“I’d have to be more familiar with your internal workings to make a judgment about that. At this time, I am responding to a formal complaint from an interested party who appears to be credible.”
“What happens now?”
“I’ll speak with the staff, check for any criminal records among them, and review your collections management procedures. If I identify any items that are not where they should be, I would investigate beyond the confines of this institution.”
“You, or a whole herd of agents?” The idea of expanding the search made me nervous. I wondered whether I should say something about Rich’s disclosure to me about his past, or Marty’s disclosure about Alfred’s record, but I decided not to stir anything up. If he was a good agent, he’d already know about both, or would find out soon enough.
“Just me, for now. If I think I need help, I can call in others.”
An awful thought struck me. “Is this public information? I mean, do you have to announce that we are under investigation?”
He looked at me curiously. “Why?”
“Because it would make my job a whole lot harder. I’m supposed to be raising money, remember? People have to believe that we’re doing our jobs preserving their history-not letting it walk out under our noses or misplacing it.” I restrained myself from saying losing it.
“I’ll try to keep that in mind,” he said. “Actually, until we determine that a theft has occurred, it isn’t actually news. We’ll just have to see.”
I gave him a weak smile. “I guess that will have to do, right? Anything else you need from me?”
He stood up. “Thank you, Ms. Pratt. You’ve been most helpful. Your president suggested that you could provide me with a staff list and perhaps a brief sketch of individual responsibilities-who has access to what, for instance.”
“Our VP of collections, Latoya Anderson, would have a better handle on that end of things.”
Imperturbably he said, “Mr. Worthington thought you might have a better overview of the institution as a whole, and what roles various staff members play.”
I wasn’t sure if that was a compliment, but it was true. Since I wrote grants for all and any purposes, from building repairs to scanning equipment to staff salaries, I talked to almost everyone in the building on a regular basis, and I prowled the halls and the stacks. Far more than Charles ever did-he seldom ventured from his elegant office to mingle with the hoi polloi.
“Certainly. Will you be around for a bit longer? I can call up a staff list and add the sort of detail you might find useful. And do you need a tour of the building?”
“I would appreciate that. Why don’t you take care of that while I speak with the collections person?”
“Of course,” I said graciously. “I’ll have it ready when you finish with Latoya.”
He made a silent exit, and from the hurried scuffling outside my door I wondered just how many people had been listening to our conversation. But I had to assume that was Agent James’s intent-and that word of the investigation would spread throughout the building with lightning speed.
CHAPTER 16
As soon as James left I swiveled in my chair and stared at the computer screen. All right, first things first. I decided I needed to talk with Charles, so I stood up and marched purposefully to the president’s office. Doris was, as usual, standing, or rather sitting, guard.
“Is he in?” I said breezily, without breaking stride.
“No,” Doris replied with a small smirk. “He said he had a meeting to go to, and he won’t be back in the office today.”
Interesting. In his place, the first thing I would have done after an impromptu visit from an FBI agent would be to call an all-hands staff meeting and give them a clue as to what was going on, and ask them to cooperate fully. There was nothing worse than a lot of half truths and rumors floating around a small institution like ours, and it didn’t take much to poison the atmosphere. I wondered why Charles seemed to have beaten a hasty retreat instead.
“If he calls, will you tell him I need to speak to him?”
“Of course. I always give him his messages.” Doris turned away from me and resumed whatever it was she was typing. End of conversation, apparently.
“Thank you, Doris -I know you do.” I made my exit.
I went back to my office and put together a staff list as requested, cutting and pasting until each person had a paragraph or so describing his or her responsibilities, then added a copy of the organizational chart-who reported to whom, oversaw whom. I was just squaring up the stack when James reappeared in my doorway.
“Perfect timing!” I greeted him. “Here’s the material you wanted. Is there anyone else you were planning to talk to?”
“Not at this time. Let’s walk through the place. You can give me a sense of the layout.”
I stood up. “Fine. We can start at the top-we keep collections not accessible to the public on the third and fourth floors…” I kept up a running discussion as we walked to the elevator, got in, and I inserted my key in the fourth-floor slot. We stepped out on the top story. There were no lights on, but James laid a hand on my arm, and we stood still for a couple of seconds as he listened. No sounds of anyone moving around, either. It looked as though we were alone.
“Let’s start at one end and work our way back, and you can tell me what’s kept where,” he said.
“I’ll do what I can. As I’ve said, I’m not a collections person, so I have only a very general idea of how the collections are distributed. Let’s start in the back corner, over there.” I led him to the farthest point on the floor, a dim, dusty corner whose metal shelves were piled with large leather-bound ledger books from long-defunct companies. Then I lowered my voice. “Okay, do you really want the fifty-cent tour, or is there something else you want to talk about? Like why you’re here?”
He leaned back against the wall and broke a smile for the first time. “A little of each. I do want to scope the place out, get some idea of security and who has access to what. But I wanted to talk to you, too. You did well with that little charade downstairs-good reactions. Think everyone heard?”
“Thanks, and probably yes. I assumed that was your intention, when you left the door open. It’s a small place, and I’m sure those who weren’t eavesdropping in the hall will hear soon enough. So Marty got tired of waiting?”
“She told me she set a deadline and she’s sticking to it. By the way, your security sucks.”
I sighed. “I know. But there’s only so much money, and it doesn’t go very far. So we all pretend we don’t have a problem. But we do, don’t we?”
“Oh, yes.” He pulled out a sheaf of papers and waved it at me. “Alfred’s list.”
I nodded. “I bet he was surprised when he finally printed it out-when I first talked to him about it, I don’t think he anticipated the length of the list, or the nature of the items, as a whole. That’s probably why he sent a copy to Marty, too, in the first place.”
“He hadn’t communicated his concerns to anyone else? Before you, that is?”
I shook my head. “Not that I know of, beyond his regular monthly reports to Latoya. Alfred was a very thorough person, and I’m sure he wanted to be certain that the items had not merely been shifted. And he was probably afraid he’d be blamed.” I wasn’t sure if Marty had told James about Alfred’s kleptomania-but if he was a cousin, he probably knew already. “I can’t say when he would have pressed for action on his own, until Marty complained and I came to him and asked him directly.” Did that mean that somehow Marty and I had pushed someone into killing him? I didn’t like that thought.
“Hmm. How would you characterize the items on this list?”
“Remember that this is not my area of expertise. There’s a little bit of everything here. MSS refers to manuscripts. Ephemera are things like advertising flyers, things that were originally made to be discarded. Some of these notations refer to condition or location. But I think you can see what kind of a mess the recording system has been. Alfred had made great strides in imposing order, but there’s still a long way to go.”