Indemnity Only

by Sara Paretsky

  Before I could say anything, Jill tore herself away from me, her little face crimson. “Don’t talk like that to me!” she screamed. “I care about Pete and Daddy and you don’t! You’re the one who’s bringing scandals into the house. Everybody knows you didn’t love Daddy! Everybody knows what you and Dr. Mulgrave were up to! Daddy was probably-”

  Susan leaped up from the couch and slapped her sister hard on the face. “You goddamn brat, be quiet!” Mrs. Thayer started weeping in earnest. Jill, overcome by assorted strong and uncontrollable feelings, began sobbing again.

  At that moment a worried-looking man in a business suit came into the room, escorted by one of the patrolmen. He crossed to Mrs. Thayer and clasped her hands. “Margaret! I came as soon as I heard the news. How are you? ”

  Susan blushed. Jill’s sobs died away. Jack looked as though he had been stuffed. Mrs. Thayer turned large tragic eyes to the newcomer’s face. “Ted. How kind of you,” she said in a brave voice, barely above a whisper.

  “Dr. Mulgrave, I presume,” I said.

  He dropped Mrs. Thayer’s wrists and stood up straight. “Yes, I’m Dr. Mulgrave.” He looked at Jack. “Is this a policewoman?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m a private investigator. Miss Thayer has hired me to find out who killed her father and brother.”

  “Margaret?” he asked incredulously.

  “No. Miss Thayer. Jill,” I said.

  Jack said, “Mrs. Thayer just ordered you to leave her house and leave her daughter alone. I’d think even an ambulance chaser like you would know how to take a hint like that.”

  “Oh, cool it, Thorndale,” I said. “What’s eating you? Jill asked me to come up here because she’s scared silly-as any normal person would be with all this going on. But you guys are so defensive you make me wonder what you’re hiding.”

  “What do you mean?” he scowled.

  “Well, why don’t you want me looking into your father-in-law’s death? What are you afraid I’ll find out-that he and Peter caught you with your fingers in the till and you had them shot to shut them up?”

  I ignored his outraged gasp. “What about you, Doctor? Did Mr. Thayer learn about your relations with his wife and threaten divorce-but you decided a wealthy widow was a better bet than a woman who couldn’t make a very good case for alimony?”

  “Now look here, whatever your name is. I don’t have to listen to that kind of crap,” Mulgrave started.

  “Then leave,” I said. “Maybe Lucy is using this house as a center for burglarizing wealthy homes on the North Shore-after all, as a maid, she probably hears a lot about where jewelry, documents, and so on are kept. When Mr. Thayer and his son got too hot on her trail, she hired a murderer.” I smiled enthusiastically at Susan, who was starting to babble-I was getting carried away by my own fantasies. “I could probably think of a motive for you too, Mrs. Thorn-dale. All I’m trying to say is, you people are so hostile that it starts me wondering. The less you want me to undertake a murder investigation, the more I start thinking there might be something to my ideas.”

  When I stopped talking, they were silent for a minute. Mulgrave was clasping Mrs. Thayer’s hands again, sitting next to her now. Susan looked like a kitten getting ready to spit at a dog. My client was sitting on one of the bamboo side chairs, her hands clenched in her lap, her face intent. Then Mulgrave said, “Are you trying to threaten us-threaten the Thayer family?”

  “If you mean, am I threatening to find out the truth, the answer is yes; if that means turning up a lot of sordid junk along the way, tough.”

  “Just a minute, Ted,” Jack said, waving an arm at the older man. “I know how to deal with her.” He nodded at me. “Come on, name your price,” he said, pulling out his checkbook.

  My fingers itched to bring out the Smith & Wesson and pistol-whip him. “Grow up, Thorndale,” I snapped. “There are things in this life that money can’t buy. Regardless of what you, or your mother-in-law, or the mayor of Winnetka says, I am investigating this murder-these murders.” I laughed a little, mirthlessly. “Two days ago, John Thayer tried to give me $5,000 to buy me out of this case. You guys up here on the North Shore live in some kind of dream world. You think you can buy a cover-up for anything that goes wrong in your lives, just like you hire the garbagemen to take away your filth, or Lucy here to clean it up and carry it outside for you. It doesn’t work that way. John Thayer is dead. He couldn’t pay enough to get whatever filth he was involved in away from him, nor away from his son. Now whatever it was that caused their deaths isn’t private anymore. It doesn’t belong to you. Anyone who wants it can find out about it. I intend to.”

