Killing Orders

XII

L0TTY INSISTED ON spending the night. She left early in the morning for her clinic, begging me to be careful. But not to drop the investigation. “You’re a Jill-the-Giant-Killer,” she said, her black eyes worried. “You are always taking on things that are too big for you, and maybe one day you will take on one big thing too many. But that is your way. If you weren’t living so, you would have a long unhappy life. Your choice is for the satisfied life, and we will hope it, too, is a long one.”

Somehow these words did not cheer me up.

After Lotty left, I went down to the basement where each tenant has a padlocked area. With aching shoulders I pulled out boxes of old papers and knelt on the damp floor sorting through them. At last I found what I wanted-a ten-year-old address book.

Dr. and Mrs. Thomas Paciorek lived on Arbor Drive in Lake Forest. Fortunately their unlisted phone number hadn’t changed since 1974. I told the person who answered that I would speak to either Dr. or Mrs. Paciorek, but was relieved to get Agnes’s father. Although he’d always struck me as a cold, self-absorbed man, he’d never shared his wife’s personal animosity toward me. He believed his daughter’s problems stemmed from her own innate willfulness.

“This is V. I. Warshawski, Dr. Paciorek. I’m very sorry about Agnes. I’d like to come to her funeral. Can you tell me when it will be?”

“We’re not making a public occasion of it, Victoria. The publicity around her death has been bad enough without turning her funeral into a media event.” He paused. “My wife thinks you might know something about who killed her. Do you?”

“If I did, you can be sure I would tell the police, Dr. Paciorek. I’m afraid I don’t. I can understand why you don’t want a lot of people or newspapers around, but Agnes and I were good friends. It matters a lot to me to pay my last respects to her.”

He hemmed and hawed, but finally told me the funeral would be Saturday at Our Lady of the Rosary in Lake Forest. I thanked him with more politeness than I felt and called Phyllis Lording to let her know. We arranged to go together in case the Knights of Columbus were posted at the church door to keep out undesirables.

I didn’t like the way I was feeling. Noises in my apartment were making me jump, and at eleven, when the phone rang, I had to force myself to pick it up. It was Ferrant, in a subdued mood. He asked if I knew where Agnes’s funeral was being held, and if I thought her parents would mind his coming.

“Probably,” I said. “They don’t want me there and I was one of her oldest friends. But come anyway.” I told him the time and place and how to find it. When he asked if he could accompany me, I told him about Phyllis. “She probably isn’t up to meeting strangers at Agnes’s funeral.”

He invited me to dinner, but I turned that down, too. I didn’t really believe Roger would hire someone to throw acid at me. But still… I had eaten dinner with him the same day I’d made my first trip to the priory. It was the next day that Rosa decided to back out of the case. I wanted to ask him, but it sounded too much like Thomas Paciorek asking me on my honor as a Girl Scout if I’d helped kill his daughter.

I was scared, and I didn’t like it. It was making me distrust my friends. I didn’t know where to start looking for an acid thrower. I didn’t want to be alone, but didn’t know Roger well enough to be with him.

At noon, as I walked skittishly down Halsted to get a sandwich, an idea occurred to me that might solve both my immediate problems. I phoned Murray from the sandwich shop.

“I need to talk to you,” I said abruptly when he came to the phone. “I need your help.”

He must have sensed my mood, because he didn’t offer any of his usual wisecracks, agreeing to meet me at the Golden Glow at five.

At four-thirty I changed into a navy wool pantsuit, and stuck a toothbrush, the gun, and a change of underwear in my handbag. I checked all the locks, and left by the back stairs. A look around the building told me my fears were unwarranted; no one was lying in wait for me. I also checked the Omega carefully before getting in and starting it. Today at least I was not going to be blown to bits.

I got stuck in traffic on the Drive and was late to the Golden Glow. Murray was waiting for me with the early edition of the Herald-Star and a beer.

“Hello, V. I. What’s up?”

“Murray, who do you know who throws acid on people he doesn’t like?”

“No one. My friends don’t do that kind of thing.”

“Not a joke, Murray. Does it ring a bell?”

“Who do you know had acid thrown at them?”

“Me.” I turned around and showed him the back of my neck where Lotty had dressed the burn. “He was trying for my eyes but I was expecting it and turned away in time. The thrower’s name is probably Walter, but the man who got him to throw it-that’s who I want.”

I told him about the threats, and the fight, and described the voice of the man who had called. “ Murray, I’m scared. I don’t scare easily, but-Jesus Christ! The thought of some maniac out there trying to blind me! I’d rather take a bullet in the head.”

