Privy to the Dead (16 page)

“They do. Don't worry—it's not too big a stack, not from those early days.”

That was good news
and
bad news. “Let's hope we find something.”

I caught a ride home with James, which was a good thing since I was hauling the batch of files with me. They weren't particularly heavy, but they were irreplaceable—and they might contain evidence crucial to solving a murder. A very slim chance, I knew, but it was nice to have an armed FBI agent protecting them. Even if he didn't know it.

We had a pleasant dinner, and then I announced, “I have some Society stuff I need to review this evening. I thought I'd spread out on the dining room table.” We usually ate in the kitchen anyway. The table and its four chairs were the only pieces of furniture in the dining room; luckily there was an overhead chandelier, emerging from an opulent cast-plaster medallion, to provide light, even if it was a challenge to replace the bulbs so far above.

“Okay,” James said amiably. “I think there's a game on. I'll wash up, if you've got work to do.”

I wasn't about to turn down that offer, so I grabbed up my files and retreated to the dining room. I set them down, pulled up a chair, and started sorting the files into piles. I had to suppress a sneeze—it was pretty clear that no one had looked at these for a long time, and they were dusty.

As Eric had said, there really wasn't very much. Administration circa 1900 had been a bit casual—a bunch of old—and male—friends getting together now and then because they loved history and/or their families had been part of making that history so they felt some kind of social responsibility. And if meeting schedules had been haphazard then, the notes and reports taken from them had been even more so. This was going to take some digging.

However, as I read, I found myself becoming more and more interested. A lot of this was information I had known in broad terms; I'd used a lot of this background when I was raising money for the Society. As I quickly discovered, the period I was interested in was particularly busy in some rather intriguing ways. I started to make rough notes of my own.

Anyone familiar with the history of Philadelphia—or any other old city, for that matter—knows that city centers and neighborhoods shift over time (often surprisingly rapidly, in hindsight). It looked as though the decision to build a new City Hall for Philadelphia, on a square in the middle of the city, had been a precipitating factor in shifting the focus away from the waterfront.

It was while construction was under way on that building that the Society had purchased the mansion that had stood on Locust Street. As Lissa had told me, the Society had been renting space before that, but as the collections grew,
particularly toward at the end of the nineteenth century, so did the conviction that a dedicated permanent space was the best choice. I noted that as of 1899 there were nearly 1,600 members of the Society, and an endowment that sounded sizable but was mostly restricted to collections acquisitions and maintenance—the reality was, member contributions weren't enough to pay for even basic operating costs. And at that point there were only a handful of paid employees—the head librarian, an assistant librarian, a cataloger added in 1891, and a woman who specialized in manuscript repair. There wasn't even a general secretary until 1907.

Still, the flood of collections donations demanded action, so in 1901 the Society announced a renovation plan, with an estimated cost of two hundred thousand dollars—but only twenty-two individuals contributed money to that campaign. However, by a great stroke of luck, the president of the Society became governor of the Commonwealth right about then, and—surprise—the Society received a nice state grant for fifty thousand dollars, which made it possible to begin construction. That construction was finished in a year. Fast work! I wondered if the money had been paid up front, or if the disbursement was contingent on completion.

Now we were getting to the interesting stuff. After that first success, the Society decided to go even bigger, helped along by another state grant of a hundred thousand dollars—nothing like having friends in high places!—and that was the renovation that required the demolition of all but the foundations of the old mansion. So that had taken place between 1905, when the first phase was officially dedicated, and 1907, when the second phase was completed. Again, a very quick turnaround, considering that it was far more than
a mere remodeling. But not everything went smoothly, because the formal opening didn't take place until 1910. Had they spent those three years sorting out and installing the burgeoning collections? I sympathized, since I was dealing with the same issues.

I made a few more notes, mostly because I was intrigued: the grand staircase followed the outline of the original mansion staircase; the reading room off the lobby had been the only space open to the public; and the nice space under the stairs, where we were meeting in the morning, had once been the librarian's office, since he was supposed to emerge from his lair and greet visitors in the lobby.
Nice office!
The third floor had held only the offices for the cataloger and for manuscript repair, and the fourth floor had been entirely empty, waiting for future collections. I wondered briefly how long it had taken to fill that, because it was certainly stuffed to the rafters now.

