Carroll answered, “Mr. Hatfield hasn’t told us anything. But since the real stocks turned up, they don’t seem to be as interested in the investigation.”
“Could be. Derek doesn’t talk too much to me.” I sipped some of the pale green tea. It was warming; that was the best that could be said for it. “I really came out here for a different reason. A friend of mine was shot last week. Saturday I learned Father Pelly was a friend of hers, too. Perhaps the rest of you knew her-Agnes Paciorek?”
Carroll shook his head. “Of course, we’ve all been praying for her this week. But Augustine was the only person out here who knew her personally. I don’t think we can tell you much about her.”
“I didn’t come about her. Or not directly about her. She was shot while tracking down some information for an Englishman I introduced her to. That would make me feel responsible even if we hadn’t been good friends. I think she was looking at something connected with a Catholic lay organization called Corpus Christi. I wanted to know if you could tell me anything about it.”
Carroll smiled gently. “I’ve heard of it, but I couldn’t tell you much about it. They like to operate secretly-so even if I were a member I couldn’t tell you anything.”
Rosa said venomously, “And why do you want to know, Victoria? To sling mud at the Church?”
“More mud? Sorry, Rosa. Just because I’m not a Catholic doesn’t mean I go around persecuting the Church.”
“No? Then why do you involve yourself in protest meetings on abortion? I saw you at that demonstration last year outside the diocesan offices.”
“Rosa! Don’t tell me you were out there with the fetus worshippers! Were you the old woman who spat at a girl in a wheelchair?”
Rosa’s teacup clattered from the deal table to the uncarpeted linoleum floor. The institutional mug was too heavy to break, but tea spilled everywhere. She leaped to her feet, ignoring the tea dripping down the front of her black dress. “Figlia di puttana!” she shouted. “Mind your own business. Leave the business of good Catholics alone.”
Carroll looked shocked, whether from the unexpected outburst or because he understood Italian I couldn’t tell. He took Rosa’s arm. “Mrs. Vignelli. You’re letting yourself get overexcited. Maybe the strain of this terrible suspicion has been too much for you. I’m going to call your son and ask him to come pick you up.”
He told Jablonski to get some towels and sat Rosa down in the room’s one armchair. Pelly squatted on the floor next to her. He smiled chidingly. “Mrs. Vignelli. The Church admires and supports those who support her, but even ardor can be a sin if not held in check and used properly. A good Catholic welcomes all questions about the Church and the faith. Even if you suspect your niece of scoffing at you and your faith, treat her with charity. If you turn the other cheek long enough, that’s how you’ll win her. If you abuse her, you’ll only drive her away.”
Rosa folded thin lips into an invisible line. “You’re right, Father. I spoke without thinking. You will forgive me, Victoria:
I am old and small things affect me too much.”
The charade of piety made me faintly ill. I smiled sardonically and told her that was fine; I could make allowances for her enfeebled state.
A young brother came in with an armful of towels. Rosa took these from him and cleaned herself, floor, and table with her usual angry efficiency. She smiled bleakly at Father Carroll. “Now. If you will let me use the phone I will call my son.”
Pelly and Carroll ushered her into the inner office; I sat in one of the folding chairs at the table. Jablonski was eyeing me with lively curiosity.
“Do you usually rub your aunt the wrong way?”
I smiled. “She’s old. Little things get to her.”
“She’s extremely difficult to work with,” he said abruptly. “We’ve lost a lot of part-time people over the years because of her-no one can do anything perfectly enough for her. For some reason she listens to Gus, but he’s the only one who can make her see reason. She even snaps at Boniface, and you have to be pretty thin-skinned not to get along with him.”
“Why keep her then? What’s all the anxiety to bring her back?”
“She’s one of those indispensable battle-axes,” he grimaced.
“She knows our books, she works hard, she’s efficient-and we pay her very little. We’d never get anyone with her skill or dedication for what we can afford to give her.”
