Indemnity Only

by Sara Paretsky

  In my neighborhood a noisy crowd would have gathered to gape over the sight. This being the North Shore, a crowd had gathered, but a smaller and quieter one than Halsted and Belmont would have attracted. They were being held at bay by a lean young policeman with a mustache.

  “Gee, they really got Mr. Thayer’s car,” I said to the young man, strolling over.

  When disaster strikes, the police like to keep all the news to themselves. They never tell you what happened, and they never answer leading questions. Winnetka’s finest were no exception. “What do you want?” the young man said suspiciously.

  I was about to tell him the candid truth when it occurred to me that it would never get me past the herd in the driveway. “My name is V. I. Warshawski,” I said, smiling in what I hoped was a saintly way. “I used to be Miss Jill Thayer’s governess. When all the trouble started this morning, she called me and asked me to come out to be with her.”

  The young cop frowned. “Do you have any identification?” he demanded.

  “Certainly,” I said righteously. I wondered what use a driver’s license would be in proving my story, but I obligingly dug it out and handed it to him.

  “All right,” he said after studying it long enough to memorize the number, “you can talk to the sergeant.”

  He left his post long enough to walk me to the gate. “Sarge!” he yelled. One of the men by the door looked up. “This is the Thayer girl’s governess!” he called, cupping his hands.

  “Thank you, Officer,” I said, imitating Miss Jean Brodie’s manner. I walked up the drive to the doorway and repeated my story to the sergeant.

  He frowned in turn. “We didn’t have any word about a governess showing up. I’m afraid no one is allowed in right now. You’re not with a newspaper, are you?”

  “Certainly not!” I snapped. “Look, Sergeant,” I said, smiling a bit to show I could be conciliatory, “how about just asking Miss Thayer to come to the door. She can tell you if she wants me here or not. If she doesn’t, I can leave again. But since she did ask for me, she’s likely to be upset if I’m not allowed inside.”

  The upsetness of a Thayer, even one as young as Jill, seemed to concern the sergeant. I was afraid he might ring for Lucy, but instead he asked one of his men to fetch Miss Thayer.

  Minutes went by without her appearance, and I began to wonder whether Lucy had seen me after all and set the police straight on my governess story. Eventually Jill arrived, however. Her oval face was pinched and anxious and her brown hair had not been brushed. Her face cleared a little when she saw me. “Oh, it’s you!” she said. “They told me my governess was here and I thought it was old Mrs. Wilkens.”

  “Isn’t this your governess?” the patrolman demanded.

  Jill gave me an anguished look. I moved into the house. “Just tell the man you sent for me,” I said.

  “Oh, yes, yes, I did. I called Miss Warshawski an hour ago and begged her to come up here.”

  The patrolman was looking at me suspiciously, but I was in the house and one of the powerful Thayers wanted me to be there. He compromised by having me spell out my name, letter by laborious letter, for his notebook. Jill tugged on my arm while I was doing this, and as soon as we were through spelling, before he could ask more questions, I gave her a little pat and propelled her toward the hall. She led me to a little room near the big green statue and shut the door.

  “Did you say you were my governess?” She was still trying to figure that one out.

  “I was afraid they wouldn’t let me inside if I told them the truth,” I explained. “Police don’t like private detectives on their turf. Now suppose you tell me what’s going on.”

  The bleak look reappeared. She screwed up her face. “Did you see the car outside?” I nodded. “My father-that was him, they shot him.”

  “Did you see them do it?” I asked.

  She shook her head and wiped her hand across her nose and forehead. Tears were suddenly streaming down her face. “I heard them,” she wailed.

  The little room had a settee and a table with some magazines on it. Two heavy-armed chairs stood on either side of a window overlooking the south lawn. I pulled them up to the table and sat Jill in one of them. I sat in the other, facing her. “I’m sorry to put you through it, but I’m going to have to ask you to tell me how it happened. Just take your time, though, and don’t mind crying.”

