Razing the Dead

by Sheila Connolly

  “But he is dead. So what happens now?”

  “We continue to investigate. If we don’t turn up anything on George, we look at people who might have something at stake in this property, or in the development going forward. People in the township, or in any other townships that might have been competing for the project. People on Wakeman’s management team. We’ll keep widening the circle and digging deeper.”

  “Sounds like archeology, doesn’t it? That reminds me, what about the research on the history of the site?”

  “What about it?”

  “Should we—Lissa or the Society—be looking for anything that might provide a motive?”

  “Ah, Nell—things aren’t always all about the Society, or history, or you.”

  I was stung, oddly enough. “Hey, I was there, remember? At the same time that this guy coincidentally ended up dead in the pond when Mitchell Wakeman was showing off his dream project to a pair of wonky historical researchers. Are you saying to ignore any historical information that might be relevant? Without even knowing what it is?”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hit a nerve. No, I won’t rule out a connection, but I’m not going to make any assumptions about it, either. Is that fair?”

  “I guess,” I grumbled. This was stupid. I was not a crime investigator; I managed a building full of history investigators. Past and present did not often collide, and when they did, they seldom resulted in corpses. But it was unsettling nonetheless.

  “I missed you last night,” James said softly.

  “Me, too. You got rid of Lissa?”

  “Are you jealous that I went home with a younger woman?” He smiled.

  “No, not really. If anything”—I leaned in close—“I’m guessing Marty thinks Lissa’s got her eye on Ethan. But don’t you dare tell her I said that.”

  James raised one hand, and said solemnly, “I am an agent of the federal government. I know how to keep secrets.”

  “This is Marty we’re talking about.”

  “There is that. But you don’t have to worry, Nell. We’re good, you and I.”

  “We are.” At least, I hoped so. Oh, how I hoped so.

  “But you’ve got to remember, Nell, that what I’ve told you today has to remain between us. I shared it with you only because you’re already involved, so you have a right to know at least some of the details.”

  “What if Lissa asks questions? She was there, too.”

  “Just tell her you don’t know anything beyond what’s in the papers and that it’s an ongoing investigation, which is true.”

  “Speaking of which, how did the papers get onto it so fast?”

  “I can’t say for sure,” James said, “but it’s possible that Wakeman and his people put the story out there to make sure they look transparent.”

  That was an angle I hadn’t considered. “What about Marty?”

  James looked pained. “Why would she stick her nose into this?”

  “Because she’s Marty. Are you going to swear there wasn’t a Terwilliger living in West Chester in seventeen-whatever?”

  “No. If she asks for details, just point her to me, okay?”

  “I’ll be happy to.” Enough about the crime, since there wasn’t much information to go on—yet. “So, what’s the story on Ben? Or can’t you talk about that without breaking all sorts of confidences?”

  He sat back and thought for a moment before answering. “Look, I know there are a lot of things you as an employer can’t ask or consider in hiring someone, at least in theory. I know you well enough to know that your main goal is to find someone who can do the job for the Society.”

  “Why are you dancing around the question? Is there something that I should know that I’m not supposed to ask about?”

  He sighed. “Not exactly. Okay, you already know that I met Ben in college. We weren’t exactly best friends, but we hung out together, along with some other guys. After college he joined the army and stayed on for quite a while, as a number cruncher, an analyst, not a combatant. Then he left, and he was trying to figure out where he fit in the private sector, and then the accident happened—by the way, it wasn’t his fault. He got T-boned by a drunk and ended up in the hospital for a while and then in rehab. He’s understandably bitter about it. I’ll tell you in confidence that he’s had trouble adjusting to civilian life in a wheelchair—he used to be an active guy. What he needs most right now is to have a job, one that lets him feel useful and productive again. He’s smart and he’s got the skills, and I think he can do what you need here. But there may be some speed bumps along the way, because this is far from a military organization.”

  I had to smile at that. “You think? Thank you for telling me, and you know I’ll keep it to myself. I might have to share this with Latoya, but I will only if I think it’s necessary.”

  “Don’t handle him with kid gloves, Nell,” James said. “Let him do the job. Just give him a little time to settle in, okay?”

  “Of course.” I gathered up my lunch trash and stuffed it back into the original bag. “Was there anything else?”

  “Where will you be tonight?”

  “Where do you want me to be?”

  “With me.”

  So simple. Shouldn’t it be? “Okay. Dinner?”

  James smiled. “I brought lunch. You can figure out dinner.”

  “Deal.”

  And we went our separate ways, slowed only by a rather steamy kiss before we emerged from the old conference room.

  CHAPTER 10

  When I got back to my office, I found Lissa there waiting for me, chatting with Eric. “Hi, Lissa,” I greeted her cheerfully. “How come you’re here? Did you hear?”

  “Ethan asked me to check some references for him. Hear what?” she asked.

  “Wakeman wants to go ahead with the project—he apparently isn’t the type to let a little problem like a dead body stand in the way of progress. Was that why you’re here?”

