Fundraising The Dead

by Sheila Connolly

  When I emerged from the loo, my saviors were waiting in the hall, looking anxious. I announced, in no uncertain terms, “Food now, and lots of coffee. Then talk.”

  “The Doubletree,” James said with authority. Good choice-it was right down the block, which was about as far as I thought I could walk at the moment. He held the heavy front door of the Society open for me and Marty, then shortened his stride to accommodate me as we walked the half block toward Broad Street. Once inside, he commandeered a table in the dining room and ordered one of everything on the menu while I gulped down a full glass of water. Coffee miraculously appeared before I finished the glass, and I added sugar to my cup and started on that.

  I was beginning to feel human again. “While we’re waiting for food, please tell me how you figured out where to find me.”

  Marty answered first. “I was out all day yesterday, and I didn’t get home ’til late, so I didn’t check my messages until this morning! I’m so sorry about that. And I had my cell with me, but it wasn’t even turned on-I keep forgetting about it. When I heard finally heard your messages, I started calling you at home and on your cell, and you didn’t answer, and that didn’t seem right. Then I called Charles.”

  That was one call I would like to have heard. “What the heck did you ask him?”

  “Oh, I was cool. I asked if he’d seen you or talked to you yesterday, and he said no, he had his kids this weekend, and they’d been out sightseeing or some such.”

  “Did you believe him?”

  “Yeah, because I could hear a computer game in the background. So I said thanks a lot and hung up, fast. Then I called Jimmy.”

  I glanced at James-he was still watching me as though he expected me to keel over any minute. “And what did you think?”

  “I thought we should track you down. Tried the GPS on your phone, but no luck.”

  “I know-I tried to call out, but, surprise, there’s no reception in the basement of the building. So then what?”

  “Marty said you mentioned Doris, so we tried to call her-no answer. So the two of us got together and headed over to the Society.”

  Hot and plentiful food appeared. I started forking up scrambled eggs almost before the server had set down the plate. With a full mouth I mumbled, “How did you get in?”

  “I’ve got all the keys.” Triumphantly Marty held up a loaded key ring. “And I do mean all of them. They were Daddy’s keys.”

  I swallowed. “And you remembered the wine cellar?”

  “Eventually. We started with the third floor-damn, I was scared we’d find you where you found Alfred. And then we looked in the upstairs stacks, although there’s no place there to hide a human, dead or alive. We even looked in the dumbwaiter that runs between the floors. And when we didn’t find you up there, we started for the basement. Remind me to tell the board we really need to do something about the mess down there. And, yes, I knew about the wine cellar because Daddy used to talk fondly about the good old days, when the building was new. Not that he was old enough to remember, but his father must have told him. Then it took me a while to figure out which key opened it, but I did, and voila! There you were, thank goodness. Okay, your turn.”

  The food on my plate had vanished, and I started in on the pastries in the center of the table, with another cup of coffee. “I had plenty of time to think yesterday, or last night, or whenever it was. I told you Doris called me at home and said that Charles had found something at the Society that I really needed to see. I thought he was going to try to make us believe that he’d located the missing items, or at least some of them, so I decided to go along with it. But something didn’t feel right-that’s why I called you, Marty. I figured somebody should know where I was going.”

  “Thank goodness!” Marty actually looked humbled.

  “So I let myself in and went upstairs. There was nobody around except Doris, who was waiting for me. She said Charles was downstairs, and she took me down to the basement.”

  “And no Charles?” There was a hint of steel in James’s voice.

  “No. Doris headed straight for the back room downstairs, where a light was on. She said Charles was waiting in there for me, but when I went to look, she gave me a shove and locked the door behind me.”

  We all fell silent, contemplating the awful what-might-have-been. I didn’t stop eating, however. I had three meals to make up. When the last of the pastries had disappeared, I said, “Well, before I went to sleep”-or passed out, I thought-“the conclusion I came to was that I really don’t think Charles knew I was there. I think it was all Doris ’s idea. And I think she may have killed Alfred.”

