Coming out of the shower I switched to the dwarfs’ song from Snow White. Off to work we go. My navy walking suit, I decided, to make me mature and dignified. It had a three-quarter-length double-breasted jacket and a skirt with two side pleats. A knit silk top of pale gold, almost the colour of my skin, and a long scarf bright with red and navy and brushed again with the same gold. Perfect. I edged the corners of my eyes with a faint trace of blue pencil to make their gray color bluer, added a little light rouge and lipstick to match the red in the scarf. Open-toed red-leather pumps, Italian. Gabriella brought me up to believe that my feet would fall off if I wore shoes made anyplace else. Even now that a pair of Magli pumps go for a hundred forty dollars, I can’t bring myself to wear Comfort-Stride.
I left the breakfast dishes in the sink with last night’s supper plates and those from a few other meals. And the bed unmade. And the clothes strewn around. Perhaps I should save the money I spend on clothes and shoes and invest in a housekeeper. Or even a hypnosis program to teach me to be neat and tidy. But what the hell. Who besides me was going to see it?
III
THE EISENHOWER EXPRESSWAY IS the main escape route from Chicago to the western suburbs. Even on warm sunny days, it looks like a prison exercise yard for most of its length. Run-down houses and faceless projects line the tops of the canyons on either side of its eight lanes. L stations are planted along the median. The Eisenhower is always choked with traffic, even at three in the morning. At nine on a wet workday it was impossible.
I could feel tension tightening the cords in the back of my neck as I oozed forward. I was on an errand I did not wish to make to talk to a person I had no desire to see about the troubles of an aunt I loathed. To do so I had to spend hours stalled in traffic. And my feet were cold inside their open-toed pumps. I turned up the heat further but the little Omega didn’t respond. I curled and uncurled my toes to get the blood moving but they remained obstinately frozen.
At First Avenue the traffic eased up as the offices there sucked up most of the outbound drivers. I exited north at Mannheim and meandered through the streets, trying to follow Albert’s roughly sketched directions. It was five after ten when I finally found the priory entrance. Being late did nothing to improve my humor.
The Priory of St. Albertus Magnus included a large block of neo-Gothic buildings set to one side of a beautiful park. The architect apparently believed he had to compensate for the beauties of nature: In the misty snow the gray stone buildings loomed as ungainly shapes.
A small lettered sign identified the nearest concrete block as the House of Studies. As I drove past, a few men in long white robes were scuttling into it, hoods pulled over their faces so that they looked like medieval monks. They paid no attention to me.
As I crept slowly up the circular drive I saw a number of cars parked to one side. I left the Omega there and quickly ran to the nearest entrance. This was labelled simply ST. ALBERT ’S PRIORY.
Inside, the building had the half-eerie, half-tired atmosphere you often find in religious institutions. You can tell people spend a lot of time praying there, but perhaps they also spend too much time feeling depressed or bored. The entryway had a vaulted concrete ceiling that disappeared in the gloomy light several stores up. Marble flagstones added to the coldness.
A corridor ran at right angles to the entrance. I crossed to it, my heels echoing in the vaulted chamber, and looked doubtfully around. A scarred wooden desk had been stuck in a corner formed by the entry hall and a stairwell. A thin young man in civvies sat behind it reading The Greater Trumps by Charles Williams. He put it down reluctantly after I’d spoken several times. His face was extremely thin; he seemed to burn with a nervous asceticism, but perhaps he was merely hyperthyroid. At any rate, he directed me to the prior’s office in a hurried whisper, not waiting to see if I followed his directions before returning to the book.
At least I was in the right building, a relief since I was now fifteen minutes late. I turned left down the corridor, passing icons and shut doors. A couple of men in white robes passed me, arguing vigorously but in subdued voices. At the end of the hall I turned right. On one side of me was a chapel and across from it, as the youth had promised, the prior’s office.
The Reverend Boniface Carroll was on the phone when I came in. He smiled when he saw me and motioned me to a chair in front of his desk, but continued his conversation in a series of grunts. He was a frail man of perhaps fifty. His white woolen robe had turned faintly yellow with age. He looked very tired; as he listened to his caller he kept rubbing his eyes.
The office itself was sparsely furnished. A crucifix over one wall was the only decoration, and the wide desk was scuffed with age. The floor was covered with institutional linoleum, only partly hidden by a threadbare carpet.
“Well, actually she’s here right now, Mr. Hatfield… No, no, I think I should talk to her.”
I raised my eyebrows at that. The only Hatfield I knew worked on fraud for the FBI. He was a competent young man, but his sense of humor left something to be desired. When our paths crossed, it was usually to our mutual irritation, since he tried to overcome my flippancy with threats of the might of the FBI.
Carroll terminated the conversation and turned to me. “You are Miss Warshawski, aren’t you?” He had a light, pleasant voice with a trace of an eastern accent.
“Yes.” I handed him one of my cards. “Was that Derek Hatfield?”
“The FBI man. Yes, he’s been out here with Ted Dartmouth from the Securities Exchange Commission. I don’t know how he learned we were going to meet, but he was asking me not to talk to you.”
“Did he say why?”
“He thinks this is a matter for the FBI and the SEC. He told me an amateur such as yourself might muddy the waters, make the investigation more difficult.”
I rubbed my upper lip thoughtfully. I’d forgotten the lipstick until I saw the smear on my forefinger. Cool, Vic. If I were being logical, I’d smile politely at Father Carroll and leave; after all, I’d been cursing him, Rosa, and my mission all the way from Chicago. However, there’s nothing like a little opposition to make me change my mind, especially when the opposition comes from Derek Hatfield.
“That’s sort of what I said to my aunt when I talked to her yesterday. The FBI and the SEC are trained to handle this kind of investigation. But she’s old and she’s scared and she wants someone from the family in her corner.
“I’ve been a private investigator for almost ten years. I’ve done a lot of financial crime and I’ve got a good reputation-I could give you the names of some people in the city to call so you don’t have to take just my word for it.”
Carroll smiled. “Relax, Miss Warshawski. You don’t have to sell me. I told your aunt I would talk to you and I feel we owe her something here, if only a conversation with you. She’s worked for St. Albert ’s very faithfully for a long time. It really hurt her when we asked her to take a leave of absence. I hated doing it, but I’ve made the same request to everyone with access to the safe. As soon as we get this business cleared up, she knows we want her back. She’s extremely competent.”