Partners In Crime (37 page)

"They were both good students. Top of the
class. Anne Marie was first, of course, but Patricia was close
behind. They grew into beautiful young ladies. Patricia especially,
she was so tall and striking, a Nordic princess, perhaps." She
laughed, briefly, covering her mouth again as if the sound were
inappropriate.

"They had gone through a year or two of
wanting to be nuns, but it was clear from the looks of both of them
that it wasn't going to last. Boys were already lingering around
the comer before either was even fifteen. I don't know their
private lives, but there was soon no more talk of being nuns.

"By the time Anne Marie graduated, she was a
proper young lady. No more being a tomboy for her. Always dressed
up, gloves even. Hair carefully groomed. What little makeup her
mother would allow. Patricia had changed as well. She wasn't so
docile, so willing to follow Anne Marie. She was the tomboy by
then, loud and laughing and boisterous. Caused commotion after
commotion in class. But to tell you the truth"—she stopped and
looked at Auntie Lil—"it was Patricia I preferred. She was loud,
but so honest and so much fun. As if she had just discovered life
and it was too marvelous to believe. I used to look at her and feel
that, because of her, I wasn't missing out on so much myself. Anne
Marie was ladylike, it was true. But controlled. Too controlled.
Still, I knew she would do well in life.

"They both took a job at some Wall Street
firm, earning a top salary for those days. I wasn't surprised they
went to work together, they were still inseparable. After that, I
lost track of them for several years. Most of our girls go through
that period. They haven't time for church. They're building a life,
starting families, thinking of other things. Or else they've
married and moved away. Switched over to their husband's diocese. I
believe I never really expected to see either one again."

The small door behind the altar opened. An
old man exited, dressed in street clothes. Only the stiff white
collar gave him away. He stepped briskly across the worn floor,
glanced briefly at Auntie Lil, then raised a hand and continued on
outside. Sister Bridget Mary waited a few seconds before she
continued.

"Patricia came to see Father Williams a few
years later. He's gone now. Dead, like so many of us. Sometimes I
envy them, you know. They want me to retire, but I haven't any
money and what would I do? Who would take care of things here?" She
stared again at her hands. "Patricia's problem was not surprising.
We got quite a few problems like that in those days and I am only
sorry that the alternative is so readily available these days. But
I was surprised at it being Patricia. She was going to have a baby
and she wasn't married. She was afraid it would kill her parents if
they knew. Knowing her parents as I did, I must say that I almost
agreed. She had a plan. If we would help her find a place to stay
and have the child, she had a friend who would raise it. A friend
who had been married several years but could not have children and
was desperate for one of her own. It was Anne Marie, of course. She
had married that awful Tommy Shaunessy, God alone knows why.
Although I can guess why He saw fit to deny him a natural son." She
shivered in distaste, but did not elaborate. Auntie Lil did not
want to know.

"I argued against it. It was, perhaps, the
only time I ever disagreed publicly with the Father. But I did not
think it was a good idea to place the child with someone Patricia
knew. It would always be there, so close, you know, to remind her
what might have been. She had already changed, you see. I could see
it in her eyes. A lost, almost wild look. I was worried for her
even then. I felt that having the child nearby would hamper her
ability to get on with a new life and, despite what people say
about the Catholic Church, we do care very much for the living.

  “
I was overruled and
Patricia was sent away. The adoption was arranged. I thought, for
the second time, that the story had reached an end." The nun
produced a tissue from beneath her bib and held it up near her
bulbous nose. Her voice quivered but she continued on, her face
well averted from Auntie Lil's sympathetic gaze.

"Many years later, I
received a phone call from Anne Marie. She was in tears, genuinely
so distraught that I could hardly make out the words. Patricia had
been committed to a mental hospital, it seems. After behavior so...
so shocking and troubling that her family had disowned her. There
was no one to care, no one to see her through. I believe it was too
much for Anne Marie to bear.
Would I go
and see her?
she begged me. What could I
say?" Sister Bridget Mary shrugged and her face sagged with the
sadness of remembering.