I sat back and ran my fingers through my hair. So, what had I learned? That the window of opportunity to hide the lap desk, intact or otherwise, was very brief, as we had suspected—limited to the years between 1905 and 1907. That there was essentially very little oversight of the collections by official staff. That the public had little access but the members probably could roam at will throughout the building. Next I turned to the board minutes, a pitifully thin pile. Mostly they recorded the date and time of the meeting, members present, and motions taken and approved (there seemed to be little argument among the board members, or if there was, it had been deliberately omitted from the official record). I wondered if the request for state funding had originated from the governor himself, who was probably all
too aware of the pressing needs of the Society, or if some board member could claim the glory for proposing the idea. Either way, the money had materialized and been spent in record time. Things were a lot simpler back then.

Then I looked at the treasurer's reports, an equally slim pile. Balance sheets and cash flow. I didn't see anything recording collections contributions, at least not with any monetary value attached (how ungentlemanly that would be!). Maybe Latoya had found those. The balance sheet showed a long list of restricted endowments, as I expected, and the infusion of the state monies. I made a mental note to check with our architect to see if he had been given not only the building plans but also the costs and expenditures of the second construction project, because I didn't see them in the papers in front of me. Or maybe Shelby had copies of them in her files, since there must have been donor contributions to supplement the government funds. I wondered if the Society's treasurer—another unpaid position, appointed from among the board members—was a financial professional or merely a willing volunteer. So many of the board members appeared to be lawyers or bankers—and all were male. The classic group of good ole boys, Philadelphia style. I bet if I looked up their addresses in those days, most would have lived somewhere along the Main Line.

James came up from behind me and set a mug of tea next to me (on a coaster!). “That looks rather dry,” he commented.

“It's part of the history of the Society. It's also part of the quest for That Which We Cannot Talk About.”

“Ah,” he said.

I couldn't resist going on. “It's interesting objectively
because the Society had these wonderful collections, even in 1900, with more coming in, especially as Philadelphians fled to the suburbs and didn't want to take their tatty old stuff with them, but the place was run with only a few paid employees and a board made up of old buddies. Remember the wine cellar? That went in during one of the renovations early in the twentieth century. Wonder which line item in the budget that was.”

“What are you looking for?” he asked.

I debated making a snarky remark, but since he had asked . . . “I'm not sure, really. Anything that seems out of place. Anything referring to the renovation project, particularly the second phase, when the old mansion was torn down. Any financial anomalies. But all the records here are so sketchy that it's hard to know what went on. And in a way it didn't matter—the Society survived, even with the pathetic level of oversight back then. Of course, we're still fighting the same battles now, particularly in terms of housing and caring for the collections, but we're still here.”

James was now kneading my shoulders, which was a bit distracting, even as he leaned over to read the exposed documents. “What it sounds like you're saying is that almost anyone on the board or on this small staff could have done almost anything he wanted, and either no one would have noticed, or the gentlemen would have closed ranks to protect one of their own.”

What he said made sense. “Exactly. So if John Doe had an affection for, let's say, a choice portfolio of 1870s erotica and took it home for his own enjoyment, the librarian and his friends would have looked the other way, and there would have been no paper trail.”

“You have erotica in the collections?” James feigned horror.

“Yes, that—or even more valuable items, like silver or portraits. I don't have to tell you that if something had belonged to a family for generations, the current generation might feel it was theirs by right, even if the item in question had been donated and changed hands years earlier, with plenty of documentation. I've seen it many times. ‘Great-grandpa's letter should be mine,' says the patron, sticking it in his jacket pocket. And then there's the question of money.”

“What about it?” James asked.

“Well, there was an unusual amount of it coming in and going out between 1900 and 1907, when construction was finished. At least a hundred and fifty thousand from the state government, for a start. If the treasurer was an amateur, he might not have caught any irregularities. So if someone on the board was helping himself to funds . . . how would anyone know?”

“I don't suppose you have canceled checks from 1906?” James asked.

I wasn't sure if he was kidding—but then, I wasn't sure we
didn't
have those items buried somewhere in our files. “We might. But I'm not exactly sure where they'd be stored. I can ask Eric to look for them in the morning. Or maybe the bank has records, although they're probably either in digital format now or archived somewhere off-site.”

“You've been using the same bank from the beginning?” James asked, incredulous.

“Yes. It's changed names a few times, but the account has never moved. We've shuffled the investment accounts
from time to time, to optimize return on the endowed funds that aren't tapped often, but that's about it.”

