Hunching down in my navy-surplus pea jacket, I made my way quietly past the house on the corner. Once in the backyard, the snow muffled any sound of my feet; it also made walking laborious. As I reached the fence dividing the yard from its neighbor, a dog started barking to my left. Soon it sounded as though all the dogs in suburbia were yapping at me. I climbed over the fence and moved east, away from the baying, hoping to get deep enough to hit the Paciorek house from behind.

The third lot was comparable in size to the Pacioreks’. As I moved into the wooded area, the dogs finally quieted down. Now I could hear the sullen roar of Lake Michigan in front of me. The regular, angry slapping of wave against cliff made me shiver violently with a cold deeper than that of freezing toes and ears.

Totally disoriented in the dark, I kept bumping into trees, stumbling over rotting logs, falling into unexpected holes. Suddenly I skidded down a small bank and landed with a jolt on my butt on some rocky ice. After picking myself up and slipping again. I realized I must be at the stream. If I walked away from the roaring lake, I should, with luck, be at the back of the Paciorek house.

In a few minutes I had fought my way clear of the trees. The house loomed as a blacker hole in the dark in front of me. Agnes and I had usually come out through the kitchen, which was on the far left along with rooms for the servants. No lights shone there now. If the servants were in, they were not giving any sign of it. In front of me were French windows leading into the conservatory-library-organ room.

My fingers were thick with cold. It took agonizing minutes to unbutton the pea jacket and take it off. I held it over the glass next to the window latch. With a numb hand, I pulled the Smith & Wesson clumsily from its holster, tapped the jacket lightly but firmly with the butt, and felt the glass give underneath. I paused for a minute. No alarms sounded. Holding my breath, I gently knocked glass away from the frame, stuck an arm through the opening, and unlatched the window.

Once inside the house I found a radiator. Pulling off boots and gloves, I warmed my frozen extremities. Ate the rest of the Hershey bar. Squinted at phosphorescent hands on my watch-past nine o’clock. Mrs. Paciorek must be getting impatient.

After a quarter of an hour, I felt recovered enough to meet my hostess. Pulling the damp boots back on my toes was unpleasant, but the cold revived my mind, slightly torpid from the hike and the warmth.

Once outside the conservatory I could see lights coming from the front of the house. I followed them through long marble passages until I came to the family room where I’d talked to Mrs. Paciorek a couple of weeks ago. As I’d hoped, she was sitting there in front of the fire, the needlepoint project in her lap but her hands still. Standing at an angle in the hail, I watched her. Her handsome angry face was strained. She was waiting for the sound that would tell her I had been shot.

XXIII

I’D BEEN HOLDING the Smith & Wesson in one hand, but she was clearly alone. I put the gun back in the holster and walked into the room.

“Good evening, Catherine. None of the servants seemed to be here, so I let myself in.”

She stared at me, frozen. For a moment I wondered if she really were having a stroke. Then she found her voice. “What are you doing here?”

I sat down facing her in front of the fire. “You invited me, remember? I tried getting here at eight, but I got lost in the dark-sorry to be so late.”

“Who?-how?-” she broke off and looked suspiciously at the hallway.

“Let me help you out,” I said kindly. “You want to know how I got past Walter Novick-or whoever you have waiting for me out front, don’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said fiercely.

“Then we’ll go and find out!” I stood up again. Walking behind her, I grabbed her under the armpits and pulled her to her feet. She wasn’t much heavier than I and had no fighting skills whatsoever. She tried struggling with me, but it wasn’t an equal contest. I frog-marched her to the front door.

“Now. You are going to call whoever is out there to come in. My right hand is now holding my Smith and Wesson revolver, which is loaded and ready to shoot.”

She opened the door angrily. Casting me a look of loathing, she went to the shallow porch. Two figures broke away from the shadows near the driveway and came toward her. “Leave!” she yelled. “Leave! She came in through the back.”

The two men stood still for a minute. I aimed the gun at the one nearer my right hand. “Drop your weapons,” I shouted. “Drop your weapons and come into the light.”

At my voice they both shot at us. I pushed Mrs. Paciorek into the snow and fired. The man on the right staggered, tripped, sprawled in the snow. The other fled. I heard a car door slam and the sound of tires trying to grab hold.

“You’d better come with me, Catherine, while we see what kind of shape he’s in, I don’t trust you alone in there with a phone.”

She didn’t say anything as I dragged her pump-clad feet through the snow. When we came to the sprawled figure, he pointed a gun at us. “Don’t shoot again, you lunatic,” I cried. “You’ll hit your employer!”

When he didn’t put the gun down, I let go of Mrs. Paciorek and jumped on his arm. The gun went off, but the bullet sailed harmlessly into the night. I kicked the weapon from his hand and knelt to look at him.

In the lights marking the driveway I made out his heavy Slavic jawline. “Walter Novick!” I hissed. I couldn’t keep my voice quite steady. “We can’t keep meeting in the dark like this.”

As nearly as I could tell, I’d hit his right leg just above the knee. It should have been a bad enough wound to keep him from moving, but he was strong and he was scared. He tried scrabbling away from me in the snow. I grabbed his right arm and yanked it up behind him.

Mrs. Paciorek turned on her heel and headed for the front door. “Catherine!” I yelled. “Better call an ambulance for your friend. I’m not sure O’Faolin can get reinforcements out here in time to shoot me if you phone him first anyway.”

She must have heard me, but gave no sign. A few seconds later the front door slammed shut behind her. Novick was cursing loudly if unimaginatively, his voice slightly muffled by the wiring holding his jaw together. I didn’t want to leave him, but I didn’t want Mrs. Paciorek summoning help, either. Gathering the hit man by the armpits, I started dragging him toward the house. He screamed with pain as his right leg bumped along the ground.

I dropped him and knelt again, this time looking him in the face. “We need to talk, Walter,” I panted. “I’m not leaving you here on the chance you can make it to the road for your buddy to find you. Not that he’s likely to-he’s probably in DuPage County by now.”

He tried to hit me, but the cold and blood loss were getting to him. The blow landed ineffectually on my shoulder.

“Your working days are over, Walter. Even if they patch that leg up, you’re going to spend a long, long time in Joliet. So we’ll talk. When you feel at a loss for words, I’ll help you out.” -

“I don’t have anything to say,” he gasped hoarsely. “They haven’t made-a-charge stick yet. They won’t-won’t do it now.”

“Wrong, Walter. Stefan Herschel is going to be your downfall. You’re slipping. You didn’t kill him. He’s alive. He’s already ID’d you from your photo.”

He managed a contemptuous shrug. “My-my friends-will prove-he’s wrong.”

Fury, compounded of fatigue, of Lotty’s accusations, of the attempt on my eyes, rose in me. I shook him, enough to jar the injured leg, and was glad when he yelped.