Privy to the Dead

by Sheila Connolly

  “I know what you’re thinking,” James said, his eyes on the pages spread out over the table.

  “That you wanted to stay out of this,” I said.

  “Yes. But let us say, for the moment, that this is a matter of purely academic interest. You have a collection of documents here that gives you insight into the management of a nonprofit organization at the beginning of the twentieth century. It also provides a profile of a particular segment of Philadelphia society at that time—just look at the names on the board and the membership list. And now you’re a part of it, or it’s a part of what you do. That’s something we can discuss.”

  I was impressed. And touched—he seemed to want to help, even though he believed he shouldn’t. “Good. Because I’m stumped. What we’re looking for is evidence, or even a hint or a suggestion of a crime. But boards seldom say, ‘Let the record show that member John Doe has physically removed Object X from the Society’s collection for his own personal use and without permission from this body—and, by the way, we’re going to ignore it because John is a friend of ours.’ How do I find something that I’m not even sure is there?”

  “By doing what you’re doing—looking at the small details, across categories, so to speak.”

  “And you think they can add up to something?”

  “Maybe. You don’t know unless you look.”

  “I’m not a professional researcher, or an accountant.”

  “But you have people working for you who are. And you’ve already asked for their help, right?” When I nodded, he said, “You’ve got plenty of eyes on this. If there is something to be found, odds are someone will see it. And then you can put the pieces together.”

  “And that will point to who killed poor Mr. Scruggs?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  Fair enough. We’d reached our invisible line. I’d found out several things I hadn’t known before, James had nudged me in some new directions, and I was tired. I stuck the few loose papers back in their folders, and then I shut and stacked the folders. “Is there something mindless on television that we can watch together?”

  “We can find out. You’re done here?”

  “For now.” But before I walked away, I made a note on a sticky: Call bank.

  CHAPTER 21

  Before I went to bed I took the time to format and print out a summary of the high points of what I’d learned: lists of the board members at the critical times, chronology of the building campaigns, my quick take on the sources of funding for said campaigns. I wanted to capture my first impressions, but I kept the summary short and sweet so I could share it with the rest of my group in the morning. Somehow James and I never quite made it to watching the game but found equally rewarding things to do with our time.

  —

  The next morning I carefully bundled up the records and added my own notes, and we set off for the city. I was getting awfully used to this; in the pleasant fall weather I should be trekking to and from train stations, so I could beg for rides when the weather was lousy, but I couldn’t bring myself to say no to James’s offers. I might never catch up with my reading, which I usually did on the train, but right now spending time with James seemed more important than spending it with the New Yorker.

  We arrived in good time, and I let myself into the building and headed upstairs. Eric was already there—he lived only a few blocks away—and I wondered briefly what he did with the rest of his time outside of work, but I hated to pry.

  “Mornin’, Nell,” he greeted me. “Were those files I gave you what you needed?”

  “Yes, Eric, thanks. Was that all of them?”

  “All the ones that were filed where they were supposed to be. But I’ve noticed that record-keeping and filing were kind of sloppy that far back.”

  “I’ve noticed the same thing, and I can’t say I’m surprised. Among other things, I learned that there was no secretary for this place until 1907, so who knows what went on before that. And there were no copy machines then, either, so it’s not like there would be duplicates in six other places. But anyway, thank you—and thanks for finding them so quickly.”

  “Y’all are meeting at nine today? Should I be there?”

  “Yes to the time. But I don’t know that you have to sit in—you have no institutional memory, so to speak. And somebody should cover the phones up here. I hope you’re not offended if we leave you out?”

  “No way. Can I interrupt you if I think something is important?”

  “Of course. I trust your judgment.” I realized that I hadn’t heard from Detective Hrivnak since Monday, but that was probably a good thing. She had no questions for me, and I had no information that I was ready to share with her—just guesses that were about as vague as they had been a week ago. The potential existence of a gun could be important, but I was pretty sure that she would just tell me I was wasting her time if I tried to explain our reasoning behind it. Plus I wasn’t exactly convinced those facts were leading us anywhere, but I thought we had to try. I reminded myself that I should know when to quit as well.

  Nine o’clock found us sitting around the handsome large oak table in the room I now knew had been intended for the librarian. Even the table itself might date back a hundred years, which seemed appropriate. I surveyed my cast of conspirators: Latoya, Marty, Shelby, Lissa, Rich, and Ben. I waited until everybody had settled down and pulled out their own ragtag collections of notes and papers before launching our discussion. “Why don’t I start?” I said. “I asked Eric to pull all the management records for the early twentieth century—board minutes and the like. It’s a surprisingly small batch, and I read through them all last night. I boiled it down to a simple summary”—I handed out the sheets I had printed the night before—“and I think there are a couple of critical points. I apologize if I’m repeating myself, but I want to be sure we’re all on the same page. One, the construction of this building took place really fast, and there was a big infusion of money from the state government. Two, it looks like the collections were growing equally fast during that period, and between those two factors, there was probably a lot of confusion about what we had and where we put it.” I paused long enough to let people skim my handouts. Then I added, “Before you ask, we didn’t find much in the way of financial records. I’m hoping Shelby can patch in some of those relating to the building from contribution records. But I’d like to hear Latoya’s take on the collections management during that time.”