James sat down next to me, a distant look in his eye. I was torn: we had sworn not to talk about this. I wasn't going to drag him into Society business, particularly when it might include a crime. But on the other hand, he was the one who seemed to be digging himself in here. I kept my mouth shut.

“I know what you're thinking,” James said, his eyes on the pages spread out over the table.

“That you wanted to stay out of this,” I said.

“Yes. But let us say, for the moment, that this is a matter of purely academic interest. You have a collection of documents here that gives you insight into the management of a nonprofit organization at the beginning of the twentieth century. It also provides a profile of a particular segment of Philadelphia society at that time—just look at the names on the board and the membership list. And now you're a part of it, or it's a part of what you do. That's something we can discuss.”

I was impressed. And touched—he seemed to want to help, even though he believed he shouldn't. “Good. Because I'm stumped. What we're looking for is evidence, or even a hint or a suggestion of a crime. But boards seldom say, ‘Let the record show that member John Doe has physically removed Object X from the Society's collection for his own personal use and without permission from this body—and, by the way, we're going to ignore it because John is a friend of ours.' How do I find something that I'm not even sure is there?”

“By doing what you're doing—looking at the small details, across categories, so to speak.”

“And you think they can add up to something?”

“Maybe. You don't know unless you look.”

“I'm not a professional researcher, or an accountant.”

“But you have people working for you who are. And you've already asked for their help, right?” When I nodded, he said, “You've got plenty of eyes on this. If there is something to be found, odds are someone will see it. And then you can put the pieces together.”

“And that will point to who killed poor Mr. Scruggs?”

“I can't tell you that.”

Fair enough. We'd reached our invisible line. I'd found out several things I hadn't known before, James had nudged me in some new directions, and I was tired. I stuck the few loose papers back in their folders, and then I shut and stacked the folders. “Is there something mindless on television that we can watch together?”

“We can find out. You're done here?”

“For now.” But before I walked away, I made a note on a sticky:
Call bank
.

Before I went to bed I took the time to format and print out a summary of the high points of what I'd learned: lists of the board members at the critical times, chronology of the building campaigns, my quick take on the sources of funding for said campaigns. I wanted to capture my first impressions, but I kept the summary short and sweet so I could share it with the rest of my group in the morning. Somehow James and I never quite made it to watching the game but found equally rewarding things to do with our time.

—

The next morning I carefully bundled up the records and added my own notes, and we set off for the city. I was getting awfully used to this; in the pleasant fall weather I should be trekking to and from train stations, so I could beg for rides when the weather was lousy, but I couldn't bring myself to say no to James's offers. I might never
catch up with my reading, which I usually did on the train, but right now spending time with James seemed more important than spending it with the
New Yorker
.

We arrived in good time, and I let myself into the building and headed upstairs. Eric was already there—he lived only a few blocks away—and I wondered briefly what he did with the rest of his time outside of work, but I hated to pry.

“Mornin', Nell,” he greeted me. “Were those files I gave you what you needed?”

“Yes, Eric, thanks. Was that all of them?”

“All the ones that were filed where they were supposed to be. But I've noticed that record-keeping and filing were kind of sloppy that far back.”

“I've noticed the same thing, and I can't say I'm surprised. Among other things, I learned that there was no secretary for this place until 1907, so who knows what went on before that. And there were no copy machines then, either, so it's not like there would be duplicates in six other places. But anyway, thank you—and thanks for finding them so quickly.”

“Y'all are meeting at nine today? Should I be there?”

“Yes to the time. But I don't know that you have to sit in—you have no institutional memory, so to speak. And somebody should cover the phones up here. I hope you're not offended if we leave you out?”

“No way. Can I interrupt you if I think something is important?”

“Of course. I trust your judgment.” I realized that I hadn't heard from Detective Hrivnak since Monday, but that was probably a good thing. She had no questions for me, and I
had no information that I was ready to share with her—just guesses that were about as vague as they had been a week ago. The potential existence of a gun could be important, but I was pretty sure that she would just tell me I was wasting her time if I tried to explain our reasoning behind it. Plus I wasn't exactly convinced those facts were leading us anywhere, but I thought we had to try. I reminded myself that I should know when to quit as well.

