Carroll shook his head. “Of course, we’ve all been praying for her this week. But Augustine was the only person out here who knew her personally. I don’t think we can tell you much about her.”

“I didn’t come about her. Or not directly about her. She was shot while tracking down some information for an Englishman I introduced her to. That would make me feel responsible even if we hadn’t been good friends. I think she was looking at something connected with a Catholic lay organization called Corpus Christi. I wanted to know if you could tell me anything about it.”

Carroll smiled gently. “I’ve heard of it, but I couldn’t tell you much about it. They like to operate secretly-so even if I were a member I couldn’t tell you anything.”

Rosa said venomously, “And why do you want to know, Victoria? To sling mud at the Church?”

“More mud? Sorry, Rosa. Just because I’m not a Catholic doesn’t mean I go around persecuting the Church.”

“No? Then why do you involve yourself in protest meetings on abortion? I saw you at that demonstration last year outside the diocesan offices.”

“Rosa! Don’t tell me you were out there with the fetus worshippers! Were you the old woman who spat at a girl in a wheelchair?”

Rosa’s teacup clattered from the deal table to the uncarpeted linoleum floor. The institutional mug was too heavy to break, but tea spilled everywhere. She leaped to her feet, ignoring the tea dripping down the front of her black dress. “Figlia di puttana!” she shouted. “Mind your own business. Leave the business of good Catholics alone.”

Carroll looked shocked, whether from the unexpected outburst or because he understood Italian I couldn’t tell. He took Rosa’s arm. “Mrs. Vignelli. You’re letting yourself get overexcited. Maybe the strain of this terrible suspicion has been too much for you. I’m going to call your son and ask him to come pick you up.”

He told Jablonski to get some towels and sat Rosa down in the room’s one armchair. Pelly squatted on the floor next to her. He smiled chidingly. “Mrs. Vignelli. The Church admires and supports those who support her, but even ardor can be a sin if not held in check and used properly. A good Catholic welcomes all questions about the Church and the faith. Even if you suspect your niece of scoffing at you and your faith, treat her with charity. If you turn the other cheek long enough, that’s how you’ll win her. If you abuse her, you’ll only drive her away.”

Rosa folded thin lips into an invisible line. “You’re right, Father. I spoke without thinking. You will forgive me, Victoria:

I am old and small things affect me too much.”

The charade of piety made me faintly ill. I smiled sardonically and told her that was fine; I could make allowances for her enfeebled state.

A young brother came in with an armful of towels. Rosa took these from him and cleaned herself, floor, and table with her usual angry efficiency. She smiled bleakly at Father Carroll. “Now. If you will let me use the phone I will call my son.”

Pelly and Carroll ushered her into the inner office; I sat in one of the folding chairs at the table. Jablonski was eyeing me with lively curiosity.

“Do you usually rub your aunt the wrong way?”

I smiled. “She’s old. Little things get to her.”

“She’s extremely difficult to work with,” he said abruptly. “We’ve lost a lot of part-time people over the years because of her-no one can do anything perfectly enough for her. For some reason she listens to Gus, but he’s the only one who can make her see reason. She even snaps at Boniface, and you have to be pretty thin-skinned not to get along with him.”

“Why keep her then? What’s all the anxiety to bring her back?”

“She’s one of those indispensable battle-axes,” he grimaced.

“She knows our books, she works hard, she’s efficient-and we pay her very little. We’d never get anyone with her skill or dedication for what we can afford to give her.”

I grinned to myself: served Rosa right for all her anti-feminist attacks to be the victim of wage discrimination herself.

She came out with Pelly, backbone as straight as ever, ignoring me pointedly as she said good-bye to Jablonski. She was going to wait for Albert in the entrance hall, she announced. Pelly took her elbow solicitously and escorted her out the door. The only man who could get along with Rosa. What a distinction. For a fleeting moment I wondered what her life had been like when Uncle Carl was alive.

Carroll came back into the outer office a few seconds later. He sat down and looked at me for a while without talking. I wished I hadn’t let myself get caught up in Rosa’s anger.

When he spoke, it wasn’t about my aunt. “Do you want to tell me why you’re asking about Corpus Christi and Agnes Paciorek?”

I chose my words carefully. “The Ajax Insurance Company is one of the country’s largest property-casualty insurers. One of their officers came to me a couple of weeks ago concerned that a covert takeover bid might be in the offing. I talked to Agnes about it-as a broker she had ready access to trading news.

“The night she died, she called the man from Ajax to tell him she was meeting with someone who might have information about the stock. At the least, that person was the last who saw her alive. Since he-or she-hasn’t come forward, it might even be the person who killed her.”

Now came the tricky part. “The only clue I have is some notes she scribbled. Some of the words made it clear she was thinking about Ajax when she wrote them. Corpus Christi appeared on that list. It wasn’t a memo or anything like that- just the cryptic comments you make when you’re writing while you think. I have to start someplace, so I’m starting with these notes.”

Carroll said, “I really can’t tell you much about the organization. Its members guard their privacy zealously. They take literally the injunction about doing your good works in secret. They also take quasi-monastic vows, those of poverty and obedience. They have some kind of structure with the equivalent of an abbot in all the locations where they have members, and their obedience is to the abbot, who may or may not be a priest. He usually is. Even so, he’d be a secret member, carrying out his parish duties as his regular work.”

“How can they take vows of poverty? Do they live in communes, or monasteries?”

He shook his head. “But they give all their money to Corpus Christi, whether it’s their salary or inheritance or stock-market earnings or whatever. Then the order gives it back to them according to their level of need, and also the kind of life-style they need to maintain. Say you were a corporate lawyer. They’d probably let you have a hundred thousand dollars a year. You see, they don’t want any questions about why your living standard is so much lower than that of your fellow lawyers.”

Pelly came back into the room at that point. “Lawyers, Prior?”

“I was trying to explain to Miss Warshawski how Corpus Christi works. I don’t really know too much about it. Do you, Gus?”

“Just what you hear around. Why do you want to know?”

I told him what I’d told Carroll.

“I’d like to see those notes,” Pelly said. “Maybe they’d give me some idea what the connection was in her mind.”

“I don’t have them with me. But the next time I come out I’ll bring them.” If I remembered to put something down on paper.

It was nearly four-thirty when I got back to the Eisenhower and the snow was coming down as furiously as ever. It was dark now, too, and nearly impossible to see the road. Traffic moved at about five miles an hour. Every now and then, I’d pass some poor soul who’d slid off the side completely.

As I neared the Belmont exit, I debated whether to go home and leave my next errand for an easier day. Two angry ladies in one afternoon was a little hard on the system. But the sooner I talked to Catherine Paciorek the sooner I’d get her out of my life.