Privy to the Dead by Sheila Connolly Page B

poor guy’s murder. And back in time. And may bring James right back into it.”
    â€œBut you aren’t going to tell me about it?” I protested.
    â€œNot until I’m sure. Let’s wait until we’ve talked with Henry Phinney.”
    â€œThat’s your furniture guy?”
    â€œHe is. And he’s a relative, too, but not close. Point is, he knows everything there is to know about Philadelphiafurniture. It’s not just his stylistic opinion—he’s pretty sharp on the science side, too.”
    â€œLike a forensic analyst for furniture?” I asked.
    Marty nodded, her mouth full of sandwich. I took the opportunity to finish my own. It was not surprising that Marty knew someone useful like this Henry Phinney, nor that she was related to him, because she knew everybody in the greater Philadelphia region and was related to half of them. Including James. What was more interesting was that she thought a more rigorous scientific analysis was desirable in this case. When our mouths were both empty, I asked, “What time are we seeing him?”
    â€œThree.”
    â€œIs he nearby?” I hoped he wasn’t out in the burbs.
    â€œHe has a shop just off Market Street, close to the Delaware River—we can walk over together.”
    â€œAnd that’s all you’re going to tell me?”
    â€œYup. For now.”
    I couldn’t get anything more out of her, and after lunch, Marty headed off for the stacks to do . . . whatever the heck she did. She didn’t have an office or a real role at the Society, apart from her seat on the board, but she spent a lot of time in the stacks somewhere. I went to my office to find that Eric had tidied up as promised, and there was a plastic shoe box sitting on the blotter on my desk, carefully lined with bubble wrap. I pulled off the top to find the brass bits nestled safely inside, along with the larger shards of wood. Sitting on my desk, which was mahogany, the old wood looked a lot like mahogany to me, but I was no expert. Could someone extract DNA from wood? Were there DNA profiles of different kinds of wood?
    â€œLissa came back and took some pictures of all the pieces,” Eric told me.
    I’d forgotten about doing that, and was glad she hadn’t. I didn’t know if the mysterious Henry would need to keep what we’d found, including our flat, curly thing, aka The Escutcheon. So at least we’d have a record—and something to give Detective Hrivnak, if Henry for some reason held on to the brasses. If after talking to Henry we still thought there was something to tell.
    Marty reappeared in my office at two thirty, looking unhappy. When I raised an eyebrow at her expression, she shook her head. Still not ready to share, it seemed.
    â€œHere’s what Eric assembled for us.” I held up the box.
    â€œEverything?” she asked.
    â€œI think so. We’re walking?”
    â€œYeah. I could use the air.”
    We set off again, heading for the river, past the back end of Independence Hall. I always enjoyed envisioning the city as it once was, when the blocks closest to the Delaware had been home to the grand houses of the city’s elite in the later eighteenth century. Those glory days hadn’t lasted long, and shops and factories and warehouses had taken over quickly in the early nineteenth century. Henry Phinney’s place of work occupied a narrow brick building that looked as though it had been there for a couple of hundred years itself. There was no shop front, merely a shabby paneled door embellished with a handsome brass knocker. Antique or reproduction? I couldn’t tell. Seemed like a furniture expert would have an original, but then again I wondered if a real one would long since have been ripped off. Either way, Marty rapped it smartly, and the door opened quickly.
    Marty’s relatives were a mixed bunch. I’d been half picturing a gnomelike character