Killing Orders

by Sara Paretsky

  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.

  XIII

  Late Trades

  FERRANT DROPPED BY late in the afternoon with a copy of Barrett’s list. He was grave and formal and declined an offer of a drink. He didn’t stay long, just looked over the brokers with me, told me none of those registered as buying the stock were Ajax customers, and left.

  None of the firms listed were familiar to me, nor were the names of the stock registrants. In fact, most of the registrants were the brokers themselves. Barrett’s cover letter to Roger explained that this was typically the case right after a stock changed hands-it generally took a month or so for the actual owner’s name to be filed.

  One company appeared several times: Wood-Sage, Inc. Its address was 120 S. LaSalle. Three of the brokers also had addresses there, a fact that seemed more interesting than it really was. When I looked it up on my detailed map of the Loop, I discovered that it was the Midwest Stock Exchange.

  There wasn’t much I could do with the list until Monday, so I put it in a drawer and concentrated on the NFL Pro Bowl. I sent out for a pizza for supper and spent the night restlessly, the Smith & Wesson loaded next to my bed.

  Sunday’s Herald-Star had a nice little story about my acid burn on the front page of Chicago Beat. They’d used a picture taken last spring at Wrigley Field, a bright eye-catching shot. Readers who made it to Section III couldn’t avoid seeing me. The personal ads included numerous thanksgivings to St. Jude, several lovers seeking reconciliations, but no message from Uncle Stefan.

  Monday morning, I stuck my gun in a shoulder holster under a loose tweed jacket and drove the Omega into the Loop to begin a day at the brokerage houses. At the offices of Bearden & Lyman, Members of the New York Stock Exchange, I told the receptionist I had six hundred thousand dollars to invest and wanted to see a broker. Stuart Bearden came out to meet me personally. He was a dapper man in his middle forties, wearing a charcoal pinstripe suit and a David Niven mustache.

  He led me through a maze of cubicles where earnest young people sat with phones in one hand, typing on their computer terminals with the other, to his own office in the far corner of the floor. He brought me coffee and treated me with the deference half a million dollars commands. I liked it. I’d have to tell more people I was rich.

  Calling myself Carla Baines, I explained to Stuart that Agnes Paciorek had been my broker. I was getting ready to place an order for several thousand shares of Ajax when she’d warned me away from the stock. Now that she was dead I was looking for a new broker. What did Bearden & Lyman know about Ajax? Would they agree with Ms. Paciorek’s advice?

  Bearden didn’t blink or blench on hearing Agnes’s name. Instead, he told me what a tragedy her death was; what a tragedy, too, that you couldn’t feel safe working in your own office at night. He then punched away at his computer and told me the stock was trading at 543 3/8. “It’s been going up the last few weeks. Maybe Agnes had some inside news that the stock is cresting. Are you still interested?”

  “I’m not in any hurry to invest. I guess I should make up my mind about Ajax in the next day or so, though. Do you think you could scout around and let me know if you hear anything?”

  He looked at me closely. “If you’ve been thinking about this move for some time, you must know there’s a lot of talk about a covert takeover bid. If that’s the situation, the price will probably continue to go up until the rumor is confirmed one way or another. If you’re going to buy, you should do it now.”

  I spread my hands. “That’s why I don’t understand Ms. Paciorek’s advice. That’s why I came here-to see if you knew why she’d warn me not to buy.”

  Bearden called his research director. The two had a short conversation. “Our staff hasn’t heard anything to counter-indicate a buy order. I’d be very happy to take it for you this morning.”

  I thanked him but said I needed to do some more research before I made a decision. He gave me his card and asked me to let him know in a day or two.

  Bearden & Lyman was on the fourteenth floor of the Stock Exchange. I rode the elevator down eleven floors to my next quarry: Gill, Turner & Rotenfeld.

  By noon, having
talked myself dry in three different brokerage offices, I beat a discouraged retreat to the Berghoff for lunch. Ordinarily I don’t like beer, but their homemade dark draft is an exception. A stein and a plate of sauerbraten helped recoup my strength for the afternoon. Everyone had given me essentially the same information I’d gotten from Stuart Bearden. They knew the rumors about Ajax and they urged me to buy. None of them showed any dismay on hearing either Agnes’s name or my interest in Ajax. I wondered if I’d taken the wrong approach. Maybe I should have used my own name.

  Maybe I was barking up an empty tree. Perhaps a late-night burglar, intent on computer terminals, had found Agnes and shot her.

  I continued to prove that a woman with six hundred thousand dollars to invest gets red-carpet treatment. I’d talked to no one but senior partners all morning and Tilford & Sutton was no exception: Preston Tilford would see me personally.

  Like the firms I’d visited that morning, this one was medium-sized. The names of twenty or so partners were on the outer door. A receptionist directed me down a short hallway and through the trading room where a score of frantic young brokers manned phones and terminals. I picked my way through the familiar stacks of debris to Tilford’s office in the far corner.

  His secretary, a pleasant, curly-haired woman in her late forties, told me to go in. Tilford was nervous, his finger-nails bitten down to the quick. This was not necessarily a sign of guilty knowledge, at least not guilty knowledge about Agnes- most of the brokers I’d seen today were high-strung. It must be nerve-racking following all that money up and down.

  He doodled incessantly as I pitched my tale to him. “Ajax, hmm?” he said when I’d finished. “I don’t know. I have-had a lot of respect for Agnes’s judgment. It so happens we’re not recommending anyone to buy now, either, Ms., uh, Baines. Our feeling is that these takeover rumors have been carefully placed by someone trying to manipulate the stock. The bottom could crash out at any time. Now, if you’re looking for a growth stock, I have several here that I could recommend for you.”