"That began the first of many, many years of
visits to Patricia in those kinds of hospitals. I did not think she
should be forgotten. Sometimes, they would let her out to move
among us, but I don't believe that she was ever really herself
again. Not even for a moment. She walked in some different world
she found necessary to build. I never prayed for her to die, that
would have been wrong, but I sometimes asked God why he couldn't
see fit to somehow ease her suffering."

The old nun dropped to her knees on a low
padded bench that pulled back from the pew in front of them. She
stared intently at the stained glass window. "I've seldom seen or
spoken to Anne Marie in decades. Not even in the last few weeks
when she has been here praying. But I continued to visit Patricia
every month or so until she died. I just wanted her to know that
someone remembered who she had been and that someone still cared.
Someone besides God."

With that, the nun laid her cheek on the
back of the forward pew and began to cry softly. It was a sad and
raspy sound that filled the emptiness of the church. The deserted
comers seemed almost to welcome the noise, embracing the sobs as if
the stone walls fed upon the loneliness. Auntie Lil looked around
her at the shadows and darkness, then back to the stained glass
window. She knelt beside Sister Bridget Mary and gently patted the
woman's heaving shoulders. "I'm so sorry," she whispered to the
nun. "So sorry to make you remember."

Despite her forthrightness, in many ways
Auntie Lil believed deeply in the privacy of the human soul. She
left the old nun weeping in her sorrow and moved slowly out of the
church into the last of the March afternoon. The fresh air cleared
her head, sweeping away the painful passing of years that had been
laid so barely at her feet. But it did not remove the agony nudging
at her own heart. Sheila was Patricia Kelly's daughter. Who better
to avenge her mother's death? Auntie Lil had not planned on
breaking her own nephew's heart. T.S. would never be the same.

She stood on the stone steps, then turned
and slipped back inside the church. It was empty. Sister Bridget
Mary had escaped to the familiar comfort of her own room. The
votive candles flickered forlornly to one side of the altar. Only
five had been lit. The poor box was battered and dented and the
lighting sticks scattered in disarray. Auntie Lil knelt before the
bank of candles and slipped a twenty-dollar bill into the metal
box. She carefully lit three of the misshapen mounds of wax. One
for Patricia Kelly, one for Sheila and one for her dear
Theodore.

A dozen different scenarios raced through
his imagination as T.S. dashed down the fire stairs. Edgar Hale
being throttled to death by the murderer came immediately to mind.
Maybe by someone he knew. Perhaps even Sheila. Where was she today?
In his confusion, he even imagined Lieutenant Abromowitz straddling
Edgar Hale, Sterling's antique fire poker raised high above his
head.

He flew down the Main Floor with the abandon
of a wild man. Had he the time to notice, he would have been
surprised to see how few people looked up to watch him race past.
The fact was, most were already crowded into the Partners' Room. A
wave of sound buzzed and lingered around the edges of the crowd as
T.S. shouldered his way through a thick pack of Sterling &
Sterling employees. The excited hum of their voices formed an
indistinct backdrop for his own confused thoughts. He could hear
shouted phrases, but could not make out the words. He was vaguely
aware of employees hooting and shouting as if they were at a
football game. "Cheering on a murderer?" he vaguely thought. The
world had gone mad.

Madder than even he imagined. He burst
through the crowd and found himself in a roughly defined circle
beneath the portrait of Samuel Sterling and his sons. The fireplace
tools and screen had tumbled across the rug. Edgar Hale stood to
one side, his mouth open in silent rage and his face pulsating an
alarming shade of purple. Frederick Dorfen stood on a chair, his
old legs shaking beneath him. He had his arms spread wide and was
attempting to shout above the crowd, calling for order that never
came.

In the center of the circle stood Anne Marie
and Mrs. Quincy. They laced each other like angry gladiators, arms
outstretched and fingers tensed for battle. A long scratch marred
the side of Anne Marie's face and blood oozed from a cut on Mrs.
Quincy's nose. Anne Marie's hair flew about her face in angry wisps
and her dress had been ripped—the sleeve hung limply like a broken
wing. One of her shoes came off as she lunged at Mrs. Quincy before
retreating to her comer of the makeshift ring with what looked to
be a deflated raccoon dangling in her clenched fist.