  “I’ll admit I wanted to know if you’d heard anything. Does that mean I can get started? “

  “Come on in and we can talk about where we go from here. Eric, did you manage to figure out what paperwork we need? Mr. Wakeman and his crew may have plenty of money, but that doesn’t mean they pay their bills on time, and I’d rather get this on his desk before he gets distracted.” By more than a body, I added to myself. But busy men were busy men, and I should send paperwork to him before he forgot who we were and what he’d asked us to do—and what he’d promised to do for us.

  “On your desk, Nell.”

  “Thank you. Lissa, come on in.”

  She followed me into my office and took the chair I pointed to. “I should start by asking, are you okay?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?” she replied, looking confused.

  I sat down behind my desk. “Well, after finding the body yesterday. Sometimes you think you’re fine at the time, but it catches up with you later. I won’t hold it against you if you want to back out, after what you saw.”

  She looked down at her hands briefly, then back at me. “It’s not a problem, really. I mean, I know I threw up, but after that I found the whole procedural part kind of interesting. I hope you don’t think that makes me weird or something.”

  I thought I’d reserve judgment on that for now. People cope with traumatic events in different ways, and if Lissa’s way was to observe details in order to distance herself, that was fine with me.

  “Besides,” she went on, “I really do need the money.”

  “I understand. Mr. Wakeman seems to approve of you, so I’ll get the paperwork in the pipeline as soon as possible. So tell me, how do you plan to approach this? I don’t intend to interfere with however you want to do it, but I’m curious. You should know up front that I got into this field via fundraising, so I wasn’t trained as a historian or a re
searcher. I don’t always know all the details.”

  Lissa nodded once. “Okay. As I understand it—before having done any real research—Mr. Wakeman bought a thousand acres of Chester County farmland that has been continuously owned and managed by the same family since the seventeen hundreds. I’m sure he’s got a small army of real estate lawyers who have done title searches to make sure the title is clear. I would review all of those, because who knows? Sometimes modern lawyers don’t understand the language of seventeenth-century deeds. Just double-checking, plus I can give Wakeman a nice folder of reproductions of all the original documents, even if all he does with them is use them for PR and impressing the homebuyers.”

  “Do I detect some cynicism?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe. But this is the modern world, and nobody’s going to buy that land just to keep the pretty views. I’d rather see Wakeman follow his vision than watch another cookie-cutter development go up.”

  “I agree, for what it’s worth. So, say you’ve made sure the title is clear—what next?”

  “I think I mentioned that it’s worth checking for any old factories or trades that occupied any part of the farm. For example, early paint factories left a lot of nasty chemicals in the soil, and remediation is expensive. And there are other polluters. Again, he’s probably covered all that, but sometimes nobody recognizes the hazards from a factory that’s not even there anymore.”

  “Okay,” I said cautiously. I was way out of my depth here, but it all sounded interesting. “You’re familiar with the Duffy’s Cut story?”

  “The Irish cholera victims? Of course. Really sad. But that should have nothing to do with the Garrett property—the railroad is a couple of miles away.”

  “But what about other historical events? I guess my question in this context would be: what kind of archeological discovery could delay the project? Say, the equivalent of an ecologist finding that some rare and unique tree frog has made its sole habitat in the middle of the property?”

  “My guess is that’s Mr. Wakeman’s primary concern, or at least why he invited the Society to the party. He can hire plenty of biologists and pollution experts, so my task is to look at the history of the place. As I said, I’d start with the deeds. And then I’d start looking at contemporary accounts in local collections. Here at the Society, of course, but a lot of things still hide out in other institutions. And even if they’ve been transcribed, there are often things that are missing or misinterpreted, so it’s best to see the real documents. I’m sure the people at the Chester County Historical Society will help.”

  I nodded in approval. “I would think so. I’ve heard they’ve got good people there. It all sounds great, Lissa—exactly what Mr. Wakeman needs. Let’s hope there are no more unpleasant surprises. Will three months be long enough?”

  “I think so, unless I have to travel. But most of the materials should be right here. Thanks for giving me the chance, Nell.”

  “You’re qualified, and better yet, you’re here on the spot. And you’ve already started.”

  “Thank you.” She cleared her throat. “If you don’t mind my saying so, I read some of the online reports about other . . . complications you’ve been involved in.”

  “And yet you came back?” I said in mock horror. “I’m sorry that my abysmal luck seems to be slopping over to this project.”

  “Not your fault, is it? How could you have known there would be a body there?”

  “Thank you for the vote of support. I really was hoping that this would be a clean-and-simple project, but I should know better by now.”

  “That’s okay. The history will still be there waiting, no matter what happened to that poor man. And no doubt Mr. Wakeman has enough pull to see that it’s all cleared up as quickly as possible. All quite legally, I’m sure.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. “You want me to show you around the office, introduce you to the rest of the people you’re likely to run into here?”

  “Sure, that would be great.”

  Outside my office, Eric stopped me. “Latoya confirms Mr. Hartley will be starting tomorrow morning. You want to see him then?”

