Fire Engine Dead Read Online Free Page B

could observe activity in the reading room. I took a quick census: the room was moderately filled, and nobody was asleep. That made it a good day. Felicity raised a hand in greeting when she saw me. “What brings you to my lair, Madame President?” she asked in a hushed voice.
    “I have a boon to ask of thee,” I replied. Two could play that game. “Can we go somewhere private?”
    She scanned the room and motioned one of the shelvers over. “Keep an eye on the room for a bit, please.” It always struck me as a tad absurd that we had to keep an eagle eye on our library patrons, most of whom were eager researchers with limited time. But that in itself was a problem. All too many thought that they had the right to make off with the pieces they needed for their work—individual documents, pages sliced from books, even books themselves. Since we had no electronic surveillance, and we couldn’t do body searches when people left the building (and I’d seen some pretty creative concealment of purloined items in my day), we had to rely on our staff’s human observation. “I’ll try not to keep you long,” I promised.
    We made our way to a quiet room tucked under the handsome stone and mahogany staircase in the front. When we had settled ourselves, Felicity asked, “What can I do for you?”
    I checked to see that the door to the room was closed. “Did you hear about that warehouse fire?”
    “Yes, where the watchman died. Sad thing. Not the first fire recently, was it? Maybe there’s a firebug on the loose.”
    “That’s the one. The thing is, the director of the Fireman’s Museum, Peter Ingersoll, came by this morning and told me—and this is way,
way
off the record for now—that the museum had been storing its collections there while they remodeled.”
    Felicity looked appropriately horrified. “Oh no! How awful.” Then her mouth twitched. “And what an ironic thing—the fire collection going up in flames. Are they a complete loss?”
    “He doesn’t know yet, but it doesn’t look good. And worse, his collections files were housed there, too.” I hesitatedbefore adding, “What makes it even worse is that the watchman was a fireman. Retired.”
    “Oh dear—I saw that in the paper. And what kind of idiot is Ingersoll?” Felicity snorted. “What was he thinking, keeping everything there?”
    “He told me he was overruled by his board, who wanted to do things on the cheap. Don’t worry, he already knows it was a stupid decision, but there’s nothing to be done now. Apparently they never anticipated the stuff being in the warehouse for long—but renovations got delayed and dragged on and on.”
    “So what did he want from us?”
    “He wants to know if we have any records of the founding of the Fireman’s Museum, and for the collections. And failing that, I think he’d be happy to have any kind of information about Philadelphia firefighting, particularly images, in the event he has to try to reassemble a collection. For fundraising purposes.”
    “Ah.” Felicity thought for a few moments. “That’s not my area of expertise, but I’ll see what I can pull together. How soon?”
    “He didn’t set a deadline. I think the poor man is in shock. I’m sure I would be, under the circumstances. A day or two, maybe?”
    “I think I can manage that,” Felicity said. “I know I’ve seen several folders…Well, let me take a look and I’ll get back to you.”
    “Thank you. Everything else going well?”
    “About average. We could use another shelver or two—it’s hard to juggle schedules to maintain consistent coverage on the floor. Maybe by summer, when we get more vacation visitors?”
    “No promises, but at least things should have stabilized by then. Have you seen Barney lately?” Barney was a local electrician with a passion for Philadelphia baseball history—and an apparent interest in Felicity. I’d made him an honorary member after he’d helped us with some electrical issues in