Privy to the Dead

by Sheila Connolly

  I read the files in chronological order, and made notes on Harrison Frazer’s payments along the way—he’d pledged early but paid in installments. But in September 1907 he had made another contribution, equal in size to his original one. There was no explanation, and most people (including the Society’s then-treasurer) could have presumed it was due to a surge of enthusiasm for the project, then close to completion. But I had my suspicions, even if I couldn’t prove them: Had Grandfather Terwilliger known or learned about the murder weapon hidden in his beloved society—worse, in his own lap desk—and rather than expose his colleague, had he exacted a payment to the Society from Frazer? Had he demanded what amounted to hush money? It wasn’t a pleasant idea, and I was sure that Marty wouldn’t welcome anything that raised questions about her grandfather’s integrity. The bank record wasn’t exactly evidence, but it was one more brick in the . . . Shoot, I couldn’t find any metaphor that fit. Fine. Taken in combination with various other facts, it was suggestive and it confirmed my suspicions.

  I stuck my head out the door and asked the staff member outside if she could copy that page for me. I didn’t need to read any further, because I knew that within a couple of months of that gift Frazer would be dead. His last donation to the Society was the bequest of his library and his papers.

  It was now past three, and I wanted to tell Marty what I had found at the bank. I tried her phone, but she didn’t pick up. But she’d said she was going to dig deeper into her family’s personal papers. I was only a few blocks away from her home, so I might as well see if she was there.

  Normally I would have enjoyed the walk to Marty’s townhouse. She lived in an attractive, long-settled neighborhood, and her house was lovely, filled with a mishmash of antiques and eclectic personal acquisitions that were uniquely Marty. When I reached the house I walked up the steps, and rapped the polished brass knocker. No response. I laid my head against the door, hoping to hear some sound from inside: nothing. Was she really not there, or was she ignoring me? I looked around the quiet street. There was no one in sight, not even a dog walker. I had nothing to lose.

  I pounded my fist on her solid paneled door. “Martha Terwilliger!” I shouted. “You’d better open the door! I’m going to stand here and keep pounding until you do!” To emphasize my point, I pounded some more, hard enough that the ground-floor windows rattled, which was some kind of achievement with a brick building. “Open up!” I yelled. I was making so much noise I half expected a police car to pull up to the curb, and I wondered how the heck I would explain myself.

  But I didn’t have to. I heard the sound of footsteps inside, accompanied by what I took to be muttered curses, and finally Marty pulled open the door.

  “Did it ever occur to you that I didn’t want to see anybody?” she demanded.

  “Of course it did. But you should know that if I make a fool of myself like this, I have a good reason. You going to slam the door in my face?”

  Without answering, Marty turned away and walked down the hall—but at least she’d left the door open. I entered, then closed it behind me and followed her down the long hall. In the living room beyond, she had dropped into a well-worn chair and was avoiding my eyes.

  I sat in a second overstuffed chair opposite her. “I’m not going away, so you’d better talk to me. I’ve just come from the bank. Harrison Frazer made a whopping big contribution to the Society a month after the killings at his summer house.”

  Marty didn’t look surprised. “It figures. What you’re not saying is that it means that my grandfather kept his mouth shut about whatever he knew about the Frazer shooting in return for money for the building.”

  “That’d be my guess. Does that mean the murder weapon was in the lap desk at some point?” And had Marty’s grandfather known? When?

  Instead of answering my question, Marty changed course. “Philadelphia society was different back then,” she said, almost to herself. “Class made a real difference—not that it doesn’t now, but in a very different way. In the early 1900s, the ‘right’ people all went to the same schools, belonged to the same clubs, supported the same worthy causes. It was expected—it came with the status. You want something to drink? Tea, coffee, something stronger?”

  “Whatever’s easiest,” I said, afraid to break the mood.

  “Coffee, then.” She went to her kitchen, where I could still see her, and kept talking as she filled a kettle with water, spooned coffee, and so on. “Do you see what that means?”

  “That your grandfather and Harrison Frazer played by a different set of rules from most of the rest of the world?”

  “Sort of. Their loyalty was to their own kind. Matters were settled between gentlemen, without the intervention of the police, unless it was absolutely necessary. And most of the judges back then were from their class anyway, so maybe justice was a bit skewed. The men would probably have argued that what they did was for the greater good, and of course they knew best what that was.” Marty returned with two mugs of coffee.

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “I guess so you’ll understand how those founders of the Society thought in those days. Gives you a better sense of them than a bunch of names and a list of contributions.”

  I could see what she was trying to say. “Okay. What you’re getting at is what might have happened when one of those men, Frazer Harrison, did something unthinkable, like killing two people, one of them his wife, in cold blood?”

  “Yup.” Marty didn’t add anything.

  So I was going to have to pull the story out of her? “The two men knew each other. They summered next door to each other. Are both the houses still there?”

  Marty was laying back in her chair, staring at the ceiling—and not looking at me. “Sure are. I used to spend a couple of weeks each summer at the Terwilliger place—all the cousins took turns. It’s not right on the beach, but sits on as big a rise as there is out there, so there are still sea views. Lost a couple of porches during Sandy, but unlike the houses closer to the water, which are pretty much trashed, the rest of ours is holding together just fine. One of my cousins owns it right now.” Her eyes were unfocused; she was lost in happy memories.