  Mrs. Thayer was moaning softly. Jack looked uncomfortable. With an effort to save his dignity he said, “Naturally, if you choose to poke around in something that’s none of your business we can’t stop you. It’s just that we think matters are better off left to the police.”

  “Yeah, well, they’re not batting a thousand right now,” I said. “They thought they had a guy behind bars for the crime, but while he was eating his prison breakfast this morning John Thayer got killed.”

  Susan turned to Jill. “This is all your fault! You brought this person up here. Now We’ve been insulted and embarrassed-I’ve never been more ashamed in my life. Daddy’s been killed and all you can think about is bringing in some outsider to call us names.”

  Mulgrave turned back to Mrs. Thayer, and Jack and Susan both started talking to him at once. While this was going on, I walked over to Jill and knelt down to look her in the face. She was looking as though she might collapse or go into shock. “Look, I think you need to get away from all this. Is there any friend or relative you can visit until the worst of the fuss is over?”

  She thought for a minute, then shook her head. “Not really. I’ve got lots of friends, you know, but I don’t think any of their mothers would like having me around right now.” She gave a wobbly smile. “The scandal, you know, like Jack said. I wish Anita were here.”

  I hesitated a minute. “Would you like to come back to Chicago with me? My apartment’s been torn up, and I’m staying with a friend, but she’ll be glad to have you, too, for a few days.” Lotty would never mind another stray. I needed Jill where I could ask her some questions, and I wanted her away from her family. She was tough and could fight back, but she didn’t need to do that kind of fighting on top of the shock of her father’s death.

  Her face lightened. “Do you really mean that?”

  I nodded. “Why don’t you run upstairs now and pack an overnight bag while everyone is still arguing here.”

  When she had left the room, I explained what I was doing to Mrs. Thayer. This, predictably, started a fresh uproar from the family. Finally, though, Mulgrave said, “It’s important that Margaret-Mrs. Thayer-be kept absolutely quiet. If Jill really is worrying her, perhaps it would be better if she did leave for a few days. I can make some inquiries about this person, and if she’s not reliable, we can always bring Jill back home.”

  Mrs. Thayer gave a martyred smile. “Thank you, Ted. If you say it’s all right, I’m sure it will be. As long as you live in a safe neighborhood, Miss-”

  “Warshawski,” I said dryly. “Well, no one’s been machine-gunned there this week.”

  Mulgrave and Jack decided I ought to give them some references to call. I saw that as a face-saving effort and gave them the name of one of my old law professors. He would be startled but supportive if he got an inquiry into my character.

  When Jill came back, she’d brushed her hair and washed her face. She went over to her mother, who was still sitting on the couch. “I’m sorry, Mother,” she muttered. “I didn’t mean to be rude to you.”

  Mrs. Thayer smiled wanly. “It’s all right, dear. I don’t expect you to understand how I feel.” She looked at me. “Take good care of her for me.”

  “Sure,” I answered.

  “I don’t want any trouble,” Jack warned me.

  “I’ll keep that in mind, Mr. Thorndale.
” I picked up Jill’s suitcase and she followed me out the door.

  She stopped in the doorway to look at her family. “Well, good-bye,” she said. They all looked at her but no one said anything.

  When we got to the front door, I explained to the sergeant that Miss Thayer was coming home with me for a few days to get a little rest and attention; had the police taken all the statements they needed from her? After some talk with his lieutenant over the walkie-talkie, he agreed that she could leave, as long as I gave him my address. I gave it to him and we walked down the drive.

  Jill didn’t say anything on the way over to the Edens. She looked straight ahead and didn’t pay much attention to the countryside. As we joined the stop-and-go traffic on the southbound Kennedy, though, she turned to look at me. “Do you think I was wrong, leaving my mother like that?”