  The story came out in little sobs. “My dad always leaves-leaves for work between seven and seven thirty,” she said. “Sometimes he goes earlier. If something special-special is-going on at the bank. I’m usually asleep when he goes. Lucy makes-made him breakfast, then I get up and she makes another breakfast. Mother has toast and coffee in her room. She’s-she’s always on a-a diet.”

  I nodded to explain not only that I understood these details but why she was reporting them. “But today you weren’t asleep.”

  “No,” she agreed. “All this stuff about Pete-his funeral was yesterday, you know, and it shook me up so I couldn’t-couldn’t sleep very well.” She’d stopped crying and was trying to control her voice. “I heard Daddy get up, but I didn’t go down to eat with him. He’d been so strange, you know, and I didn’t want to hear him say anything terrible about Pete.” Suddenly she was sobbing, “I wouldn’t eat with him, and now he’s dead, and now I’ll never have another chance.” The words came out in great heaving bursts between sobs; she kept repeating them.

  I took her hands. “Yes, I know, it’s tough, Jill. But you didn’t kill him by not eating with him, you know.” I patted her hands but didn’t say anything else for a while. Finally, though, as the sobs quieted a bit, I said, “Tell me what did happen, honey, and then we can try to figure out an answer to it.”

  She worked hard to pull herself together, and then said, “There’s not much else to tell. My bedroom is above here and I can see the side of the house. I sort of-of wandered to the window and watched him-watched him drive his car down to the road.” She stopped to swallow but she had herself in hand. “You can’t see the road because of all the bushes in front of it, and anyway, you can’t see all the way down to the bottom from my room, but I knew from the sound that he’d gotten down and turned onto Sheridan.” I nodded encouragingly, still holding her hands tightly. “Well, I was sort of going back to my bed, I thought I might get dressed, when I heard all these shots. Only I didn’t know-know what they were.” She carefully wiped two new tears away. “It sounded horrid. I heard glass shattering, and then this squeal, you know, the way a car sounds when it’s turning a corner too fast or something, and I thought, maybe Daddy had an accident. You know, he was acting so crazy, he could have gone charging down Sheridan Road and hit someone.

  “So I ran downstairs without taking off my nightgown and Lucy came running from the back of the house. She was yelling something, and trying to get me to go back upstairs and get some clothes on, but I went outside anyway and ran down to the drive and found the car.” She screwed up her face, shutting her eyes, and fought against her tears again. “It was terrible. Daddy-Daddy was bleeding and lying all spread out on the steering wheel.” She shook her head. “I still thought he’d been in an accident, but I couldn’t see the other car. I thought maybe they’d driven off, you know, the ones with the squealing tires, but Lucy seemed to guess about the shooting. Anyway, she kept me from going over to the car-I didn’t have any shoes on, and by then a whole lot of cars had stopped to stare at it and she-Lucy-made one of them call the police on his CB. She wanted me to come back to the house but I wouldn’t, not until the police came.” She sniffed. “I didn’t like to leave him there all by himself, you know.”

  “Yeah, sure, honey. You did real well. Did your mother come out?”

  “No, we went back to the house when the police came, and I came upstairs to get dressed and then I remembered you and called you. But you know when I hung up?” I nodded. “Well, Lucy went to wake up Mother and tell her, and she-she started crying and made Lucy get me, and she came in just then so
I had to hangup.”

  “So you didn’t get a glimpse of the people who killed your dad?” She shook her head. “Do the police believe he was in the car you heard taking off?”

  “Yes, it’s something to do with shells. I think there weren’t any shells or something, so they think they must be in the car.”

  I nodded. “That makes sense. Now for the big question, Jill: Did you want me to come out for comfort and support-which I’m happy to provide-or to take some kind of action?”

  She stared at me through gray eyes that had seen and heard too much for her age lately. “What can you do?” she asked.

  “You can hire me to find out who killed your dad and your brother,” I said matter-of-factly.

  “I don’t have any money, only my allowance. When I’m twenty-one I get some of my trust money, but I’m only fourteen now.”

  I laughed. “Not to worry. If you want to hire me, give me a dollar and I’ll give you a receipt, and that will mean you’ve hired me. You’ll have to talk to your mother about it, though.”

