Corpus Christmas

The door of Barbara Zajdowicz’s room opened and a middle-aged priest came out.

“How’s she doing today, Father?” asked Mr. Hogarty as he and Sigrid walked toward him.

“Much as usual, Harry,” said the priest. He smiled and nodded at others across the corridor, but did not break his progress to the next room.

As Sigrid started to follow Mr. Hogarty into his friend’s room, she saw an unwanted sight. At the far end of the corridor, a tall red-headed man in sheepskin jacket and cowboy boots with a camera case slung over his shoulder paused to compare a room number on the nearest door with something scribbled on his notepad. He saw her at almost the same instant and his homely face took on the look of an excited terrier spotting its prey.

“Yo! Lieutenant Harald,” he cried and loped around a passing wheelchair. William “Rusty” Guillory of the Post.

“Two minds with but a single thought.” His free hand fumbled with the zipper on his camera case. “Didja talk to her yet? Does she know anything about the babies? What’ve you got for me?”

“What’re you doing here, Guillory?” she stalled.

“Same as you.” He took two quick pictures of her before she could protest. “Got her name off the deed and ran it by a snitch in Social Security.”

Mr. Hogarty’s curious face appeared in the doorway behind her and the reporter craned for a view of the interior. “Who’re you?” Guillory asked.

“Hold it, Guillory,” Sigrid said firmly. “You’ll have to wait out here. I was just going in to interview Mrs. Zajdowicz now.”

“Talk fast, huh, Lieutenant? If she’s got anything good, I can still make the second edition.”

Without promising, Sigrid stepped inside the room and closed the door on Rusty Guillory.

“Here she is now, Barb.” Mr. Hogarty’s gossipy nature was clearly piqued by the appearance of yet a second visitor for his old acquaintance.

Sigrid stretched out her hand to the woman in the wheelchair. “Mrs. Zajdowicz? I’m Lieutenant Harald of the New York City Police Department.”

“Police?” breathed Mr. Hogarty.

Barbara Jurczyk Zajdowicz bore the ravages of her age and her illness. Her short straight hair was completely white, her blue eyes were faded, and the years had cut deep grooves in her gray face, but time could not efface the basic structure of her rangy frame and there was a residual impression of strength in her prominent jaw and broad brow. She wore a maroon skirt and cardigan, a white blouse that was pi

Her hand was considerably larger than Sigrid’s and bare of rings, except for a wide gold band that hung loosely on her fourth finger, trapped forever by the enlarged knuckle. Her right hand held a rosary and lay curled in her lap in what Sigrid recognized as stroke-induced weakness; and when she spoke, her words were so slurred that it was difficult to understand.

“She says did Angelika send you?” interpreted Mr. Hogarty, who’d had more practice. “That’s her sister.”

“I know,” said Sigrid. “No, Mrs. Zajdowicz. I came because a trunk was found in the attic of your old house a few days ago. Can you remember? Do you know anything about it?”

The old woman looked at Sigrid for a long moment, then made a gesture with her left hand. “Go ’way, Harry,” she said thickly.

“But, Barb-” he protested, his face dropping.

Again came that dismissive shooing wave of her hand. “Out.”

Sigrid detained him for a moment as he neared the door. “There’s a reporter out there, Mr. Hogarty. He’ll probably ask you questions, try to make you to speculate about certain things which he may later twist for his own purposes. I’d caution you to choose your words carefully.”

Mr. Hogarty brightened immediately and bounded through the door with such eagerness that Sigrid realized she should have saved her breath.

She sat down beside Mrs. Zajdowicz.

“Angelika?” asked the woman.

“Your sister’s dead, Mrs. Zajdowicz. Like the babies.”

“Ah.” She closed her eyes and her rawboned fingers began to tell the beads of the rosary. A moment later, Sigrid saw tears seep from beneath those wrinkled lids.

“Mrs. Zajdowicz. Barbara,” she said gently. “Were they your sister’s babies?”

The old woman nodded. Her eyes opened. “Sister. Sorry. So sorry, Sister. Father… bless me, Father, for she has si

“Who si

“Died,” Barbara Zajdowicz said, enunciating as clearly as she could. “Wrong… but we… couldn’t let… anyone know. Gregor. He kill her.”

“Your brother Gregor killed the babies?”

Mrs. Zajdowicz twitched her rosary beads impatiently. “No. Gregor. Such shame… on family. We said… woman troubles. Gregor… stayed downstairs.”

“You’re saying Gregor would have killed Angelika if he’d known she was pregnant? So you kept it from him? How?”

“She… fat like me.”

Too much newsprint had been devoted to stories of large women suddenly surprised to find themselves giving birth for Sigrid to doubt that a sister built like Mrs. Zajdowicz could have gotten away with illicit pregnancy.

“Who was the father?” Sigrid asked. “Was it your husband? Karol?”

“Karol… he cried… babies for you, he said. But every time… died.”

Her words were still badly slurred, but Sigrid was becoming used to her speech patterns.

“How did the babies die, Barbara?”

“Sin… she si

“Did Angelika kill her own babies?” Sigrid asked.

“They should been… mine! Not… Angelika’s.” Her rheumy blue eyes glared out at Sigrid, then they filled with tears. “Poor… little babies. So little. The shame… Sister-”

She held out her rosary to Sigrid. “Pray me, Sister,” she pleaded and Sigrid wasn’t sure if Mrs. Zajdowicz had confused her with Angelika or a nun, since she was dressed today in navy slacks and a boxy black jacket.

“Who put those babies in the attic?” Sigrid asked. “You or Angelika?”

“Pray me, Sister,” Mrs. Zajdowicz wept. “Pray me.”

Sigrid looked around helplessly, then saw the call bell on the wall beside the woman’s bed. She went over and pushed it. While she waited, she took a shiny white card from her purse and gently pressed it against Barbara’s fingers; first the left hand, then her curled right hand. After the card was carefully tucked into her notebook, she sat holding the sobbing woman’s hands until the nurse came.

“What’s going on?” said Rusty Guillory, when Sigrid emerged. He had managed a couple of hasty pictures of the distrait Barbara Zajdowicz before the nurse closed the door again. “Didja give her a heart attack or something?”

A small crowd had gathered in that section of the corridor and as Sigrid’s eyes fell upon Mr. Hogarty, the plump little man looked embarrassed and scuttled away.

“Hey, wait a minute!” called Guillory. “We didn’t finish.”

“Yes, you did,” said Sigrid. “Come on, Guillory. Give it a rest.”

“Then give me a statement,” he countered. “What’d she tell you?”

“She’s confused and unhappy,” Sigrid told him. “She’s had several strokes, her speech is badly slurred and her mind’s not very clear.”

“But you got something out of her. I know you, Lieutenant.”

Sigrid looked at the circle of avid faces that ringed them. Resigned, she said, “Put your coat on and let’s go. You want to make your deadline, don’t you?”

They walked through the now-buzzing corridor. “It’s not much of a story and we’ll probably never know what really happened,” she warned.

“That’s okay,” Guillory said cynically. “Feel free to speculate. I’m going to.”