing without being patronizing, but somehow I didn’t think Marty would fall for snake oil. Would she play along, or would she force the issue and demand that Charles take action?

  I decided to distract myself by writing up the financial summary of the gala—tracking down all the bills, making sure I had the documentation from the caterer, and running another summary of the income. It looked as though Carrie had finished inputting all the checks in our database system and left me a report, which was good. Then I drafted a spreadsheet with the information I had assembled. If I had it right, we had cleared more than the thirty thousand dollars I had originally estimated, after all the bills were paid—not bad, and definitely better than last year’s results. Then I ran a quick and dirty analysis of how many new donors there were, how many repeaters, and how many people had fallen off the list this year. Again, the results were encouraging: we were definitely building our support base.

  Or we would have been, if we weren’t about to be derailed by news of Alfred’s death and a major scandal. I clipped together my reports and stuck them in a folder—I would pass an abbreviated version on to Charles and then present a fuller version to the board at the next meeting, in less than two weeks’ time. It would be welcome news, if it weren’t for . . . other things.

  Charles and Marty came out of his office, and he escorted her to the door of the outer office, in my line of sight. Their conversation sounded cheerful enough, so presumably he had managed to keep her calm. Charles made his polite farewells, and Marty turned to leave. But as she did, she caught my eye and winked at me, then left quickly.

  A moment later, Charles’s assistant Doris Manning stalked over to my office.

  “Charles would like to have a word with you,” she said curtly.

  I got up and followed her over to his office. Charles waved me inside, and Doris went back to her desk. He motioned to me to close the door. I did, then sat in front of his desk.

  “So, how did Marty take it?” I began.

  “I managed to persuade her to give us a little more time to look into the problem—I said it might not be limited to her particular collection, and we needed more information before we could proceed. She thought that made sense, and she won’t press immediately. But she did hold firm that we should have a summary of the possible missing items ready to present to the board at the next meeting.”

  I felt a sense of relief. “That seems fair enough. And it gives us more time to investigate. Did you tell her anything else about the scope of the problem?”

  He shook his head. “No, I didn’t want to get into that, especially given how preliminary our information is. But I assured her that this would take top priority and that we were taking her concern very seriously. I think she was mollified.”

  “Good. What would you like me to do?”

  “I think you should let collections han
dle it. After all, this is not your area of expertise. I’ll speak to Latoya, and we can review our records.”

  That was reasonable, although I felt a bit miffed at being shut out, since I was the one who had started this. Another thought occurred to me.

  “Charles, should we be talking with our lawyers?”

  He looked pained. “No, I think that would be premature. We still aren’t certain that there is anything like theft going on. And you know how they bill.”

  “All right. Do we need to include anything about it in the board agenda? We’ll be sending that out the end of this week.”

  He considered a moment, then said, “Why don’t you just include a bullet point about security issues? That shouldn’t alarm anyone.”

  “Will do. Oh, did Marty mention Alfred’s service?”

  “This afternoon? I’m afraid I’ve a prior commitment. You’ll be there to represent us, won’t you?”

  “Of course.” As I left his office, I stopped in front of Doris’s desk. “Doris, what’s the RSVP list for the board meeting look like?”

  She gave me an icy stare. “I’ll have to find it for you. It’s still early, you know.”

  My, my, she was touchy. “Fine—whenever you have a minute.”

  She nodded without adding anything, then turned away to shuffle a pile of pages on her blotter, and I went back to my office, pleased that the administrative wheels had begun to turn.

  After lunch I gathered up my coat and scarf to head out for Alfred Findley’s funeral. I didn’t run into any other staff members on my way out, but I was still a little saddened when I arrived at the funeral home and found only Marty Terwilliger there. Felicity Soames did slip in after I did, though. She was the only other person from the Society to attend. I hadn’t realized that Alfred and Felicity were friends, although I’d seen them together briefly during the gala, and both had worked at the Society for many years. I wasn’t surprised that Charles did not attend, although I assumed the tasteful array of white flowers at the front of the room had come from the Society.