  “My money’s upstairs,” she said, getting up. “Do you think the same person killed Daddy who killed Pete?”

  “It seems probable, although I don’t really have any facts to go on.”

  “Do you think it’s someone who might-well, is someone trying to wipe out my family?”

  I considered that. It wasn’t completely out of the question, but it was an awfully dramatic way to do it, and rather slow. “I doubt it,” I said finally. “Not completely impossible-but if they wanted to do that, why not just get you all when you were in the car together yesterday?”

  “I’ll go get my money,” Jill said, going to the door. She opened it and Lucy appeared, crossing the hall. “So that’s where you are,” she said sharply. “How can you disappear like that and your mother wanting you?” She looked into the room. “Now don’t tell me that detective woman got in here! Come on, you,” she said to me. “Out you go! We’ve got trouble enough around here without you stirring it up.”

  “If you please, Lucy,” Jill said in a very grown-up way, “Miss Warshawski came up here because I invited her, and she will leave when I ask her to.”

  “Well, your mother will have something to say about that,” Lucy snapped.

  “I’ll talk to her myself,” Jill snapped back. “Can you wait here, please, while I get my money,” she added to me, “and then would you mind coming to see my mother with me? I don’t think I can explain it to her by myself.”

  “Not at all,” I said politely, giving her an encouraging smile.

  After Jill had gone, Lucy said, “All I can say is that Mr. Thayer didn’t want you here, and what he would say if he could see you-”

  “Well, we both know he can’t,” I interrupted. “However, if he had been able to explain-to me or to anyone else-what was on his mind, he would very likely be alive this morning.

  “Look. I like Jill and I’d like to help her out. She called me this morning not because she has the faintest idea of what I can do for her as a private detective, but because she feels I’m supporting her. Don’t you think she gets left out around here?”

  Lucy looked at me sourly. “Maybe so, Miss Detective, maybe so. But if Jill had any consideration for her mother, maybe she’d get a little consideration back.”

  “I see,” I said dryly. Jill came back downstairs.

  “Your mother is waiting for you,” Lucy reminded her sharply.

  “I know!” Jill yelled. “I’m coming.” She handed me a dollar, and I gravely wrote out a receipt on a scrap of paper from my handbag. Lucy watched the whole thing angrily, her lips shut in a thin line. We then retraced the route I’d taken Saturday through the long hall. We passed the library door and went clear to the back of the house.

  Lucy opened the door to a room on the left, saying, “Here she is, Mrs. Thayer. She’s got some terrible detective with her who’s trying to take money from her. Mr. Thayer threw her out of the house on Saturday, but now she’s back.”

  A patrolman standing beside the door gave me a startled look.

  “Lucy!” Jill stormed. “That’s a lie.” She pushed her way past the disapproving figure into the room. I stood behind Lucy, looking over her shoulder. It was a delightful room, completely windows on three sides. It overlooked the lake out the east side, and a beautiful lawn, complete with a grass tennis court, on the north. It was furnished with white bamboo furniture with cheerful color accents in reds and yellows in the cushions, lamp bases, and floor covering. A profusion of plants gave it a greenhouse effect.

  In the middle of this charming setting was Mrs. Thayer. Even with no makeup and a few tearstains, she was very handsome, easily recognizable as the original of the picture in yesterday’s Herald-Star. A very pretty young woman, an older edition of Jill, sat solicitously on one side of her, and a handsome young man in a polo shirt and checked trousers sat across from her, looking a little ill-at-ease.

  “Please, Jill, I don’t understand a word you or Lucy are saying, but don’t shout, darling, my nerves absolutely won’t stand it.”

  I moved past Lucy into the room and went over to Mrs. Thayer’s couch. “Mrs. Thayer, I’m very sorry about your husband and your son,” I said. “My name is V. I. Warshawski. I’m a private detective. Your daughter asked me to come up here this morning to see if I could help out.”

  The young man answered, sticking his jaw out. “I’m Mrs. Thayer’s son-in-law, and I think I can safely say that if my father-in-law threw you out of the house on Saturday, that you’re probably not wanted here.”

