Fire Engine Dead

by Sheila Connolly

  Alfred had bridged that gap. He had been good at his job—in part because he had no real life or love outside of the Society—and he had been instrumental in transferring significant portions of the catalogs to a computerized format, and even overseeing the digitization of a portion of those catalogs so that our members could access them online. He’d made great strides forward, but we’d been stymied since his untimely death. For all my lack of familiarity, I recognized that software cataloging systems were essential to contemporary collections management, and it sounded as though Latoya’s candidate Nicholas might be a good fit. I looked forward to meeting with him and picking his brain.

  The morning’s confrontation with Marty had left me unsettled, and I needed to clear my head. I pulled on my coat and stopped to tell Eric, “I’m headed out to get some lunch. Tell anyone who calls that I may be a while.”

  “Right. You’re in a very important meeting and can’t be disturbed.” Eric grinned at me.

  “Exactly.” I made my way downstairs and out of the building. On the front steps I paused, trying to figure out what I wanted. Mostly I wanted some space, and time to think. Maybe it was time to go back to the Reading Terminal Market—I hadn’t been there since lunch with Arabella a few months ago, and I recalled that I had promised myself to visit more often. Certainly its bright colors and sounds—not to mention the wonderful smells—would distract me from the thorny problem of the missing fire engine. I set off toward Market Street at a brisk clip.

  I had forgotten that the funeral for Allan Brigham would be taking place today, and that Market Street would be its route; it put a serious crimp in my plans. James had told me that firemen’s funerals in the city were important events, but I was not prepared for the scale of the parade that was unfolding before me. Somehow I had timed my arrival to coincide with the head of the procession. I had to stand on tiptoe to see anything over the fairly thick crowd. First came a pair of drummers and a bagpiper, leading a modern fire truck draped in black bunting; the casket, covered with a flag, lay atop the truck. Two uniformed firemen rode on the truck’s tailboard, flanking the casket. They were accompanied by a pair of Dalmatians, who sat still as statues, as though sensing the solemnity of the occasion. Additional firemen walked alongside the fire truck—probably some sort of honor guard. Following the truck were several groups of dignitaries—I saw the mayor and the city’s fire chief among the ones in the front. They were followed by a slew of local firefighters—I recognized the uniforms—and then by what must be visiting firefighters in different uniforms. Toward the rear was a long string of fire vehicles, and finally cars. The whole of the procession stretched over many blocks, nearly to the waterfront, headed to the imposing mass of City Hall. I couldn’t help but wonder whether this was a typical department funeral, or whether Allan Brigham had been particularly highly regarded in his community, even after retirement.

  The sidewalks on both sides of Market Street were crowded with spectators, although it was hard to distinguish between mourners and gawkers. I wasn’t sure which category I fit. Still, there was enough room that I could move to the front of the crowd without shoving, and when I arrived there I found Peter Ingersoll, looking pale. I tapped him on the shoulder, and he jumped and turned toward me.

  “Hello, Peter. Quite an impressive event,” I said.

  “It is. Of course, our firefighters deserve it. You know Jennifer, right?”

  I hadn’t seen Jennifer, who was standing on the other side of Peter, looking equally unhappy. “Of course—hello, Jennifer.”

  “And this is my brother Scott.” Peter gestured toward a man standing behind Jennifer. If Peter hadn’t introduced me, I never would have pegged him as Peter’s brother: Scott stood half a head taller and must have outweighed Peter by fifty pounds. “Scott works as a security guard part-time at the museum—well, when there’s anything to protect. There hasn’t been since the collections went into storage.” Peter swallowed hard.

  “Good to meet you, Scott,” I said, extending a hand. Scott took it reluctantly and shook it, mumbling something, then turned his attention back to the procession. I noticed that he laid a hand on Jennifer’s shoulder.

  “And this is Gary O’Keefe, our curator,” Peter added, and another, older man, moving clumsily, came forward to shake my hand.

  “We appreciate your help, Ms. Pratt.”

  “No problem—that’s what the Society is here for.” I turned back to Peter. “I’ve collected at least part of the information you asked for. Can we get together so I can show you?”

  “Of course. Let me call you after I get back to the office and we can set a time,” Peter replied.

  “That’s fine. Are you going to the burial? Did you know the man?”

  “Not personally, no. I just came to pay my respects. I feel so bad about what happened, like the museum is somehow responsible for his death.”

  Peter’s mind seemed to be somewhere else, not surprisingly, so I decided to resume my search for lunch. “I’ll talk to you later, then,” I said, and turned away. It looked as though crossing Market Street would be out of the question for a while, so I headed back toward Chestnut Street, where I knew I’d find plenty of restaurants. After lunch, the afternoon passed quietly, until I was interrupted by another call from James.

  “You sicced Marty on me,” he began without preamble.

  “I did not,” I replied tartly. “She came to me after drawing the same conclusion that I did, based on the newspaper photo. I warned you she might. I just confirmed what she suspected. Was I really supposed to lie to her? She was mad at me because I had told you before I told her.”

