Razing the Dead

by Sheila Connolly

  “Believe me, I understand. What did you find?”

  “I’m getting there. Ezra got started, but his energy wasn’t what it used to be, so after a bit he turned it all over to us.”

  “As a gift, or only for processing?”

  “He gave it all to us, with the provision that we make it accessible to any of his family members who wanted to see it, and eventually to the public, once we’d cataloged and conserved it. And, yes—I can see you thinking—he left money to cover that work. But as you might guess, we don’t have a lot of staff, and there was no apparent rush to get the processing done. Ezra had made a first pass and seen whatever he wanted to see, so he wasn’t pressuring us to hurry. And then he died, and since nobody had requested access to the documents, we’ve been taking our time with the cataloging, kind of dipping into it a little at a time whenever somebody was interested. We’ve had a couple of interns from the university here, but most of them don’t know anything about local history, so they’re just going through the mechanics of cataloging.”

  I understood what she was telling me, but I wondered when she was going to get to the point. Here we were sitting in front of Ezra Garrett’s family’s historical collection of documents. I guessed that she had found something that she wanted to share with me, and I hated to begrudge her the pleasure of telling her tale, but I still had to get into the city sometime today. “Did the Wakeman deal prompt you to work any faster?”

  “To be honest, no. You’ve got to remember that a lot of the discussion about the disposition of the land went on behind the scenes, and nobody came to us for anything. It was really only when you were called in that I sat up and took notice. That’s when I hauled out these boxes and took stock of where we were in the cataloging.”

  “And?”

  “I know, you’re getting impatient.” Janet grinned at me. “Okay, I checked our rough list, and then I focused on the Revolutionary War period, say, 1770 to 1790. There wasn’t a lot, as you might guess, but I was lucky to find that Edward Garrett, the owner back then, had kept sort of a daybook. He mainly kept notes about farm issues, like the weather and which cows had calved, and major expenses, like replacing the roof or adding on to the house. But he did mention the battle.”

  Aha, now we had finally gotten down to it. “What did he say?”

  “Not as much as I’m sure you’d like. He was a Quaker, which was a difficult thing to be during the Revolution because nobody really trusted a group of people who refused to fight, or even to pick sides. I’d guess the family kept pretty quiet about it, but that’s only by inference, since they held on to their land and there were no public complaints about them.”

  “I assume that means they didn’t take part in the local militia?” I asked.

  “Not officially, at least. Anyway, as you must know by now, the Battle of Paoli took place just up the road from the farm, so it would have been hard to ignore it entirely. Then these two bodies turn up now, and evidence suggests that they died somewhere around the same time, and at least one of them must have been wearing a British uniform, because of the buttons that George found. Anyway, long story short, Edward makes a rather cryptic mention of the event. Here, it’s easier to show you. But please, put on gloves first!”

  I had already reached for the cotton gloves. I took the small volume Janet offered me from her hand and studied it briefly: worn leather binding, pages in surprisingly good condition, ink browned by age but still legible. I leafed through it carefully, noting the intermingling of financial notations, comments on planting cycles, even the occasional note of someone’s death.

  “I marked the pages,” Janet said, watching me.

  I turned to the place she had marked, and read. Edward, if he was indeed the writer, had summed up the battle in two lines, but had given a little more space to the chaos of the retreat. There must have been people milling around all over the roads that dawn, the American soldiers torn between rallying to defend themselves and retreating as fast as possible to regroup and assess what they had left. And Garrett’s farm had been smack in the middle of the path. I looked up at Janet. “This is fascinating from a historical point of view, but what’s it got to do with the bodies?”

  “Look at the next page.”

  I turned the page, and read, “‘We laid the two dead men to rest where they fell. God grant them peace.’” The handwriting was the same, but shakier, as if the writer were upset; it returned to normal by the next page, where the entry was about shoeing a horse.

  “So you’re assuming that those are the two bodies that George Bowen found?”

  “Wouldn’t you? It’s not a burial ground—all the Garretts are buried behind the meeting house nearby. But the conditions at that moment must have been awful, and I’ve read that most of the casualties during that war were buried where they fell. But there’s another possibility—and this is pure speculation on my part, mind you: What if the two dead men were indeed from different sides? How were the Garretts supposed to return them to the right people? Think about it—no matter which way they turned, somebody would have been angry at them, and might possibly have taken it out on good Quaker Edward. Maybe it wasn’t right to simply bury them and say nothing, but in the heat of the moment it was the easiest thing to do, and safest for the Garretts. And things in the region stayed pretty unsettled for a while—maybe there never was a good opportunity to fix things. Does that make sense to you?”

  I nodded slowly. “I think it does. Tell me, did George Bowen ever look at the Garrett papers?”

