After clearing a few of the more pressing items on my desk, I emerged from my office to find that Eric had taken care of all the paperwork for human resources and located at least the minimal office supplies, including stapler, tape, notepads, and a pencil holder. Too bad it wasn’t as easy to find him a computer. “Want to take a walk around the building and meet some people?”
He stood up quickly. “I’d be happy to.”
“How much do you know about the Pennsylvania Antiquarian Society?” I asked as we headed toward the collections management area to the rear of the building.
“Just what Shelby’s told me. I haven’t visited many of the museums around here.”
“How is it you know Shelby?” I asked.
“I knew her daughter, Melissa, in school in Virginia, and we’ve sort of kept in touch-we’re Facebook friends. She’s the one who told me her mama lived up here now.”
“You said you’d been living in Philadelphia for over a year now?”
“Yes, I have.”
“What’s your impression of our city?” I was honestly curious. He was young and from a different part of the country, and I wondered what had drawn him here.
“I like it. I thought about moving to Baltimore or Atlanta, but then I figured I should go someplace really different, at least for a while. Since I didn’t have any attachments or anything.”
“Have you been looking for a full-time job?”
“Yes and no. I kind of liked temping, at least at first-I got to see a lot of different places, sort of like a job sampler. Although if something had opened up when I was at any one place, I’d have considered it. But I get by.”
We’d reached Latoya Anderson’s office, down the hall from mine. She looked up from her desk when I knocked on the open door. “Latoya, I’d like you to meet Eric Marston. Eric, this is Latoya Anderson, our vice president of collections. Eric’s auditioning for the role of my assistant.”
Latoya didn’t get my joke but extended a hand anyway. “Welcome, Eric. I’m sure Nell can use your help.”
“I’m pleased to meet you, ma’am.”
Latoya quirked an eyebrow at the
“It’ll have to be after lunch. Say, two, in my office?”
“That’s fine. Nice to meet you, Eric.”
We were dismissed. Latoya and I were still working out the wrinkles in our professional relationship, and her basic personality was a bit peremptory even on a good day, but I needed her in the job. Up until a couple of months ago I had been lower down the staff ladder than Latoya was, and as a vice president she’d had the ear of the president, which meant I was seldom the first to hear collections news. Now our roles were reversed and I was her boss. Still, I didn’t want to alienate any staff members right now, and I did respect her abilities. I wondered what she wanted to talk about. “Let’s go, Eric-there are more people to meet.”
I made the circuit of the third floor: personnel, finance, and my old stomping ground, development, where we waved briefly at Shelby. Carrie, the membership coordinator, was clearly happy to see someone close to her age, and welcomed Eric warmly. “Hey, you want to have lunch today? And I’ll see if maybe Rich is free, too.”
Eric looked at me. “Well, sure, that’d be great, unless you need me, Nell?” I shook my head. “And you can show me where to eat around here. Who’s Rich?”
It was becoming easier to forget that Eric had only just arrived. “Rich Girard is a grant-funded cataloger,” I told him, “just out of college, so about your age. He’s a nice guy.”
“I’d love to meet him, too, then, if he’s free. I’ll come by about twelve, Carrie. Nice to meet you!”
Back in the hall, as we waited for the elevator so we could go downstairs, Eric asked anxiously, “Are you sure you don’t need me to man the phone over lunch?”
I laughed. “Of course not. I think you’ll find we’re not a terribly formal place, and there are some really great people here. Carrie’s sweet-she used to work for me. Well, I guess she still does, but now she reports to Shelby. I’ll have to find you an organization chart so you can see who’s who.”
We rode the elevator down to the ground floor. “So this is the catalog room, and the big room next door is the reading room. You can probably guess what they’re used for. There’s another reading room upstairs. Let me introduce you to our librarians.”
We stopped and chatted with all the staff members we encountered, who all seemed charmed by Eric’s good manners and eagerness. I was encouraged to see that he was fitting in so well, although I hadn’t really seen him do any work. Of course, to be fair, I hadn’t exactly given him any assignments yet, either-or a computer, for that matter.
When we’d made the rounds, I checked my watch. I still had a few minutes. “Are you overwhelmed yet, or do you want to see the stacks?”
“Stacks?” Eric looked bewildered.
“The storage areas, where all the collections are. I don’t have time to show you everything right now, but I can get you started, and you can browse a bit on your own-I don’t want you to feel chained to your desk. It’s important that you understand what we do here.”
“That sounds great to me, Nell.”
We went back to the third floor, and I fished out my keys and let him in by the door at the rear, past the elevator. Once inside, we paused for a moment. I always enjoyed prowling in the stacks, although I had less and less time to do it-and less reason now that I wasn’t writing grant proposals. I hoped Shelby would enjoy that part of her job as much as I had.
The stacks occupied the upper half of the building, with some overflow in the basement, where less fragile items were kept. The ceilings in that part of the building were high, the windows painted over (too much light could damage old books and documents), and ranks of sturdy metal shelves marched off in all directions. The air smelled of old paper and leather. Apparently no one was shelving or retrieving documents at the moment, so it was very quiet. I sneaked a look at Eric and saw that his eyes were shining.
“May I?” he asked.
“Touch them? Of course-that’s what they’re here for. Just don’t take them out of the building-and don’t remove them from the stacks without signing a slip. There’s a pile of slips on that shelf there.” I pointed. I’d been guilty of forgetting that myself on more than one occasion, but I was trying to mend my ways. “There’s some wonderful stuff here, both famous names and ordinary documents about daily life. I love coming in here.”
Eric slid out a volume at random-early nineteenth century, by my semi-educated guess-and opened it reverently, cradling its spine and leafing through the yellowed pages with a cautious finger. Watching him, I felt something inside me relax: he was showing all the signs of a true believer. Not that it was essential in an administrative position, but it certainly helped if you cared about history and preserving it.
It was close to ten thirty when we tore ourselves away from the stacks, but I had a date to keep, and I didn’t want to tick off Detective Hrivnak by being late. I escorted Eric back to his desk and retrieved my coat and bag. “Look, Eric, I probably won’t be back before you leave for lunch, but you don’t have to rush. Not today, at least. I can’t promise you any long lunches when things get busy, but I’m not a clock-watcher.”
“Thank you, ma’am. You can trust me.” He smiled, showing dimples. “I’d say, have a nice time, but I don’t think that applies to police interviews, now, does it?”
“Not likely!” I laughed. “See you later.”
In Philadelphia, the police headquarters building is known as the Roundhouse, because, well, it’s round. As a local historian, I also knew that the Philadelphia Police Department was the oldest municipal police agency in the country (founded 1751, or so their PR materials said), and the fourth largest. Luckily I had never had occasion to enter the building before, although I had walked past it plenty of times since it was close to Independence Hall. Homicide, as I understood it, was a special unit. I entered the building, submitted to a search of my bag (physical) and person (electronic), and found my way up to Detective Hrivnak’s office. As it turned out, she did possess a first name: Meredith, according to the plaque beside her door. Not a good fit, but what did parents know?
She kept me waiting, but only fifteen minutes. She came out to escort me into her inner sanctum, pointed to a battered wooden chair, then settled into her chair behind an equally scarred desk. She stared at me wordlessly for
