Sara Paretsky - Killing Orders

Father Pelly’s room was at the other end of the hall, near the stairs. I cocked an ear. No voices below. The service must still be in progress. I pushed open his door.

As spartan as the other rooms, Pelly’s nonetheless had the personal stamp of a place that’s been inhabited for a long time by one person. Some family photographs stood on the little deal table, and a bookcase was filled several layers deep.

I found what I was looking for in the bottom drawer of the dresser. A list of Chicago area members of Corpus Christi with their addresses and phone numbers. I went through it quickly, keeping one nervous ear strained for voices. If worse came to worst, I might be able to leave from the window. It was narrow, but we were only on the second floor and I thought I could squeeze through.

Cecelia Paciorek Gleason was listed, and Catherine Paciorek of course. And near the bottom of the list, Rosa Vignelli. Don Pasquale was not a member. One secret society was enough for the man, I supposed.

As I stuck the list in the drawer and got up to leave, I heard voices in the hallway outside, and then a hand on the door. It was too late to try the window. I looked around desperately and slid under the bed, the rosary making a faint clicking noise as I pulled my robes in around me.

My heart was pounding so hard that my body vibrated. I took deep, silent breaths, trying to still the movement. Black shoes appeared near my left eye. Then Pelly kicked them off and climbed onto the bed. The mattress and springs were old and not in the best of shape. The springs sagging under his weight almost touched my nose.

We lay like that for a good quarter of an hour, me stifling a sneeze prompted by the cold steel, Pelly breathing gently. Someone knocked at the door. Pelly sat up. “Come in.”

“Gus. Someone’s been in my room and broken into my attaché case.”

O’Faolin. I’d know his voice anywhere for the rest of my life. Silence. Then Pelly: “When did you last look at it?”

“This morning. I needed to write a letter to an address I had in there. It’s hard to believe one of your brothers would do a thing like this. But who? It couldn’t possibly be Warshawski.”

No indeed.

Pelly asked him sharply if anything was missing.

“Not as far as I can tell. And there wasn’t anything that would prove anything, anyway… Except for a letter Figueredo wrote me.”

“If Warshawski broke in-” Pelly began.

“If Warshawski broke in, it doesn’t really matter,” O’Faolin interrupted. “She isn’t going to be a problem after tonight. But if she shows the letter to someone in the meantime, I’ll have to start all over again. I should never have left you on your own to handle this business. Forging those securities was a lunatic idea, and now…“ He broke off. “No point rehashing all that. Let’s just see if the letter’s missing.”

He turned abruptly and left. Pelly pulled his shoes back on and followed him. I got up quickly. Pulled the hood well around my face and cracked the door to watch Pelly disappear into O’Faolin’s room. Then, trying to remain calm, I went down the stairs with my head tucked into my chin. A couple of brothers greeted me en route, and I mumbled in response. At the bottom, Carroll said good evening. I mumbled and took off for the front door. Carroll said sharply, “Brother!” Then to someone else, “Who is that? I don’t recognize him.”

Outside, I hitched up my habit and ran to the back of the building, started the Toyota, and drove it bumpily down the drive back to Melrose Park. There I quickly divested myself of the robe at a dry cleaner, telling them it was for Augustine Pelly.

In the car I sat laughing for a few minutes, then soberly considered what I’d found and what it meant. The letter from Figueredo seemed to imply that they wanted to acquire Ajax in order to launder Banco Ambrosiano money. Bizarre. Or maybe not. A bank, or an insurance company, made a highly respectable cover for moving questionable capital into circulation. If you could do it so the multitude of auditors didn’t notice… I thought of Michael Sindona and the Franklin National Bank. Some people thought the Vatican had been involved in that escapade. With the Banco Ambrosiano, the connection was documented, if not understood: The Vatican was part owner of Ambrosiano’s Panamanian subsidiaries. So was it strange that the head of the Vatican’s finance committee would take an interest in the disposition of the ‘Ambrosiano assets?

O’Faolin was an old friend of Kitty Paciorek. Mrs. Paciorek’s sizable fortune was tied up with Corpus Christi. Ergo… She was expecting me in a couple of hours. I had some evidence, evidence she wanted badly enough to get someone to search the Bellerophon. But did it link her to the Wood-Sage/Corpus Christi connection strongly enough to make her talk? I didn’t think so.

Thoughts of Mrs. Paciorek reminded me of O’Faolin’s last remark: I wasn’t going to be a problem after tonight. The queasiness, which seemed to be more and more a permanent resident, returned to my stomach. He might have meant they’d have Ajax sewn up by tonight. But I didn’t think so. It seemed more likely that Walter Novick would be waiting for me in Lake Forest. Mrs. Paciorek presumably had no scruples about doing such a favor for her old friend, although she probably wouldn’t have me killed while her husband and Barbara were watching. What would she try? An ambush on the grounds?

Between Melrose and Elmwood Park, North Avenue forms a continuous strip of fast-food restaurants, factories, used-car lots, and cheap, small shopping malls. I selected one of these at random and found a public phone. Mrs. Paciorek answered. Using the nasal twang of the South Side, I asked for Barbara. She was spending the night with friends, Mrs. Paciorek said, demanding in a sharp voice to know who was calling. “Lucy van Pelt,” I answered, hanging up. I couldn’t think of a way to find out where the doctor and the servants were.

A Jewel/Osco had a public photocopier, which yielded a greasy gray copy of Figueredo’s letter to O’Faolin. I bought a packet of cheap envelopes and a stamp from a stamp machine and mailed the original to my office. I thought for a minute, then scribbled a note to Murray on one of the envelopes, telling him to look at my office mail if I turned into a Chicago floatfish. Folded in three, it fit into another envelope, which I mailed to the Herald-Star. As for Lotty and Roger, what I wanted to tell them was too complicated to fit onto an envelope.

By now it was close to seven, too late for me to have a proper sit-down meal. The apple I’d had at three had been my only meal since breakfast, though, and I needed something to brace me for a possible fight at Mrs. Paciorek’s. ‘I bought a large Hershey bar with almonds at the Jewel and stopped at Wendy’s for a taco salad. Not the ideal thing to eat in a moving car, I realized as I joined the traffic on the tollway, and the salad dribbled down the front of my shirt. If Mrs. Paciorek was planning to sic German shepherds on me they’d know where I was by the chili.

As I exited onto Half Day Road, I went over what I knew of the Paciorek estate. If an ambush was attempted, it would be laid either by the front door or at the garage entrance. In back of the house were the remains of a wood. Agnes and I had sometimes taken sandwiches out there to eat sitting on logs by a stream feeding Lake Michigan.

The property ended a half mile or so back of the house at a bluff overlooking the lake. In the summer, in broad daylight, it might be possible to climb that bluff, but not on a winter’s night with waves roaring underneath. I’d have to come at the house from the side, across neighboring lots, and hope for the best.

I left the Toyota on a side street next to Arbor Road. Lake Forest was dark. There were no street lights, and I had no flashlight. Fortunately the night was relatively clear-a snowstorm would have made the job impossible.