  Latoya nodded in acknowledgment. “As you might surmise, the records are in rather poor shape. We know all too well what it’s like dealing with vague, inaccurate, or completely missing records, and coupled with an unprecedented influx of donations and a major building campaign, it was a recipe for disaster. My general impression, I’m sorry to say, is that a lot of people simply said, ‘Close enough—we’ll sort it out later.’ Only there never was a later, and we’re still playing catch-up.”

  I knew that Latoya was not just making excuses—she was a rigorous custodian of the Society’s collections. “I’m not surprised,” I told her. “Nor can I blame those men, I guess—they weren’t professionals, and it must have been overwhelming. Can you tell me anything about the Terwilliger donations?”

  Marty and Rich, seated side by side at the other end of the table, all but pricked up their ears, but I wanted to hear the official interpretation from Latoya before Marty stuck her oar in, so I gave her a warning look.

  Latoya gave what passed as a smile. “I have to say that the Terwilligers, from the first, were meticulous in their record-keeping, at least by the standards of the day. Not everything was photographed, of course—back then that would have been expensive, and the subsequent storage of the prints would have been challenging. Plus, as you mentioned, Nell, there was a lot going on here at the Society, including the demolition of the former building on the site. Sometimes I’m amazed that we can find anything.�
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  “Would you say that that particular short-term situation would have made it easy to remove some items undetected?” Or sneak some in? Would that confusion have offered a good opportunity to hide something?

  “Certainly. The only constraint would have been the ethics of the participants. Before you protest, Martha, the Terwilligers did the best they could, but once they’d turned over the collections they donated, it was to some extent out of their hands, despite your family’s ongoing involvement with the Society.”

  A new thought struck me. “That raises an interesting point. Marty, do you know why your grandfather chose that particular time to give his collections to the Society? He must have been aware that the renovations would create a lot of confusion. Why didn’t he wait until after they were completed?”

  Shelby spoke up for the first time. “If you don’t mind, Marty, I think I can answer that, or at least make an educated guess. Nell, you mentioned that the state chipped in a lot of money for the new building, right? And you know why?”

  “I do, but I’ll let you fill everybody in.” I smiled at her—she’d done her homework.

  Shelby nodded. “I apologize in advance if you all have heard this before, but I think it’s important to what we’re talking about there. The president of the Pennsylvania Antiquarian Society, one Dudley Pemberton, was elected governor during his term here, and held on to the title throughout his tenure. He’d barely taken office when the first grant came through—that one paid for some improvements to the former building. And as soon as those were finished—in record time, I might add—the Society turned around and decided to rebuild the whole thing. They took down the mansion, right down to the foundations. And this time they got twice as much money from the state government for the new construction.”

  “Why does that matter?” Ben asked, more curious than challenging.

  Shelby turned to him. “Think about it. Say what you will about the local ‘old boys network,’ but our man was new to the office, and he didn’t have the same support system available to him in Harrisburg that he would have in the Philadelphia area. So he must have had to present some kind of case to the state government before they’d authorize the expenditure of a big chunk of taxpayer money. Even back then it meant there had to be a formal grant application. We don’t have the record of what went on in Harrisburg, but we do have what the Society submitted, and it shows a healthy level of contributions from the board and high-end members.”

  We all thought about that for a moment. “But I’ve looked at the budgets,” I said, “and I didn’t see a lot of that money flowing through. Was there another account?”

  “Yes, a dedicated construction fund—that would have been kept separate from the operating budget.”

  “Of course! I should have realized that. And you have the file for that?”

  “Sure do, and a list of donors.” Shelby stood up and handed out copies of a single page.

  I scanned it quickly. “Okay, Governor Pemberton ponied up his own money at the beginning, which would make sense—that would shame everybody else into doing their bit. Marty, I don’t see your grandfather’s name on the list.”

  Marty shrugged. “The family’s always been cash-poor. I’d guess that his contribution took the form of the collection, which was significant and was arguably of national importance. Of course, that wouldn’t pay for construction, but he might have used it for leverage.”

  “And that would explain the timing,” I said slowly. “Say the governor put up cash and your grandfather dangled a major collection of documents in front of the board, and then the two of them sat back and waited for the others to step up. And they did, at least enough to convince the state legislature that this was a worthy project and had support from its board and members. And the funding for the project was rushed through before anybody could change their mind, or before Pemberton left office.”