  I braked to let a fifty-ton semi merge in front of me. “Well, Jill, it seemed to me that everyone there was trying to play on your guilt feelings. Now you’re feeling guilty, so maybe they got what they wanted out of you.”

  She digested that for a few minutes. “Is that a scandal, the way my father was killed?”

  “People are probably talking about it, and that will make Jack and Susan very uncomfortable. The real question, though, is why he was killed-and even the answer to that question doesn’t have to be a scandal to you.” I threaded my way around a Herald-Star delivery van. “Thing is, you have to have your own sense of what’s right built inside you. If your father ran afoul of the type of people who do machine-gun-style executions, it may be because they tried to violate his sense of what’s right. No scandal to that. And even if he happened to be involved in some kind of shady activity, it doesn’t have to affect you unless you want it to.” I changed lanes. “I don’t believe in the visitation of the sins of the fathers, and I don’t believe in people brooding over vengeance for twenty years.”

  Jill turned a puzzled face toward me. “Oh, it can happen. It’s just that you’ve got to want to make it happen. Like your mother-unhappy woman-right?” Jill nodded. “And probably unhappy because of things that happened thirty years ago. That’s her choice. You’ve got the same choice. Suppose your father did something criminal and we find that out? It’s going to be rough, but it only has to be a scandal and make your life miserable if you let it. Lots of things in this life happen to you no matter what you do, or through no fault of your own-like your father and brother getting killed. But how you make those events part of your life is under your control. You can get bitter, although I don’t think you have that kind of character, or you can learn and grow from it.”

  I realized that I’d passed the Addison exit and turned onto the Belmont off-ramp. “Sorry-that answer turned into a sermon, and I got so carried away I missed my exit. Does it help any?”

  Jill nodded and was quiet again as I drove north along Pulaski and then turned east on Addison. “It’s lonely now, with Peter gone,” she said finally. “He was the only one in the family who-who cared about me.”

  “Yeah, it’s going to be rough, sweetie,” I said gently, and squeezed her hand.

  “Thank you for coming up, Miss Warshawski,” she whispered.

  I had to lean over to hear her. “My friends call me Vic,” I said.

  11

  Friendly Persuasion

  I stopped at the clinic before going to the apartment to let Lotty know I’d made free with her hospitality and to see if she thought Jill needed anything for shock. A small group of women, most of them with younger children, were waiting in the little anteroom. Jill looked around her curiously. I poked my head into the inner door, where Lotty’s nurse, a young Puerto Rican woman, saw me. “Hello, Vic,” she said. “Lotty’s with a patient. Do you need something?”

  “Hi, Carol. Tell her that I’d like to bring my young friend back to her apartment-the one I went out this morning to see. She’ll know whom you mean. And ask her if she can take a quick look at her-healthy kid, but she’s had a lot of stress lately.”

  Carol went into the tiny examining room where she spoke for a few minutes. “Bring her into the office. Lotty will take a quick look at her after Mrs. Segi has left. And of course, take her to the apartment.”

  I took Jill into Lotty’s office, among disapproving frowns from those who had been waiting longer. While we waited, I told her a little bit about Lotty, Austrian war refugee, brilliant London University medical student, maverick doctor, warm friend. Lotty herself came bustling in.

  “So, this is Miss Thayer,” she said briskly. “Vic has brought you down for a little rest? That’s good.” She lifted Jill’s chin with her hand, looked at her pupils, made her do some simple tests, talking all the while.

  “What was the trouble?” she asked.

  “Her father was shot,” I explained.

  Lotty clicked her tongue and shook her head, then turned to Jill. “Now, open your mouth. No, I know you haven’t got a sore throat, but it’s free, I’m a doctor, and I have to look. Good. Nothing wrong with you, but you need some rest and something to eat. Vic, when you get her home, a little brandy. Don’t talk too much, let her get some rest. Are you going out? ”

  “Yes, I’ve got a lot to do.”

  She pursed her lips and thought a minute. “I’ll send Carol over in about an hour. She can stay with Jill until one of us gets home.”