  James managed to look both bewildered and frustrated-no easy feat. Marty just looked mad. “ Doris, that spineless drip?” she said. “Why on earth do you believe that?”

  “Think about it. She knew all about the wine cellar. In fact, I’m willing to bet there’s not much she doesn’t know about the Society-she’s a snoop. And I know she was the one who pushed me in there; there was no one else around, and nowhere to hide in that room. And as you’ve noticed, she has a nasty habit of listening in on conversations. Let’s say she happened to overhear Alfred and me talking about the missing items, and she decided to nip the problem in the bud. Alfred probably trusted her-he had no reason not to-so maybe she came to him during the gala and told him she needed his help in the stacks, whatever, it doesn’t matter why. So he followed her, and all she would’ve had to do was get behind him and hit him with something, or even just shove him so he hit his head on something, and that would be that. It wouldn’t take a lot of strength, would it, James?”

  Now he looked grim. “No, not really, if you hit him in the right place. And left him there to bleed to death. Either the scalp wound or cranial bleeding would have done the job, and she knew nobody was going to come poking around the stacks that night. Did you see her at the party?”

  I shook my head. “Not that I recall, but she’s kind of an unnoticeable person. She just fades into the woodwork, if you know what I mean. I don’t think anyone would have noticed whether or not she was there.”

  “Say I buy that,” James said slowly. “Why would she kill Alfred, and try to kill you?”

  “Because she’s in love with Charles, and she knows what he is up to.” That silenced both of them. I noted that neither one of them was arguing with me. “Marty, you’ve seen the way she looks at him. Is it so hard to imagine that she would kill in order to protect him? I don’t think she has much else in her life. Alfred was a threat to everything she cared about. And so was I, because Alfred confided in me, and then I wouldn’t let it go. Maybe she would have gone after you next.”

  “Do you think Charles knows what Doris did?” James kept his voice level.

  I answered slowly. “I don’t know. He may have guessed about how she felt about him, but he probably found that convenient. Do I think he asked her to do his dirty work for him, or that he knew or guessed what she was doing? I can’t say. But if he did figure it out, after the fact, no doubt he realized that to implicate her would only throw a spotlight on his own activities. Maybe he even worried that she’d give him up in order to save herself if it came down to it. Maybe he hoped the police would just chalk Alfred’s death up to an accident, which is exactly what they did.”

  We all fell silent, working through the various ramifications of what I had said. Finally James broke the spell. “I think we need to have a conversation with Doris. And with Charles.”

  I nodded. “I think you’re right. But do we bring the police in now?”

  He regarded me levelly. “I think we’ll have to, but let’s talk to Doris first. I am obligated to point out that the only crime we have any evidence of at the moment is Doris ’s attempt to kill you, and even that isn’t clear-it would be her word against yours.”

  We stared at each other for several beats. He was right: if I accused Doris, there was no way to be sure that a charge of attempted murder would stick, and there was still no guarant
ee that we could prove she was Alfred’s killer. And frankly I wasn’t sure that the Society could recover from the double whammy of a murder plus grand larceny splashed across the headlines. While my construction of the plot had seemed perfectly logical when I worked it out in the silent darkness of the wine cellar, I wasn’t sure if it would stand up under scrutiny. But there was one way to find out.

  “Let’s go talk to Doris.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Back at the Society, Marty, James, and I hurried up to the third floor. I was not surprised to find that Doris was not at her desk; Charles wasn’t at his, either. I retrieved Doris ’s address; she lived within walking distance in nearby Society Hill. “What if she’s not home?”

  “We’ll deal with that when we come to it.”

  It took no more than fifteen minutes to walk the mile or so to Doris ’s address. I was torn between the need to find out if I was right about what had happened, and the reluctance to confront Doris. We walked up the two flights of the nineteenth-century brick row house, now apartments; Doris ’s apartment was on the top floor. James rapped authoritatively on the door as Marty and I hung back. Inside, there were footsteps; the peephole darkened briefly, and then multiple bolts were shot back. The door opened.