  “Would it help if we knew more about what kind of man Governor Pemberton was?” Shelby asked. “Honest? Sneaky? Well connected, or a political newcomer?”

  “I can look him up,” Rich volunteered.

  “Good,” I said. “Shelby, can you look at his contributions record? Not just around the time of the rebuilding of this place, but before and after? How did he become president here? He must have played some kind of role here before he went to Harrisburg, even if it was purely for strategic reasons, like building up his résumé before running for office.”

  Shelby shuffled through some papers. “It says here in one article I found that he became president of the Society in 1900. Looks like he took an honest interest in history and genealogy—he wasn’t just a pretty political face. But by 1902 he was running for governor, and even back then that didn’t happen overnight. He must have needed connections and money.”

  “Did he serve one term or two?” I asked.

  “Just one. But there’s some interesting stuff about what happened during the building of the new State House, which had burned down a few years earlier, before he was elected. After he took office, he made sure that it was finished on time and within budget, so Pemberton knew how to keep a project moving. But after it was done, the state treasurer started looking at the spending and found a lot of overcharges and suspicious methods of calculating costs.” Shelby flipped through some more pages from her sheaf of notes, then smiled. “It says here that there were charges for chandeliers by the pound, and for the airspace under the furniture.” That brought a laugh from everyone.

  “Did the claims of financial misrepresentation stick?” I asked.

  “Looks like they nailed the architect, the contractor, the former attorney general, and the former state treasurer, but the governor was never charged with anything, and the public seemed to think he was clean.”

  “You’re right—that is interesting. He had to have been aware that somebody was cooking the books at the state level, so he knew how things worked, but he got away with it. All this at the same time construction was going on at the Society. Of course, I assume the state capitol building cost a lot more than the Society, so maybe our little project slipped by with little attention while everybody was ranting about the bigger project.”

  “So what are you saying, Nell?” Marty asked. “Was the governor clean or dirty? And where did the Society fit?”

  “I think this information about the big picture that Shelby has given us tells us something about how the man got things done. The governor had to have had some clout, so what I’m wondering is whether he leaned on anybody here at the Society to come up with the cash for this building.” Or for his campaign? No, I wasn’t going to get into that. “Heck, maybe he even gave it back again after the dust settled, but the construction money was in the bank at the right time to make things look good. Shelby, if you can find any more information about the contributions for the building campaign, that would be a big help.”

  “I’m on it,” she said.

  Marty still looked troubled. “What is it?” I asked her.

  “Maybe I’m being unreasonable, but you know my grandfather was heavily involved in the Society at that particular time, and I don’t like the thought of him doing anything underhanded. I know from my father that it really hurt my grandfather to part with the family collections, although he did his best to guarantee that the Society would keep them together and take decent care of them. You already know that. At the time various relatives were still fighting over the furniture, and they probably might have gone after the documents next. So, fine, he turned them over to the Society to keep the collection intact. Now you’re suggesting that the donation could have been his pledge for the building campaign, although it would have meant admitting publicly, or at least among his peers, that he didn’t have the cash. He was a proud man, so that would have been hard for him. But I don’t want to think he did anything wrong.”

  “Marty, nobody is suggesting that. It just happens that
we know more about him than we do about the other board members and employees at that time. They should all get the same scrutiny. Shelby, you’ll be looking for contributions records for both Society operations and for the special building campaign, from all board members plus high-dollar members, although I’d guess they pretty much overlap, just like today. Is there anything anyone wants to add?”

  I kind of held my breath, because Marty and I hadn’t had time to discuss whether we should announce our discovery of the missing gun, if there was a gun at all and if it had gone missing from the Society or sometime far earlier.

  “Nothing I’m sure of,” Marty said. “I’m trying to go through the family’s records for that time frame, but a few of them are scattered among other family members, so I can’t always get at them, or at least not quickly.”

  “Well, keep trying. You never know what private individuals will hand on to their heirs. So, everybody has an assignment?” Everyone nodded with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

  Lissa spoke for the first time. “Nell, what are your thoughts about this and how it might relate to . . . what happened last week?” she asked.

  I wasn’t sure how to answer. “To be honest, I’m still not sure we aren’t chasing phantoms. My gut says that there’s a connection to the death of Carnell Scruggs that we still aren’t seeing clearly, but so far we haven’t found anything tangible to back that up. I can’t point to anything that would give someone a motive to do harm to him. I feel a little guilty wasting your time—all of you—on all this research that may lead nowhere, but I feel I have to do it. Does that make sense?”

  Latoya thought for a moment. “I would agree for the following reason: if we don’t look and there turns out to be a link to the Society, that would be far worse than if we search and fail to find any connection. We can spare the time.” No one disagreed.

  “Thank you—all of you. Now back to work!”