Sara Paretsky - Killing Orders

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.”