He nodded soberly. “You’re stepping on the feet of someone with bunions, V. I., but I don’t know whose. Acid.” He shook his head. “I’d be sort of tempted to say Rodolpho Fratelli, but the voice doesn’t sound right-he’s got that heavy, grating voice. You can’t miss it.”

Fratelli was a high-ranking member of the Pasquale family. “Maybe someone who works for him?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I’ll get someone to look into it. Can I do a story on your attack?”

I thought about it. “You know, I haven’t been to the police. I guess I’m too angry with Bobby Mallory.” I sketched my interview with him for Murray. “But maybe it will make my anonymous caller a little more cautious if he sees there’s a big universe out there keeping an eye open for him… The other thing is-I’m kind of embarrassed to ask this, but the truth is, I’m not up to a night alone. Can I crash with you?”

Murray looked at me for a few seconds, then laughed. “You know, Vic, it’s worth the earful I’ll get canceling my date just to hear you plead for help. You’re too fucking tough all the time.”

“Thanks, Murray. Glad to make your day.” I wasn’t liking myself too well when he went off to the telephone. I wondered what column this went under: taking prudent precautions, or being chicken?

We went to dinner at the Officers’ Mess, a romantic Indian restaurant on Halsted, and then dancing at Bluebeard’s. As we were climbing into bed at one, Murray told me he’d sicced a couple of reporters on digging up information about acid throwers.

I got up early Saturday and left Murray still asleep-I needed to change for Agnes’s funeral. All was still quiet at my apartment, and I began to think I was letting fear get far too much the better of me.

Changing into the navy walking suit, this time with a pale gray blouse and navy pumps, I took off to collect Lotty and Phyllis. It was only 10 degrees out, and the sky was overcast again. I was shivering with cold by the time I got back into the car-I needed to replace my mohair shawl.

Lotty was waiting in her doorway dressed in black wool, for once dignified enough to be a doctor. She didn’t say much on the drive down to Chestnut Street. When we got to the condo, she got out to fetch Phyllis, who didn’t look as if she’d slept or eaten in the two days since I’d seen her last. The skin on her pale, fine-boned face was drawn so tightly I thought it might crack, and she had bluish shadows under her eyes. She was wearing a white wool suit with a pale yellow sweater. I had a vague idea that those were mourning colors in the Orient. Phyllis is a very literary person and she would pay tribute to a dead lover with some kind of mourning that only another scholar would understand.

She smiled at me nervously as we headed back north toward Lake Forest. “They don’t know I’m coming, do they?” she asked.

“No.”

Lotty took exception to that. Why was I acting in a secretive way, which could only precipitate a scene when Mrs. Paciorek realized who Phyllis was.

“She’s not going to do that. Graduates of Sacred Heart and St. Mary’s don’t have scenes at their daughters’ funerals. And she won’t take it out on Phyllis-she’ll know I was the real culprit. Besides, if I’d told her ahead of time who I was bringing she might have instructed the bouncer not to seat us.”

“Bouncer?” Phyllis asked.

“I guess they call them ushers in churches.” That made Phyllis laugh and we made the rest of the drive considerably more at ease.

Our Lady of the Rosary was an imposing limestone block on top of a hill overlooking Sheridan Road. I slid the Omega into a parking lot at its foot, finding a niche between an enormous black Cadillac and an outsize Mark IV. I wasn’t sure I’d ever find my car again in this sea of limos.

As we climbed a steep flight of stairs to the church’s main entrance, I wondered how the elderly and infirm made it to mass. Perhaps Lake Forest Catholics were never bed- or wheelchair-ridden, but wafted directly to heaven at the first sign of disability.

Agnes’s brother Phil was one of the ushers. When he saw me his face lit up and he came over to kiss me. “V.1.! I’m so glad you made it. Mother told me you weren’t coming.”

I gave him a quick hug and introduced him to Lotty and Phyllis. He escorted us to seats near the front of the church. Agnes’s coffin rested on a stand in front of the steps leading up to the altar. As people came in they knelt in front of the coffin for a few seconds. To my surprise, Phyllis did so before joining us in the pew. She knelt for a long time and finally crossed herself and rose as the organ began playing a voluntary. I hadn’t realized she was a Catholic.

One of the ushers, a middle-aged man with a red face and white hair, escorted Mrs. Paciorek to her place in the front row. She was wearing black, with a long black mantilla pinned to her head. She looked much as I remembered her: handsome and angry. Her glance at the coffin as she entered her pew seemed to say: “I told you so.”

