Sheila Connolly: Fundraising The Dead

“Know what, Miss Manning?” James said.

“About… what I did, yesterday.”

“And what was that?”

Doris lifted her chin. “I did push Miss Pratt into the wine cellar. And I knew that she wouldn’t be found for days, if not longer.”

James said carefully, “You admit that you attempted to kill Miss Pratt?”

Doris nodded vigorously, dislodging a piece of her precise coiffure. “Yes. I did it. But Charles knew nothing about it. I never even talked to him yesterday-you can check the phone records. You’re with the FBI, and you can do that, can’t you? You’ll see, it wasn’t Charles, it was me. All me.” There was a thread of hysteria in her voice now.

I stared at the woman. Someone I had known, had worked with, for years. Whose obsession with the boss I had laughed off, dismissing it as trite and pathetic. She must have hated me. I shivered and wondered just what else I had missed along the way.

But there was still one other matter. I wasn’t sure what my standing here was, but I had to know. “Doris, what about Alfred?”

She swung her gaze at me, eyes wide. “What about him?”

James shook his head at me, but I ignored him. “How did he die?”

I could see that Doris ’s hands were trembling, and she clasped them in her lap. “It wasn’t Charles,” she said stubbornly.

“You don’t have to tell us what happened, Miss Manning. You can have a lawyer if you want one,” James warned her.

Doris shook her head vehemently. “No. You have to know it wasn’t Charles. Alfred, he… found out things. He was going to tell someone-I know he told you, Nell-and that would mean disaster for the Society. It would hurt Charles, wreck his career. I couldn’t let Alfred do that. So I had to stop him. He couldn’t tell.”

“What happened, Miss Manning?” James’s voice was gentler now.

Doris nodded. “I told him I needed his help to find something in the stacks. He didn’t ask any questions-I knew he wanted to get away from that party. He hated parties. There was nobody around upstairs, not in the hall, not in the stacks. We went inside, and I pointed toward a shelf, and when he turned to look, I picked up the step stool and I hit him with it. Just once. He must have heard me pick it up, because he was turning, and then he fell back against the shelf and hit his head. He fell on the floor. He was bleeding. I waited to see if anybody had heard anything, but nobody came. He was unconscious, and when his breathing changed I knew he wouldn’t last long. I went back downstairs to the party.”

Doris ’s calm, even tone sickened me. She’d just described murdering someone, watching him die, and she didn’t seem to feel a thing.

Then she turned to me again. “Why couldn’t you have left it alone? Alfred was nobody-he had no right to interfere. What did it matter, a few bits and pieces of old paper? The Society would survive. Charles would make sure of that.”

Marty finally spoke up. “Alfred was my cousin, and he was a good man. And at least he was an honest one, which is more than you can say for Charles.”

Doris stood up abruptly. “How dare you!” And she sprang at Marty, claws out. James stepped in and held her back, and she turned on him. “Don’t touch me! Take your hands off me!” She was sliding into full-blown hysteria, and it was all James could do to restrain her. Over his shoulder he said to me, “I think we could use a little help here. Can you call the police?”

I was happy to comply.

I went downstairs and out to the front steps to make the call, and stayed there to wait for them. I wanted to get out of that cramped apartment and away from Doris. I sat on the brick steps until the first police car arrived, and I wasn’t surprised when Detective Hrivnak stepped out.

“You again? What is it this time?”

I debated very briefly about taunting her, but mainly I wanted this to be over. The fact that she was here meant that she or someone had taken my mention of murder on the phone seriously. “Top floor. You might need a hand-there’s a hysterical woman up there, and she’s trying to confess to Alfred Findley’s murder.”

Hrivnak eyed me incredulously but headed up the interior stairs, followed by a uniformed cop. I remained where I was.

Marty came down shortly and sat down beside me. “Well.”

“Yes. Well. Should we have known?”

Marty shrugged. “I don’t know. I hope not.” She lapsed into silence.

Finally two officers guided a still-struggling Doris out of her apartment and down the stairs, followed by James and Detective Hrivnak, talking with each other. “I’ll come by in a few minutes, Detective. There are some other things you need to know,” James said.

“Right. Make it sooner rather than later.” She nodded wordlessly to Marty and me, then climbed back into her car and followed the black-and-white to wherever they were taking Doris.

James turned to Marty and me. “I’m going to have to go with them and explain things. Nell, why don’t you go home? You look like you’re about to fall over. I think we can hold her for Alfred’s murder alone, unless you want to press charges.”

I shook my head. “No. Let’s keep this simple.” I shook my head again. “That was really unnerving. Doris has always been so cool and collected, and then she just fell apart. I can’t believe she really killed Alfred. But-what about Charles? What are you going to do about the thefts now?”

“I think we can wait until tomorrow for that. At the moment he doesn’t know we’re on to him, and he has no reason to disappear. If he gave Doris the day off, he won’t expect to see her until tomorrow, most likely. We can deal with him in the morning. Good enough?”

“You’re the expert. If you’re going to arrest Charles, can I be there?”

“I think you deserve that much. Look, I’ve got to get over to the police station, but let’s say we meet at the Society tomorrow morning.”

“All right. I’ll let you in, say eight thirty? Before the rest of the staff shows up.”

“Fine. Go get some rest, Nell.” He headed down the stairs, leaving me standing in the hall with Marty.

“Well,” I said.

“Exactly,” Marty replied. “He’s right-you look done in. You okay to drive home? Or you want to stay with me tonight?”

“Thanks, Marty, but I’m okay. I’d really just rather be in my own place.” I wanted to slink back into my cave and hibernate. I had a lot to process. I shook my head in disbelief. “What an unholy mess. And tomorrow isn’t going to be any better. Marty, what’s going to happen to the Society?”

“I won’t kid you-it may be rocky for a while. But I think Doris was right-the Society will survive. We’ve survived this long, and damned if I’m going to let it go under on my watch.”

“I’m glad to hear that. Walk me back to the car?”

We made our way slowly back to my car, now decorated with a couple of parking tickets. I drove home carefully, where I fell into bed and slept for twelve hours.

The next morning, I lay in bed trying to sort outwhat had happened the day before and what was going to happen today, and what it might mean to me and to the institution where I worked, a place I happened to care about quite a lot. Funny, wasn’t it, that a crumbling building filled with a lot of old books and papers could lead to such drama. But in a perverse way it made me feel better-the place, or at least its contents, were worth fighting for. If I hadn’t cared about it, maybe I would have brushed off Marty’s accusations of theft as the rantings of a crank, and ignored Alfred’s findings, much as Latoya had, and things would have gone on just as they always had.