“She’s disappeared, you know,” I told her. “You wouldn’t know where she’s gone, would you?”
She looked up at me with troubled eyes. “Do you think something’s happened to her?”
“No,” I said with a reassurance I didn’t feel. “I think she got scared and ran away.”
“Anita’s really wonderful,” she said earnestly. “But Dad and Mother just refused even to meet her. That was when Dad first started acting weird, when Pete and Anita began going together. Even today, when the police came, he wouldn’t believe they’d arrested this man. He kept saying it was Mr. McGraw. It was really awful.” She grimaced unconsciously. “Oh, it’s been just horrible here. Nobody cares about Pete. Mother just cares about the neighbors. Dad is freaked out. I’m the only one who cares he’s dead.” Tears were steaming down her face now and she stopped trying to fight them. “Sometimes I even get the crazy idea that Dad just freaked out totally, like he does, and killed Peter.”
This was the big fear. Once she’d said it, she started sobbing convulsively and shivering. I took off my jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. I held her close for a few minutes and let her sob.
The door opened behind us. Lucy stood there, scowling. “Your father wants to know where you’ve gone to-and he doesn’t want you standing around gossiping with the detective.”
I stood up. “Why don’t you take her inside and wrap her up in a blanket and get her something hot to drink: she’s pretty upset with everything that’s going on, and she needs some attention.”
Jill was still shivering, but she’d stopped sobbing. She gave me a watery little smile and handed me my jacket. “I’m okay,” she whispered.
I dug a card out of my purse and handed it to her. “Call me if you need me, Jill,” I said. “Day or night.” Lucy hustled her inside at top speed and shut the door. I was really toning down the neighborhood-good thing they couldn’t see me through the trees.
My shoulders and legs were beginning to hurt again and I walked slowly back to my car. The Chevy had a crease in the front right fender where someone had sideswiped it in last winter’s heavy snow. The Alfa, the Fox, and the Mercedes were all in mint condition. My car and I looked alike, whereas the Thayers seemed more like the sleek, scratchless Mercedes. There was a lesson in there someplace. Maybe too much urban living was bad for cars and people. Real profound, Vic.
I wanted to get back to Chicago and call Bobby and get the lowdown on this drug addict they’d arrested, but I needed to do something else while Lotty’s painkiller was still holding me up. I drove back over to the Edens and went south to the Dempster exit. This road led through the predominantly Jewish suburb of Skokie, and I stopped at the Bagel Works delicatessen and bagel bakery there. I ordered a jumbo corned beef on rye and a Fresca, and sat in the car, eating while I tried to decide where to get a gun. I knew how to use them-my dad had seen too many shooting accidents in homes with guns. He’s decided the way to avoid one in our house was for my mother and me to learn how to use them. My mother had always refused: they gave her unhappy memories of the war and she would always say she’d use the time to pray for a world without weapons. But I used to go down to the police range with my dad on Saturday afternoons and practice target shooting. At one time I could clean and load and fire a.45 police revolver in two minutes, but since my father had died ten years ago, I hadn’t been out shooting. I’d given his gun to Bobby as a memento when he’d died, and I’d never needed one since then. I had killed a man once, but that had been an accident. Joe Correl had jumped me outside a warehouse when I was looking into some inventory losses for a company. I had broken his hold and smashed his jaw in, and when he fell, he’d hit his head on the edge of a forklift. I’d broken his jaw, but it was his skull against the forklift that killed him.
But Smeissen had a lot of hired muscle, and if he was really pissed off, he could hire some more. A gun wouldn’t completely protect me, but I thought it might narrow the odds.
The corned beef sandwich was delicious. I hadn’t had one for a long time, and decide to forget my weight-maintenance program for one afternoon and have another. There was a phone booth in the deli, and I let my fingers do the walking through the Yellow Pages. The phone book showed four columns of gun dealers. There was one not too far from where I was in the suburb of Lincolnwood. When I called and described what I wanted, they didn’t have it. After $1.20 worth of calls, I finally located a repeating, mediumweight Smith & Wesson on the far South Side of the city. My injuries were really throbbing by this time and I didn’t feel like a forty-mile drive to the other end of the city. On the other hand, those injuries were why I needed the gun. I paid for the corned beef sandwich and with my second Fresca swallowed four of the tablets Lotty had given me.
