Old World Murder - Kathleen Ernst [14]
“I’ll get that.” Chloe picked up the check.
“Well … thanks.” Relief flashed in Nika’s eyes. That, Chloe understood. Her own financial situation was precarious, but the younger woman was planning a wedding, and no doubt staring at college loans, all while likely working for minimum wage.
Nika brought the conversation back. “What were you about to say?”
“I had a bit of a rocky start in collections work. An elderly woman came to see me yesterday about an artifact. And as I was heading home … I came across her car. She’d crashed into a tree. She was dead.”
“Oh my God! That’s—that’s awful!”
“Yeah.” Chloe left a couple of dollars on the table for the waitress, and shoved her chair back. “Let’s head back, OK?” She didn’t want to talk about Mrs. Lundquist anymore.
Chloe and Nika seized possession of a wooden picnic table under the pines near the trailers. Nika fetched a briefcase from the trunk of her car, and produced a notebook and some files. “I made copies of those notes I mentioned. You can have these.”
“Thanks.” Chloe glanced at the photocopies: neat tables, with columns labeled “Exhibit Building,” “Artifact,” “Accession Number,” and “Notes.” Impressive. “I have to figure out where we can even claim a workspace—”
“I have a plan for that.”
Chloe raised her eyebrows. “Oh?”
“Just a suggestion, of course.” Nika met Chloe’s gaze calmly. “I’m not trying to do your job or anything.”
Right. “Did you go into the trailers?” Chloe asked. “I could tell that someone had been in there recently.”
“I took a quick look.”
“Do you have a key?”
Nika shook her head. “No, Stanley let me in. You know, the maintenance guy?” The barest hint of distaste—a narrowing of her catlike eyes, a slight tightening of her mouth—made her opinion of Stanley clear. “I didn’t do anything but look around, though.”
“So …?”
“Well, I think our best option for expanded storage is the basement of St. Peter’s Church.” Nika began talking quickly. “I know it’s not ideal, especially since the church is in the public area. But, the basement does have a separate door, near the back of the building. We could fit a fair amount of shelving and storage cupboards down there. And I don’t think it would take more than a dehumidifier or two to control the environment. The basement already has its own temperature system.”
“It does?” Chloe was struggling to keep up. “Why on earth does the church basement have its own temperature system?”
“The first year Old World Wisconsin was open, visitors received their orientation down there.” Nika smiled at Chloe’s look of disbelief. “Yeah, I know. Byron said it was the only space available. A slide projector, a few rows of folding chairs, and an interpreter to give directions. The visitor center didn’t exist yet.”
“Well, what do you know.” Chloe considered. She didn’t want to confront her intern’s unmasked ambition on an hourly basis. “Nika, we’ve got you for what, three months? How would you like to make designing and setting up our first controlled storage area your project? Assuming we can scrounge basic storage supplies.”
“That’d be great.” A satisfied smile lit Nika’s face. “We can move the woodenware.”
Chloe shook her head. “Textiles are most vulnerable.”
“But … the thing is, I started making plans already. Based on moving the wooden pieces.”
Chloe met her intern’s gaze. “I want the textiles tended to first.”
Nika shrugged, and gave a palms-up gesture of compliance. “Textiles it is.”
“I’ll talk to the division curator in Madison, and let her know what we’re planning. Evidently the historic sites division’s curator in Madison provides some kind of oversight to the curators at each of the State Historical Society’s historic sites.”
“Right.”
Nika clearly knew as much as Chloe about the historical society’s organization. Probably more. Chloe got to the point. “Once you get the proposal together, I’ll add that to my ‘needed supplies’ list.”
“I brought a bunch of catalogs with me, so I can get cost estimates.” Nika began scribbling notes on a legal pad. “I’ll call