Dear Old Dead(74)

“Sick?” Gregor was startled.

“Never mind,” Julie said. “They probably aren’t true. If Michael got sick, he’d tell us about it. He wouldn’t just go off somewhere to die. I was going to tell you about Charles van Straadt.”

“That’s right.”

“Well, you see, I started to tell you upstairs right after Rosalie van Straadt died. About my mother, you know, who lives with this guy in a gang, and I came down from the east building with Karida to see if she’d been hurt in the shoot-out. I don’t know why, I really don’t. It’s not like she cares about me one way or the other. It’s not like she cares about anybody. I don’t know. I was worried. So I went.”

“I think that’s understandable.”

“Yeah, well, the thing is, the stairways are all crazy in the west building, because of the way they remodeled to put in the elevators. You can’t just get started on a stairwell and go down and down and down. You go down some and then you have to cross the hall and then you go down some more. When you come off the stairs from the fourth floor to the third you can pass Michael’s office and Father Donleavy’s. And there was a light in Michael’s office, you see, so I stopped.”

“Because you wanted to see Dr. Pride.”

“Everybody wants to see Dr. Pride, Mr. Demarkian. Dr. Pride doesn’t have time to talk. Almost ever.”

Gregor nodded. “Did you go into Dr. Pride’s office?”

“Oh, no,” Julie said. “I’d never do that without permission. I just wanted to know what was going on in there. But I also thought it was very odd. I mean, we were in the middle of a major emergency. There had been loudspeaker announcements all evening—when there’s a shoot-out or a major drug bust or something and the emergency room is going to be jammed, they put an announcement over the public address system about how we’re all supposed to stay in our rooms and not go over to the west building except for a real emergency. Not even to come in here and get food. So I thought it was odd, you see, that there would be someone in Michael’s office. I didn’t think it really could be Michael. If he needed anything, one of the nurses or the orderlies or the volunteers would go get it for him. I didn’t understand who could be in there with the light on. And there was a voice, you see, but it wasn’t Michael’s voice. The whole thing felt—creepy.”

“Was there only one voice?” Gregor asked her. “You didn’t hear two? It wasn’t a conversation?”

“There was only one voice,” Julie said definitely. “Maybe he was talking on the phone. I didn’t see. I went down along the hall toward the door, thinking I’d look in and see who was there, and then as I was still on my way, he came out. Charles van Straadt. Except I didn’t know that he was Charles van Straadt at the time. I didn’t know that until the next day, when I saw the papers. I just saw this man come out of the doorway really quick, so quick he scared me, and I kind of shrieked.”

“And this was Charles van Straadt?”

“Oh, definitely, Mr. Demarkian. I knew as soon as I saw the newspapers with his picture in it. He wasn’t a very usual looking man.”

“No,” Gregor admitted. “No, he wasn’t. Was he the only person you saw? Not only in the room, now. I mean on your whole trip downstairs.”

“He was the only one. Until we got to the first floor, of course, because down there there were tons of people. Nurses. Doctors. Ambulance men. And that guy who carries the sign out on the sidewalk out front.”

“He was in the building?”

“Oh, yes.”

“What time was this?”

Julie Enderson shrugged. “I’m sorry, Mr. Demarkian, I really don’t remember. I’m sure I checked, but I can’t make myself hold the information. Augie always says I ought to, that I’ve got to learn because when I have a real job I’m going to have to, but I never do seem to remember.”

“Was it closer to six? Seven?”

“Oh, it was after seven, I’d think. It took me a long time to work up the nerve to come over. It was against the rules, you know, and I don’t like to break the rules. I don’t want to get kicked out of the program.”

Gregor thought this over. “When you got down to the first floor, did you see any of the other van Straadts? Rosalie, the one who just died? Martha? Ida Greel?”

“I saw Ida Greel,” Julie said. “She was on duty in Emergency with everyone else. And later in the east building I saw the guy. You know, Ida’s brother, the cute one with no brains.”