  Doris was neatly dressed, every hair in place. She took a long time studying us: first me, then James, then a quick look at Marty. Then she stepped back. “Come in, please. Can I get you some coffee?”

  I squashed an urge to giggle. Doris, my would-be murderer, was pretending this was a social occasion. But then, I wasn’t sure what the proper etiquette for an accusation of murder might be. I decided to let James handle this-he had a lot more experience than I did.

  He stepped into the short hallway. “No, thank you, Ms. Manning. We need to talk with you. You weren’t at work today.”

  Doris sniffed. “Miss, if you don’t mind. Mr. Worthington gave me the day off. I’ll be happy to talk with you.” She turned on her heel and led us to a small living room, its windows overlooking the street. We distributed ourselves among the chairs. “What did you want to talk about?” Very cool and unruffled. I felt a tingle of alarm.

  James began. “Can you tell us what happened yesterday afternoon at the Society?”

  She glanced at me. “Of course. Mr. Worthington asked me to call Miss Pratt. He wanted her to see something he had discovered in the basement. I called her, and she arrived an hour or so later.”

  “And then what?”

  “I escorted her to the basement.”

  “Where was Mr. Worthington?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “He was not in the building?”

  “No, I don’t believe so. I expected him to meet us there.”

  “Had you seen him at all yesterday?”

  Doris shook her head.

  “Talked to him?”

  “Well, I must have, wouldn’t you say?” She looked at James as if challenging him.

  He took a different tack. “After you led Miss Pratt to the basement, what did you do?”

  “I went back upstairs. I had some paperwork to finish up.”

  “You must have finished it, since you didn’t go in to work today.”

  “Charles was kind enough to let me take the day off.”

  “Where was Miss Pratt when you left yesterday?”

  “Still in the basement as far as I’m aware. May I ask why you would like to know?”

  “Are you familiar with the room that used to be a wine cellar, in the basement?”

  “Not to my knowledge. I seldom go downstairs-there’s more than enough to keep me busy upstairs.”

  “So you were not aware that Miss Pratt spent the night locked in that wine cellar?”

  Doris ’s eyes darted briefly to me. “Why would I be?”

  I stared at the woman in front of me: prim, self-contained, sitting tidily on a straight-backed chair, her legs crossed at the ankles. Was she a very good actress? Apparently she was. But something about Doris Manning was off. She had shown no surprise when we appeared at her door, and little curiosity about why we were here. I decided to cut to the chase. “ Doris, you knew I had a relationship with Charles, right?”

  For a brief moment her eyes flashed with venom. Then the shutters dropped again. “That’s none of my concern.”

  “Did you know about the other women, too?” I pressed.

  “I know that Mr. Worthington meets many women in the course of his duties as president. On occasion he has asked me to make a dinner reservation or send flowers.”

  “Did you know that he made a pass at Marty and is now dating a friend of hers? And that he’s been involved with other women-multiple women-at every place he’s worked in the past ten years?”

  Doris was now glaring openly at me. “Why should that be of any interest to me? He’s my employer. I don’t intrude upon his personal affairs.”

  I sat back in my chair. “Of course you don’t. But he depends on you, doesn’t he? You’re a great help to him, and you’re an important part of the Society’s organization.”

  “I try to be of service,” she said. “It is, after all, my job.”

  And how far did her devotion go? I was getting tired of this. “ Doris, cut the crap. Yesterday afternoon you pushed me into the wine cellar and locked the door. I think you hoped that it would be a good long time before anybody found me.” When her expression didn’t change, I realized that she wasn’t going to alter her story, and I had precious little proof to back up mine. But then an idea occurred to me. “ Doris, I’m going to bring charges of attempted murder against you, and against Charles. If he asked you to, uh, remove me, then he’s equally guilty under the law, and he’ll be arrested, too.”

