Fundraising The Dead

CHAPTER 5

The day started badly, and there was no time to talk to Charles about missing collection items. Charles had neglected to set the alarm (could he have been distracted?). Luckily I woke up early anyway, then collected my scattered garments and showered and dressed in the change of clothes I’d brought with me, as quietly as I could. Charles stayed in bed, serving as an admiring audience.

“Must you go so soon?”

“Yes, I must, and you know why. We’ve got the wrap-up meeting early, and I wanted to pick up some goodies for the gang-you know they’re always friendlier when you feed them.” Following any major event, we always held a before-hours staff meeting in the morning at eight, so that everyone could unload whatever gossip they had heard or overheard while it was still fresh, and review the event as a whole-what had worked, what needed improvement before the next one. Besides, if I was going to demand that people show up early, the least I could do was to dangle some yummy carbohydrates in front of them, and there was an excellent French patisserie on the way to the Society. “And then Marty’s coming at nine-oh, shoot, I didn’t have time to tell you about that. I’ll fill you in later, okay?”

“If you think it matters.” He looked all too comfortable in his high-thread-count sheets, reclining in state against his many pillows. But I had to move if I was going to pick up pastries and get to the Society in time to start the meeting.

By seven thirty, laden with goodies, I climbed the timeworn stone steps of the Society building and let myself in with my key. I didn’t linger in the dark and quiet lobby, but I could tell that there was no evidence of the past evening’s revels-the cleaners had done their job well. Instead, I crossed the catalog room and pushed the button for the building’s sole-and antique-elevator. I could hear it lurching into action from somewhere in the bowels of the building, and when it deigned to appear, I inserted my key in the wall panel and pushed the button for the third floor, where all the administrative offices were. I stepped out into the dark hall-no lights meant that no one else was in yet, which didn’t surprise me. I made for the nearest wall switch, outside the education director’s office, which took me past the door to the stacks. When the lights flickered to life, I noticed a dark red stain in front of the door. Damn, I thought, somebody spilled wine up here last night. While this floor was off-limits, plenty of people had access-staff, board members, researchers-and maybe one of them had brought someone up to show off some of our treasures. Was it a turn-on to fondle a letter from one of the Founding Fathers? Maybe it worked for some people. But nobody was supposed to bring their wineglasses up here.

But as I approached the door, I began to wonder… That didn’t look like wine; it looked like… blood? No, Nell-that’s ridiculous. You’re tired, and you’re imagining things.

I bent over to look more closely. It still looked like blood. I stood up and took a deep breath. Maybe someone had had a nosebleed. Maybe someone fell and cut themselves. Maybe you should open the door and find out, you wimp. I laid my hand on the doorknob. It turned, but when I tried to push the door open, it stuck-against something on the other side. Not good. I released the doorknob and thought about what to do. There was no other access on this floor, but if I went to the floor above, there was a spiral iron staircase that led down to the stacks on this floor. With great deliberation I fished out my keys from my bag, went back to the elevator, and ascended one more floor. It was equally dark and deserted, so I headed for the stacks door, turning on lights as I went. Lots of lights, so I’d be able to see… whatever I found.

The internal staircase was located in the front corner, and I grabbed the spindly handrail and climbed down cautiously. The door that had stuck was right around the corner, beyond the next tier of shelves. With another deep breath, I crept around the shelves, then stopped. My worst fears were confirmed: the reason that the door wouldn’t open was because there was someone lying against it. I took a shaky step closer.

It was Alfred Findley, lying in a pool of dark blood, his eyes staring blindly at his beloved books. Books and papers lay scattered around him on the floor, and the splintered remains of an old wooden step stool lay a few feet away. It looked as though he had fallen while trying to reach something. I didn’t need to touch him to know that he was dead; his peculiar grey color and the amount of blood around him made that clear.

I backed up until I could lean against the adjoining bookshelves-solidly built a hundred years ago, and perfect for holding up a woman whose knees had just turned to jelly. I was seeing stars-a whole firmament, swarming in a lovely lime green color. I blinked a few times, but that didn’t help, so I tried closing them and breathing deeply until my eyes, and my brain, started working again. You are not going to pass out, Nell. No, you are going to proceed calmly and address this problem. Unfortunately the employee manual did not, to the best of my recollection, have a section on dealing with dead bodies found on site. I’d have to make it up as I went.

But it wasn’t just a dead body, I thought, as I tried to control my breathing. It was Alfred-poor, sweet, shy Alfred-who was lying there in front of me in a pool of his own blood. What a tragedy. And what a loss to the Society: he was the only person in the place who knew where everything was.

Nell, you can mourn later. All right, what now? I needed to report this to the police. But for that I needed a phone, and my cell phone was in my bag, on the other side of that door, and there were no phones in the stacks. Therefore I had to leave the stacks, locate a phone, and call 911. Oh, good-a plan. I could do that. And, I realized dimly, I had better do that pretty soon, before other people started arriving and all hell broke loose. I retraced my steps, up the staircase, into the fourth-floor hall, then down to the third floor again, where I headed straight to the nearest office and punched in the three digits.

