I continued north. It was seven by the time I reached the Half Day Road exit.

Away from the expressway arteries the roads were unplowed. I almost got stuck a few times on Sheridan Road, and came to a complete halt just after turning onto Arbor. I got out and looked thoughtfully at the car. No one in the Paciorek house was likely to give me a push. “You’d better be moving by the time I come back,” I warned the Omega, and set off to do the last half mile on foot.

I moved as quickly as possible through the deep snow, glad of earmuffs and gloves, but wishing desperately for a coat. I let myself into the garage and rang the bell at the side entrance. The garage was heated and I rubbed my hands and feet in the warmth while I waited.

Barbara Paciorek, Agnes’s youngest sister, answered the door. She had been about six when I last saw her. A teenager now, she looked so much like Agnes had when I first met her that a small shock of nostalgia ran through me.

“Vic!” she exclaimed. “Did you drive all the way up from Chicago in this terrible weather? Is Mother expecting you? Come on in and get warm.” She led me in through the back hallway, past the enormous kitchen where the cook was hard at work on dinner. “Daddy’s stuck at the hospital-can’t get home until they plow the side roads, so we’re going to eat in about half an hour. Can you stay?”

“Sure, if your mother wants me.”

I followed her across vaguely remembered hallways until we reached the front part of the house. Barbara led me into what the Pacioreks called the family room. Much smaller than the conservatory, perhaps only twenty or thirty feet across, the room held a piano and an enormous fireplace. Mrs. Paciorek was doing needlepoint in front of the fire.

“Look who’s dropped in, Mother,” Barbara announced as though she was bringing a pleasant surprise.

Mrs. Paciorek looked up. A frown creased her handsome forehead. “Victoria. I won’t pretend I’m happy to see you; I’m not. But there is something I wanted to discuss with you and this saves me the trouble of phoning. Barbara! Leave, please.”

The girl looked surprised and hurt at her mother’s hospitality. I said, “Barbara, there’s something you could do for me if you’d be good enough. While your mother and I are talking, could you find a filling station with a tow truck? My Omega is stuck about a half mile down the road. If you call now, they should have a truck free by the time I leave.”

I sat in a chair near the fire across from Mrs. Paciorek. She put her needlepoint aside with a tidy anger reminiscent of Rosa. “Victoria, you corrupted and destroyed the life of my oldest child. Is it any wonder that you are not welcome in this house?”

“Catherine, that is pig swill, and you know it.”

Her face turned red. Before she could speak, I regretted my rudeness-today was my day for tangling with angry women.

“Agnes was a fine person,” I said gently. “You should be proud of her. And proud of her success. Very few people achieve what she did, and almost no women. She was smart and she had guts. She got a lot of that from you. Be proud- feel pleased. Grieve for her.”

Like Rosa, she had lived with her anger too long to want to give it up. “I won’t flatter you by arguing with you, Victoria. It was enough for Agnes to know I believed in something for her to believe the opposite. Abortion. The war in Vietnam. Worst of all, the Church. I thought I had seen my family name degraded in every possible way. I didn’t realize how much I could have forgiven until she announced in public that she was a homosexual.”

I opened my eyes very wide. “In public! She actually announced it right in the middle of LaSalle Street? Out where every taxi driver in Chicago could hear her?”

“I know you think you’re being very funny. But she might as well have screamed it in the middle of LaSalle Street. Everyone knew about it. And she was proud of it. Proud of it! Archbishop Farber even agreed to talk to her, to make her understand the degradation she was subjecting her body to. Her own family as well. And she laughed at him. Called him names. The kinds of things you would think of. I could tell you had led her into that, just as you led her into all her other horrible activities. And then-to bring that-that creature, that vile thing to my daughter’s funeral.”

“Just out of curiosity, Catherine, what did Agnes call Archbishop Farber?”

Her face turned alarmingly red again. “It’s that kind of thing. That kind of attitude. You have no respect for people.”

I shook my head. “Wrong. I have a lot of respect for people. I respected Agnes and Phyllis for example. I don’t know why Agnes chose lesbian relations. But she loved Phyllis Lording, and Phyllis loved her, and they lived very happily together. If five percent of married couples brought each other that much satisfaction the divorce rate wouldn’t be what it is… Phyllis is an interesting woman. She’s a substantial scholar; if you read her book Sappho Underground you might get some understanding of what she and Agnes were all about in their life together.”

“How can you sit there and talk about this-perversion and dare compare it with the sacrament of marriage?”

I rubbed my face. The fire was making me a little lightheaded and sleepy. “We’re never going to agree about this. Maybe we should just agree not to discuss it anymore. For some reason, it brings you solace to be furious at Agnes’s way of living, and it brings you further pleasure to blame it on me. I guess I don’t really care that much-if you want to be that blind about your daughter’s character and personality and how she made her choices, that’s your problem. Your views don’t affect the truth. And they only make one person miserable: you. Maybe Barbara some. Perhaps Dr. Paciorek. But you’re the main sufferer.”

“Why did you bring her to the funeral?”

I sighed. “Not to piss you off, believe it or not. Phyllis loved Agnes. She needed to see her funeral. She needed that ritual

Why am I talking? You’re not listening to what I’m saying, anyway. You just want to fuel your rage. But I didn’t come all the way out here in a snowstorm just to talk about Phyllis Lording, although I enjoyed that. I need to ask you about your stock transactions. Specifically, how you came to buy two thousand shares of Ajax last month.”

“Ajax? What are you talking about?”

“The Ajax Insurance Company. You bought two thousand shares on December second. Why?”

Her face had turned pale; the skin looked papery in the firelight. It seemed to me a cardiac surgeon would talk to his wife about the strain her wild mood changes put on her heart. But they say you notice least about the ones you’re closest to.

Her iron control came through for her. “I don’t expect you to understand what it’s like to have a lot of money. I don’t know what two thousand shares of Ajax are worth-”

“Almost a hundred twenty thousand at today’s prices,” I put in helpfully.

“Yes. Well, that’s a fraction of the fortune my father left in my care. It’s very possible my accountants thought it was a good year-end investment. For transactions that small they wouldn’t bother to consult me.”

I smiled appreciatively. “I can understand that. What about Corpus Christi? You’re an influential Catholic. What can you tell me about them?”

“Please leave now, Victoria. I’m tired and it’s time for my dinner.”

“Are you a member, Catherine?”

“Don’t call me Catherine. Mrs. Paciorek is appropriate.”

“And I would prefer you to call me Miss Warshawski Are you a member of Corpus Christi, Mrs. Paciorek?”

“I never heard of it.”

There didn’t seem to be anything left to discuss at that point. I started to leave, then thought of something else and stopped in the doorway. “What about the Wood-Sage corporation? Know anything about it?”

Maybe it was just the firelight, but her eyes seemed to glitter strangely. “Leave!” she hissed.