Sara Paretsky - Killing Orders

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.