I was operating in a fog, but I think I managed to give my name and where I was, and the person on the other end of the line said they would send somebody ASAP, and told me to stay in the building. That part was easy, since I wasn’t sure my wobbly legs would take me very far. I hung up and tried to jump-start my brain. I had to get out of the chair I had fallen into and go downstairs to wait for the police to arrive. Let them deal with the body. That wasn’t my business. I’m a fundraiser. I don’t handle dead bodies. People would be arriving soon for the meeting that obviously wasn’t going to happen. Okay, Nell, stand up and go downstairs to the lobby and keep everyone together. I didn’t want anyone else to see the blood pool or… Alfred.

I shifted my brain into neutral and went down the stairs to stand in the lobby. I was trying to come up with a good reason to give staff members for staying away, when there was a determined pounding on our massive metal front door. Too late-people were already arriving. No peephole, of course-that would mar the historical integrity of the door. Luckily the next thing I heard was, “Police! Open up!”

I did, gladly. On the other side of the door I found three police officers: two husky uniformed male officers, one black, one white, and a short woman who bore a distinct resemblance to a bulldog. She was in civvies and introduced herself sharply. “I’m Detective Hrivnak. You the one who called?”

“Yes, I’m Eleanor Pratt, and I’m the one who called you.”

The detective held up a hand, shutting me up. “What’ve we got? You said a body?”

“Yes, on the third floor. But he’s lying against the door, so you have to go to the fourth floor and come down again-there aren’t a lot of entrances to the stacks…” I was dithering and I knew it.

“Show me. You-Johnson-stay here and keep anybody else from coming in. You-Williams-you come with us.” She turned back to me. “You touch anything?”

I shook my head. “No. Well, the elevator buttons, I guess, and the phone, and the doorknob, before I knew there was anything wrong, and the staircase inside the stacks.”

“Right. Now, what is this place?”

“The Pennsylvania Antiquarian Society.”

Detective Hrivnak all but snorted. “Library? Museum?”

“Both, sort of. We have a lot of collections, and we’re open to the public.”

“You got people coming in soon?”

I glanced quickly at my watch. “Well, we’re supposed to have a staff meeting at eight, so the employees will be arriving any minute now. We don’t open to the public until ten.”

“Not today. How many employees?”

“Uh, about forty. Not all full-time. I came in early to set up for the meeting.” For a moment I thought wistfully of the lovely pastries, sitting in a box upstairs… not far from the blood pool. I lost my appetite again.

“Who’s the boss?”

“Charles Elliott Worthington. He should be here soon-he was coming to the meeting.”

The detective was making a few notes in her pocket-size pad. “You see anybody else this morning?”

“No, and there were no lights on when I came in. I don’t think there’s anyone else here.” At least, no one alive.

“You know the victim?”

“Yes, he is-he was an employee here. His name was Alfred Findley. He was the registrar, and he’s worked here for years.”

Detective Hrivnak made a final note, then snapped the pad shut. “Okay, let’s go see him.”

I led the small procession back to the elevator and pushed the button. The detective was looking around at the soaring ceilings, the rows of card catalogs. “What time did you close up yesterday?”

The elevator put in its leisurely appearance. “We had an event here last night, after normal hours. I left just before midnight, but there were still some staff around, moving tables and stuff.” We got on the elevator, and I inserted my key into the fourth-floor slot.

“When did you last see the victim?”

“I saw him briefly at the party last night-maybe around eight? But I didn’t talk to him then.”

The elevator doors opened, and I led Detective Hrivnak and Officer Williams to the staircase. They went down first, which was fine with me, because I didn’t want to see Alfred again. Unfortunately they waited for me at the bottom of the stairs, so I pointed them toward the body and followed slowly, looking at anything but the floor.

Detective Hrivnak stood looking down at Alfred, who didn’t look any better than he had the last time I saw him. “Dead, all right. Probably about eight, maybe ten hours-blood’s pretty much dry. I’ll let the ME decide.”

Poor Alfred. That meant I’d been herding caterers and lingering guests out of the building while he was quietly bleeding to death upstairs. And the party had been so loud that no one could possibly have heard him fall all the way up on the third floor. I was startled out of my thoughts by Detective Hrivnak’s no-nonsense voice. “Okay. Williams, call the ME’s office, get someone over here to pick him up. You-Ms. Pratt? You go to your office. That’s on this floor, right? And wait for me. As soon as I get this end sorted out, I need to talk to you. And then we can decide if I need to talk to anyone else.”

“Right. Sure, fine.” My mind spinning, I hurried out. Once I escaped from the stacks, I took another deep breath and tried to figure out what I had to do next. The detective had said stay put, but there was no way I could do that just yet. The staff would be arriving at any minute, if they hadn’t already. Step one, rig up a sign to keep the public out. Step two, figure out where to put the staff members. The old conference room on the ground floor would do; the police might want to talk to them, so I should keep them there. Step three, talk to Charles, who should be on his way here now. Right, Nell. Make a sign, then go downstairs and herd the staff aside, and then let Charles deal with the rest.