  Janet tilted her head. “He may have. He’s someone who would’ve had an interest, out of sheer curiosity. He was in and out over the past few years, not that he always stopped to chat with anyone. We probably don’t keep track as scrupulously as you do, and he may not have filled out a request. He had kind of free rein with the collections, because everyone knew him and trusted him.”

  “I was wondering if he knew he was looking for bodies, or if he just happened to stumble on them. I don’t suppose it matters, since it’s pretty clear that he found them. Who would George have talked to first?”

  “I’m still not sure. I think he would have told us, sooner rather than later, but he might have gone to the township first.”

  “Somebody on the historical commission, maybe?”

  Janet considered that. “Like Joe Dilworth? I . . . don’t know. I’d like to say that George’s commitment to history outweighed his sense of duty to the township, but he was a conscientious man, and it could have gone either way. I really can’t say. Poor George. He must have been torn.”

  And now he was dead. Had he picked the wrong person to tell?

  “Does this help anything?” Janet asked.

  I sighed. “Janet, I don’t know. I think there could be a great story in there to give to Wakeman, and I’ll tell Lissa about it, because I’m sure she’ll want to see the book. Whether it tells us anything about who killed George, it’s not clear. I need to think about this, maybe share it with someone.” Like James, for instance. “Take good care of this book, though. Is there anything else in there that you think I should see? Or anything else about the farm in that era that may tie in?”

  “I’ll go through it more carefully, particularly the part that comes right after the war. I can’t believe they just left those poor men in the field there, but I guess I can understand their thinking. Where are the bodies now?”

  “The FBI took custody of them—they have the best forensics lab around. I’m not sure what they can tell us, but at least they’re looking at them carefully. Listen, I’ve got to get into the city this afternoon, but thank you for sharing this. Wakeman wants a short report by the end of the week, and if we find anything that either corroborates or contradicts your theory, I’ll let you know.”

  “Thank you—I’d appreciate it.” She stood up. “Let me see you out.”

  Stepping out into the bright
sunshine after being closeted in a dim room with documents from another century was a bit of a shock. “I’ll be in touch,” I told Janet, then walked over to the parking garage where I’d left my car. It was early enough in the day that I didn’t have to contend with traffic as I drove toward Philadelphia, but I still had time to think about what Janet had shown me. Had Edward Garrett had mixed loyalties? Shouldn’t he have told either the patriots or the redcoats, or both, about the two dead men, if in fact they had fought on different sides? Telling no one sounded politically expedient but not exactly honorable. I decided that I needed to know more about Edward Garrett before I made a final judgment.

  And I wondered if the FBI forensic team could tell me any more about the bodies. I would have to ask James, over dinner. Another romantic conversation: What’s new with those skeletal corpses we found?

  CHAPTER 23

  I arrived in Philadelphia about three and was lucky to find a space in the lot across from the Society. Not much was left of the workday, but I was looking forward to seeing James later.

  On my way upstairs I made a detour to look for Lissa. I found her in the third-floor stacks, sitting cross-legged on the floor reading an old book, so completely absorbed that she was startled when I spoke. “Hey, Lissa. No, don’t get up.” I paused by a sturdy bookshelf and listened for a moment but didn’t hear any other human sounds near us. I leaned down toward her. “Listen, I found out something today from Janet. Edward Garrett kept a daybook during the Revolution, and he mentions burying two bodies on his land after the battle at Paoli.”

  Lissa sat up straighter, her eyes bright. “Really? Did he say who they were?”

  “Nothing like that. In fact, it’s barely more than a sentence, but I think it corroborates our guess about how those bodies came to be there.”

  “It’s too bad that Edward Garrett didn’t identify who he buried.”

  I smiled. “That would’ve been too easy, eh? He might honestly not have known them—after all, there were soldiers from all over the place running around in that battle. Or, since they may have fought for different sides, maybe he simply didn’t want trouble, and burying them was the easiest solution.” I straightened up. “I want you to check everything about Edward Garrett and the farm around the time of the Revolution, please. I’m sure you’re itching to get a look at that daybook, but you probably won’t have time before Wakeman wants his report.”

  “I was hoping to look into the Garrett family in more depth a bit later. I’m not a genealogist, and since the land stayed in the family all along, there wasn’t a lot of reason to look at all the wills or deeds.”

  “Could you do that now? We may not need to give all that information to Wakeman, but I’m curious about a couple of things.” I stopped her before she could ask for particulars. “No, I don’t want to give you any hints—just assemble the basic facts and give them to me tomorrow sometime. How’s the rest of it coming?”

  “Good, I think. You had lunch with Janet today, right?” I nodded, and she went on. “Did she find that reference to the bodies while you were there?”

  “No. She told me that Ezra Garrett gave the Chester County society a big batch of family papers before he died, and they’re not fully cataloged, so she’s been slowly going through them and came across this. If you exhaust what we have here at the Society, you might want to take a run out there and look. Of course, all this has to be in presentable form by Friday.”

