“No! You think Charles is selling that deed?”
“Already has. Charles moves fast. He knew you’d seen it, and he probably wanted to get it off his hands ASAP. The collector in New York will be watching for it, and he’ll let Jimmy know when it arrives.”
“He wouldn’t just stick it in the mail, would he?” I was worried about that poor, fragile, three-hundred-year-old piece of paper.
“He’s probably got a courier service, if he does this regularly. I bet the faithful Doris Manning would know.”
“You’re right. She handles all that kind of stuff for him. Heck, she even picks up his dry cleaning.” I grimaced.
“I wonder if she’s in the office today?”
“Maybe, if Charles asked her to be. Should we call her?”
“Let me. She’s more likely to answer the phone if it’s a board member.”
Marty got up and went to the kitchen to make the call. She was gone a couple of minutes, and when she came back she said, “She’s there. She said Charles was in earlier and, in her words, “left some work” for her. I didn’t dare ask any more.”
“Well, if the Penn deed is going out today to the guy in New York, at least we’ll know where that is. I hope there’s nothing else in that shipment.”
“Amen. Anyway, when that arrives, Jimmy should have what he needs to make his move on Charles-if we haven’t given him enough other stuff. The fact that you saw it closes the circle, from the Society to Charles to the FBI’s collector.”
“But James doesn’t know some of it officially.”
“There is that. But cheer up, Nell. Charles’s days are numbered.”
We raised our coffee cups to each other in mock salute.
CHAPTER 29
I had a lot to think about on the way home from Marty’s, so I started by making yet another mental list. One, I’d been flattered and touched by what Marty had said about me. I did care about the Society, and I tried to do a good job-it was nice that someone had noticed. Two, I’d been a fool about Charles. Looking back, I realized that in fact he had gotten a lot more from me than I had ever gotten from him. I’d been the perfect dupe. I had believed that whatever our personal relationship might be, at least he respected my professional abilities. Wrong: he’d assumed I was both blind and stupid and tried to frame me. Great judge of character you are, Nell.
But the nagging voice inside kept coming back to the big Number Three: who killed Alfred? We didn’t seem any closer to an answer, and we were woefully short of suspects. Had Charles actually hired someone to do the deed? Was he working with someone else inside the Society? Had Latoya felt threatened by Alfred’s insistent reminders that things weren’t where they were supposed to be, and silenced him? Heck, for all I knew, Felicity Soames had grown tired of playing watchdog and whacked Alfred. All of the above seemed equally unlikely.
At least James would have enough evidence now to arrest Charles. That was a plus. All he had to do was collect the proof from his sham collector in New York, completing the chain of evidence, and reel Charles in.
But when was this going to happen? How long would it take the Penn deed to reach the New York buyer? Sunday I was reluctant to leave the house in case I missed a phone call from James or Marty, so I stayed home and cleaned things I’m not sure I had ever cleaned before: the tops of high cupboards, under the refrigerator. I scrubbed the grout lines of the tile in the bathroom with a toothbrush. Then I made lists of my CDs, my books. I labeled and filed all my photographs. I updated my address book.
In between I fidgeted, staring at the phone, willing it to ring. Naturally, when it finally did, I jumped a foot and snatched it up quickly.
“Hello?” I said breathlessly.
“Is this Nell?”
“ Doris? Is that you?” She was the last person in the world I would have expected a call from on a Sunday. Why was she calling me?
“Yes, it is. Charles asked me to call you. He said there’s something here at the Society that you need to see.”
My brain was working slowly. “What is it?”
Doris sniffed. “I’m afraid I can’t say. He just told me to call you and ask you to come. We’ll be waiting for you here.” She hung up before I could protest.
Well, that was certainly interesting. I tried to work out who knew what at the moment. Charles didn’t know that I knew he was behind the thefts. Maybe he had collected all the things he hadn’t already sold and concealed them somewhere in the Society building, and he was inviting me to share in his big discovery-Aha, the lost is found! To someone who was not in the loop on this, it would sound quite plausible. Well, I could play along.
But I wasn’t going to be stupid about it. I picked up the phone and punched in Marty’s home number-no answer. I dredged up the business card James had given me and tried that. Someone in the office answered, but James wasn’t in. I left a message for him to call me and gave both my home phone number and my cell phone. Then I called Marty’s phone again and waited for her voice mail to pick up so I could leave a message.
“Marty? It’s Nell. I just got a call from Doris at the Society. She said that Charles told her to call me and ask me to come in, but she didn’t say why. I figure I might as well go in and see what it’s all about. Heck, maybe he’s ready to confess. I’ll give you a call when I know what the story is.”
There. At least somebody would know where I was. I took an extremely quick shower, dressed, and went out to the car: trains ran so rarely on weekends that it was far faster just to drive, and on a Sunday, parking in the neighborhood of the Society wouldn’t be a problem.
But I had guessed wrong. Apparently there was some sort of Center City holiday event going on, and I ended up parking a couple of blocks away. I walked back to the Society and let myself in with my key. On the third floor the offices were dark, except for Charles’s suite. When I walked in, Doris was waiting primly behind her desk.
“Hello, Doris,” I said. “Where’s Charles?”
“He’s downstairs in the basement. He asked me to wait up here and take you down when you arrived.”
“Okay, lead the way.” I followed her back to the elevator, and once inside, she keyed in the basement level. “What’s this about?”
She remained facing forward, waiting for the elevator to hit bottom. “I don’t know, but he said it was important that you see something.” The elevator doors opened. “This way.”
Doris led the way through the warren of cluttered rooms in the basement. I had never spent much time down here, except for a few occasions when I needed to estimate the scope of a collection. Plus the Society had been making a concerted effort to remove vulnerable items from this area, because the below-ground rooms were damp, and they were also affected by the steady rumbling from the subway trains that ran directly beneath our building. What remained was a jumble of broken furniture, unused display cases, and outdated electronic equipment. Doris kept going, down the long central corridor; she opened one of the doors at the back of the building. I could see lights on in the room beyond.
Doris didn’t stop but marched into the room, and I hurried to follow, mystified. She pointed at an open door to a small room at the back. “Charles is in there.” She turned and looked at me expectantly.
I went to the door and peered in. And then something slammed me in the back. I fell forward into the space, and the door swung shut behind me with a solid clang, and I was in the dark. And, apparently, alone.
CHAPTER 30
It took me a moment to figure out what had happened. Doris had just locked me into a very small dark place in the basement, and Charles was nowhere around. I picked myself up off the floor, turned around, and sat, my back against shelves. Then I clamped down hard on the incipient panic attack.