The last sentence came out in a whisper and I had to strain to hear her. “I don’t think that’s foolish, Phyl. I have a feeling if it had been you who died, Agnes would plunge into Proust with the same spirit.”
She turned to look at me again. “You were closer to Agnes in some ways than I could ever be. You and she are a lot alike. It’s funny. I loved her, desperately, but I didn’t understand her very well… I was always a little jealous of you because you understood her.”
I nodded. “Agnes and I were good friends for a long time. I’ve had times when I was jealous of your closeness with her.”
She put her cigarette out and seemed to relax; her shoulders fell back from their hunched position. “That’s very generous of you, Vic. Thanks… Anyway, in the Times this morning I saw a story about a takeover bid for Ajax. You know, the big insurance company downtown.”
“I know. Agnes was looking at that before she died and I’ve been scratching around at it, too.”
“Alicia Vargas-Agnes’s secretary-sent me all her personal papers. Things she’d kept notes on, anything that was handwritten and didn’t relate to company business. I went through them all. Her latest notebook especially. She kept them-like Jonathan Edwards-or Proust.”
She stood up and went to the coffee table where I could see some spiral college notebooks among stacks of Harper’s and The New York Review of Books. I’d assumed they belonged to Phyllis.
She took the top one and riffled through it quickly, then folded it back to show me the page. Agnes’s sprawling hand was difficult to read. She’d written in “1/12,” followed by “R.F., Ajax.” That wasn’t too difficult to follow-she’d first talked to Ferrant about Ajax on January 12. Other cryptic entries that week apparently referred to various things she was thinking about or working on. One was a note to go to Phyllis’s poetry reading, for example. Then, on the eighteenth, the day she died, was a heavily scored entry: “$12 million, C-C for Wood-Sage.”
Phyllis was looking at me intently. “You see, Wood-Sage didn’t mean anything to me by itself. But after I read the paper this morning… And the C-C. Agnes told me about Corpus Christi. I couldn’t help but think..
“Neither can I. Where the hell did she get that information?”
Phyllis shrugged. “She knew a lot of brokers and lawyers.”
“Can I use your phone?” I asked Phyllis abruptly.
She led me to a porcelain-gold replica of the early telephones; I dialed the Paciorek number. Barbara answered. She was glad to talk to me; she’d be really happy to hear from Phyllis; and yes, her mother was home. She came back a few minutes later to say in considerable confusion that Mrs. Paciorek refused to talk to me.
“Tell her I just called to let her know that Corpus Christi’s ownership of Wood-Sage will be in the Herald-Star next week.”
“Corpus Christi?” she repeated doubtfully.
“You got it.”
Five minutes passed. I read the Times story on Ajax-more words to say less than had been in the Chicago papers. I scanned more verbiage on the AT &T divestiture. I looked at help wanted ads. Maybe I could find a better line of work. “Seasoned professional not afraid of challenges.” That meant someone to work hard for low pay. What do you season professionals with, anyway?
Finally Mrs. Paciorek came on the line. “Barbara gave me some garbled message.” Her voice was tight.
“It’s like this, Mrs. Paciorek: The SEC knows, of course, that Wood-Sage has bought a five-percent position in Ajax. What they don’t know is that most of the money was put up by Corpus Christi. And that most of Corpus Christi’s money comes from you, the Savage fortune you turned over to them. Securities law is not my specialty, but if Corpus Christi is putting up the money for Wood-Sage to buy Ajax stock, the SEC is not going to be happy that it wasn’t mentioned in your filing.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’ve got to work on your answers. When the papers get hold of you, they’re not going to believe that for one minute.”
“If something called Corpus Christi is buying Ajax stock, I know nothing about it.”
“That’s marginally better,” I conceded. “The problem is, when Agnes-your daughter, you know-died, she left behind some notes showing a connection between Corpus Christi and Wood-Sage. If I turn the FBI’s attention to your lawyers, I’m sure it would be able to get the name of the broker who handles the Corpus Christi portfolio. That is presumably where Agnes got her information. In addition, on a smaller scale, it will be interested in the block transfers Preston Tilford handled.”
There was silence at the other end while Mrs. Paciorek marshaled her defenses. I shouldn’t have expected to force such a controlled woman into blurting out anything indiscreet. At last she said, “My attorneys will doubtless know how to handle any investigation, however harassing. That isn’t my concern.”
“We’ll see about that. But the police may want to ask you some questions, too. They may want to know to what lengths you would go to keep Agnes from publishing Corpus Christi’s attempted takeover of Ajax.”
After a long pause, she replied, “Victoria, you are obviously hysterical. If you think you know something about the death of my daughter, perhaps I will see you.”
I started to say something, then thought better of it. The woman was going to talk to me-what more did I need right now? She wasn’t free today, but she could see me at her home tomorrow night at eight.
With my nerves in their current jangled state, I didn’t feel like going back to the Bellerophon. I explained the fire and my predicament to Phyllis, who instantly offered me her spare bedroom. She drove with me to visit Uncle Stefan, now feeling well enough to be bored in the hospital. To my relief, the doctors wanted to hold him a few more days-once he got home he would be impossible to keep an eye on.
Robert Streeter, the youngest brother, was with him when we arrived. Apparently someone had tried to get into the room around midnight. Jim, then on duty, sensibly didn’t try to chase him since that would have left the room unguarded. By the time he’d roused hospital security, the intruder was long gone.
I shook my head helplessly. One more problem I couldn’t handle. Lotty arrived as we were leaving. At the sight of Phyllis, her heavy black brows went up. “So! Vic is roping you into her masquerade as well?”
“Lotty! You and I need to talk,” I said sharply.
She gave me a measuring look. “Yes. I think that would be a good thing… Are these thugs with Stefan your idea or his?”
“Call me when you’ve climbed off your cross!” I snapped and walked away.
Phyllis was too polite to ask about the incident. We didn’t speak much, but had a pleasant meal at a little restaurant on Irving Park Road before heading back to Chestnut Street.
Cigarette smoke had permeated the bedclothes in the guest room. The smell, combined with my nervous tension, made sleep difficult. At three, I got up to read, and found Phyllis sitting in the living room with a biography of Margaret Fuller. W6 talked companionably for several hours. After that I slept until Phyllis stopped in to say good-bye before going to her eight-thirty class. She invited me to come back at night. Despite the stale air, I accepted gratefully.
I thought I might be safer with a rental car than my own, which was by now well known to any hoodlum in Chicago trying to find me. On my way over to the police station I stopped at a rental agency and got a Toyota whose steering must have been used by the U.S. weightlifting team while they trained for the Olympics. They told me they didn’t have anything else that size and to take it or leave it. Snarling, I took it-I didn’t have time to shop for cars.
Lieutenant Mallory wasn’t in when I got to Roosevelt Road. I gave my statement to Detective Finchley. Not having Bobby’s history with me, he accepted what I had to say and returned the Smith & Wesson. Freeman Carter, who accompanied me, told me we’d have a formal hearing in the morning, but that my character was once more unblemished-not even a moving violation in the last three years.