The drive south should have taken only an hour, but I was feeling light-headed, my head and body not connected too strongly. The last thing I wanted was for one of Chicago’s finest to pull me over. I took it slowly, swallowed a couple more tablets of bute, and put all my effort into holding my concentration.
It was close to five when I exited from I-57 to the south suburbs. By the time I got to Riley’s, they were ready to close. I insisted on coming in to make my purchase.
“I know what I want,” I said. “I called a couple of hours ago-a Smith & Wesson thirty-eight.”
The clerk looked suspiciously at my face and took in the black eye. “Why don’t you come back on Monday, and if you still feel you want a gun, we can talk about a model more suited to a lady than a Smith & Wesson thirty-eight.”
“Despite what you may think I am not a wife-beating victim. I am not planning on buying a gun to go home and kill my husband. I’m a single woman living alone and I was attacked last night. I know how to use a gun, and I’ve decided I need one, and this is the kind I want.”
“Just a minute,” the clerk said. He hurried to the back of the store and began a whispered consultation with two men standing there. I went to the case and started inspecting guns and ammunition. The store was new, clean, and beautifully laid out. Their ad in the Yellow Pages proclaimed Riley’s as Smith & Wesson specialists, but they had enough variety to please any kind of taste in shooting. One wall was devoted to rifles.
My clerk came over with one of the others, a pleasant-faced, middle-aged man. “Ron Jaffrey,” he said. “I’m the manager. What can we do for you?”
“I called up a couple of hours ago asking about a Smith & Wesson thirty-eight. I’d like to get one,” I repeated.
“Have you ever used one before?” the manager asked.
“No, I’m more used to the Colt forty-five,” I answered. “But the S &W is lighter and better suited to my needs.”
The manager walked to one of the cases and unlocked it. My clerk went to the door to stop another last-minute customer from entering. I took the gun from the manager, balanced it in my hand, and tried the classic police firing stance: body turned to create as narrow a target as possible. The gun felt good. “I’d like to try it before I buy it,” I told the manager. “Do you have a target range?”
Jaffrey took a box of ammunition from the case. “I have to say you look as though you know how to handle it. We have a range in the back-if you decide against the gun, we ask you to pay for the ammo. If you take the gun, we throw in a box free.”
“Fine,” I said. I followed him through a door in the back, which led to a small range,
“We give lessons back here on Sunday afternoons, and let people come in to practice on their own during the week. Need any help loading?”
“I may,” I told him. “Time was when I could load and fire in thirty seconds, but it’s been a while.” My hands were starting to shake a bit from fatigue and pain and it took me several minutes to insert eight rounds of cartridges. The manager showed me the safety and the action. I nodded, turned to the target, lifted the gun, and fired. The action came as naturally as if ten days, not ten years, had passed, but my aim was way off. I emptied the gun but didn’t get a bull’
s-eye, and only two in the inner ring. The gun was good, though, steady action and no noticeable distortion. “Let me try another lot.”
I emptied the chambers and Jaffrey handed me some more cartridges. He gave me a couple of pointers. “You obviously know what you’re doing, but you’re out of practice and you’ve picked up some bad habits. Your stance is good, but you’re hunching your shoulder-keep it down and only raise the arm.”
I loaded and fired again, trying to keep my shoulder down. It was good advice-all but two shots got into the red and one grazed the bull’s-eye. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll take it. Give me a couple of boxes of ammo, and a complete cleaning kit.” I thought a minute. “And a shoulder holster.”