  He sighed. “All right. Can you keep her out of this?”

  “Marty? Not a chance.”

  “I was afraid of that. I suppose I should have known she’d end up in the middle of this. I assume you’ve told Marty that she has to be discreet about it?”

  “I did, but if you see her, can you repeat that? You don’t want her asking people the wrong questions, or maybe I mean asking the wrong people questions. If you know what I mean.”

  “Unfortunately, yes.” I could hear the sound of a door closing on his end before he continued. “Listen, the autopsy showed that the guard was dead before the fire began.”

  I felt a chill. So it was arson and murder. Had the dead watchman been party to the arson, or an innocent bystander? “At least he had full honors for his burial. You were right—the procession was very impressive. What was the cause of death?”

  “A blow to the head,” James said, “but there’s more than one way it could have happened. For the moment the police are treating it as suspicious rather than accidental. Please, keep that to yourself unless it’s announced officially.”

  “Of course.” The news saddened me. The fire was bad enough on its own, but this made it tragic—and complicated. “Have you shared the information about the fire engine with the police?”

  “No. I’m not sure where that fits, and I’d rather they didn’t know, unless they figure it out for themselves. At which time I’ll be happy to cooperate with them—if they ask.”

  “You sound tired, James. Is everything all right?”

  “Just busy. Look, Nell, try to stay out of this, will you? It’s bad enough I have to manage Marty. I know you both mean well, but this is a criminal investigation.”

  “You were the one who invited me into the investigation, remember?”

  “Yes, but in a limited capacity, based on your knowledge of the cultural community. Period. Please don’t meddle with the criminal side of things.”

  Meddle? I didn’t like his choice of words, but I grasped what he was asking. “Understood. I’ll see if I can distract Marty—we’ve decided to do a thorough overhaul of the Terwilliger Collection here, so maybe that will do it. But if there’s anything more I can do, just ask.”

  “I will. Thanks, Nell.” He rang off.

  I’d do what I could, but Marty didn’t answer to me—more like the other way around. A
nd she was strong willed. Handled right, she could be an asset in any investigation of this kind—but I wasn’t sure either James or I could handle her.

  CHAPTER 7

  At precisely nine the next day, Latoya Anderson, looking smug, shepherded her handpicked candidate into my office. “Nell, this is Nicholas Naylor. Nicholas, this is the Society’s president, Nell Pratt. I’ll leave the two of you to talk.” She turned and withdrew, closing my office door behind her.

  Nicholas and I sized each other up. He was a tall, pale young man in his late twenties, with wavy dark hair, worn a bit long. Nicely dressed, as befit an interview, in tailored pants and a sports jacket over a collared shirt, no tie. He carried a leather folder, which I assumed contained a résumé. And he wasn’t smiling. “Thank you for making the time to see me, Ms. Pratt. I appreciate the opportunity.”

  “My pleasure, Nicholas.” He was definitely a Nicholas, not a Nick. Why was this self-possessed young man making me nervous? “Please, sit down.” I gestured toward one of the chairs in front of my desk. He sat. Still no smile. “Do you have a résumé handy? I haven’t had an opportunity to get it from Latoya yet.” Which again put me at a disadvantage.

  Wordlessly, Nicholas opened his folder and handed me a single sheet of paper. I glanced at it briefly and realized that half of the position descriptions on it were gobbledygook to me. “So, tell me about yourself. I understand you’re currently working? Why would you want to give up a secure job at Penn to work here?” I knew it was hard to break into employment at the university, and I couldn’t remember anyone I knew leaving it, except under dire personal circumstances or for a step up the professional pyramid. I didn’t think the Society could compete with Penn in the latter regard. Certainly not in salary or prestige.

  “I’d prefer a smaller milieu and greater flexibility. Did Ms. Anderson explain to you my area of expertise?”

  “Briefly. Why don’t you tell me how you define it, and how you see it helping us?”

  “Certainly.” He leaned forward, his expression earnest. “As I’m sure you know, the transition from traditional cataloging functions to the modern digital age has been erratic…”

  I listened with half an ear, nodding at intervals. I’d spent enough time writing the grant proposals for our current cataloging system, and talking with Alfred, to understand the basic outlines of what Nicholas was describing. I had to admit that the program he had been developing sounded both innovative and potentially more user-friendly than what we had currently, which would be a big plus, since it might make it possible not only to integrate in-house tracking systems but also to permit a greater degree of member access, and even to allow transfer of higher-quality images for internal and external reproduction. A seamless and unified system certainly sounded appealing—but could Nicholas deliver, or was he just spinning me a nice story?

  I noticed he was gazing at me expectantly—apparently he’d run through the set piece. “Sounds fascinating, Nicholas. I do have a few questions. For a start, is this a proprietary system? Does Penn have any claim to it?”

  He shook his head. “No, this is mine. I’ve developed it on my own time. I’ve used some items from the Penn collections for a test run, but my supervisor has been aware of everything I’ve been doing and has had no objections. I’ve been aboveboard with him and with the department.”

