“Not a problem.” Libby stared over our heads, thinking. Finally she said, “But can I keep the heavy-breathing part to a minimum? I don’t want to become a legend at the local FBI stag parties. You do trust Jimmy, don’t you?”
“Oh, he’s the real deal,” Marty replied complacently. “His mother was horrified when he went to work for the government rather than his father’s brokerage firm. But he’s done quite well, from what I hear.” She looked at her watch. “Well, ladies, I have to go help Cousin Althea start making her infamous fruitcake for Christmas-it has to be soaked in rum and mellow for a couple of months, which is the only reason anybody will eat it. Libs, I’ll talk to you as soon as I get a line on the bugs.”
I stood up, uncertain. “Marty, I need to talk to you-can you wait a minute?” Then I turned to Libby. “Libby, thank you for being willing to play along with this. We’re both worried that the FBI may not find enough to nail Charles for the thefts, and this gives us some extra insurance.”
Libby laughed. “Hell, I wouldn’t miss it. This will be the most fun I’ve had in a long time. And we girls have to stick together, right? Marty, give me a call when you get the doohickeys. Nell, good to meet you, and I have a feeling I’ll be seeing more of you.”
Marty and I left her to deal with the check, although I had to wrestle with my conscience. Unfortunately my meager wallet trumped my heavy conscience. I hurried out after Marty. “Listen, I remembered what you said about talking to colleagues. I’m going to try to talk to some of my counterparts at the other places Charles has worked and see what I can find out. I figure they might be more likely to talk to me than to an FBI agent.”
“Brilliant! Nell, I’m beginning to think you have a real talent for conspiracy. Well, I’ve got to run. I’ll call you when I’ve got the equipment lined up, and we can go from there.”
I watched her pull out of the parking lot. It was nice that she thought well of my skills, but I was beginning to wonder just what I had gotten myself into. How would bugged a romantic tryst to solve a felony look on my résumé?
CHAPTER 22
I didn’t hear from Marty over the weekend. Monday morning in the office, I took a look at the plan I had come up with, decided it still made sense, and started to put it into effect. Armed with a large mug of coffee, I logged on to the Internet and reviewed the staff lists at organizations where Charles had spent time in the past twenty years or so. I remembered details of his CV from his interview, and I knew that he had been a busy boy, climbing steadily up the administrative ladder and then hopping from one place to another (bigger, better) one as soon as it was seemly. He had apparently done it very well, and the progression led quite naturally to the top post at the Society. I focused in on the places he’d worked within the last decade. High staff turnover in development is normal, so people I might have known in the past had moved on to other places, and I had to do a bit of tracking.
In the end, after an hour or so of trawling websites, I identified two women whose paths had crossed mine, either at fundraising conferences or at museum or library functions, and who I could legitimately contact with business questions. For the moment, I was going to assume that the word of the Society’s troubles was not common knowledge, especially beyond the Philadelphia community. And I had a perfect cover story: I wanted to know about how our sister institutions handled their security measures. I was researching various state-of-the-art security systems, with the view of writing grant proposals to fund a new system for the Society, and I had heard that they had installed a blah, blah, blah. It would do to get my foot in the door, and it had the added benefit of being almost true.
The ones I knew best, and thought I could glean the most information from, were in Boston and in Washington, DC. I started with Diane Carpenter in DC. “Diane? This is Nell Pratt, from Philadelphia? I’m the development director at…” And so on.
And we were off and running. Five minutes of polite chitchat later, I had a date with Diane for the next day-on my tab, of course. DC was a two-hour train ride away, but it was worth meeting her in person, rather than trying to do this over the phone. I wasn’t sure how my budget was going to stand for this, but maybe the FBI would reimburse me. Oops, the FBI didn’t know about my own investigation. Well, maybe they would reimburse me if our little plan worked out. Boosted by my first success, and no less by the apparent viability of my cover story, I tried the second name on my list, Gail Wallace, and set up a meeting in Boston for later in the week. Surely one or the other would have some good dirt to dish. Otherwise I’d run out of time and money pretty fast this way.
I sat back in my chair and reviewed my strategy. It seemed likely to me that Charles might have done a little harvesting at various collections, sort of a dry run before tackling the Society. But what if he’d been going after the patronesses there, too? My contacts were both women, and who better to fill me in on the nonpublic aspects of Charles’s activities? The ones that never made it to the personnel file; the ones that made the institutions very glad to give him a glowing endorsement, hoping fervently that he would become someone else’s problem. This was one part of the investigation that I could handle much better than Agent James. I knew what I was looking for and how to ask the right questions. It felt satisfying to know that maybe I could pull my own weight and do some good.
The next morning, I caught an early train to Washington. I suppose I could have driven, but it would be easier to just get there, see Diane Carpenter, and come back again without worrying about parking or getting lost. I doubted she’d be willing to let down her hair to a comparative stranger, so the meeting would probably be short. I just hoped it would be sweet.
I didn’t know Diane well. We’d chatted at various meetings over the past few years, but we were more acquaintances than friends. I knew she was about my own age and, like me, had worked at a variety of places in her career, but I couldn’t recall any other personal data to save my life. Children? Pets? Hobbies? I spent the train trip trying to figure out how to steer the conversation toward in-house thefts and Charles Worthington’s girlfriends, official or otherwise.
From the station I grabbed a cab to Georgetown. Diane was my counterpart at a small but exquisite library, whose collections and massive endowment made many of us in the business green with envy. Once inside, I made the appropriate reverent noises about the handsome building and impressive collections; it was easy to be sincere, since both were wonderful. She gave me the full behind-the-scenes tour, including the basements and the elaborate electronic control room that ran their security system, and I dutifully asked her to join me for lunch, which she accepted with tepid enthusiasm. I let her pick the place, and when we were settled and had ordered, I started my oh-so-subtle probing.
“If I may be direct,” I began, “can you tell me if you installed your system as a precautionary measure or because of a specific incident?”
Diane fixed me with a cold eye. “Does this have anything to do with the call I received this morning from the FBI office in Philadelphia?”
I stared at her, hoping I didn’t look like a deer caught in the headlights. I could play ignorant, or I could tell her the truth-or a modified version of the truth. I decided on the latter.
“Actually, yes, it does. What did they tell you?”
“Very little. They asked about Charles Worthington’s tenure at the library. They already knew about our theft.”
I looked blankly at her. Either this had been very carefully hushed up, or I hadn’t done my homework very well. “Theft?”