We went back into the store. “Larry!” Jaffrey called. My clerk came over. “Clean and wrap this gun for the lady while I write up the bill.” Larry took the gun, and I went with Jaffrey to the cash register. A mirror was mounted behind it, and I saw myself in it without recognition for a few seconds. The left side of my face was now completely purple and badly swollen while my right eye stared with the dark anguish of a Paul Klee drawing. I almost turned to see who this battered woman was before realizing I was looking at myself. No wonder Larry hadn’t wanted to let me in the store.
Jaffrey showed me the bill. “Four hundred twenty-two dollars,” he said. “Three-ten for the gun, ten for the second box of cartridges, fifty-four for the holster and belt, and twenty-eight for the cleaning kit. The rest is tax.” I wrote a check out, slowly and laboriously. “I need a driver’s license and two major credit cards or an interbank card,” he said, “and I have to ask you to sign the register.” He looked at my driver’s license. “Monday you should go down to City Hall and register the gun. I send a list of all major purchases to the local police department, and they’ll probably forward your name to the Chicago police.”
I nodded and quietly put my identification back in my billfold. The gun took a big chunk out of the thousand dollars I’d had from McGraw, and I didn’t think I could legitimately charge it to him as an expense. Larry brought me the gun in a beautiful velvet case. I looked at it and asked them to put it in a bag for me. Ron Jaffrey ushered me urbanely to my car, magnificently ignoring my face. “You live quite a ways from here, but if you want to come down and use the target, just bring your bill with you-you get six months’ free practice with the purchase.” He opened my car door for me. I thanked him, and he went back to the store.
The bute was still keeping the pain from crashing in on me completely, but I was absolutely exhausted. My last bit of energy had gone to buying the gun and using the target. I couldn’t drive the thirty miles back to my apartment. I started the car and went slowly down the street, looking for a motel. I found a Best Western that had rooms backing onto a side street, away from the busy road I was on. The clerk looked curiously at my face but made no comment, I paid cash and took the key.
The room was decent and quiet, the bed firm. I uncorked the bottle of nepenthe Lotty had given me and took a healthy swallow. I peeled off my clothes, wound my watch and put it on the bedside table, and crawled under the covers. I debated calling my answering service but decided I was too tired to handle anything even if it had come up. The air conditioner, set on high, drowned out any street noises and made the room cold enough to enjoy snuggling under the blankets. I lay down and was starting to think about John Thayer when I fell asleep.
8
Some Visitors don’t Knock
I came to slowly, out of a sound sleep. I lay quietly, not sure at first where I was, and dozed again lightly. When I woke up the second time, I was refreshed and aware. The heavy drapes shut out any outside light; I switched on the bedside lamp and looked at my watch-7:30. I had slept more than twelve hours.
I sat up and cautiously moved legs and neck. My muscles had stiffened again in my sleep, but not nearly as badly as the previous morning. I pulled myself from the bed and made it to the window with only minor twinges. Looking through a crack I pulled in the drapes, I saw bright morning sunlight.
I was puzzled by Thayer’s account of a police arrest and wondered if there would be a story in the morning paper. I pulled on my slacks and shirt and went down to the lobby for a copy of the Sunday Herald-Star. Back upstairs I undressed again and ran a hot bath while I looked at the paper, DRUG ADDICT ARRESTED IN BANKING HEIR’S MURDER was On the lower right side of the front page. Police have arrested Donald Mackenzie of 4302 S. Ellis in the murder of banking heir Peter Thayer last Monday. Asst. Police Commissioner Tim Sullivan praised the men working on the case and said an arrest was made early Saturday morning when one of the residents of the apartment where Peter Thayer lived identified Mackenzie as a man seen hanging around the building several times recently. It is believed that Mackenzie, allegedly addicted to cocaine, entered the Thayer apartment on Monday, July 16, believing no one to be at home. When he found Peter Thayer eating breakfast in the kitchen, he lost his nerve and shot him. Commissioner Sullivan says the Browning automatic that fired the fatal bullet has not yet been traced but that the police have every hope of recovering the weapon.
