I looked him in the eye. “Yes, I do. You see, Alfred gave me the list of missing items. If these, uh, disappearances were random, I would be more than happy to write it off to human error, and hope or assume that a number of the things will turn up eventually as we continue to catalog our holdings. But the items on that list are definitely all desirable, potentially high-value pieces.” I swallowed. “I think we’ve been robbed.” There, it was out.
Charles’s face showed all the concern that I had hoped. “Oh, my dear Nell, I can see why you’re worried. But we can’t allow ourselves to leap to conclusions. Do you have any idea when this happened, or how long it has been going on?”
I shook my head. “No. Alfred gave me a rough list. Even he couldn’t say whether it was recent or ongoing. I’ve just filled Latoya in on the situation-I thought she needed to know, since this falls under her purview. Look, I know how sensitive this is and how harmful it would be if it’s true, and if it got out. Our reputation, and the goodwill of the historical community, are essential to our operations. I’m telling you now so that you won’t be surprised when Latoya brings it to you, and you can begin thinking about how to address the problem.”
I lapsed into silence. On some level, I felt relieved: I had discharged my duty, and it was out of my hands. I realized Charles had not yet said anything.
“Earth to Charles?” He gave a small start, then focused on me with a wry smile.
“I’m sorry. Thank you for bringing this to me-I know it must be difficult for you.”
“And for you, too, Charles. I can only guess what kind of scandal might arise if this weren’t handled properly. That’s why I thought you should be involved as early as possible, if there’s any way to resolve this quickly and quietly. Should we tell the board?”
“That seems premature. Let me see what Latoya can assemble, and make my own assessment.”
“Of course,” I said. “But…”
He cocked his head at me. “More problems?”
“It’s Marty Terwilliger. She wants answers, and you know Marty-she’s persistent. I don’t think I’ll be able to stall her. Perhaps if you spoke with her, off the record, it would help-or at least prevent her from making a large stink.” And informing the rest of the board personally, I added to myself.
Charles nodded in approval. “An excellent idea. I’ll call her in the morning and see if we can meet. Thank you, Nell-I truly appreciate your discretion. Not that I would expect anything less.”
We smiled at each other as I stood up. Charles stood as well, then laid a hand on my arm. “Nell, are you sure you don’t want to come over this evening? I know how upsetting this past week must have been for you.”
I looked at him and softened. He was right. Finding Alfred Findley dead and then uncovering what might be a major mess in collections had disrupted my sleep and distracted me at work. It would be nice to have him pamper me a bit, but I needed time to think about what I’d learned.
“I’m sorry, Charles, but not tonight. But keep that thought in mind.”
“Of course I will.” He opened the door and ushered me out-carefully avoiding any physical contact in front of any staff members who might have seen. But as I passed Doris ’s desk, the expression on her face told me that we weren’t fooling anyone.
As I made my way back to my office, I wondered why I hadn’t mentioned to either Latoya or Charles that I was seeing Marty the next night.
CHAPTER 13
I slept restlessly. When the alarm went off in the morning, I swatted it blindly, sending it halfway across the room. I dragged myself out of bed and made myself some coffee-strong-but it barely made a dent in the haze that seemed to surround my head. I went through the motions: brushed, washed, dressed, collected my stuff, stumbled out to the train station. Good thing I could operate on autopilot.
The world today was not the world of yesterday or last week. Poor Alfred Findley was dead under possibly suspicious circumstances, and today he would be buried. We were losing valuable materials from our precious collections, and nobody at the place wanted to hear about it, either. I felt like Chicken Little, declaring that the sky was falling, while all those around me kept patting me on the head and telling me not to worry about it. But I was worried. And, thank goodness, so was Marty.
The train made its slow way into Suburban Station, and I followed the herd up to the main station level, then to the outside world. I always enjoyed emerging from the low, dim tunnels below into the light, to be immediately confronted by the absurdly ornate bulk of City Hall. It was cheering, somehow-even if Philadelphia ’s government had seldom lived up to the grandeur of its house. I stopped for another coffee-large-before climbing the stairs at the Society and struggling with the heavy door.
The usual piles of things to be done sat before me on my desk, but I couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that to draft yet another donor letter would be like fiddling while Rome burned. We could have a serious problem on our hands. I was definitely a supporter of the cool, calm, and collected approach to things, but it seemed that we should feel some sense of urgency now, even though the Society’s normal response was to pull our head into our shell like a tortoise and hope it would all go away.
But this wasn’t going to go away-not if Marty Terwilliger had anything to say about it. She was a board member, which gave her a fiduciary responsibility to act in the Society’s best interests, and she also had a personal stake in the Terwilliger Collection. She had every right to be outraged if it was being plundered. She was also more perceptive than I had given her credit for being.
I jumped when my phone rang, interrupting my brooding.
“Good morning, Nell,” Charles said formally. Speak of the devil. “I just wanted to alert you that Marty Terwilliger will be coming in this morning.”
Well, that was fast. Was Marty that impatient?
“I’m glad to hear that, Charles. I think it’s important that you speak to her. What time?”
“Elevenish. But, Nell? I think I should meet with her alone-you don’t need to sit in.”
Oh. All right. Keep me out of the loop. But I knew what was going on, nyah nyah. “Fine, Charles-whatever you think best. Please let me know what she has to say.” I could play my role here. Dumb and ignorant.
“Of course.” He hung up.
I sat back and stared at the phone. Maybe he would finally take this problem seriously. Well, let him try to work his magic on Marty, and then we’d see what the next step would be. I sighed and reached for the top pages in my in-box. Somehow the morning passed. I saw Marty arrive, headed for Charles’s office; she didn’t so much as nod in my direction. I kept myself busy, but I had to admit I was nervous. I assumed Charles would handle the situation with his usual tact and diplomacy, but I wasn’t sure how Marty would respond. I wondered what Charles would say. Would he try to smooth things over, or even bury them? Make nice and hope it would all go away? He could be very soothing without being patronizing, but somehow I didn’t think Marty would fall for snake oil. Would she play along, or would she force the issue and demand that Charles take action?
I decided to distract myself by writing up the financial summary of the gala-tracking down all the bills, making sure I had the documentation from the caterer, and running another summary of the income. It looked as though Carrie had finished inputting all the checks in our database system and left me a report, which was good. Then I drafted a spreadsheet with the information I had assembled. If I had it right, we had cleared more than the thirty thousand dollars I had originally estimated, after all the bills were paid-not bad, and definitely better than last year’s results. Then I ran a quick and dirty analysis of how many new donors there were, how many repeaters, and how many people had fallen off the list this year. Again, the results were encouraging: we were definitely building our support base.