Sheila Connolly - Fundraising The Dead

“I’ve been through it,” Marty said.

I looked at her quizzically. “What? When?”

“Not at the Society. His sister was married to my aunt’s husband’s brother, so I spent some time at the house. Since he never married and never had children, and had this big place on the river, he used to hold family reunions every now and then when I was growing up. He loved to show us his treasures when we were kids, and I was one of the few who cared. And when I got to college, I asked if I could use some of his documents for my undergraduate thesis. Why do you think he ended up leaving all the stuff to the Society?”

“Marty, are you related to everyone in the five-county area?”

“Maybe half, or at least the families who’ve been around a couple of hundred years. Anyway, bottom line is I know what’s in the collections now at the Society. So I pointed Jimmy to a couple of real gems. Like some William Penn letters, and the original land grant for the old man’s property, signed by the founder himself.”

“Wow. I had no idea.”

“Thing is, I know who else was poking around the collections.”

The gears in my mind were grinding rather slowly. “You mean-Charles?”

“Yup. I ran into him up on the fourth floor recently-he was rummaging through the boxes. He gave me a nice song and dance about familiarizing himself with the collections, and I bought it at the time. I think we ended up having lunch together that day. Maybe he thought he could distract me with his charms.”

There was a little bell ringing somewhere in my head. William Penn… “Marty,” I said slowly, “when I was planting the bugs at Charles’s place, there was a deed on his desk signed by William Penn. I asked him about it, and he told me he’d picked it up at an auction in New York. I didn’t think much about it at the time, but it sounds as though it could have come from that collection.”

“Would you recognize it if you saw it again?”

“I think so. You don’t get to handle original Penn documents that often. And I remember that the purchaser’s name on the deed was the same as one of our major donors.”

“That’s the one. So that would make two of us who would recognize it. Anyway, to get back to the FBI side-Jimmy’s been working with some of his colleagues in the New York office. They’ve got more people there who work with art thefts, dealers, collectors, and such-and besides, they’re somewhere that isn’t Philadelphia, which is good. They’ve got somebody working with them who’s put out the word that he wants an autograph piece from William Penn and is willing to pay big for it. All very low-key, word of mouth, that sort of thing.”

“That kind of stuff really goes on? And is it legal?”

“You really are an innocent, aren’t you? Of course it goes on, all the time. And there are various dealers who are willing to act as go-betweens without asking too many questions-for the right price, or finder’s fee. The FBI knows who they are, but they don’t usually hassle them, because they’re reasonably small fish, at least by their standards. We’re not talking about Rembrandts or Impressionists here, we’re talking about letters, diaries, little stuff. It’s a whole lot easier to trade in, especially below the radar. And, as we’ve already proved, a whole lot harder to identify and track. Anyway, our undercover collector in New York got a discreet message-from someone in Philadelphia.”

“No! You think Charles is selling that deed?”

“Already has. Charles moves fast. He knew you’d seen it, and he probably wanted to get it off his hands ASAP. The collector in New York will be watching for it, and he’ll let Jimmy know when it arrives.”

“He wouldn’t just stick it in the mail, would he?” I was worried about that poor, fragile, three-hundred-year-old piece of paper.

“He’s probably got a courier service, if he does this regularly. I bet the faithful Doris Manning would know.”

“You’re right. She handles all that kind of stuff for him. Heck, she even picks up his dry cleaning.” I grimaced.

“I wonder if she’s in the office today?”

“Maybe, if Charles asked her to be. Should we call her?”

“Let me. She’s more likely to answer the phone if it’s a board member.”

Marty got up and went to the kitchen to make the call. She was gone a couple of minutes, and when she came back she said, “She’s there. She said Charles was in earlier and, in her words, “left some work” for her. I didn’t dare ask any more.”

“Well, if the Penn deed is going out today to the guy in New York, at least we’ll know where that is. I hope there’s nothing else in that shipment.”

“Amen. Anyway, when that arrives, Jimmy should have what he needs to make his move on Charles-if we haven’t given him enough other stuff. The fact that you saw it closes the circle, from the Society to Charles to the FBI’s collector.”

“But James doesn’t know some of it officially.”

“There is that. But cheer up, Nell. Charles’s days are numbered.”

We raised our coffee cups to each other in mock salute.

I had a lot to think about on the way home fromMarty’s, so I started by making yet another mental list. One, I’d been flattered and touched by what Marty had said about me. I did care about the Society, and I tried to do a good job-it was nice that someone had noticed. Two, I’d been a fool about Charles. Looking back, I realized that in fact he had gotten a lot more from me than I had ever gotten from him. I’d been the perfect dupe. I had believed that whatever our personal relationship might be, at least he respected my professional abilities. Wrong: he’d assumed I was both blind and stupid and tried to frame me. Great judge of character you are, Nell.

But the nagging voice inside kept coming back to the big Number Three: who killed Alfred? We didn’t seem any closer to an answer, and we were woefully short of suspects. Had Charles actually hired someone to do the deed? Was he working with someone else inside the Society? Had Latoya felt threatened by Alfred’s insistent reminders that things weren’t where they were supposed to be, and silenced him? Heck, for all I knew, Felicity Soames had grown tired of playing watchdog and whacked Alfred. All of the above seemed equally unlikely.

At least James would have enough evidence now to arrest Charles. That was a plus. All he had to do was collect the proof from his sham collector in New York, completing the chain of evidence, and reel Charles in.

But when was this going to happen? How long would it take the Penn deed to reach the New York buyer? Sunday I was reluctant to leave the house in case I missed a phone call from James or Marty, so I stayed home and cleaned things I’m not sure I had ever cleaned before: the tops of high cupboards, under the refrigerator. I scrubbed the grout lines of the tile in the bathroom with a toothbrush. Then I made lists of my CDs, my books. I labeled and filed all my photographs. I updated my address book.

In between I fidgeted, staring at the phone, willing it to ring. Naturally, when it finally did, I jumped a foot and snatched it up quickly.

“Hello?” I said breathlessly.

“Is this Nell?”

“ Doris? Is that you?” She was the last person in the world I would have expected a call from on a Sunday. Why was she calling me?

“Yes, it is. Charles asked me to call you. He said there’s something here at the Society that you need to see.”

My brain was working slowly. “What is it?”

Doris sniffed. “I’m afraid I can’t say. He just told me to call you and ask you to come. We’ll be waiting for you here.” She hung up before I could protest.