Dear Old Dead(58)
“Not really. If you’re trying to say that Charles van Straadt spent some time in Michael’s office before dying there, the answer seems to be yes. The way the police have worked it out, Charles and Rosalie got to the center at about six o’clock or a little after and went straight up to Michael’s office. Then Rosalie ran around doing errands while Charles stayed in the office doing God only knows what. He made at least one phone call, over to the east building, looking for Martha. Sister Edna answered the phone. After that, nobody knows what he did. Nobody saw him anywhere else in the building. The assumption is that he stayed in Michael’s office, or at least on the third floor of the west building until he died.”
“Mmmm.” Julie looked down at her sausage and bacon. Her eggs seemed to be congealing into an art form. Her toast looked wet. She pushed the tray away and reached into the back pocket of her jeans for her cigarettes. The cafeteria and the emergency-room waiting area were the only places in the west building where you were allowed to smoke. In the east building, you could smoke anywhere you wanted, except in the classrooms for the Afterschool Program. The nuns had given up trying to enforce discipline.
There was a round black plastic ashtray in the middle of the table. Julie pulled it toward her and dropped in her spent match. Then she took in a deep lungful of smoke and breathed it out again.
“Augie,” she asked carefully, “did you ever see Charles van Straadt anywhere except for here?”
“You mean in person?” Augie looked confused. “I don’t think I have. I’ve seen his pictures, of course. Parties at the White House. Benefits with movie stars. Old Charlie did tend to get around.”
Julie shook her head. “No, that’s not what I meant. You used to work at Covenant House, didn’t you?”
“I volunteered there once, years ago. Why?”
“I don’t know. You never saw him there, in that neighborhood?”
“Charles van Straadt? No, of course I didn’t. Why should I have? Does he contribute to Covenant House?”
“I don’t know. I never went to Covenant House myself. But it’s in the right neighborhood.”
“Right for what?”
It was always hard to predict what nuns knew and what they didn’t. When you expected them to be naive, they surprised you, but when you expected them to be hip they surprised you, too. Julie took another drag on her cigarette. Everybody else in New York knew what that neighborhood was good for. Everybody else in the world knew.
“Augie,” Julie said, “do you know this man, this Gregor Demarkian, that the Cardinal hired?”
“I don’t think you can actually hire him,” Augie said. “I don’t think he takes money.”
“Do you know if he can be trusted?”
Augie shrugged. “I know he’s good at his work. The Cardinal wouldn’t have sent him if he weren’t. What’s the matter? Is there something you know about one of those deaths? You shouldn’t keep it to yourself if you do. It could be dangerous.”
“No,” Julie said. “I don’t know anything about the deaths. It isn’t that.”
She pulled the tray of food back toward her and looked down at the hash browns. Augie was staring at her oddly, but she couldn’t help that. The hand grenades that had become the neutron bomb were now turning into fragments of shrapnel. She felt as bad as the time she’d had the flu and no place to sleep at the same time.
“Julie,” Augie said.
“I’m all right,” Julie told her. “I’ve just got an awful pain in my head.”
2
VICTOR VAN STRAADT HAD never much liked his cousin Rosalie, and he had liked her even less after it began to look as if their grandfather was going to leave Rosalie every cent of his personal fortune. Two weeks ago, he could have contemplated her death with cheerfulness. Two weeks ago, however, was two weeks ago. Two weeks ago, Grandfather had still been alive. Or was it longer than that? Victor only knew what day of the week it was because the day of the week (along with the date) was always written on a large chalkboard set up in the lobby down at work. “Monday, January 10,” Victor would read when he got in in the morning, and then he would know where he was. It didn’t matter. The problem was this. Having Grandfather found dead in Michael Pride’s office at the Sojourner Truth Health Center was one thing. That was a death that could have been caused by anyone for any reason. Having Rosalie also found dead in Michael Pride’s office at the Sojourner Truth Health Center was something else again. That looked deliberate. That looked planned. In short, that looked like one of the family—in spite of the fact that now that Grandfather was dead, there was no good reason for any of them to kill Rosalie at all. Victor didn’t think the police were very logical about reasons. They liked to make their arrests and hand their suspects over for trial. They liked to see their names in papers like the New York Sentinel so that they could send the clippings to their parents who had retired to Florida. Victor had no doubt that he would make an excellent subject for a tabloid clipping. He was scared to death.