ARTS
“THE DEAD KEY” UNLOCKING CLEVELAND’S HIDDEN HISTORY
WRITTEN BY
Ayanna Cash ILLUSTRATED BY
Megan Mullaly D. M. Pulley’s fiction novel gives readers a new perspective on a historical building on Euclid Ave.
D
M. Pulley is a Northeast Ohio native who started her career as an engineer. She would survey and rehab historical buildings in the Cleveland area but, after having two children,
Pulley decided to put her engineering career on hold to be a stay-at-home mom, but she quickly grew restless and decided to try her hand at writing. Inspired by a survey she did years prior of a vacant
through the experiences of Baker in 1978 and Latch
bank, Pulley was entranced by a rumor that the bank
in 1998. Together, the two women uncover the same
was full of unclaimed safe deposit boxes. This specific
scandal involving missing safe deposit boxes, work-
surveying job followed her for years and eventually
place love affairs, a city caving under debts and
served as the basis for her first novel, “The Dead Key.”
key No. 547.
“The Dead Key” unravels the mystery of a bank
After a troubled relationship with her mother,
right on Euclid Ave—1010 Euclid Ave. to be exact.
Baker moves in with her no-nonsense aunt Dorris.
This is the present location of apartments, office
Despite being only 16, Dorris forages Baker a birth
spaces, the Downtown Heinen’s grocery store and
certificate and she’s hired at the bank. This is where
the Vault which is an underground bar that occupies
Baker meets her colleag ue and friend, Ma x ine
the original restored vaults of the bank.
McDonnell, a.k.a Max. McDonnell shows Baker the
The novel begins in 1978 with 16-year-old Beatrice
ropes and the pair quickly grow close.
Baker. Once hired at the First Bank of Cleveland, the
Baker’s first glance at the bank’s dark side is when
crime and drama within the bank slowly begins to
she learns of the undocumented repossession of safe
reveal itself to Baker. As the scandal comes to a head,
deposit boxes. One woman came into the bank to
the doors to the First Bank of Cleveland are chained
make a payment on her box, only to learn that it had
shut in the middle of the night—sealing in and pre-
been repossessed. The woman was outraged because
serving the bank’s history and its scandal behind
she never received any notices from the bank and
the doors.
threatened legal action. As a result, McDonnell’s boss
Twenty years later, in 1998, Iris Latch, a 23-year-
assigns her the secret project of requesting audits
old Case Western Reserve University engineering
on the boxes, finding ones that haven’t been paid
graduate, struggled to balance adult life and begin
on, and checking that against the bank’s records.
her engineering career. She’s assigned to do a reno-
When Baker’s aunt Dorris falls into an unexplained
vation feasibility study of the First Bank of Cleveland.
coma, she further lear ns just how shady—and
While surveying, Latch unlocks the mystery of the
dangerous—the First Bank of Cleveland is. Baker
bank that has been perfectly frozen in time.
finds hidden love letters, First Bank of Cleveland
As the story jumps between time periods, the
repossession documents, and a mystery key No. 547
mysteries behind the bank are slowly pieced together
in her aunt’s belongings and learns that her aunt
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