Sheila Connolly: Fundraising The Dead

I grabbed his arm, pulling him back outside and letting the door slip shut behind me. “Charles, we have got one large problem. Wait here a sec.” Scanning the still-empty street, I went down the steps and taped my notice over the placard on the iron railing at the bottom. I had tried to be discreet-somehow Closed due to death did not seem like the appropriate wording, so I had settled for Closed for emergency repairs. We apologize for the inconvenience. The word would get out quickly enough. If it was a slow news day, Alfred might even rate a mention on the nightly news. I felt a pang again: poor Alfred. What a sad way to die. Although at least he had gone surrounded by the books and documents that he loved.

“Nell?” Charles said impatiently from his place at the top of the steps. He did not like to be kept waiting, and the wind was biting.

“Right. Sorry.” I waited until I stood next to him and could speak quietly. “I found Alfred Findley in the stacks when I came in-dead. I called the police, and they’re upstairs now.”

“Oh my God! How horrible.”

For a moment my sarcastic inner voice wondered what he thought was horrible: that Alfred Findley had been murdered, that I had found him, or that this would mean negative publicity for his beloved Society, and thus, indirectly, him. Not that it mattered much, and all were true. “Yes, it was. There was… a lot of blood.” Another note to self: who was supposed to clean up the bloodstains? Our custodial staff, or did the police have people for that? “The detective in charge is upstairs now. She asked that we keep the staff away from the third floor until this is sorted out, so I figured we could send them to the old conference room.”

“Excellent idea. Well, then, I suppose I should go introduce myself to this detective and see what the story is. What is her name?”

My mind went blank for a moment, then my fundraiser mentality kicked in. “Detective Hrivnak. By the way, she’s never been here before and doesn’t know who or what we are, so you can fill her in.” And turn on the charm , I added silently. I had the feeling Detective Hrivnak didn’t like me very much, and she certainly hadn’t seemed too impressed by the august Society.

“Thank you for the heads-up, Nell. Shall we?”

I rapped on the door, and when Officer Johnson opened it, I introduced Charles. “This is Charles Worthington, the president of the Society. I’m sure the detective will want to talk with him, so I’ll just take him upstairs to her. All right? But you can keep anyone else who comes downstairs here. You shouldn’t get any patrons this early, so just direct everyone to the conference room.” Without waiting for an answer, I took Charles’s elbow and all but dragged him toward the elevator.

Once the doors had closed behind us, Charles asked quietly, “Do they know when this happened?”

“Hrivnak guessed before midnight, probably during the gala. Look, you go sweet-talk the detective, and I’ll talk to the staff downstairs. Heck, we can even go ahead with the debriefing.” Yeah, right-like people would want to talk about who said what to whom at the party, when there was a dead colleague lying two floors above.

The elevator doors opened, and I stepped out to be confronted by an angry Detective Hrivnak. “You, Pratt-I told you to wait in your office. And who’s this guy?”

“I’m sorry, Detective, but I thought I should tell your officer downstairs where to direct people, and I put a sign outside to keep patrons out-I assume you would want that? And this is Charles Elliott Worthington, our president.”

Charles stepped forward smoothly. “Detective-Hrivnak, is it? I can’t tell you how horrified I am by this event. Alfred Findley was a valued employee, and a very pleasant person. He will be missed.”

I wondered uncharitably if Charles would have recognized Alfred if he met him in the hallway. But Charles turned on his carefully calculated smile, combining just the right mix of sorrow and sympathy, and the detective softened.

“Yeah, well, he’s still dead. Look, I’ve got to talk to Ms. Pratt here, since she’s the one who found the body. And I’ve got my people coming to handle the body. So maybe you should just wait downstairs with the rest of your staff until I get to you.”

Under different circumstances I might have been amused by the sight of the mighty Charles Elliott Worthington being told to wait by someone so… uncouth. But this was serious business, and out of the corner of my eye I could still see the dark pool of blood. Charles’s ego would have to take it.

“Of course. I’ll be available when you need me. You’ll be all right, Nell?” When I nodded, he went on. “Then you’ll find me downstairs.” He beat a dignified retreat, leaving me alone in the hall with the detective.

“Okay, where’s your office? Shouldn’t take long. This looks pretty clear-cut.”

“This way.” I led her down the hall and into my office, turning on the lights as I entered. I gestured toward the visitor’s chair and went around the desk to my own. There were a few envelopes on my blotter that hadn’t been there before-presumably the checks that Charles had mentioned-so I shifted them to my in-box and faced Detective Hrivnak. “All right-what do you need?”

“Tell me again exactly what you did this morning.”

I went through the steps, adding more detail as more came back to me. The detective took some notes but mostly watched me, sneaking an occasional glance around my none-too-neat office. When I had finished, she asked, “Give me a time line for this shindig last night.”

I complied, giving her the rough schedule for the event. Afterwards, she said, “Right. So let me see if I’ve got this right. There were a couple of hundred people milling around downstairs last night, and nobody could have heard this guy fall?”

“That’s about it. It’s a concrete-reinforced building, built around 1900, so it would be impossible to hear anything even if the place were empty.”

“Who was there?”

I tried to think of a way to describe our guests. “ Philadelphia society, plus some newcomers who can help us.”

“You mean rich people?”

“More or less. And society doesn’t mean the same thing here, inside these walls, as it does in the gossip columns. There are a lot of names that go back a couple of centuries, and they may or may not have money.”

“Noted. Any of them have any connection to the dead guy?”

“Not that I know of, but there’s no reason why I would know.”

“What can you tell me about the dead guy?”

“Alfred? He’s been here longer than I have-at least fifteen years. He loves his work; he’s happiest with his computer and with the collections. He’s never said an unkind word to anyone, in all the time I’ve been here. Of course, he tries not to see anyone at all-he’s really not comfortable around other people.” I realized I had slipped back into present tense again. This was going to be a hard adjustment to make.

“Family?”

“I can’t really say. I mean, I knew him, but I didn’t know him outside of work. I can’t remember him mentioning anybody. You’d have to ask our personnel director, who’s probably downstairs now.”

“Anybody else here close to him? What about his boss?”

“Not that I know of. His immediate supervisor is Latoya Anderson, the VP of collections. She’s been here about four years, and from what I’ve seen, they had a fairly formal relationship, strictly business. Is there anything else? The staff should be gathering downstairs by now. What can I tell them?”

“I think I’ve got all I need. You can tell them there was an accident.”

“Did he fall?”