All the Dead Fathers (13 page)

“Listen, why don't—”

“No,
you
listen. Please.” Kirsten was careful to keep her voice calm, conciliatory. “The hospital obviously has concern about his disappearance, and I'm not saying you guys didn't do all you could. You called the police, who saw no reason to get involved. The thing is, no one knows where this man is, and morning might be too late.”

“Too late for what?”

“I don't know, but it would sure put my mind at rest to know someone picked him up and he's all right.”

“I have no authority. I can't—” She shook her head, but at least she seemed sympathetic.

“I don't want to get you in any trouble,” Kirsten said. “I just need to know … I mean … what is it, one
A.M
. or something? Would there be anyone still at the nurses' desk who was here when Stieboldt was walking around?”

“Only if someone's working two shifts in a row. Which is possible. We're short-staffed. Everybody is.”

*   *   *

Doreena Brown turned up a nursing aide named Clara Johns who worked seven-to-seven. She was a friendly woman who had to be over sixty, Kirsten thought, but was obviously full of energy.

“That father?” Clara Johns said. “A nice enough man. I hear people saying he had a problem once, y'know, with young boys. But I don't know nothin' about that. I guess everybody got
some
kinda problem.”

“That's fine, Ms. Johns, but what I'm wondering about is possible visitors.”

“Visitors? No way. Not at night, not when I'm here. He was only in the hospital a few days. Got that pain quieted down with meds, and then yesterday he pass that stone and I
know
he feeling better after that. Me, I wouldn't stay up in no hospital, neither, once I got to feeling better.”

“So, last night,” Kirsten said, “no visitors? Nobody came to see him?”

“Like I say, he never—” She shrugged. “Except … it
was
this woman by his room asking about him, but she wasn't a visitor. She from the insurance company.”

“A woman?” Kirsten's heart picked up speed. “Did she talk to him? What was her name?”

“I don't know if she even
found
him. I told her he must be out walking around somewhere. Maybe downstairs by the candy machines, 'cause he had asked me where they were. If she said her name, I didn't get it.”

“What did she look like?”

“Look like? I guess … like a woman from an insurance company. Tall white lady. Kinda big, but not fat. Big smile on her face the whole time. But definitely on business. Italian-looking, except reddishlike hair.”

“How old?”

“Oh, I'm no good at ages. Maybe your age, maybe older. Hard to say. Not old, though; not like me.” She laughed.

“She talk to anyone else?”

“Not as I know of. She just say thank you and turn and walk away. Last I seen of her.”

“Did you tell anyone about her? I mean, like someone from the hospital administration?”

“Tell anyone? I mean, no one asked—”

“Clara Johns.”
The soft, disembodied call came from a speaker hidden in the ceiling.
“Clara Johns. To the nursing station.”

“You go ahead,” Kirsten said. “And thanks.”

The woman left in a hurry, and Kirsten turned to Doreena Brown. “You better make a report. I mean, you don't have to say
you
found Clara for me, if you don't want to. Just say I talked to her on my way out and that's what she said.”

“Right. And … you better go now.”

*   *   *

Kirsten had no real right to be in the hospital, and didn't want to press her luck. Besides, poking around in the candy machine area when it had been five or six hours since Stieboldt was there—if he ever
was
there—would have been useless.

Doreena Brown told her the shortest way to the hospital parking garage. She had to negotiate a maze of corridors and two elevators. Her mind was whirling. She didn't know Father Carl Stieboldt at all, but she didn't believe for a minute that he'd simply walked out of the hospital on his own, without explanation. Shoes or no shoes. Michael had
said
he wouldn't. She kept imagining a custodian with a mop yanking open a closet to find a naked, bloody man folded into the slop sink.

And who was that damn woman? Supposedly from the insurance company. Wasn't the Archdiocese of Chicago self-insured? Still, though, someone had to administer the program, investigate and verify claims. But going to a patient's room? In the evening?

She stepped out of the second elevator and went through a glass door into the garage. Her footsteps on the concrete seemed suddenly too loud—as though the floor were hollow. She stopped walking and listened. Traffic noises in the distance; a constant hum from what must be the hospital's ventilation system. It was three in the morning and there wasn't a living soul around. She was quite sure no one had followed her up here from home, but still she had to force herself to walk again … and not to run.

The Celica was down at the end of a row of parked vehicles, hidden from view behind that Ford Explorer. What if…? But there was no flat tire. She got behind the wheel and slid the key into the ignition, then hesitated. What if…? But the engine turned over and took hold and she wasn't swallowed up in a roaring fireball. She drove west to the interstate. There was a Motel 6 there and she got a room and called to tell Dugan where she was. Then she went to bed.

Nothing bad happened. Not to her, anyway. Not so far.

22.

By eight-thirty
A.M.
Kirsten was back at Villa St. George. She found Michael sitting alone on a bench overlooking the lawn, reading the morning
Tribune.
He said there'd been no word from Carl Stieboldt.

“Why'd he put you down as next of kin?” she asked.

“He's got no family except some cousins who live out of state. I'm the one who drove him to the hospital, and the woman there said he should name someone nearby they could call.”

“You're a close friend?”

“We both love music. He plays the violin and I play
at
the piano. I may know him better than most, but he has no close friends that I know of. Well, maybe one. But not anymore. That is, he and Emmett were—”

“Emmett Regan? The one who—”

“Yes. They're both … you know … gay. I believe they … they saw each other fairly often.”

“Really? Is that consistent with Stieboldt's remaining a priest?”

“I don't know that they were sexually involved any longer. Actually, I don't
know
that they ever
were.
I just—”

“Anyway,” she said, “the hospital's suggesting that a friend or relative might have come and picked him up last night.”