  “And the Frazer house?” I prodded her back to the point.

  “Yeah, it’s there, too. I think it’s a B&B now. It had like eight bedrooms, not counting the servants’ quarters in the attic.”

  “So presumably it’s been remodeled, probably more than once,” I said mainly to myself. I was pretty sure it didn’t matter: the gun hadn’t stayed in the house long. Time to cut to the chase. “Marty, what do you think happened?”

  Finally she looked at me. “I think you can guess, you and your merry band of researchers. Harrison Frazer caught an earlier train than he expected and walked in on his wife and some summer stud going at it at the house. He got mad and shot them both, with a weapon he just happened to have handy—we may never know how he came by it or why he had it then. Maybe he had just picked it up in the city and hadn’t had time to leave it at his house because he was in a hurry to get away for the weekend. Anyway, then he panicked. Did you know he was a lawyer? He might have gotten away with it in court, under the circumstances, but he didn’t want to count on that. So there he was, literally holding the smoking gun, when my grandfather, his nearest neighbor, knocked on the door and says something like, ‘I thought I heard a shot.’” Marty lapsed into silence.

  It made sense. “Marty, did you know any of this from your family? Or from the Frazer family?”

  She shook her head vehemently. “No. I’m just spinning a tale out of what little we do know. Were Grandfather and Harrison Frazer buddies? Did they hate each other? I have no idea. I don’t know how Frazer explained anything. Did Grandfather tell Harrison Frazer to go straight to the police and turn himself in? If he did, we know Frazer didn’t do that. Instead he told the police that some unknown person had killed his wife
and another man, and nobody even mentioned they’d been in bed together—the upper crust closed ranks on that. The police took Frazer at his word—in part because they didn’t find a murder weapon. I don’t think they would have tested Frazer’s hands for gunshot residue, the way they do now. They believed him.”

  “But there’s more, isn’t there?” I prompted.

  “Sure there is. Where did the gun go? That’s the big question. I see a couple of alternatives. One, Frazer went over to my grandfather’s house and hid the gun when he wasn’t looking, in the first thing he could find—the lap desk. My father told me years ago that his father liked to carry important documents he might need when he went on vacation, and the lap desk, with a lock, might have been what he used for them. The other choice is that my grandfather helped Frazer cover it up. They made up a convincing story, and most important, my grandfather took the gun away from the house, back to Philadelphia.”

  “Then why did it end up in the lap desk?”

  Marty turned to face me. “How the hell should I know? Maybe he thought no one would ever look in that. Maybe one of his kids walked in and it was the first place he could find to hide it, and he forgot to take it out again. Maybe Frazer handed him the gun and said, ‘Help me,’ so he carried it home with him, and then it went into the lap desk. Maybe the movers came too early or too fast to pick up the collection items he was giving to the Society and took it out of the house before he could retrieve the gun, which would get it into the building.”

  “Why didn’t he retrieve it from the lap desk, then?” I asked.

  Marty gave me a humorless smile. “Maybe he couldn’t find the damned desk, once the movers brought it into the building. We’re still hunting for things we know are there somewhere, but it’s not easy to track them after a hundred years. You know that.”

  I did indeed. “We could probably find the exact date for the arrival of his materials—if it was before the Frazer shooting, your story falls apart. But say it was with the Terwilliger collections at the Society—then what?”

  “Nell, how are we supposed to know, this long after it all happened?” she demanded. “Maybe after the dust settled Frazer wanted to make sure it disappeared permanently. Did they do forensic stuff with bullets back then?”

  “Damned if I know. I could ask James.”

  “Don’t bother. Someone—Frazer or Grandfather himself—pitched the desk, contents and all, into that convenient hole in the floor, and there was no point in retrieving it. They both would have known that the hole would be covered and the finish work would go on, and it would never surface. They were right for over a hundred years, but in the end they were wrong.” She sighed. “I’m being stupid. My father never said a bad word about any family member. I mean, if somebody had a drinking problem—and believe me, that happened a lot—then he’d say something like, ‘Our cousin Chauncey is indisposed again.’ We all knew it was code. He wasn’t a prig or even squeamish—hell, he’d fought in a war, and it wasn’t a desk job. But I guess in the world he grew up in, you just didn’t talk about unpleasant stuff, particularly in front of the kids. But what I can’t get my head around is, why would my grandfather cover up a double murder?”

  “I think you’ve already explained it,” I offered. “They were friends, or at least social peers, or had been until then. There was some sort of code of honor involved?”

  Marty didn’t look convinced. “Thanks for trying to make me feel better, Nell. You can take your pick of the alternatives. I do know that he loved that collection. From all I’ve ever heard, he cared deeply about the Society and his role there. I don’t know what his relationship with the Frazers was like, beyond being neighbors and colleagues, or if he felt any need to protect them, but I’d bet he would have wanted to protect the Society. Having a sordid scandal about a prominent board member come out at that particular moment would have done real harm, tarnished the reputation of the place, maybe even cost the Society some financial support. I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have wanted that.”