I grinned to myself: served Rosa right for all her anti-feminist attacks to be the victim of wage discrimination herself.
She came out with Pelly, backbone as straight as ever, ignoring me pointedly as she said good-bye to Jablonski. She was going to wait for Albert in the entrance hall, she announced. Pelly took her elbow solicitously and escorted her out the door. The only man who could get along with Rosa. What a distinction. For a fleeting moment I wondered what her life had been like when Uncle Carl was alive.
Carroll came back into the outer office a few seconds later. He sat down and looked at me for a while without talking. I wished I hadn’t let myself get caught up in Rosa’s anger.
When he spoke, it wasn’t about my aunt. “Do you want to tell me why you’re asking about Corpus Christi and Agnes Paciorek?”
I chose my words carefully. “The Ajax Insurance Company is one of the country’s largest property-casualty insurers. One of their officers came to me a couple of weeks ago concerned that a covert takeover bid might be in the offing. I talked to Agnes about it-as a broker she had ready access to trading news.
“The night she died, she called the man from Ajax to tell him she was meeting with someone who might have information about the stock. At the least, that person was the last who saw her alive. Since he-or she-hasn’t come forward, it might even be the person who killed her.”
Now came the tricky part. “The only clue I have is some notes she scribbled. Some of the words made it clear she was thinking about Ajax when she wrote them. Corpus Christi appeared on that list. It wasn’t a memo or anything like that- just the cryptic comments you make when you’re writing while you think. I have to start someplace, so I’m starting with these notes.”
Carroll said, “I really can’t tell you much about the organization. Its members guard their privacy zealously. They take literally the injunction about doing your good works in secret. They also take quasi-monastic vows, those of poverty and obedience. They have some kind of structure with the equivalent of an abbot in all the locations where they have members, and their obedience is to the abbot, who may or may not be a priest. He usually is. Even so, he’d be a secret member, carrying out his parish duties as his regular work.”
“How can they take vows of poverty? Do they live in communes, or monasteries?”
He shook his head. “But they give all their money to Corpus Christi, whether it’s their salary or inheritance or stock-market earnings or whatever. Then the order gives it back to them according to their level of need, and also the kind of life-style they need to maintain. Say you were a corporate lawyer. They’d probably let you have a hundred thousand dollars a year. You see, they don’t want any questions about why your living standard is so much lower than that of your fellow lawyers.”
Pelly came back into the room at that point. “Lawyers, Prior?”
“I was trying to explain to Miss Warshawski how Corpus Christi works. I don’t really know too much about it. Do you, Gus?”
“Just what you hear around. Why do you want to know?”
I told him what I’d told Carroll.
“I’d like to see those notes,” Pelly said. “Maybe they’d give me some idea what the connection was in her mind.”
“I don’t have them with me. But the next time I come out I’ll bring them.” If I remembered to put something down on paper.
It was nearly four-thirty when I got back to the Eisenhower and the snow was coming down as furiously as ever. It was dark now, too, and nearly impossible to see the road. Traffic moved at about five miles an hour. Every now
and then, I’d pass some poor soul who’d slid off the side completely.
As I neared the Belmont exit, I debated whether to go home and leave my next errand for an easier day. Two angry ladies in one afternoon was a little hard on the system. But the sooner I talked to Catherine Paciorek the sooner I’d get her out of my life.
I continued north. It was seven by the time I reached the Half Day Road exit.
Away from the expressway arteries the roads were unplowed. I almost got stuck a few times on Sheridan Road, and came to a complete halt just after turning onto Arbor. I got out and looked thoughtfully at the car. No one in the Paciorek house was likely to give me a push. “You’d better be moving by the time I come back,” I warned the Omega, and set off to do the last half mile on foot.
I moved as quickly as possible through the deep snow, glad of earmuffs and gloves, but wishing desperately for a coat. I let myself into the garage and rang the bell at the side entrance. The garage was heated and I rubbed my hands and feet in the warmth while I waited.