  “Sure. I’ll see if Latoya has shown him around. He’ll have to figure out the software for himself, because I’m clueless about it, but he can ask her. You can go ahead and set up a time, unless I’ve got something else scheduled that I don’t know about.”

  “Will do, Nell.”

  I guided Lissa in the direction of the processing room, where the collections and items that needed to be cataloged were kept, awaiting attention. It was a large, open space with shelving around the perimeter and large tables in the center of the floor. Normally it was a comfortable space, but since the FBI had deposited what could be years’ worth of items seized under a wide range of circumstances and had asked us to figure out exactly what they had, the space had become a lot more crowded. I pushed open the doors, led Lissa in, and gave her a minute to scope it out.

  Interns Rich and Alice were already in the cataloging area. Ben would sort of be their boss, officially responsible for cataloging and entering all collections into our electronic database.

  “Rich, Alice, meet Lissa Penrose,” I said when I had their attention. “She’ll be working on a short-term project looking into the history of the land for Mitchell Wakeman’s Chester County development project.” It wasn’t like the project was exactly secret anymore, since George’s Bowen’s murder had been splashed all over the news media.

  “Hey, Lissa,” Rich said, raising a hand in greeting. “Whoa—that the place where they found the body yesterday?”

  Just as I’d guessed. “That’s it. And before you ask, yes, Lissa and I were there, along with Mr. Wakeman.” I moved on quickly. “Rich, if you come across any references to the Garrett farm or Goshen among the Terwilliger stuff, please pass it on to Lissa. Oh, and I don’t know if Latoya has told you yet, but we’ve filled the registrar position. Ben Hartley should be starting here tomorrow—I’ll check with Latoya and let you know if that changes. I hope you’ll help him out, because I don’t think he’s worked in a cultural institution before, although he knows computers and information management. But most of his experience is military.” I debated about explaining more, like his accident, but decided to let Ben work things out for himself.

  “Will I have some place to set up, or do you want me to work in the reading room?” Lissa asked.

  I hadn’t thought of that. “Normally I’d say you could snag a space in here, but as you can see it’s kind of chaotic. Let me think about it. Anyway, this is where the photographic and scanning facilities are. You have a laptop you can use?”

  “Of course. I’ll figure something out.”

  “Are you familiar with our stacks? As an official researcher you’ll have full access to them. I’ll have to see that you get a key—ask Eric about that. You want a quick tour?” I was asking as much for myself as for her—I always welcomed the chance to prowl the stacks and marvel at the wealth of original materials we had at the Society, and I seldom had enough time to indulge myself.

  “Sure,” Lissa said promptly. “Rich, Alice, good to meet you. I’ll probably see you tomorrow.”

  We spent a happy hour prowling the stacks. I have to admit I used the stacks tour as kind of a litmus test for new hires. If they wrinkled their noses at the scent of mildew and crumbling leather, I didn’t think they’d last long here. I might not be a trained historian, but I loved old books and documents because of the window they gave us into the past. That’s why I was willing to fight hard to preserve them and make them available to other people, so that they could share my love of them. An uphill battle, but one worth fighting, I thought. Lissa passed my test with flying colors.

  By the time I had escorted Lissa to the front door and seen her off, after getting a key for her and starting her paperwork, it was almost the end of the day. I had promised Jame
s I’d be at his place to fix dinner. Somehow I couldn’t bring myself to say “home for dinner,” because his apartment wasn’t home. This was the first day of the new “normal,” with both of us working. And if things worked out, that normal would be changing pretty soon—as soon as we found a new place for the two of us. Something we still hadn’t talked about in any detail. I found my cell phone in my bag and called him on his, since this wasn’t official business.

  “Hi,” I said when he picked up. “What time will you be . . . back?”

  “Sixish, I think—nothing urgent has come up. Why?”

  “Just wanted to know what kind of cooking time I have. Maybe I’ll stop at the market on the way.” The Reading Terminal Market, that is—one of my favorite places in Philadelphia, and one that never failed to cheer me up, not to mention that it gave me great ideas for meals.

  “Works for me. See you soon.” He hung up. Not exactly warm and fuzzy, but he was in his office.

  I left shortly after five, to Eric’s surprise. “Both Ben and Lissa will be here tomorrow?” he asked.

  “Looks like it. Fully staffed once again, and then some. See you in the morning, Eric.”

  I walked slowly over to the market. The streets were hot and steamy, although a breeze from the Delaware River blowing up Market Street helped a bit. I plunged into the market, struggling with myself about buying a Bassett’s ice cream cone and resisted—which let me give myself permission to buy something luscious for dessert. I picked out meat and fish and a lot of fresh local vegetables, until I figured I couldn’t carry any more home. Then I hopped on a Market-Frankford train, which brought me to James’s neighborhood. I beat him home, so I started chopping and sautéing and so forth, aided by a glass of wine.

  He walked in at six fifteen. “Hi, honey, I’m home.”