Nine o'clock found us sitting around the handsome large oak table in the room I now knew had been intended for the librarian. Even the table itself might date back a hundred years, which seemed appropriate. I surveyed my cast of conspirators: Latoya, Marty, Shelby, Lissa, Rich, and Ben. I waited until everybody had settled down and pulled out their own ragtag collections of notes and papers before launching our discussion. “Why don't I start?” I said. “I asked Eric to pull all the management records for the early twentieth century—board minutes and the like. It's a surprisingly small batch, and I read through them all last night. I boiled it down to a simple summary”—I handed out the sheets I had printed the night before—“and I think there are a couple of critical points. I apologize if I'm repeating myself, but I want to be sure we're all on the same page. One, the construction of this building took place really fast, and there was a big infusion of money from the state government. Two, it looks like the collections were growing equally fast during that period, and between those two factors, there was probably a
lot
of confusion about what we had and where we put it.” I paused long enough to let people skim my handouts. Then I added, “Before you ask, we didn't find much in the way of financial records. I'm hoping Shelby can patch in
some of those relating to the building from contribution records. But I'd like to hear Latoya's take on the collections management during that time.”

Latoya nodded in acknowledgment. “As you might surmise, the records are in rather poor shape. We know all too well what it's like dealing with vague, inaccurate, or completely missing records, and coupled with an unprecedented influx of donations and a major building campaign, it was a recipe for disaster. My general impression, I'm sorry to say, is that a lot of people simply said, ‘Close enough—we'll sort it out later.' Only there never was a later, and we're still playing catch-up.”

I knew that Latoya was not just making excuses—she was a rigorous custodian of the Society's collections. “I'm not surprised,” I told her. “Nor can I blame those men, I guess—they weren't professionals, and it must have been overwhelming. Can you tell me anything about the Terwilliger donations?”

Marty and Rich, seated side by side at the other end of the table, all but pricked up their ears, but I wanted to hear the official interpretation from Latoya before Marty stuck her oar in, so I gave her a warning look.

Latoya gave what passed as a smile. “I have to say that the Terwilligers, from the first, were meticulous in their record-keeping, at least by the standards of the day. Not everything was photographed, of course—back then that would have been expensive, and the subsequent storage of the prints would have been challenging. Plus, as you mentioned, Nell, there was a lot going on here at the Society, including the demolition of the former building on the site. Sometimes I'm amazed that we can find anything.”

“Would you say that that particular short-term situation would have made it easy to remove some items undetected?”
Or sneak some in? Would that confusion have offered a good opportunity to hide something?

“Certainly. The only constraint would have been the ethics of the participants. Before you protest, Martha, the Terwilligers did the best they could, but once they'd turned over the collections they donated, it was to some extent out of their hands, despite your family's ongoing involvement with the Society.”

A new thought struck me. “That raises an interesting point. Marty, do you know why your grandfather chose that particular time to give his collections to the Society? He must have been aware that the renovations would create a lot of confusion. Why didn't he wait until after they were completed?”

Shelby spoke up for the first time. “If you don't mind, Marty, I think I can answer that, or at least make an educated guess. Nell, you mentioned that the state chipped in a lot of money for the new building, right? And you know why?”

“I do, but I'll let you fill everybody in.” I smiled at her—she'd done her homework.

Shelby nodded. “I apologize in advance if you all have heard this before, but I think it's important to what we're talking about there. The president of the Pennsylvania Antiquarian Society, one Dudley Pemberton, was elected governor during his term here, and held on to the title throughout his tenure. He'd barely taken office when the first grant came through—that one paid for some improvements to the former building. And as soon as those were finished—in record time, I might add—the Society turned around and decided
to rebuild the whole thing. They took down the mansion, right down to the foundations. And this time they got
twice
as much money from the state government for the new construction.”

“Why does that matter?” Ben asked, more curious than challenging.

Shelby turned to him. “Think about it. Say what you will about the local ‘old boys network,' but our man was new to the office, and he didn't have the same support system available to him in Harrisburg that he would have in the Philadelphia area. So he must have had to present some kind of case to the state government before they'd authorize the expenditure of a big chunk of taxpayer money. Even back then it meant there had to be a formal grant application. We don't have the record of what went on in Harrisburg, but we do have what the Society submitted, and it shows a healthy level of contributions from the board and high-end members.”

We all thought about that for a moment. “But I've looked at the budgets,” I said, “and I didn't see a lot of that money flowing through. Was there another account?”