  I could see that shot had hit home. For all I knew, she was perfectly willing to be a martyr, but she wasn’t about to let Charles be dragged down with her. Not after she had gone to such great lengths to help him. “No! Charles didn’t know.”

  “Know what, Miss Manning?” James said.

  “About… what I did, yesterday.”

  “And what was that?”

  Doris lifted her chin. “I did push Miss Pratt into the wine cellar. And I knew that she wouldn’t be found for days, if not longer.”

  James said carefully, “You admit that you attempted to kill Miss Pratt?”

  Doris nodded vigorously, dislodging a piece of her precise coiffure. “Yes. I did it. But Charles knew nothing about it. I never even talked to him yesterday-you can check the phone records. You’re with the FBI, and you can do that, can’t you? You’ll see, it wasn’t Charles, it was me. All me.” There was a thread of hysteria in her voice now.

  I stared at the woman. Someone I had known, had worked with, for years. Whose obsession with the boss I had laughed off, dismissing it as trite and pathetic. She must have hated me. I shivered and wondered just what else I had missed along the way.

  But there was still one other matter. I wasn’t sure what my standing here was, but I had to know. “Doris, what about Alfred?”

  She swung her gaze at me, eyes wide. “What about him?”

  James shook his head at me, but I ignored him. “How did he die?”

  I could see that Doris ’s hands were trembling, and she clasped them in her lap. “It wasn’t Charles,” she said stubbornly.

  “You don’t have to tell us what happened, Miss Manning. You can have a lawyer if you want one,” James warned her.

  Doris shook her head vehemently. “No. You have to know it wasn’t Charles. Alfred, he… found out things. He was going to tell someone-I know he told you, Nell-and that would mean disaster for the Society. It would hurt Charles, wreck his career. I couldn’t let Alfred do that. So I had to stop him. He couldn’t tell.”

  “What happened, Miss Manning?” James’s voice was gentler now.

  Doris nodded. “I told him I needed his help to find something in the stacks. He didn’t ask any questions-I knew he wanted to get away from that party. He hated parties. There was nobody
around upstairs, not in the hall, not in the stacks. We went inside, and I pointed toward a shelf, and when he turned to look, I picked up the step stool and I hit him with it. Just once. He must have heard me pick it up, because he was turning, and then he fell back against the shelf and hit his head. He fell on the floor. He was bleeding. I waited to see if anybody had heard anything, but nobody came. He was unconscious, and when his breathing changed I knew he wouldn’t last long. I went back downstairs to the party.”

  Doris ’s calm, even tone sickened me. She’d just described murdering someone, watching him die, and she didn’t seem to feel a thing.

  Then she turned to me again. “Why couldn’t you have left it alone? Alfred was nobody-he had no right to interfere. What did it matter, a few bits and pieces of old paper? The Society would survive. Charles would make sure of that.”

  Marty finally spoke up. “Alfred was my cousin, and he was a good man. And at least he was an honest one, which is more than you can say for Charles.”

  Doris stood up abruptly. “How dare you!” And she sprang at Marty, claws out. James stepped in and held her back, and she turned on him. “Don’t touch me! Take your hands off me!” She was sliding into full-blown hysteria, and it was all James could do to restrain her. Over his shoulder he said to me, “I think we could use a little help here. Can you call the police?”

  I was happy to comply.

  I went downstairs and out to the front steps to make the call, and stayed there to wait for them. I wanted to get out of that cramped apartment and away from Doris. I sat on the brick steps until the first police car arrived, and I wasn’t surprised when Detective Hrivnak stepped out.

  “You again? What is it this time?”

  I debated very briefly about taunting her, but mainly I wanted this to be over. The fact that she was here meant that she or someone had taken my mention of murder on the phone seriously. “Top floor. You might need a hand-there’s a hysterical woman up there, and she’s trying to confess to Alfred Findley’s murder.”