Barbara Paciorek, Agnes’s youngest sister, answered the door. She had been about six when I last saw her. A teenager now, she looked so much like Agnes had when I first met her that a small shock of nostalgia ran through me.
“Vic!” she exclaimed. “Did you drive all the way up from Chicago in this terrible weather? Is Mother expecting you? Come on in and get warm.” She led me in through the back hallway, past the enormous kitchen where the cook was hard at work on dinner. “Daddy’s stuck at the hospital-can’t get home until they plow the side roads, so we’re going to eat in about half an hour. Can you stay?”
“Sure, if your mother wants me.”
I followed her across vaguely remembered hallways until we reached the front part of the house. Barbara led me into what the Pacioreks called the family room. Much smaller than the conservatory, perhaps only twenty or thirty feet across, the room held a piano and an enormous fireplace. Mrs. Paciorek was doing needlepoint in front of the fire.
“Look who’s dropped in, Mother,” Barbara announced as though she was bringing a pleasant surprise.
Mrs. Paciorek looked up. A frown creased her handsome forehead. “Victoria. I won’t pretend I’m happy to see you; I’m not. But there is something I wanted to discuss with you and this saves me the trouble of phoning. Barbara! Leave, please.”
The girl looked surprised and hurt at her mother’s hospitality. I said, “Barbara, there’s something you could do for me if you’d be good enough. While your mother and I are talking, could you find a filling station with a tow truck? My Omega is stuck about a half mile down the road. If you call now, they should have a truck free by the time I leave.”
I sat in a chair near the fire across from Mrs. Paciorek. She put her needlepoint aside with a tidy anger reminiscent of Rosa. “Victoria, you corrupted and destroyed the life of my oldest child. Is it any wonder that you are not welcome in this house?”
“Catherine, that is pig swill, and you know it.”
Her face turned red. Before she could speak, I regretted my rudeness-today was my day for tangling with angry women.
“Agnes was a fine person,” I said gently. “You should be proud of her. And proud of her success. Very few people achieve what she did, and almost no women. She was smart and she had guts. She got a lot of that from you. Be proud- feel pleased. Grieve for her.”
Like Rosa, she had lived with her anger too long to want to give it up. “I won’t flatter you by arguing with you, Victoria. It was enough for Agnes to know I believed in something for her to believe the opposite. Abortion. The war in Vietnam. Worst of all, the Church. I thought I had seen my family name degraded in every possible way. I didn’t realize how much I could have forgiven until she announced in public that she was a homosexual.”
I opened my eyes very wide. “In public! She actually announced it right in the middle of LaSalle Street? Out where every taxi driver in Chicago could hear her?”
“I know you think you’re being very funny. But she might as well have screamed it in the middle of LaSalle Street. Everyone knew about it. And she was proud of it. Proud of it! Archbishop Farber even agreed to talk to her, to make her understand the degradation she was subjecting her body to. Her own family as well. And she laughed at him. Called him names. The kinds of things you would think of. I could tell you had led her into that, just as you led her into all her other horrible activities. And then-to bring that-that creature, that vile thing to my daughter’s funeral.”
“Just out of curiosity, Catherine, what did Agnes call Archbishop Farber?”
Her face turned alarmingly red again. “It’s that kind of thing. That kind of attitude. You have no respect for people.”
I shook my head. “Wrong. I have a lot of respect for people. I respected Agnes and Phyllis for example. I don’t know why Agnes chose lesbian relations. But she loved Phyllis Lording, and Phyllis loved her, and they lived very happily together. If five percent of married couples brought each other that much satisfaction the divorce rate wouldn’t be what it is… Phyllis is an interesting woman. She’s a substantial scholar; if you read her book Sappho Underground you might get some understanding of what she and Agnes were all about in their life together.”
“How can you sit there and talk about this-perversion and dare compare it with the sacrament of marriage?”