“Yes, a dedicated construction fund—that would have been kept separate from the operating budget.”

“Of course! I should have realized that. And you have the file for that?”

“Sure do, and a list of donors.” Shelby stood up and handed out copies of a single page.

I scanned it quickly. “Okay, Governor Pemberton ponied up his own money at the beginning, which would make sense—that would shame everybody else into doing
their bit. Marty, I don't see your grandfather's name on the list.”

Marty shrugged. “The family's always been cash-poor. I'd guess that his contribution took the form of the collection, which was significant and was arguably of national importance. Of course, that wouldn't pay for construction, but he might have used it for leverage.”

“And that would explain the timing,” I said slowly. “Say the governor put up cash and your grandfather dangled a major collection of documents in front of the board, and then the two of them sat back and waited for the others to step up. And they did, at least enough to convince the state legislature that this was a worthy project and had support from its board and members. And the funding for the project was rushed through before anybody could change their mind, or before Pemberton left office.”

“Would it help if we knew more about what kind of man Governor Pemberton was?” Shelby asked. “Honest? Sneaky? Well connected, or a political newcomer?”

“I can look him up,” Rich volunteered.

“Good,” I said. “Shelby, can you look at his contributions record? Not just around the time of the rebuilding of this place, but before and after? How did he become president here? He must have played some kind of role here before he went to Harrisburg, even if it was purely for strategic reasons, like building up his résumé before running for office.”

Shelby shuffled through some papers. “It says here in one article I found that he became president of the Society in 1900. Looks like he took an honest interest in history
and genealogy—he wasn't just a pretty political face. But by 1902 he was running for governor, and even back then that didn't happen overnight. He must have needed connections and money.”

“Did he serve one term or two?” I asked.

“Just one. But there's some interesting stuff about what happened during the building of the new State House, which had burned down a few years earlier, before he was elected. After he took office, he made sure that it was finished on time and within budget, so Pemberton knew how to keep a project moving. But after it was done, the state treasurer started looking at the spending and found a lot of overcharges and suspicious methods of calculating costs.” Shelby flipped through some more pages from her sheaf of notes, then smiled. “It says here that there were charges for chandeliers by the pound, and for the airspace under the furniture.” That brought a laugh from everyone.

“Did the claims of financial misrepresentation stick?” I asked.

“Looks like they nailed the architect, the contractor, the former attorney general, and the former state treasurer, but the governor was never charged with anything, and the public seemed to think he was clean.”

“You're right—that is interesting. He had to have been aware that somebody was cooking the books at the state level, so he knew how things worked, but he got away with it. All this at the same time construction was going on at the Society. Of course, I assume the state capitol building cost a lot more than the Society, so maybe our little project slipped by with little attention while everybody was ranting about the bigger project.”

“So what are you saying, Nell?” Marty asked. “Was the governor clean or dirty? And where did the Society fit?”

“I think this information about the big picture that Shelby has given us tells us something about how the man got things done. The governor had to have had some clout, so what I'm wondering is whether he leaned on anybody here at the Society to come up with the cash for this building.”
Or for his campaign? No, I wasn't going to get into that.
“Heck, maybe he even gave it back again after the dust settled, but the construction money was in the bank at the right time to make things look good. Shelby, if you can find any more information about the contributions for the building campaign, that would be a big help.”

“I'm on it,” she said.

Marty still looked troubled. “What is it?” I asked her.

“Maybe I'm being unreasonable, but you know my grandfather was heavily involved in the Society at that particular time, and I don't like the thought of him doing anything underhanded. I know from my father that it really hurt my grandfather to part with the family collections, although he did his best to guarantee that the Society would keep them together and take decent care of them. You already know that. At the time various relatives were still fighting over the furniture, and they probably might have gone after the documents next. So, fine, he turned them over to the Society to keep the collection intact. Now you're suggesting that the donation could have been his pledge for the building campaign, although it would have meant admitting publicly, or at least among his peers, that he didn't have the cash. He was a proud man, so that would have been hard for him. But I don't want to think he did anything wrong.”

“Marty, nobody is suggesting that. It just happens that we know more about him than we do about the other board members and employees at that time. They should all get the same scrutiny. Shelby, you'll be looking for contributions records for both Society operations
and
for the special building campaign, from all board members plus high-dollar members, although I'd guess they pretty much overlap, just like today. Is there anything anyone wants to add?”