Mrs. Quincy gave an angry, high-pitched
shriek and T.S. looked up, startled, at the old secretary's
contorted face. Her hair had disappeared, to be replaced by a
mottled and strangely colored patch of stubble that dotted her
egg-shaped skull like underfed and dying grass.

Anne Marie waved the wig above her head like
a trophy, shouting at her foe. "You've got your nerve," she
screamed. "Saying I dye my hair. This isn't even yours!" She waved
the wig again and T.S. realized with horror that several people in
the crowd were shouting encouragement.

"Let her have it, Anne Marie!" a heretofore
dignified executive cried. T.S. shot him a look that inspired the
man to fall silent immediately.

"Stop! Someone stop this nonsense!"
Frederick Dorfen shouted.

Mrs. Quincy seized the opportunity to dart
forward and kick Anne Marie in the shins, shouting a phrase that
T.S. had never imagined she knew.

Anne Marie was less surprised. She flung
what was left of Mrs. Quincy's wig to the ground and spat on it.
"I'm not afraid of you!" Anne Marie screeched, her formerly
modulated voice now replaced by the shrill nasal tones of an angry
young girl from Brooklyn. "I'll take you on. Come on! Come on!" She
actually put up her fists as if to box and T.S. decided that things
had gone far enough.

He dashed between the two women and was
rewarded with an astonishingly powerful right hook to his jaw. His
anger was so great, however, that it didn't stop him for long. He
grabbed Anne Marie by both hands and twisted her roughly to one
side, pinning her arms behind her.

"Get Quincy. Move!" he ordered Edgar
Hale.

The partner obeyed, grabbing his secretary's
frail arms with little enthusiasm. All the fight went out of Mrs.
Quincy at her boss's touch. In fact, she looked suddenly
frightened. She stared at the crowd with horror, any hope of
maintaining her dignity shredded. Tears welled in her eyes as
Frederick Dorfen proved he truly was a gentleman by taking control
of the crowd.

"That's it!" he shouted from his perch on
the chair. "Enough is quite enough. Leave this room immediately.
Without hesitation. I mean that. Leave this room now." He stood
above the crowd like a policeman directing traffic from a stadium,
pointing to slow moving employees with a warning glare. Eventually,
employees began to group together, shaking their heads, muttering
in disbelief and grumbling that their fun had been interrupted.

"Everyone may go home early!" Dorfen finally
called out in desperation and the pace toward the doors quickened.
"The firm is closed for the week. Go home now!" He had discovered
the magic formula. Within minutes, the room was emptied of everyone
but Edgar Hale, T.S., the two women and Dorfen.

The oldest partner climbed slowly down from
his chair. He eyed both women, then shook his head sadly and put a
gentle arm around the now sobbing Mrs. Quincy. "Now, now, Mrs.
Quincy," he told her gently. "We all lose control sometimes. We've
been under great strain. Everyone will soon forget all about this."
He led her down the hall toward the private conference rooms.

T.S. had less luck calming Anne Marie. She
muttered angry threats beneath her breath and T.S. caught snatches
of her long-buried Brooklyn accent.

"Anne Marie, please," he pleaded. "Take a
deep breath. Calm down. We've all gotten overexcited." He repeated
his command until she began to relax. Edgar Hale took a step toward
her but she tensed up again and T.S. had to ask him to leave the
room, a task the partner undertook with enthusiasm. In fact, he
nearly mowed Sheila down on his way out the door. She burst into
the room, gasping for breath, and her eyes flew to T.S. and then to
her mother. She lunged forward, shouting, and Anne Marie twisted
away to run into her daughter's arms. She fell against Sheila and
broke into sobs like an overgrown child. Sheila stroked her
mother's hair back into place and glared at T.S.

"What happened?'' she asked angrily. "What's
going on?"

"I haven't the faintest idea," he protested.
"Where have you been?"

Sheila ignored him and attempted to calm her
mother. T.S. pulled up the chair Frederick Dorfen had used for a
stage and sat in it with a dull thud. "What in the world were they
fighting about?" he asked wearily.