I rubbed my face. The fire was making me a little lightheaded and sleepy. “We’re never going to agree about this. Maybe we should just agree not to discuss it anymore. For some reason, it brings you solace to be furious at Agnes’s way of living, and it brings you further pleasure to blame it on me. I guess I don’t really care that much-if you want to be that blind about your daughter’s character and personality and how she made her choices, that’s your problem. Your views don’t affect the truth. And they only make one person miserable: you. Maybe Barbara some. Perhaps Dr. Paciorek. But you’re the main sufferer.”
“Why did you bring her to the funeral?”
I sighed. “Not to piss you off, believe it or not. Phyllis loved Agnes. She needed to see her funeral. She needed that ritual
Why am I talking? You’re not listening to what I’m saying, anyway. You just want to fuel your rage. But I didn’t come all the way out here in a snowstorm just to talk about Phyllis Lording, although I enjoyed that. I need to ask you about your stock transactions. Specifically, how you came to buy two thousand shares of Ajax last month.”
“Ajax? What are you talking about?”
“The Ajax Insurance Company. You bought two thousand shares on December second. Why?”
Her face had turned pale; the skin looked papery in the firelight. It seemed to me a cardiac surgeon would talk to his wife about the strain her wild mood changes put on her heart. But they say you notice least about the ones you’re closest to.
Her iron control came through for her. “I don’t expect you to understand what it’s like to have a lot of money. I don’t know what two thousand shares of Ajax are worth-”
“Almost a hundred twenty thousand at today’s prices,” I put in helpfully.
“Yes. Well, that’s a fraction of the fortune my father left in my care. It’s very possible my accountants thought it was a good year-end investment. For transactions that small they wouldn’t bother to consult me.”
I smiled appreciatively. “I can understand that. What about Corpus Christi? You’re an influential Catholic. What can you tell me about them?”
“Please leave now, Victoria. I’m tired and it’s time for my dinner.”
“Are you a member, Catherine?”
“Don’t call me Catherine. Mrs. Paciorek is appropriate.”
“And I would prefer you to call me Miss Warshawski Are you a member of Corpus Christi, Mrs. Paciorek?”
“I never heard of it.”
There didn’t seem to be anything left to discuss at that point. I started to leave, then thought of something else and stopped in the doorway. “What about the Wood-Sage corporation? K
now anything about it?”
Maybe it was just the firelight, but her eyes seemed to glitter strangely. “Leave!” she hissed.
Barbara was waiting for me at the end of the hallway where it angled off toward the back of the house. “Your car’s in the garage, Vic.”
I smiled at her gratefully. How could she have grown up so sane and cheerful with such a mother? “How much do I owe you? Twenty-five?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. I-I’m sorry Mother’s so rude to you.”
“So you’re making up for it by towing my car?” I took out my billfold. “You don’t have to do that, Barbara. What your mother says to me doesn’t affect how I feel about you.” I pushed the money into her hand.
She smiled with embarrassment. “It was only twenty.”
I took the extra five back.
“Do you mind if I ask you something? Were you and Agnes, like Mother keeps saying-” she broke off, blushing furiously.
“Were your sister and I lovers? No. And while I love many women dearly, I’ve never had women lovers. It makes your mother happier, though, to think that Agnes couldn’t make her own decisions.”
“I see. I hope you’re not angry, that you don’t mind
“Nope. Don’t worry about it. Phone me sometime if you want to talk about your sister. She was a good lady. Or give Phyllis Lording a call. She’d appreciate it very much.”
XV
The Fire Next Time
IT WAS SO late when I got home that I didn’t check with my answering service until the next morning. They told me then that Roger had called several times, and Murray Ryerson had also left a message. I tried Murray first.
“I think I found your friend Walter. A man calling himself Wallace Smith was treated last Thursday at St Vincent’s for a broken jaw. He paid cash for the visit, which astounded the staff because he was there overnight and the bill came to more than a thousand dollars. Still, you know what they say-the best medical care today costs no more than the cheapest nuclear submarine.”
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