Monument to the Dead by Sheila Connolly Read Free Book Online Page A

wanted to get to know him better,
     and let him get to know me. So we spent a lot of time talking about what books and
     movies we enjoyed and what restaurants we went to. We also spent some quality time
not
talking, engaged in nonverbal but mutually satisfying activities.
    “Yo, Nell!” Marty’s voice interrupted what had been becoming a very nice daydream.
     “You going to go downstairs and let the man in?”
    Where had the time gone? “Oh, right. We can use the old conference room downstairs
     to talk.” The ground floor of the Society was long on grand, soaring spaces but short
     on places to meet privately, to sit and talk. The exception was the old conference
     room, tucked under the sweeping mahogany and stone staircase. “Let’s head down there
     now.”
    Our timing was perfect: by the time we emerged from the sluggish elevator and reached
     the front door, James was waiting on the front steps. I let him in and wished that
     I could greet him with proper enthusiasm, but we had an audience (who knew perfectly
     well what was going on between us, but still) and this was a professional call.
    When we were settled around the conference table, I said, “All right, James. You requested
     this meeting. Tell us what’s going on.”
    “Let’s talk about Adeline Harrison first. I have the preliminary results for cause
     of death: an overdose of a prescribed heart medication. We were lucky, because all
     her medications were neatly lined up in her bathroom cabinet, and we talked to her
     primary doctor. Marty, you knew her. Was she getting forgetful? Could she have miscounted
     pills or taken a dose twice?”
    Marty shook her head vehemently. “I saw her a few weeks ago and I didn’t notice anything
     like that. We talked about a bestselling nonfiction book she had read recently, and
     she made some excellent points about its weaknesses. And before you bring it up, I
     don’t know of any reason why she could have been suicidal. Unless her doctor told
     you about some terminal illness?”
    “No, nothing like that. Then there was the earlier case that I mentioned to Nell.
     I can’t give you the official records, but I can summarize. Frederick Van Deusen,
     age eighty-three. Impeccable social connections, served on various boards, lived in
     north Jersey. Not particularly wealthy. Tox screen showed only the drugs you’d expect,
     including the same heart medication that Adeline was taking, and the level of that
     one was a bit higher than it should have been. Nothing out of place in his home. Wife’s
     been dead for years, grown children who live out of state and aren’t in financial
     trouble. Again, no motive, and no evidence, except for slightly elevated drug levels
     in his system.”
    “I knew Freddy,” Marty said. “He was about as interesting as oatmeal, but a nice guy.
     I never heard anyone say a bad word about him. I went to his funeral.”
    “So no secret life, no blackmail?” James asked with a small smile.
    Marty snorted inelegantly. “Freddy? Not likely.”
    “Was he ever on the board of the Society?”
    I looked at Marty, since her memory went back further than mine. “Nope. Don’t even
     think he was asked. Freddy, rest his soul, was kind of thick, and he had no interest
     at all in history. That’s not to say he didn’t have other interests, or get involved
     in something in New Jersey.”
    “Marty,” I interrupted, “how
did
you know Freddy Van Duesen?”
    “His father and mine used to own a boat together—sold it years ago. The Van Duesens
     had a place on the Jersey shore, and that’s where they docked it. Took Freddy and
     me out a time or two, until we both made it clear that we hated sailing. But I think
     he was still on the board of some yacht club, thanks to his father—I went to a fundraising
     event there, maybe a decade ago.”
    It figured. Marty continually surprised me with the breadth and depth of her social
     network—the real one, not the digital one.
    James