  At that moment I realized how much I liked Lotty. I’d been a little uneasy about leaving Jill alone, in case Earl was close on my trail. Whether Lotty knew that, or simply felt a scared young girl should not be left alone, it was a worry I now did not have to speak aloud.

  “Great. I’ll wait until she gets there.”

  We left the clinic among more baleful stares while Carol summoned the next patient. “She’s nice, isn’t she? ” Jill said as we got into the car. “Lotty or Carol?”

  “Both, but Lotty, I meant. She really doesn’t mind me showing up like this, does she?”

  “No,” I agreed. “All of Lotty’s instincts are directed at helping people. She’s just not sentimental about it.”

  When we got back to the apartment, I made Jill stay in the car while I checked the street and the entranceway. I didn’t want to add to her fears, but I didn’t want anyone getting a shot at her, either. The coast was still clear. Maybe Earl really did believe he’d scared me off. Or maybe with the police arresting poor Donald Mackenzie, he was resting easy.

  When we got inside, I told Jill to take a hot bath. I was going to prepare some breakfast, and I would have to ask her a few questions, but then she was to sleep. “I can tell by your eyes that you haven’t been doing that for a while,” I said.

  Jill agreed shyly. I helped her unpack her small suitcase in the room I’d been sleeping in; I could sleep on the daybed in the living room. I got out one of Lotty’s enormous white bath sheets and showed her the bathroom.

  I realized that I was quite hungry; it was ten and I hadn’t eaten the toast Lotty had thrust at me. I foraged in the refrigerator: no juice-Lotty never drank anything out of cans. I found a drawer full of oranges and squeezed a small pitcher of juice, and then took some of Lotty’s thick light Viennese bread and turned it into French toast, whistling under my breath. I realized I felt good, despite Thayer’s death and all the unexplained dangling pieces to the case. Some instinct told me that things were finally starting to happen.

  When Jill emerged pink and sleepy from the bath, I set her to eating, holding my questions and telling her a little bit about myself in answer to her inquiries. She wanted to know if I always caught the killer.

  “This is the first time I’ve ever really dealt directly with a killer,” I answered. “But generally, yes, I do get to the root of the problems I’m asked to look into.”

  “Are you scared?” Jill asked. “I mean, you’ve been beaten up and your apartment got torn up, and they-they shot Daddy and Pete.”

  “Yes, of course I’m scared,” I said calmly. “Only a fool would look at a mess like this and not be. It’s just
that it doesn’t panic me-it makes me careful, being scared does, but it doesn’t override my judgment.

  “Now, I want you to tell me everything you can remember about whom your father talked to in the last few days, and what they said. We’ll go sit on the bed, and you’ll drink some hot milk with brandy as Lotty ordered, so that when I’m done you’ll go to sleep.”

  She followed me into the bedroom and got into bed, obediently sipping at the milk. I had put in brown sugar and nutmeg and laced it heavily. She made a face but continued sipping it while we talked.

  “When I came out on Saturday, you said your father at first didn’t believe this Mackenzie they’ve arrested killed your brother, but the neighbors talked him out of it. What neighbors?”

  “Well, a lot of people came by, and they all more or less said the same thing. Do you want all their names?”

  “If you can remember them and remember what they said.”

  We went through a list of about a dozen people, which included Yardley Masters and his wife, the only name I recognized. I got some long histories of relations among the families, and Jill contorted her face in the effort of trying to remember exactly what they’d all said.

  “You said they ‘all more or less said the same thing,’ “ I repeated after a while. “Was anyone more emphatic about it than the others?”

  She nodded at that. “Mr. Masters. Daddy kept raving that he was sure that Anita’s father had done it, and Mr. Masters said something like, ‘Look, John, you don’t want to keep going around saying things like that. A lot of things could come out that you don’t want to hear.’ Then Daddy got mad and started yelling, ‘What do you mean? Are you threatening me?’ And Mr. Masters said, ‘No, of course not, John. We’re friends. Just giving you some advise,’ or something like that.”

  “I see,” I said. Very illuminating. “Was that all?”