I felt a tap on my shoulder and looked up to see Ferrant, elegant in a morning coat. I wondered idly if he’d packed morning clothes just on the chance of there being a funeral in Chicago and moved over to make room for him.

The organ played Fauré for perhaps five minutes before the procession entered. It was huge and impressive. First came acolytes, one swinging a censer, one carrying a large crucifix. Then the junior clergy. Then a magnificent figure in cope and miter, carrying a crosier-the cardinal archbishop of Chicago, Jerome Farber. And behind him, the celebrant, also in cope and miter. A bishop, but not one I recognized. Not that I know many bishops by sight-Farber is in the papers fairly regularly.

I realized after the ceremony had begun that one of the junior priests was Augustine Pelly, the Dominican procurator. That was odd-how did he know the Pacioreks?

The requiem mass itself was chanted in Latin, with Farber and the strange bishop doing a very creditable job. I wondered how Agnes would have felt about this beautiful, if archaic, ritual. She was so modern in so many ways. Yet the magnificence might have appealed to her.

I made no attempt to follow the flow of the service through risings and kneelings. Nor did Lotty and Roger. Phyllis, however, participated completely, and when the bell sounded for communion I wasn’t surprised that she edged her way past us and joined the queue at the altar.

As we were leaving the church, Phil Paciorek stopped me. He was about ten years younger than Agnes and me and had had a mild crush on me in the days when I used to frequent the Lake Forest house. “We’re having something to eat at the house. I’d like it if you and your friends came along.”

I looked a question at Lotty, who shrugged as if to say it would be a mistake either way, so I accepted. I wanted to find out what Pelly was doing here.

I hadn’t been to the Paciorek house since my second year in law school. I sort of remembered it as being near the lake, but made several wrong turns before finding Arbor Road. The house looked like a Frank Lloyd Wright building with a genetic malfunction-it had kept reproducing wings and layers in all directions until someone gave it chemotherapy and stopped the process.

We left the car among a long line of others on Arbor Road and went into one of the boxes that seemed to contain the front door. When I used to visit there, Agnes and I had always come in from the side door where the garage and stables were.

We found ourselves in a black-and-white marbled foyer where a maid took Lotty’s coat and directed us to the reception. The bizarre design of the house meant going up and down several short marble staircases that led nowhere, until we had made two right turns, which took us to the conservatory. This room had been inspired by the library at Blenheim Palace. Almost as big, it contained a pipe organ as well as bookstacks and some potted trees. I wasn’t sure why they called it a conservatory instead of a music room or a library.

Phil spotted us at the door and came over to greet us. He was finishing a combined M.D-Ph.D. program at the University of Chicago. “Dad thinks I’m crazy,” he grinned. “I’m going into neurobiology as a researcher, instead of neurosurgery where the money is. I think Cecelia is the only one of his children who has turned out satisfactorily.” Cecelia, the second daughter after Agnes, was standing near the organ with Father Pelly and the strange bishop. At thirty she already looked like Mrs. Paciorek, including an imposing bosom under her expensive black suit.

I left Phil talking to Phyllis and skirted my way through the crowd to the organ. Cecelia refused to shake hands and said, “Mother told us you weren’t coming.” This was the same thing Phil had said when I met him at the church, except that he was pleased and Cecelia was angry.

“I haven’t talked to her, Cecelia. I spoke with your dad yesterday and he invited me.”

“She said she phoned you.”

I shook my head. Since she wasn’t going to introduce me, I said to the strange bishop, “I’m V. I. Warshawski, one of Agnes’s old school friends. Father Pelly and I have met out at the Friary of Albertus Magnus.” I half held out my hand, but dropped it when the bishop made no corresponding gesture. He was a lean, gray-haired man of perhaps fifty, sporting a purple episcopal shirt with a gold chain draped across it.

Pelly said, “This is the Right Reverend Xavier O’Faolin.”

I whistled mentally. Xavier O’Faolin was a Vatican functionary, in charge of the Vatican’s financial affairs. He’d been in the papers quite a bit last summer when the scandal broke over the Banco Ambrosiano and Roberto Calvi’s tangled problems. The Bank of Italy believed O’Faolin might have had a hand in Ambrosiano’s vanishing assets. The bishop was half Spanish, half Irish, from some Central American country, I thought. Heavy friends, Mrs. Paciorek had.