  “That’s barely three days!”

  “I know, I know,” I replied, laughing. “Do what you can, and we’ll see where that takes us.”

  “Gotcha,” Lissa said. “I’ll get back to you.”

  With only a couple of hours of the working day left, I hesitated to start anything new. I called James to confirm our date, then took care of the messages from the day and signed a few papers that Eric had left neatly stacked on my desk for me. Then, feeling restless, I got up and wandered down the hall. I hadn’t talked to Ben recently, and I felt badly about that, since he’d kind of been thrown directly into the deep end. I saw that Latoya was in her office and went over and knocked on the doorframe.

  She looked up, startled. “Nell? What can I do for you?”

  “I wanted to see if you’ve been keeping an eye on Ben Hartley. You know, giving him a helping hand when he needs it.”

  “I have made sure to speak with him at least daily. He does not appear to acknowledge that he might need help. I only hope that he doesn’t assume that to ask for help is a sign of weakness.”

  “Duly noted. He has a lot to prove, to himself at least, but he still doesn’t know collections management. What do you think we need to do to modify his physical space appropriately?” There, I was asking her opinion.

  “He seems to have settled into the processing room. It may be that’s a better location than in the cubicle outside this office that has been used by prior registrars.”

  We talked about furniture options for a few minutes, and in the end, I stood up, and said, “Why not just ask him what he wants? If he’s touchy, he’s going to have to get over it, here or at any other workplace.”

  “A good point, Nell. We are all trying so hard to be politically correct that we miss the obvious.”

  We parted ways amicably.

  I didn’t mean to invade Latoya’s turf, but since I was close by I decided to drop in on Ben and make sure he was doing all right. I felt guilty for not thinking of what he might need. Of course, I often felt guilty that most of the staff had to make do with elderly desks and rickety chairs; and then I felt guilty because I had the nicest furniture in the building. But that was for impressing important people, not to keep me happy.

  I located Ben in front of a computer in the processing room.

  “Hey, Ben, how’s it going?”

  “All right, I guess. I’m somewhere halfway up the slope of the learning curve, maybe.”

  “Don’t worry. That’s to be expected.”

  “Hey, can I ask you something?” he said.

  “Sure, go ahead.”

  “You think I can find a better desk, or modify this one? It’s not exactly wheelchair-friendly.”

  Just what I’d feared. “I’m sorry. Tell me what you’d prefer and we’ll see what we can do about getting it.”

  Ben actually laughed. “Hey, don’t get bent out of shape about it. If you’re okay with it, though, I may know some people I can ask to help. I assume the budget is nonexistent?”

  “Close to. But we’ll work it out. Does that mean you’re thinking about sticking around long enough to use the new-and-improved furniture?”

  “Yeah, I think so. I’m enjoying it. Nice place, nice people. Why would I leave?”

  “Dusty history isn’t for everyone. Oh, and thanks for your insights on the Battle of Paoli. I look at that site in a whole new way now, every time I drive by it. Of course, it’s always amazed me that anybody managed to conduct a battle in those days. How did the military communicate with each other on the field? And if the original plan fell apart, did all the commanders have a plan B, or did everything just fall into chaos?”

  “Some of each. That particular battle is a good example. And add to the mix that any local militia that took part had precious little military training, and not necessarily with large units. The Brits really did have the advantage there—they were better organized and equipped, and they had more experience.”

  “Well, I have to say it becomes a lot more real when you’re standing on the spot where it took place. I’ll let you get back to work. Contact whoever you want about the desk and let me know what you come up with.”

  As I left I reflected that I hadn’t asked him anything about the technical aspects of what he was supposed to be doing, but at least he was proving to be a true history enthusiast, and that counted for a lot.

  I left the office at six thirty, assuming—correctly—that I’d
run into city traffic on my way to James’s neighborhood. I was lucky that it was still summer, which meant I found parking easily, since the Penn students hadn’t yet returned to the nearby campus. I let myself into the building and into James’s apartment to find he hadn’t arrived home. That gave me time to look critically at the place—and at what it said about him. Sure, I’d spent plenty of time in it, especially over the past month, but I’d never really paid attention to it. Actually, the simplicity of the place had made the caretaking part of the job easier: I could concentrate on nursing rather than housekeeping, not that I ever gave much energy to the latter in any case. But once James was on the road to recovery, we kept colliding with each other. The space had worked for him; it did not work for the two of us.

  I heard his key in the lock, and James walked in with a couple of bags that smelled wonderful. He dropped them on the kitchen counter quickly, then turned and kissed me. “I missed you.”

  “Me, too,” I said. “I keep thinking of things I want to tell you. I should start keeping a list.”

  He finally let me go and started pulling containers out of the bags. “I got Greek for a change. What sort of things were you thinking about? Houses or dead bodies?”

  “Both, I guess. How much of the case can you talk about?”