  That was a motive I could understand. “Marty, I’ve got one more piece for this puzzle that I think supports your theory—that’s what I came to tell you. I had our bank pull the records for that time period, and I looked at them on my way over here. Frazer had made a substantial pledge to the building campaign early on, and he’d fulfilled that obligation. But in September 1907 he made another one of the same size. My guess is that was one of your grandfather’s conditions for keeping quiet about what happened.”

  Marty didn’t speak immediately, but finally she said. “That fits, I think. Grandfather may have promised to say nothing, and he was a man of his word, but he made sure that Frazer paid for it. But we’ll never be able to prove any of it.”

  We sat in silence for a few minutes, and I turned over the new facts in my mind, fitting them into the puzzle, whose picture was becoming even clearer.

  I looked at Marty. I’d known her for several years, and for the last couple I’d come to see her as both a friend and a staunch supporter of my role at the Society. But there was still a gulf between us: she was Old Money (whether or not there was any actual money anymore) and I was a middle-class outsider when it came to old Philadelphia society. In the eighteenth century my people had been farmers, while hers had been managing the Revolutionary War, at least in part. It wasn’t personal—she wasn’t a snob, she didn’t throw her weight around, and she was a very down-to-earth person. But still, the divide was there.

  I couldn’t begin to interpret the social relationships that those board members shared back at the turn of the twentieth century. Would all this really have been enough to persuade Marty’s grandfather to look the other way if he knew one of his colleagues was a murderer? And worse, if that colleague had asked him to help conceal the killings? Was this about money or honor, and where did they cross?

  Marty began speaking again. “Obviously I never knew my grandfather—he died before I was born. But my father talked about him. He described him as a stern old man who always wore a suit. Who tried to be kind, but who really wasn’t comfortable with children. My father said he lived by the old rules—he had, after all, been born in the Victorian era, and he was a gentleman, back when that term meant something. Social class mattered to him. If a friend or colleague—someone he considered a peer—was in financial trouble, bad enough to actually admit it, then he would have tried to help. I know that’s not in the same league as covering up a murder. But as far as I’ve seen in my research, and from what my dad said, he was a man of his word, an honorable man. It must have hurt to do what he did. Assuming he did it.”

  “Since we know he changed the inventory, as Rich discovered, he must have known something,” I said. “You didn’t happen to find any documents signed by Harrison Frazer among your family papers, did you?”

  “No, or not yet at least. Maybe Latoya will turn up something,” Marty shook herself. “Okay, I’m over my snit about protecting the proud name of Terwilliger. If Grandfather covered up a crime, it’s too late to hurt him, or any of his descendants until you get to me, and I can live with that knowledge. I’m sure he had good intentions.”

  “On the topic of descendants, I forgot to tell you: Lissa found out that Rich Girard is Harrison Frazer’s great-grandson.”

  “Yeah, sure, I knew that—we talked about it when I interviewed him for the internship . . .” Marty started off in a dismissive tone, until she realized what she had said. “Is that important?”

  “I don’t think so, now. Lissa said he’s the only current or recent person attached to the Society who’s connected to the board and donor list from 1907. But Rich came to me this morning and told me that he saw Scruggs pocket something when he came out of the pit. He said he told the construction foreman, Joe Logan. Plus Rich has an alibi for the night of Scruggs’s death, and I’m pretty sure the police have confirmed both facts. Besides, can you see Rich laying hands on anybody?” I noti
ced that Marty swallowed a smile at that idea.

  I heard my cell phone ringing in the depths of my purse, and when I fished it out, I saw that it was James calling. I held up one finger to Marty. “Hey,” I said when I answered. “What’s up?”

  “I wondered if you wanted a ride home?”

  “Uh, sure, I guess, but I’m over at Marty’s. Can you pick me up here?”

  “Sure. Half an hour?”

  “Great. See you then.”

  “Your ride, I assume?” Marty asked as I put my phone away.

  “Yup. The bloom is still on the rose.”

  “Does he know about all this?” Marty waved vaguely at the stacks of Terwilliger private papers.

  I considered. “Only bits and pieces, and I may never share the whole story. In any case, it’s not his problem, it’s ours.”

  Marty didn’t look surprised but countered, “It’s James’s family, too.”

  “Yes, but he doesn’t feel quite the same way as you do. Most people don’t feel that way about their families. Heck, most people can’t trace their families any further back than their grandparents.”

  “I know,” she said glumly. “That’s why it’s hard to explain to anyone else. Like the police.”

  CHAPTER 28

  I was startled when my phone rang again. Had James changed his mind? I looked at it and realized it was a Society number. When I answered it, it turned out to be a rather breathless Eric.

  “Nell, I’m so glad I found you!” he said in a rush.

  “Calm down, Eric. Is something wrong?”

  “Well, not exactly. Or I don’t think so. That Detective Hrivnak called, looking for you, and I couldn’t tell her where you were. I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to give her your cell number, so I said I’d track you down if I could. Where are you?”