Sheila Connolly - Fundraising The Dead

James looked at me, bewildered. “But he’s already head of the place-isn’t that enough?”

I shook my head decisively. “Not for Charles-he’s thinking bigger. I’ve been giving it some thought, and I’m guessing that he figures he can make the Society’s reputation and its financial situation appear so compromised that if word of the thefts got out, he could swoop in and act as a savior-offer to absorb the collections, the library, maybe even the staff, into his new organization. Can’t you see it? He wouldn’t have to kowtow to a board or suck up to outside donors, or at least not as much. He’d tell the citizens of Philadelphia that he’s doing them a great favor, saving a big chunk of their heritage-when all the time he set them up just so he could feed his own ego.” I was working up a good head of steam.

“Mmph.” James didn’t offer any additional comments. “Tell me, whatever made you get Libby involved?”

Marty said promptly, “Luckily she’s his latest conquest-at least that’s what he thinks-and she was happy to help. But we figured he was acting according to pattern; he tends to use women, as Nell found out, for inside information, to make his job easier, and, yes, for money. He’s done it before. Nell talked to a couple of women who confirmed it, one way or another.”

James regarded me as though I were a specimen under a microscope. “Ah, yes, your colleagues in Boston and Washington.”

I grinned at him. “They both said pretty much the same thing. There were some thefts around the time Charles was at their institutions, as I’m sure you know. What they might not have told you is that he’d also charmed a number of strategic women and then dropped them when they were no longer useful to him. And he was very careful-he kept his thefts off the radar for a long time.”

James didn’t say anything. After a few moments, he stood up. “Well, you’ve given me a lot to think about.”

Marty was on her feet quickly, blocking his way to the door. “Oh, no, you don’t. We showed you ours, now you have to show us yours. You must have found something on the thefts, or you aren’t half the man you claim to be.”

James looked a bit smug. “Yes, Martha, we are about to close the jaws of the trap. That’s all I will say, but you can expect news shortly.”

She tried to outstare him, hoping for more specifics, but he had clammed up. He looked at me. “Nell, would you see me out, please?”

In the vestibule, his coat on, he turned to me and launched into a lecture. “Are you crazy? I know my cousin is a loose cannon, but I thought you might have enough common sense to at least stay on the right side of the law. What on earth were you thinking?”

I fought a fleeting impulse to apologize, and then I got mad. “Hey look, pal, this is my career, my credibility on the line. Unlike Marty, I don’t have a nice rich family to fall back on-I work for my living. The longer this drags on, the less marketable I become, especially if the Society sinks under me. And you all at the FBI have no imagination! You never would have stumbled on the way Charles uses women, not in a million years! And it was even worse than we thought!” I felt the sting of tears behind my eyes, and now I was mad at him and at myself. “Well, I’ve had enough. Sure, Marty and I bent a few laws, but we got the goods, didn’t we? We figured out the why for you-now all you need to do is work out the how and prove it.”

I stopped, since I had nothing left to say, and I was either going to spit at him or burst into tears. “So get out there and do it, damn you,” I ended feebly.

James stood perfectly still, staring at me. I had no clue what he was thinking. I knew what I was thinking: that I looked like a fool. He started to raise a hand, then dropped it. Finally he spoke.

“Nell, I’m sorry. You’re right. I hadn’t thought about how this affects you personally, and I can understand your frustration. But you have to look at it from my end, too: I need to build a case that will stand up in a court of law, that can’t be challenged, and you’re not making that any easier. I appreciate what you’ve done, but, please, can you two stay out of it from here on out? I promise, this will all be over soon.” For a moment he looked as though he wanted to say more but then apparently thought better of it. “I’ll be in touch.”

I closed the door slowly and walked back to Marty’sliving room. Marty looked critically at me and added, “You know, I think he likes you. Most people, he would have chewed their heads off. Yours is still attached. More coffee?”

“Great.” I refilled my cup. “Now what?”

“For once I think I’ll go along with Jimmy. We’ve given him all the information he could possibly want. Let him take care of it.”

I felt curiously deflated. Was that really how this was going to end? And hadn’t we lost sight of Alfred’s death, in all of our plotting and scheming? Neither the police nor James seemed to care about that.

I laughed bitterly. “You know, before this whole mess started, I never realized how much we all depend on the basic honesty of our patrons and staff. We’ve always assumed that they respected the collections, wanted to preserve them-not rip them off for their own selfish ends. I really feel betrayed, even apart from the job thing. Naive, wasn’t I?”

“I don’t think so.” Marty studied her own coffee, swirling the liquid around the cup. “Or even if you were, it doesn’t mean you were wrong. It does take a special kind of person to care more about something abstract, like history, than about their own needs. Hey, I’ve worked with you for years now, since long before Charles came on the scene, anyway. I’ve never known you to cut corners, to fudge anything-basically, to do anything that didn’t benefit the Society. I know you sure don’t do it for the money. I have to figure you do it because you do care. So, if you have to be a little naive, if you have to believe in the best of other people, then I guess it goes with the job. It’s a good thing, Nell.”

I was a bit stunned. I hadn’t known that she had paid me that much attention. “Marty-thank you. I don’t know what to say. I’ve just tried to do my job, and I really do love the place, and the people are great, and, yes, I really do feel it’s a privilege to handle some of the things I’ve had a chance to. And that’s why it makes me so mad that somebody like Charles-somebody in a position of power-doesn’t. But… I guess I never expected anybody else to notice. And I’ve got to say I misjudged you, and I’m very sorry.”

Marty laughed. “Yeah, I know, you thought I was a lightweight who just liked sticking her nose into things. It’s not the first time. Actually, you can hear a lot more that way.”

I laughed. “I’ll have to remember that. Well, then, what about this little FBI trap? Has James told you anything more about it? What’s the bait?”

“You remember that Bucks County collection that was left to the Society a couple of years ago? That guy who had a strange house museum, and who’d never changed anything in the place?”

I nodded. “Yes. I worked with the executors to see that there was enough money to catalog the materials.”

“But it hasn’t happened yet, right?”

“Right. They finished probate maybe a year ago and delivered the stuff to the Society, and we stuck it in storage boxes on the fourth floor until we could get to it. We were going to advertise for a student intern to work on it next semester.”

Marty cocked her head at me. “So nobody really knows what’s in all those boxes?”

“Not really. I looked at some of the stuff right after the man died, when it was still at his house, just to get an idea of the scope, how much space we’d need, things like that. It was a real hodgepodge-junk like his Aunt Minnie’s diaries, which talked mainly about the weather, mixed in with some really good items like detailed eighteenth-century records of the construction of the first house on the property, which architectural historians would love to get their hands on. I don’t think the man ever threw anything out, and he was the last of his family.”