Sara Paretsky - Killing Orders

I flicked off the light and wrapped my muffler around my neck and face with one arm. Ran up the stairs fast, stooping low. As I neared the top I smelled wet wool. I flung myself at it, keeping my head tucked down on my chest. I met a body half again as big as mine. We fell over in a heap, with him on the bottom. Using the flashlight I smashed where I thought his jaw should be. It connected with bone. He gave a muffled shriek and tore himself away. I pulled back and started to kick when I sensed his arm coming up toward my face. I ducked and fell over in a rolling ball, felt liquid on the back of my neck underneath the muffler. Heard him tearing down the stairs, half slipping.

I was on my feet starting to follow when the back of my neck began burning as though I’d been stung by fifty wasps. I pulled out my keys and got into the apartment as quickly as I could. Double-bolting the door behind me, I ran to the bathroom shedding clothes. I kicked off my boots but didn’t bother with my stockings or trousers and leaped into the tub. Turning the shower on full force, I washed myself for five minutes before taking a breath.

Soaking wet and shivering I climbed out of the tub on shaking legs. The mohair scarf had large round holes in it. The collar of the crepe-de-chine jacket had dissolved. I twisted around to look at my back in the mirror. A thin ring of red showed where the skin had been partially eaten through. A long fat finger of red went down my spine. Acid burn.

I was shaking all over now. Shock, half my mind thought clinically. I forced myself out of wet slacks and pantyhose and wrapped up in a large towel that irritated my neck horribly. Tea is good for shock, I thought vaguely, but I hate tea; there wasn’t any in my house. Hot milk-that would do, hot milk with lots of honey. I was shaking so badly I spilled most of it on the floor trying to get it into a pan, and then had a hard time getting the burner lighted. I stumbled to the bedroom, pulled the quilt from the bed, and wrapped up in it. Back in the kitchen I managed to get most of the milk into a mug. I had to hold the cup close to my body to keep from spilling it all over me. I sat on the kitchen floor draped in blanketing and gulped down the scalding liquid. After a while the shakes eased. I was cold, my muscles were cramped and aching, but the worst was over.

I got stiffly to my feet and walked on leaden legs back to the bedroom. As best I could I rubbed Vaseline onto the burn on my back, then got dressed again. I piled on layers of heavy clothes and still felt chilly. I turned on the radiator and squatted in front of it as it banged and hissed its way to heat.

When the phone rang I jumped; my heart pounded wildly. I stood over it fearfully, my hands shaking slightly. On the sixth ring I finally answered it. It was Lotty.

“Lotty!” I gasped.

She had called because of Agnes, but demanded at once to know what the trouble was. She insisted on coming over, brusquely brushing aside my feeble protests that the attacker might still be lurking outside.

“Not on a night like this. And not if you broke his jaw.”

She was at the door twenty minutes later. “So, Liebchen. You’ve been in the wars again.” I clung to her for a few minutes. She stroked my hair and murmured in German and I finally began to warm up. When she saw that I’d stopped shivering she had me take off my layers of swaddling. Her strong fingers moved very gently along my neck and upper spine, cleaning off the Vaseline and applying a proper dressing.

“So, my dear. Not very serious. The shock was the worst part. And you didn’t drink, did you? Good. Worst possible thing for shock. Hot milk and honey? Very good. Not like you to be so sensible.”

Talking all the while she went out to the kitchen with me, cleaned the milk from the floor and stove, and set about making soup. She put on lentils with carrots and onions and the rich smell filled the kitchen and began reviving me.

When the phone rang again, I was ready for it. I let it ring three times, then picked it up, my recorder switched on. It was my smooth-voiced friend. “How are your eyes, Miss Warshawski? Or Vic, I should say-I feel I know you well.”

“How is your friend?”

“Oh, Walter will survive. But we’re worried about you, Vic. You might not survive the next time, you know. Now be a good girl and stay away from Rosa and St. Albert ’s. You’ll feel so much better in the long run.” He hung up.

I played the tape back for Lotty. She looked at me soberly. “You don’t recognize the voice?”

I shook my head. “Someone knows I was at the priory yesterday, though. And that can only mean one thing: One of the Dominicans has to be involved.”

“Why, though?”

“I’m being warned off the priory,” I said impatiently. “Only they know I was there.” A terrible thought struck me and I began shivering again. “Only they, and Roger Ferrant.”

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.”