“And you were both old friends of Agnes’s?” I asked a bit maliciously.

Pelly hesitated, waiting for O’Faolin to say something. When the bishop didn’t speak, Pelly said austerely, “The bishop and I are friends of Mrs. Paciorek’s. We met in Panama when her husband was stationed there.”

The army had put Dr. Paciorek through medical school; he’d done his stint for them in the Canal Zone. Agnes had been born there and spoke Spanish quite well. I’d forgotten that. Paciorek had come a long way from a man too poor to pay his own tuition.

“So she takes an interest in your Dominican school in Ciudad Isabella?” It was an idle question, but Pelly’s face was suddenly suffused with emotion. I wondered what the problem was- did he think I was trying to revive the Church-in-politics argument at a funeral?

He struggled visibly with his feelings and at last said stiffly, “Mrs. Paciorek is interested in a wide range of charities. Her family is famous for its support of Catholic schools and missions.”

“Yes, indeed.” The archbishop finally spoke, his English so heavily accented as to be almost incomprehensible. “Yes, we owe much to the goodwill of such good Christian ladies as Mrs. Paciorek.”

Cecelia was biting her lips nervously. Perhaps she, too, was afraid of what I might say or do. “Please leave now. Victoria, before Mother realizes you’re here. She’s had enough shocks because of Agnes.”

“Your father and brother invited me, Ceil. I’m not gate-crashing.”

I pushed my way through a mink and sable farm glistening with diamonds to the other side of the room where I’d last seen Dr. Paciorek. About halfway there I decided the best route lay on the outside of the room through the corridor made by the potted plants. Skirting sideways against the main flow of traffic, I made my way to the edge. A few small knots of people were standing beyond the trees, talking and smoking desultorily. I recognized an old school friend of Agnes’s from Sacred Heart, lacquered hard and encrusted with diamonds. I stopped and exchanged stilted pleasantries.

As Regina paused to light a fresh cigarette, I heard a man speaking on the other side of the orange tree we stood under. “I fully support Jim’s policy in Interior. We had dinner last week in Washington and he was explaining what a burden these diehard liberals are making of his life.”

Someone else responded in the same vein. Then a third man said, “But surely there are adequate measures for dealing with such opposition.” Not an unusual conversation for a right-wing bastion of wealth, but it was the third speaker’s voice that held me riveted. 1 was certain I’d heard it on the phone two nights ago.

Regina was telling me about her second daughter, now in eighth grade at Sacred Heart, and how clever and beautiful she was. “That’s wonderful, Regina. So nice to see you again.”

I circled the orange tree. A large group stood there, including the red-faced man who’d been ushering at the church, and O’Faolin. Mrs. Paciorek, whom I hadn’t seen earlier, was standing in the middle, facing me. In her late fifties, she was still an attractive woman. When I knew her, she followed a rigorous exercise regimen, drank little, and didn’t smoke. But years of anger had taken their toll on her face. Under the beautifully coiffed dark hair it was pinched and lined. When she saw me, the furrows in her forehead deepened.

“Victoria! I specifically asked you not to come. What are you doing here?”

“What are you talking about? Dr. Paciorek asked me to the service, and Philip invited me to come here afterward.”

“When Thomas told me yesterday that you were coming I phoned you three times. Each time I told the person who answered to make sure you knew you were not welcome at my daughter’s funeral. Now don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

I shook my head. “Sorry, Mrs. Paciorek. You spoke with my answering service. I was too busy to phone in for messages. And even if I’d gotten your orders, I would still have come: I loved Agnes too much to stay away from her funeral.”

“Loved her!” Her voice was thick with anger. “How dare you make filthy innuendos in this house.”

“Love? Filthy innuendos?” I echoed, then laughed. “Oh. You’re still stuck on the notion that Agnes and I were lovers. No, no. Just good friends.”

At my laughter her face suffused with crimson. I was afraid she might have a stroke on the spot. The red-faced white-haired man stepped forward and took my arm. “My sister made it clear you’re not wanted here. I think it’s time you left.” His heavy voice was not that of my threatening caller.

“Sure,” I said. “I’ll just find Dr. Paciorek and say goodbye to him.” He tried to propel me toward the door but I shook his hand loose with more vigor than grace. I left him rubbing it and paused in the crowd behind Mrs. Paciorek, straining for the smooth, accentless voice of my caller. I couldn’t find it. At last I gave up, found Dr. Paciorek, made some routine condolences, and collected Phyllis and Lotty.