  I found that emphasis curious. Was he protesting a wee bit too much? And if his software performed as well as he claimed it did, would his superiors be reluctant to see him go? “Does that mean that the Society would be your guinea pig, so to speak? Your first full test of a major collection?”

  He had the grace to look slightly sheepish. “Well, yes. But I know it works on a smaller scale, and ramping it up shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “You do know the scope of our collections? How would you prioritize your activities?”

  He nodded. “I’m well aware of what collections the Society holds—I’ve always been interested in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania history. In my opinion, new and recent acquisitions here should take precedence, but as I understand it, those have slowed over the past few months?” I guessed that he had followed the news.

  “Yes, that’s true, and acquisitions may remain slow for a bit. I think that segment should be of a manageable size and would be a good place to start. But what approach would you use for converting earlier catalogs?”

  “I’d start with…” Obviously I had punched the right button, and he demonstrated that he had done his homework well. Nicholas knew our collections, their strengths (mainly in quality) and their weaknesses (in how we had tracked them—or hadn’t—over the years).

  When he stopped for a breath, I broke in. “I’m impressed. But I have another question: do we have the technology in place to implement all of this? The hardware or software or whatever? Because you have to know that money is tight, and we can’t afford to replace a lot right now.”

  “I can minimize the computer storage required, and as long as you can upload…” And he went on. And on.

  An extremely knowledgeable young man, clearly. But would he fit in here? “Nicholas, obviously you know the technical aspects of what you’re working on, and it sounds as though you could do a lot for us. But this is a small place, and most of us are here because we love history, one way or another. Does that appeal to you? Are you a collector, in any sense of the word?” I guess I was asking if this would be just a job for him, or something more.

  He seemed to get my drift. “As you can see from my résumé, I majored in history as an undergraduate. I’ve spent years trying to integrate methodical analysis with the vagaries of recorded history—you know, trying to correlate different contemporaneous reports of a battle, say, and see if I could arrive at some sort of consensus truth about what really happened. You might say I’m fascinated by historic minutiae, but at the same time, I’m skeptical of any individual report, absent corroboration. I suppose in layman’s terms, what I think I’m trying to do is to computerize history.”

  I was beginning to feel overwhelmed. “Okay, one last question. You know our previous registrar had begun to update our records in our recently acquired software program. Can you integrate what he had accomplished into your own system? Because I’d hate to lose all that time and effort.” Not to mention, I’d hate to erase Alfred’s last contribution to a place that he had loved.

  “No problem. I can write a transfer protocol that would…”

  I’d heard enough. Nicholas was clearly qualified, and he appeared to want the job, for reasons I found more or less credible. He might be a stereotypical computer geek, although better dressed and more articulate than many I had encountered. I wondered how he would fit with our motley crew of librarians and administrators, but he did seem to have a genuine interest in history, and so didn’t exactly fall outside the bounds of what passed for normal here. He was staring at me expectantly.

  “Nicholas, you’re definitely well suited for this position, and I’m flattered that you’re interested. May I contact your references?”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you have any questions for me?”

  Nicholas appeared to reflect for about three seconds. “I think Latoya told me everything I need to know.”

  “Then let me get back to you, one way or another, early next week.”

  “That would be fine.” He stood up and extended a hand. “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice. I look forward to hearing from you.”

  I stood as well and walked him to the outer office. “Eric, could you take Nicholas back downstairs?”

  “Sure, Nell.” Eric stood up. “Follow me, Nicholas.”

  As I watched them walk down the hall, I realized that not once during the interview had Nicholas smiled, tried to make any small talk, or said anything about his life apart from the software he had created. Nor had he appeared nervous. He was a serious young man. Maybe I didn’t have a lot of experience with interviewing job applicants, but those I had interview
ed had generally acted eager to please, nervous, or over-talkative. Nicholas fell at the opposite end of the spectrum: he was reserved almost to the point of stiffness, and while he had said all the correct things, I had learned very little about him, apart from his professional skills.

  I decided I needed Latoya’s input, so I walked down the hall to her office. She looked up from her superbly clean desk when I walked in. “Do you have a moment to talk about Nicholas?”

  She closed the folder she was reading. “Of course. He’s left already? What did you think of him?”

  I dropped into the chair in front of her desk. “I guess I’d have to say I had mixed feelings about him. He seems very bright, and he has some interesting ideas. He said he could pick up where Alfred left off, so we wouldn’t lose any ground. But personally? I guess he seems a little cold.”

  “And the Society is such a warm and fuzzy place?” Latoya arched one eyebrow.

  I checked to see if she was being sarcastic, but she seemed sincere. “We have our share of odd ducks, I’ll admit. But we do have to play well together, because nobody is working at the Society for the money or the glory. I know the registrar operates fairly independently, and certainly Alfred kept his interactions with staff to a minimum. So social skills are not a high priority.” I wondered why I felt so defensive about a polite, intelligent young man’s lack of warmth and humor—neither was a requirement for the position.