“Not possible. Even if Carl would ever leave against medical advice—which he wouldn't—I can't imagine who there'd be to pick him up. It obviously wasn't Emmett. He was … his body was found sometime Tuesday. You mentioned it to me, but didn't say who it was. It's here in the paper.” He showed her the article, which included Regan's photo, and let her tear it out and keep it. “I suppose Carl
could
have called a cab,” he said, “but that—”

“They suggested someone came, brought him a pair of shoes.”

“Shoes?”

“When you took him in, did you bring along extra shoes or clothes?”

“Nothing. Let's see … this is Thursday. It was Sunday evening. Carl was in terrible pain, and he hadn't told anyone until he couldn't stand it anymore. I managed to reach my own doctor and he said it sounded like a kidney stone and to take him to the hospital right away. Carl was doubled over and crying from the pain, and I just grabbed him by the arm and dragged him to the car. We didn't go back to his room for anything. At the hospital they said they could get things like a razor and slippers for him.”

“So he was there Monday, Tuesday, and yesterday. And sometime yesterday afternoon he passed the stone.”

“You said something about shoes,” Michael said.

“He was dressed and up walking around after supper before he disappeared. I suppose he could have been wearing hospital slippers. I checked his room and his shoes were still there, and a jacket, too.”

“My God, what do you think happened to—”

“What I think is that you should call the Waukegan police and insist that they treat Carl Stieboldt as a missing person, try to get them involved. Plus, you should notify the archdiocese. Maybe the cardinal can pressure the cops.”

“I hate to say it,” Michael said, “but my guess is the cardinal would be delighted—I mean, not to have something
terrible
happen to Carl—but to have him disappear. And to have one less of … of
us
 … to deal with. Everyone wishes we'd just crawl back into the woodwork.”

“Yeah, well…” She stood up. “I better be on my way.”

“Wait.” He stood, too, and started to reach out toward her, but then withdrew his hand. “I didn't mean
you.
That is, I'm sorry I got you into this.”

“Look, Michael, you didn't
get
me into anything. Like I told you, I'm here because … well, because you were there for me when I needed someone. I owe you for that.”

“I know. I wish … The thing is, when I helped you it was because I wanted to. And it didn't create any debt on your part. I appreciate what you're doing, but I wish…” He didn't finish.

“You wish I was helping you, not out of debt, but because I care about what happens to you. Well, I
do
care. I mean, maybe it's not like it was … before I found out.” She shook her head. “It might be different if you'd told me yourself, I don't know.”

“I should have, but—”

“Let's let it go, okay? It's over, and there are more important things to do than sit around talking about things we can't change.”

She turned and left quickly, so he wouldn't see the tears in her eyes.

*   *   *

She drove back to Queen of Mercy Medical Center and at ten o'clock met with Howard Arnett in his office. He was a sharp-featured, bespectacled man and—given that he was the hospital's in-house counsel—surprisingly agreeable. He knew she had spoken the night before with Clara Johns, and he didn't complain about that. He told her he had already checked with the day shift and turned up one person, a nurse, who recalled Stieboldt having a visitor. “It was a man,” he said, “and he was here on Monday. But she never saw him before and doesn't know his name. The shift changes at three, and I'll have someone speak with them, also. We don't keep a record of visitors, so it's a matter of someone noticing someone, and then remembering.”

Kirsten asked about the woman Clara Johns said had been looking for Stieboldt, and Arnett thought it unlikely she was from the company that handled insurance claims for the archdiocese. “I've already got a call in to them,” he said, “but I can almost guarantee the answer.”

“You'll call me when you hear, though, right?” Kirsten asked. “And leave a message one way or the other?”

“Absolutely.” He stared down at his desk, and at the business card she'd given him, as though trying to make up his mind, then looked up and said, “I know who Father Stieboldt is. That is, I've seen the news reports and I know—or I
think
I know—what the concern is here.”

“Oh?”

“He's one of the priests on the list of sex offenders. And two of them have been murdered.” It was actually
three
now, but she let that go. “The hospital notified the police once about him being missing, and I don't intend to call them again or to tell them their business. But I want you to know that we'll cooperate with them, and with
you,
to the extent that we—”

“Right,” Kirsten said. “In the meantime, if I were you I'd have the hospital searched.”

Arnett smiled. “Security is conducting a search as we speak. I'll call you on that, too.”

“One way or the other.”

“Of course.” Arnett stood up. “I believe that's all.”

“Not quite. I need to talk to the nurse, the one who saw the visitor.”

“She's nurse manager of a double unit, and she's very busy. She doesn't know his name.”

“It'll just take a minute. You can come along if you like. I want her to look at something.” Kirsten pulled the folded newspaper clipping from her purse. “It may be a picture of Carl Stieboldt's visitor.”

*   *   *

The nurse manager's name was Irene Delgado, and from the newspaper photo she recognized Emmett Regan. “It was, oh, about four in the afternoon,” she said. “I'm supposed to be off at three, you know? But on Monday I stayed late because … well … that's a long story. Anyway, that's how I remember it was Monday. He came up looking for Father Stieboldt's room and I showed him. I don't know what time he left.”

“Was there anyone with him?” Kirsten asked.

“Not that I noticed,” she said. “But there were lots of people coming and going, you know. Staff and visitors alike.” She stared at Kirsten. “Why? Is there something wrong?”

“Just routine,” Kirsten said, as if she were a cop, and as if the answer made sense.

23.

Kirsten left the hospital and drove back to Chicago. She left the punctured tire, along with the postcard and the mail that came with it, at Renfroe Laboratories, and then went to her office. She was two steps into the little waiting room when she stopped, dead still. She looked around but didn't touch anything. She moved to the inner office door, opened it and again looked around without touching anything. Back out in the hall she called Dugan on her cell phone.