Sheila Connolly - Fundraising The Dead

Again, best-case scenario, she would get worried late in the afternoon when I didn’t answer at any of my numbers, so she’d start checking around. She’d call the Society, but no one would answer. Say Marty could track down Charles; he would profess ignorance of the whole thing. I had mentioned Doris in my message to Marty, so maybe she would try to find Doris -who would also profess ignorance, and who knows what phone she had called from. But Marty had my message, and if both Charles and Doris stonewalled her, she would know something was wrong. The problem was, how long would it take her to figure all this out?

Maybe she would call James. But didn’t agencies have to wait until an adult had been gone forty-eight hours before getting involved in a search? Still, at least Marty and James knew what was going on, what was at stake. They would have to be concerned when I disappeared and didn’t show up again. Certainly by Monday, when I didn’t appear at work, right?

But Monday was a day away. Did I have enough air for that long? And how long would it be before somebody did a full search of the building? Nobody ever came down to this corner of the basement; there was no reason to come down here, maybe not for weeks. Maybe some future renovation would reveal my rotting corpse-or would I be mummified by then? How long did that take?

Stop it, Nell , I scolded myself. I decided to assume the best of all possible worlds: that Marty would worry sooner rather than later, that she’d demand that the FBI and the Philadelphia police do something immediately (and that she had enough clout to make that happen), and that they would be thorough and look in every nook and cranny of the building, and they would find me soon. Very soon.

I thought about looking at my watch to see how long I had been sitting here, trapped, but that would be a waste of precious flashlight power, and it had probably been no more than half an hour anyway. So, Nell, let’s examine the curious question of why Doris locked you in the wine cellar .

What did I really know about Doris Manning? She was at least ten years older than I was, and had worked here ever since Charles had started. Had he brought her with him from an earlier job? I couldn’t remember. She was very good at her job, and she was in a position to know everything about the building and operations. She had never married, and she obviously worshipped Charles-it was clear every time she looked at him. It was something of a joke among the rest of the staff. Although to be fair, Charles did nothing to encourage her; he just accepted her adoration as his due. She would do anything for him…

Like kill?

Oh my. I started to run the mental video of the gala. Had I seen Doris then? She had been invited, of course, but she was such an invisible sort of person that no one paid her much attention. She could have been there throughout, or she could have slipped out and done almost anything-including kill Alfred. He knew her and would’ve had no reason to be afraid of her. Doris could have asked him to check something in the stacks, maybe for a member, and he would have followed her willingly. Even eagerly-anything to get away from that party he hated. And it wouldn’t have taken much strength to whack Alfred on the head with something heavy or to shove him into the metal bookshelves. Based on the push she had given me, I had no reason to question Doris ’s strength. And nothing ever ruffled her-she would have walked calmly away from Alfred’s cooling corpse and gone about her business, without a hair out of place.

But why ? What possible motive could she have to kill Alfred? But for that matter, what motive could she have to lock me in here? It had to come back to her adoration of Charles. No doubt she would have picked up some whispers of missing documents. We all knew she tip-toed around the place eavesdropping on conversations. Maybe she’d overheard me talking with Alfred. Heck, for all I knew, she was Charles’s fence. Somebody had to arrange for negotiations with those under-the-radar collectors, and I knew for a fact that Charles was clueless when it came to computer programs, let alone mailing packages. Doris always handled it all for him. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense to me.

The question I really didn’t want to ask myself was, what did Charles know? He couldn’t have known how much Alfred knew, because Alfred hadn’t told anyone except me, and then Marty. Even so, what had Charles thought when he heard that Alfred was dead? Did he never once consider that faithful Doris might have been involved? Or had he carefully avoided even thinking about it?

Which at the moment was moot. How the hell was I going to prove any of this, locked in the basement? Knowing Doris, she would purge all records of anything remotely incriminating, if she hadn’t already. By the time anyone found me, all the evidence would be long gone. Did she know that Marty knew the whole story? I went around and around with my reasoning. If I had really loved Charles, how far would I have gone along with his schemes? Luckily I would never have the chance to find out: the only thing I had done right lately was to dump him. At least my moral compass seemed to be working. I wasn’t so sure about my brain.

When I had said good-bye to Charles, I had said I wanted something more in my life than he was willing to offer. I guess what I meant was someone . I had opened my mouth and that was what had come out, unscripted. Did I believe it? I did. I thought of Alfred, all but caressing Cassandra, his computer, and gathering his little trinkets in his small apartment. Or Doris, giving everything she had to her low-level job and worshipping the man she worked for, who took her slavish devotion as his due without giving her a second thought. What did I want? I liked my job, loved history and tending the bits and pieces of it that had survived. But I had to admit, it would be nice if there was someone who cared about me. Someone who would notice if I went missing for a few days-or forever.

I don’t know how long I sat there in the dark, just thinking. I might have shed a few tears about the abysmal mess I’d made of things. Every now and then I worried about the air, but there wasn’t a lot I could do about it. There wasn’t enough room to get comfortable, but I thought I remembered that the air would be better down low. Or maybe that was in case of fire. Still, I might as well lie down and conserve energy. I put my purse under my head for a pillow, wrapped my wool jacket around me, and curled up in a fetal position to wait.

I must have slept, because the next thing I knew, thetiny room was flooded with light, and somebody was feeling for a pulse in my neck. Startled, I lashed out.

“Are you all right?” Ah, the gravelly voice of Agent James Morrison. Thank God!

I stopped flailing. “Yes. Yes! Get me out of here.” Back to light and air and freedom- please!

Strong hands reached in and hauled me to my feet. Upright, I found that my legs had gone to sleep, and as I fell forward, James’s arms came around me to hold me up. The sudden shift from total darkness to light blinded me, so I buried my face in his chest and kept my eyes shut. I was also sucking in great gasps of air, which made it hard to talk. And I was shaking from cold, and shock, and reaction. While I waited for the storm to pass, I took a quick inventory: breathing-yes, and getting better; legs-rubbery; brain-definitely fuzzy. Finally, I felt I could breathe normally and I pried my eyelids up. James was still holding on to me, and Marty was dancing around the pair of us anxiously. I didn’t have any desire to move.

“Nell, are you all right?” His voice rumbled in his chest, under my ear. “Are you hurt? Do you need a doctor?”