Dear Old Dead(27)

“What’s that?”

“Well, no one knew that Charles van Straadt was coming that night, right?”

“That’s arguable,” Gregor said, “but I’ll let it stand for now. So what?”

“So there was somebody in Michael’s office from the time Charles van Straadt arrived at the center until the time his body was found—Charles van Straadt was in the office. I know. I was talking to the Cardinal that night, sitting at my desk right across the hall, and I could see him.”

“That’s interesting. And he never left?”

“Not once while I was there. Which was for nearly an hour. That granddaughter of his went in and out.”

“Granddaughter?”

“Charles had four grandchildren. Two of them volunteered at the center. This was one of the ones who didn’t. Rosalie. Anyway, Rosalie went off getting coffee and whatnot from the cafeteria, running errands for the old man. The old man stayed put. He usually did.”

“That’s very interesting.” Gregor looked out his window at a low stone wall and a profusion of trees. They were on Central Park West now, the great old apartment houses marching uptown on their left, Central Park on their right. This was New York as Gregor used to know it, a place suffering from too much money, not too little.

“You know,” Gregor said, “whether you realize it or not, you seem to be implying—maybe subconsciously insisting is what I mean—that Michael Pride and only Michael Pride could have killed Charles van Straadt.”

Eamon Donleavy shook his head. “There’s nothing subconscious about it. Everybody’s been insisting that very thing, Mr. Demarkian. The police. The volunteers at the center. Even the Cardinal.”

“There’s only one thing missing,” Gregor told him. “Motive. And as far as I know, Michael Pride founded the Sojourner Truth Health Center and Charles van Straadt contributed generously to it. Other people also contributed to it. Mr. van Straadt wasn’t on some kind of board that could have removed Michael Pride as head of the center?”

“There is no such board. There’s just Michael.”

“Well then, you see what I mean. This is not the kind of relationship that usually results in homicide.”

Eamon Donleavy was a tall man. His legs were folded hard against the seat in front of him, as Gregor’s were, since Gregor was even taller. Eamon Donleavy shifted so that he was leaning toward the door and looking out on the apartment buildings. The buildings were just as big as they had been twenty blocks south, but no longer so well cared for. Gregor could almost feel what was coming.

“Michael,” Eamon Donleavy said carefully, “doesn’t think like other people.”

After that, Eamon Donleavy wouldn’t say anything at all.





2


FIVE MINUTES LATER, JUAN Valenciano’s cab pulled off Lenox Avenue and up to the front door of the Sojourner Truth Health Center. Gregor had changed his mind about his premonition down on CPW. He had not been able to feel what was coming. In spite of everything he had heard and seen and read. In spite of twenty years in the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In spite of dozens of hard-boiled private-eye novels and more than enough forays into film noir. Gregor had not been prepared for this. This was not the Harlem you saw sitting on the train at the 125th Street Station. This was not the Harlem you saw making forays off the main campus of Columbia University in Morningside Heights. This wasn’t even the Harlem you saw on the six o’clock news. This was—Gregor had no words to describe what this was. There seemed to be a tape playing through his head saying over and over again: How the hell did we ever let it get like this?

The street the Sojourner Truth Health Center faced was not empty, although the buildings on it were mostly abandoned. Gregor saw an ancient black woman with a shopping cart full of worn brown grocery bags. The grocery bags were stuffed full and folded over at the tops so that no one could see what she had inside them. Sitting on the stoop of the abandoned building directly across from the center’s front door were three young men, all stoned into immobility, all laid out as if they were dead and ready for their own wakes. The steps on the stoop of that building were made of marble. Gregor recognized that even from inside the cab. He turned around and looked toward the center. The front doors were open and covered with signs in English and Spanish. Gregor could read only one of them clearly, the one that said, “IF YOU ARE DEAF, PLEASE INFORM A NUN.” Incredible.

“There’s Sister Augustine.” Eamon Donleavy pointed up the center’s steps to a middle-aged woman in bright red sweats coming out the front doors. The middle-aged woman was also wearing a veil, so Gregor supposed she could be “Sister” somebody. “She’s probably been hanging out of her office window waiting for us to show up for the last hour. She’s very interested in meeting you, Mr. Demarkian. Augie’s a big fan of Michael Pride’s.”