Fire Engine Dead by Sheila Connolly

The best kind of mix—wealthy but not pushy about it, and definitely civic-minded.”
    “The current generation isn’t too shabby, either, if Marty’s any indication. You can leave it until tomorrow if you want.”
    “I might as well finish up now.” Shelby began gathering up the scattered files, and I left her to it.
    At five fifteen Front Desk Bob, a former police officer who manned our reception desk while providing a small measure of security, called to say that a Mr. Morrison was in the lobby. I went down to escort James upstairs, and we maintained a professional demeanor as we took the elevator to the third floor and then walked to my office. Shelby looked up as we passed, and gave me a thumbs-up, which I ignored. Eric looked startled by James’s unheralded appearance after hours, but I gave him what I hoped was a reassuring smile and told him he could go home. Finally I closed the door behind us and pointed to the chair in front of my desk.
    “So, what’s this about, Nell?” he asked.
    “There’s something I think you should see. I’m not goingto say anything more—you can make your own judgment.”
    I retrieved the folder with the pictures and, with a show of ceremony, pulled out, first, the high-quality black-and-white photo of the Fireman’s Museum engine from the Society’s files. I laid it in front of him. Then I pulled out that day’s newspaper, still folded open to the story of the fire, and laid that alongside. I sat down silently and waited.
    He looked at me, then at the photos, clearly bewildered. And then I enjoyed watching the light dawn as he compared the two, once, then again, his eyes darting back and forth. Then he sat back and exhaled. “They aren’t the same,” he said flatly.
    “That’s what I thought.”
    “The one that burned was not the Terwilliger engine.”
    “Nope.”
    He rubbed his eyes. “Damn. How? When?”
    “They moved the collections into storage, what, eighteen months ago? It could have been then, or any time since.”
    “Somebody would have to have paid off somebody else to get it out of there. Nights, there was only the one watchman around—Allan Brigham, the one who died. Hell, could be the swap was made the night before the fire, and Brigham was killed because he was in on it and knew too much.”
    Clearly James was thinking out loud and didn’t expect an answer from me. I was content to cheer him on. “Maybe.”
    His eyes focused on me. “Inside or outside job? What’re these things worth?”
    “How would I know? You’ll notice we don’t have anything quite that big here, and I don’t follow that market. ButI’ll remind you that to a true collector, price is no object—he’ll pay what it’s worth to him.” And I was willing to bet that there were a lot of people who were passionate about firefighting, including some collectors with money.
    “Thanks a lot. I know I asked you to help, but I really didn’t think you’d open a can of worms like this. Now we’ve got to look at fraud and murder, in addition to arson. And art theft.”
    “I do my best. After all, my tax dollars pay your salary.”
    “Does Marty know any of this?”
    “Not from me—I just figured it out this afternoon. I don’t know what she’s going to think when and if she sees the news photo. She did seem to know the original pretty well, as you did, so it’s possible she might come to the same conclusion. What’s more to the point is, what would she be likely to do about it?”
    “I’ll talk to her. I don’t need her muddling this up.” He stood up. “I guess I’m going back to my office. Can I get copies of that stuff?” He pointed toward the pictures.
    “Sure. Follow me.” I led him down the hall to the communal copy machines and made copies. “There you go. I’ll have to let you out—Bob should have left by now.”
    “Fine.” He trailed obligingly down the hall to the elevator, and then I led him to the now-dark lobby. Before he left he turned to me