The story was continued on page sixty-three. Here, a full page had been devoted to the case. Pictures of the Thayer family with Jill, another sister, and a chic Mrs. Thayer. A single shot of Peter in a baseball uniform for New Trier High School. A good candid picture of Anita McGraw. An accompanying story proclaimed LABOR LEADER’S DAUGHTER STILL MISSING. It suggested “now that the police have made an arrest, there is hope that Miss McGraw will return to Chicago or call her family Meanwhile, her picture has been circulated to state police in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan.”
That seemed to be that. I lay back in the water and closed my eyes. The police were supposedly hunting high and low for the Browning, questioning, Mackenzie’s friends, and searching his hangouts. But I didn’t think they’d find it. I tried to remember what Earl’s goons had been carrying. Fred had had a Colt, but I thought Tony might have had a Browning. Why was Thayer so willing to believe Mackenzie had killed his son? According to Jill, he’d been insisting at first it was McGraw. Something nagged at the back of my mind, but I couldn’t put a finger on it. Could there possibly be any proof that Mackenzie had done it? On the other hand, what proof did I have that he hadn’t? My stiff joints, the fact that nothing had been touched in the apartment… But what did it really add up to? I wondered if Bobby had made that arrest, whether he was among those diligent policemen whom Police Commissioner Sullivan unstintingly praised. I decided I needed to get back to Chicago and talk to him.
With this in mind I got dressed and left the motel. I realized I hadn’t eaten since those two corned beef sandwiches yesterday afternoon and stopped at a little coffee shop for a cheese omelette, juice, and coffee. I was eating too much lately and not getting any exercise. I surreptitiously slid a finger around my waistband, but it didn’t seem any tighter.
I took some more of Lotty’s pills with my coffee and was feeling fine by the time I pulled off the Kennedy at Belmont. Sunday morning traffic was light and I made it to Halsted by a little after ten. There was a parking place across from my apartment, and a dark, unmarked car with a police antenna on it. I raised my eyebrows speculatively. Had the mountain come to Mohammed?
I crossed the street and looked into the car, Sergeant McGonnigal was sitting there alone with a newspaper. When he saw me, he put the paper down and got out of the car. He was wearing a light sports jacket and gray slacks and his shoulder holster made a little bulge under his right armpit. A southpaw, I thought. “Good morning, Sergeant,” I said. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?”
“Good morning, Miss Warshawski. Mind if I come up with you and ask you a few questions?”
“I don’t know,” I answered. “It depends on the questions. Bobby send you?”
“Yes. We got a couple of inquiries in and he thought I’d better come over to see if you’re all right-that’s quite a shiner you’ve picked up.”
“Yes, it is,” I agreed. I held
the door to the building open for him and followed him in. “How long have you been here?”
“I stopped by last night, but you weren’t home. I called a couple of times. When I stopped by this morning I just thought I’d wait until noon to see if you showed up. Lieutenant Mallory was afraid the captain would order an APB on you if I reported you missing.”
“I see. I’m glad I decided to come home.”
We got to the top of the stairs. McGonnigal stopped. “You usually leave your door open?”
“Never.” I moved past him. The door was cracked open, hanging a bit drunkenly. Someone had shot out the locks to get in-they don’t respond to forcing. McGonnigal pulled out his gun, slammed the door open, and rolled into the room. I drew back against the hall wall, then followed him in.
My apartment was a mess. Someone had gone berserk in it. The sofa cushions had been cut open, pictures thrown on the floor, books opened and dropped so that they lay with open spines and crumpling pages. We walked through the apartment. My clothes were scattered around the bedroom, drawers dumped out. In the kitchen all the flour and sugar had been emptied onto the floor, while pans and plates were everywhere, some of them chipped from reckless handling. In the dining room the red Venetian glasses were lying crazily on the table. Two had fallen off. One rested safely on the carpet, but the other had shattered on the wood floor. I picked up the seven whole ones and stood them in the breakfront and sat to pick up the pieces of the other. My hands were shaking and I couldn’t handle the tiny shards.
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