Dear Old Dead(80)
Working with no official connection to any established law enforcement office was worse. Gregor was always surprised at how willing people were to cooperate with him, relying on nothing but the rather spurious reputation he had attained in popular magazines. It was incredible to him how many people were overjoyed to spend a little time with someone they thought of as a “celebrity.” Not everyone was inclined to be that voluble, however. Gregor had met with his share of defeat, and more than his share of that inevitable question: Who do you think you are? The question was made worse by the fact that Gregor had no idea who he thought he was. He hadn’t known for years. It wasn’t the kind of thing a man wanted to ask himself at any stage of life.
In Martha van Straadt and Ida Greel, Gregor had so far met with what he thought of as reluctant acquiescence. He had been invited here by the Cardinal Archbishop of New York and his presence had been approved by Michael Pride. Martha and Ida were willing to put up with him. Just. Gregor wanted more than that. He didn’t think he’d have much trouble out of the young man, Ida’s brother, whom he had yet to meet. Victor van Straadt looked like the kind of person who talked endlessly about himself if given half a chance.
Martha, Ida, and Victor didn’t seem to be too happy with each other. They were as tense a group as Gregor had ever seen. Martha kept scowling from Ida to Victor and back again. Victor kept dropping the sheaf of papers he was carrying under one arm and rescuing them only a second before they scattered all over the floor. Gregor nodded a little to himself and made his way over to them. They were paying no attention to him at all.
“Excuse me,” Gregor said, when he reached Martha van Straadt’s side. “I don’t know if you remember me. My name is Gregor Demarkian. I was wondering if I could ask for your help.”
Victor van Straadt was the only one of the three of them that seemed to have any reaction at all to Gregor’s arrival. The other two turned to look at the man who was speaking to them, but their faces were blank.
“I’m Victor van Straadt.” Victor put out his hand. “We haven’t met. I’m Ida’s brother.”
Gregor shook. Victor had a good strong handclasp, the kind that was allowed only to the hero in 1930s British books. So much for that as an indication of character, Gregor thought. He looked at the papers under Victor’s arm. They were slipping again.
“Oh,” Victor said. “Excuse me. That’s my work. I work for the New York Sentinel.”
“He runs their contests,” Martha said sarcastically. “It’s not exactly a reporting job.”
“Right,” Victor said. “Father’s Day. That’s the one we’re doing now. Maybe you’ve seen the announcements. We run a red banner over the masthead. It does wonders for newsstand sales.”
“Oh, how would you know?” Martha said. “Really, you never do any work. You don’t know the first thing about it.”
“I don’t think that’s fair,” Ida came in. “Victor has a very responsible position. He has to oversee the physical running of the contest itself, and keep an eye on the escrow account, and work with the publicity. It’s not as if he were Vanna White turning letters.”
“He might as well be Vanna White turning letters,” Martha said sharply. “You know as well as I do that Victor never does any of that stuff. You and Rosalie and I do it all, one way or the other. I mean, my God, escrow accounts. The only reason Victor knows how to make out a check is that he left his bank card at home one day and the woman at the bank showed him how to write a check for his money instead. I mean, for God’s sake. He’s hopeless.”
“He’s no more hopeless than you are,” Ida argued.
Victor was putting his papers into a tidy pile. Gregor saw that the one on the top had a red banner printed across it. It said:
FOR A FANTASTIC FATHER’S DAY! PLAY IT NOW!
Victor got the pile neat, looked up, and grinned. He was a little green around the gills.
“Well,” he said. “Help. You asked us if we could help.”
“That’s right,” Gregor said. “Hector Sheed—the detective assigned to this case from Manhattan Homicide—Hector Sheed has just gone to get a stopwatch. He’ll be back in a minute. I need somebody who’ll be willing to do a little running around that we could time.”
“Why?” Martha van Straadt asked.
“Because we’re trying to figure out how long it would have taken for someone to do what had to be done on the night your grandfather was killed,” Gregor said. “I don’t know if you realize it, but for the murder to have been brought off the way it was, the murderer had to do quite a lot of running around. We’re having something of a hard time figuring out how long it all took, and when. If we knew how long, you see, we might be able to figure out when.”