Fundraising The Dead

CHAPTER 12

I stood up and headed to Latoya Anderson’s office. She was on the phone, but I summoned up my patience and waited. Finally she managed to extricate herself from the phone call and gestured for me to come in. I closed the door behind me, and Latoya’s eyebrows went up a notch. She must have picked up on my unease-not to mention the fact that I’d closed the door. “What’s going on now, Nell?” She folded her hands on her pristine desk blotter and waited.

I took a deep breath. “You remember I talked to you Saturday about the problem with the Terwilliger papers?”

She nodded, then said contritely, “Oh, and I promised to get you the files-it slipped my mind entirely. Let me hunt them up for you.” She started to rise, but I held up a hand to stop her.

“Latoya, that’s not the immediate problem. There’s something bigger that we need to talk about. Something that Alfred told me about the collections.”

She sat back and said, “All right. What’s the problem?”

Here we go, I thought. “When Marty came to me with her question, I realized how little I knew about the maintenance of our collections, in hands-on terms. So I talked to Alfred, since he was more directly involved in the day-to-day management.”

Latoya’s expression was wary. “Go on.”

This was the difficult part. “Alfred told me that there are a number of other items he had not been able to locate.”

She sniffed. “I know-that was in his reports. That’s to be expected in an organization of this size and age. You should know that.”

“Yes, I do know, and that’s what Alfred told me.” I pressed on. “I think the problem is bigger than that. Alfred gave me a list of the items he knew of, that he hadn’t been able to find. I looked at the list, and even to my untrained eye it appears that most of them are both historically significant and valuable.”

“What are you suggesting?”

I drew myself up and said deliberately, “I think there is good reason to believe that there has been systematic looting of the Society’s collections.”

There was silence in the room. I could almost see the wheels turning in Latoya’s mind: where did her responsibility lie? “Alfred never mentioned anything like that to me. That’s a very serious allegation,” she said slowly, buying time.

“I understand that Alfred gave you regular reports on the status of his cataloging-and on the numbers of items that he has been unable to locate?”

She stared at me. “Yes, that’s part of his job description-he provided monthly summary reports.”

“And,” I went on, “did you never see any reason for concern, in the reports that he gave you?”

“No,” she replied stiffly. “He did not give me any indication that there was anything out of the ordinary. As I said, misplaced items are a fact of life in institutions like this.”

I wasn’t going to let her brush me off. “I understand that. But you were not worried about the extent or the nature of the disappearances?”

She waited before answering, even more stiffly, “No. And Alfred never made an issue of it. Perhaps I should have questioned him more closely, but I had no reason-”

I interrupted her. “Latoya, Alfred was a very careful man, and I’m sure he didn’t want to make any claims until he felt they were substantiated. He was also rather shy and didn’t like to make waves. That’s probably why he never said anything to you. But I think the number and the quality of the missing items had really started to bother him. The question is, what do we do now? If you ask me, I think we need to get to the bottom of this very quickly, for all our sakes.”

“Of course. Providing there is any substance to his concerns.” Latoya looked as troubled as I had ever seen her. Maybe the message had finally hit home? “Who else have you talked to about this?”

“I asked Rich and Felicity specifically if they knew if any part of the Terwilliger Collection had been moved recently-they both said no. But I haven’t spoken to anyone about the larger issue, the other things that might be missing. Alfred left the list on my desk before he…” I stopped, swallowed, then plunged on. “And now I’m bringing it to you. So, no one else knows-yet.”

Latoya looked over my head, thinking. Finally she said, “Nell, thank you for bringing this to my attention and for being discreet about it. This certainly deserves a closer look. Let me handle it from here.”

Was she dismissing me? Well, I wasn’t done. “Latoya, Marty Terwilliger wants an answer about her collection in the next few days. She’s not stupid, and I think she’ll see through any phony excuses we might come up with. She’s not afraid to make public noise about something like this, and she’s extremely well connected in Philadelphia. She can make a lot of trouble for us, if she wants to.” I paused, then looked her straight in the eye. “What do you want me to tell her?”

“Let me deal with Marty,” Latoya said. “And I’d prefer it if you refer any more questions from her directly to me. Okay?”

Her request was reasonable, at least on the surface. After all, it was a collections issue, right? But Marty had come to me rather than to her, and I felt a personal responsibility to follow through. And I had a strong feeling that Latoya would act to cover her own derriere. Which most likely meant dumping the blame on Alfred. I wasn’t going to sit here and let that happen.

“I’ll be happy to let you deal with her, but she did come to me first. And what about the bigger issue?”

“You have a copy of the list that Alfred gave you?” she said finally.

“Of course.” I handed Latoya a new photocopy.

She scanned it quickly. “Let me look this over and think about it, and then I can decide what to do next.”

I summoned up a smile. “That’s all I ask, Latoya. Please let me know what you decide.” I stood up. As far as I was concerned, the meeting was now over.

But Latoya was not finished. “You will keep this between us, won’t you?”

She gave me another long look, and I felt a small chill. Who else did she think I would tell?

“Latoya, it would be unprofessional of me to do otherwise.” With that, I swept out of the room, before things could get any more complicated.

All right, I had done what I was supposed to do about the institutional problem of the missing items. What next? No matter what Latoya thought, I felt I should talk to Charles; he shouldn’t walk blindly into this situation, and he would need some time to consider all the ramifications, plan for a defensive strategy if necessary, to nip the issue in the bud, as it were. Maybe Charles would have some insights into how best to deal with this, too-after all, he was hardly a novice to administration, and he must have encountered difficult situations like this before. I felt a small lightening of my burden: maybe he could help. Heck, he should help-that was why he got paid the big bucks.

I squared my shoulders and took a deep breath, trying to organize my thoughts. I was just going to give him a friendly warning-nothing in writing, nothing inflammatory. I was taking advantage of our relationship to slip him this piece of information so that he could work out how he wanted to handle it. And, oh, how I looked forward to sharing the responsibility!

I strode to his office, nodding pleasantly at Doris, and knocked on his open door.

“Charles? Are you busy?”

He looked up from his desk. “No more than usual.”

“There’s something we have to talk about. Now.” I walked inside and shut the door behind me.

He chuckled. “My, this sounds serious. And you, my dear, are looking positively drained. Tell me, what’s so urgent?”

“Charles, I’ve encountered a problem that I think you should know about,” I began.

“Go on-I’m at your service. Unless you’d rather talk over dinner?”

“I don’t think this can wait.” I decided to ease into it. “You remember I told you that I needed to tell you something that Marty Terwilliger had said to me? Well, she came to me before the gala and said she couldn’t find something in the Terwilliger Collection-something that definitely should have been there. I told her I would look into it and get back to her. I didn’t have time to talk with her on Friday, what with Alfred and all…” We both observed a moment of respectful silence, and then I went on. “But since then, I’ve talked to Rich, Felicity, and Latoya. Her missing documents are nowhere to be found.”

Charles appeared unruffled. “Well, that’s unfortunate but not unheard-of. Do you want me to talk to Marty, see if I can smooth things over?”

I shook my head. “At some point that might be a good idea. But, Charles, it’s not that simple. You see, I asked Alfred about it last Thursday, and he told me that there are a lot of other things that don’t seem to be where they should be.”

Charles went still. “I thought we recognized that we had issues in that area-hence the new cataloging software. And a certain amount of inconsistency is to be expected in a mature organization like ours.”

So everyone kept telling me. Still, I nodded. “Yes, but that’s just made the underlying problem more obvious.”

“And you think there is more to this than a century’s worth of carelessness?”

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.