  “Jill, did you call her?” the young woman asked, shocked.

  “Yes, I did,” Jill answered, setting her jaw mulishly. “And you can’t throw her out, Jack: it’s not your house. I asked her to come up, and I’ve hired her to find out who killed Daddy and Pete. She thinks the same person did it both times.”

  “Really, Jill,” the other woman said, “I think we can leave this to the police without upsetting Mother by bringing in hired detectives.”

  “Just what I tried telling her, Mrs. Thorndale, but of course she wouldn’t listen.” That was Lucy, triumphant.

  Jill’s face was screwed up again, as if she were going to cry. “Take it easy, honey,” I said. “Let’s not get everyone more worked up than they are already. Why don’t you tell me who’s who?”

  “Sorry,” she gulped. “This is my mother, my sister, Susan Thorndale, and her husband, Jack. And Jack thinks because he can boss Susan around he can do that to me, but-”

  “Steady, Jill,” I said, putting a hand on her shoulder.

  Susan’s face was pink. “Jill, if you hadn’t been spoiled rotten all these years you would show a little respect to someone like Jack who has a lot more experience than you do. Do you have any idea what people are going to be saying about Daddy, the way he was killed and all? Why, why it looks like a gang killing, and it makes Daddy look as if he was involved with the gang.” Her voice rose to a high pitch on the last sentence.

  “Mob,” I said. Susan looked at me blankly. “It looks like a mob killing. Some gangs may go in for that style of execution, but usually they don’t have the resources.”

  “Now look here,” Jack said angrily. “We’ve already asked you to leave. Why don’t you go, instead of showing off your smart mouth! Like Susan said, it’s going to be hard enough explaining away the way Mr. Thayer died, without having to explain why we got a private detective involved as well.”

  “Is that all you care about?” Jill cried. “What people will say? With Pete dead, and Daddy dead?”

  “No one is sorrier than me that Peter was shot,” Jack said, “but if he had done what your father wanted and lived in a proper apartment, instead of that slummy dump with that slut of a girl, he would never have been shot in the first place.”

  “Oh!” Jill screamed. “How can you talk about Peter that way! He was trying to do something warm and real instead of-You’re such a fake. All you and Susan care about is how much money y
ou make and what the neighbors will say! I hate you!” She ended on another flood of tears and flung herself into my arms. I gave her a hug and wrapped my right arm around her while I fished in my bag for some tissues with the left.

  “Jill,” her mother said in a soft, complaining voice, “Jill, honey, please don’t shout like that in here. My nerves just absolutely cannot take it. I’m just as sorry as you are that Petey is dead, but Jack is right, honey: if he’d listened to your father all this wouldn’t have happened, and your father wouldn’t be-be…” Her voice broke off and she started weeping quietly.

  Susan put an arm around her mother and patted her shoulder. “Now, see what you’ve done,” she said venomously, whether to me or to her sister I wasn’t sure.

  “Now you’ve caused enough disturbance, you polack detective, whatever your name is,” Lucy began.

  “Don’t you dare talk to her like that,” Jill cried, her voice partly muffled by my shoulder. “Her name is Miss Warshawski, and you should call her Miss Warshawski!”

  “Well, Mother Thayer,” Jack said with a rueful laugh, “sorry to drag you into this, but since Jill won’t listen to her sister or me, will you tell her that she has to get this woman out of the house?”

  “Oh, please, Jack,” his mother-in-law said, leaning on Susan. She stretched out a hand to him without looking at him, and I was interested to note that her eyes didn’t turn red with crying. “I just don’t have the strength to deal with Jill in one of her moods.” However, she pulled herself into a sitting position, still holding on to Jack’s hand, and looked at Jill earnestly. “Jill, I just cannot stand for you to have one of your temper tantrums right now. You and Peter never listen to what anyone has to say to you. If Petey had, he wouldn’t be dead now. With Petey dead, and John, I just can’t take anything else. So don’t talk to this private detective any longer. She’s taking advantage of you to get her name in the paper, and I can’t bear another scandal about this family.”