museum.”
“Complete with a pretend skeleton, I’ll bet.”
“Complete with the story of how Etienne Makepeace became England’s Tea Sage—assuming I can find out how he managed the feat. There are troubling gaps in his biographical materials. I don’t know how to fill them. Do you have any suggestions?”
“Hmm…”
“What?”
“I’m thinking.”
“About?’’
“About how people are likely to share information with a museum—if you ask for it. Have you asked the general public to help?”
“Not yet,” Flick said, astonished that two cops an ocean apart both imagined that a modest tea museum could be a fact magnet.
“Start by setting up a Web page.”
“Way ahead of you.”
“Your next step is to create a telephone hotline.”
“How would I get people to call it?”
“Don’t you know any friendly reporters?”
“Funny you should ask. I was interviewed this morning by a BBC TV reporter.”
“There you go! Ask him to mention your hotline when he airs his story. That should shake loose a few interesting tidbits.”
“Tidbits aren’t enough. I need big chunks of real information. I have a major exhibit to feed.”
“Well, if I were trying to gather lots of details about a famous man who disappeared forty years ago, I’d try to locate the law firm who worked with his heirs.”
“Why? All but one of Makepeace’s heirs are dead, too.”
“Famous people tend to be wealthy, and wealthy people tend to have relatives who are eager to get their hands on the money. I assume that Makepeace’s kin eventually had him declared legally dead so they could collect under the terms of his will. I think English law and American law are pretty much the same—seven years after a person goes missing, a court can declare him dead. Remember the number one rule: Follow the money.”
“I still don’t get where you’re going with this.”
“Lawyers ask questions about people and write things down. Maybe there’s an old file gathering dust in a law office that contains more of the information you’re looking for?”
“I suppose it’s possible…”
“Talk about ungrateful! Need I remind you that you called me without any warning? You try to come up with fabulous ideas on the fly. Repeat after me: ‘Uncle Ted, I owe you big-time.’ ”
Flick snickered. “I owe you big-time.”
“I’ll say you do—so pay be back by telling me about your love life. Your mother reports that you have a boyfriend in England.”
Flick hemmed, hawed, made excuses, and managed to end the conversation with only a cursory description of Nigel and a solemn oath to call back when she had more time to talk. She slipped the mobile phone into her purse and spoke to Cha-Cha, “I feel energized, and I’m having second thoughts about Uncle Ted’s ideas. What do you say we walk back to the museum and talk to a woman about a Web site?”
Flick walked fast enough to make Cha-Cha trot along the sidewalk after her. She wanted to catch Hannah Kerrigan, the museum’s new information technology guru, while she was still at her computer. Hannah worked odd hours—and often left early—so that she could take advanced computer courses at the Canterbury Christ Church University College. Flick had hired her a month earlier to enlarge and enhance the museum’s Web site: www.teamuseum.org .
Hannah was a petite woman in her early twenties, with flaming red hair, large brown eyes, and a pixyish grin that made one forget she could “speak” six different computer programming languages. Flick found her in her cubicle in the Conservation Laboratory, fiddling happily with an under-construction Web page on her computer. Hannah might have been able to fiddle more productively had not Lapsang and Souchong decided to pay her a visit. The big blue cats sprawled side by side across her keyboard, covering most of the top of her workstation.
Cha-Cha eyed the felines suspiciously but sat silently at Flick’s feet. She suspected that the
“Complete with a pretend skeleton, I’ll bet.”
“Complete with the story of how Etienne Makepeace became England’s Tea Sage—assuming I can find out how he managed the feat. There are troubling gaps in his biographical materials. I don’t know how to fill them. Do you have any suggestions?”
“Hmm…”
“What?”
“I’m thinking.”
“About?’’
“About how people are likely to share information with a museum—if you ask for it. Have you asked the general public to help?”
“Not yet,” Flick said, astonished that two cops an ocean apart both imagined that a modest tea museum could be a fact magnet.
“Start by setting up a Web page.”
“Way ahead of you.”
“Your next step is to create a telephone hotline.”
“How would I get people to call it?”
“Don’t you know any friendly reporters?”
“Funny you should ask. I was interviewed this morning by a BBC TV reporter.”
“There you go! Ask him to mention your hotline when he airs his story. That should shake loose a few interesting tidbits.”
“Tidbits aren’t enough. I need big chunks of real information. I have a major exhibit to feed.”
“Well, if I were trying to gather lots of details about a famous man who disappeared forty years ago, I’d try to locate the law firm who worked with his heirs.”
“Why? All but one of Makepeace’s heirs are dead, too.”
“Famous people tend to be wealthy, and wealthy people tend to have relatives who are eager to get their hands on the money. I assume that Makepeace’s kin eventually had him declared legally dead so they could collect under the terms of his will. I think English law and American law are pretty much the same—seven years after a person goes missing, a court can declare him dead. Remember the number one rule: Follow the money.”
“I still don’t get where you’re going with this.”
“Lawyers ask questions about people and write things down. Maybe there’s an old file gathering dust in a law office that contains more of the information you’re looking for?”
“I suppose it’s possible…”
“Talk about ungrateful! Need I remind you that you called me without any warning? You try to come up with fabulous ideas on the fly. Repeat after me: ‘Uncle Ted, I owe you big-time.’ ”
Flick snickered. “I owe you big-time.”
“I’ll say you do—so pay be back by telling me about your love life. Your mother reports that you have a boyfriend in England.”
Flick hemmed, hawed, made excuses, and managed to end the conversation with only a cursory description of Nigel and a solemn oath to call back when she had more time to talk. She slipped the mobile phone into her purse and spoke to Cha-Cha, “I feel energized, and I’m having second thoughts about Uncle Ted’s ideas. What do you say we walk back to the museum and talk to a woman about a Web site?”
Flick walked fast enough to make Cha-Cha trot along the sidewalk after her. She wanted to catch Hannah Kerrigan, the museum’s new information technology guru, while she was still at her computer. Hannah worked odd hours—and often left early—so that she could take advanced computer courses at the Canterbury Christ Church University College. Flick had hired her a month earlier to enlarge and enhance the museum’s Web site: www.teamuseum.org .
Hannah was a petite woman in her early twenties, with flaming red hair, large brown eyes, and a pixyish grin that made one forget she could “speak” six different computer programming languages. Flick found her in her cubicle in the Conservation Laboratory, fiddling happily with an under-construction Web page on her computer. Hannah might have been able to fiddle more productively had not Lapsang and Souchong decided to pay her a visit. The big blue cats sprawled side by side across her keyboard, covering most of the top of her workstation.
Cha-Cha eyed the felines suspiciously but sat silently at Flick’s feet. She suspected that the
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