Indemnity Only

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.

“Don’t touch anything else, Miss Warshawski.” McGonnigal’s voice was kind. “I’m going to call Lieutenant Mallory and get some fingerprint experts over here. They probably won’t find anything, but We’ve got to try. In the meantime, I’m afraid you’ll have to leave things the way they are.”

I nodded. “The phone is next to the couch-what used to be the couch,” I said, not looking up. Jesus, what next? Who the hell had been in here, and why? It just couldn’t be a random burglar. A pro might take the place apart looking for valuables-but rip up the couch? Dump china onto the floor? My mother had carried those glasses from Italy in a suitcase and not a one had broken. Nineteen years married to a cop on the South Side of Chicago and not a one had broken. If I had become a singer, as she had wanted, this would never have happened. I sighed. My hands were calmer, so I picked up the little shards and put them in a dish on the table.

“Please don’t touch anything,” McGonnigal said again, from the doorway.

“Goddamnit, McGonnigal, shut up!” I snapped. “Even if you do find a fingerprint in here that doesn’t belong to me or one of my friends, you think they’re going to go all over these splinters of glass? And I’ll bet you dinner at the Savoy that whoever came through here wore gloves and you won’t find a damned thing, anyway.” I stood up. “I’d like to know what you were doing when the tornado came through-sitting out front reading your newspaper? Did you think the noise came from someone’s television? Who came in and out of the building while you were here?”

He flushed. Mallory was going to ask him the same question. If he hadn’t bothered to find out, he was in hot water.

“I don’t think this was done while I was here, but I’ll go ask your downstairs neighbors if they heard any noise. I know it must be very upsetting to come home and find your apartment destroyed, but please, Miss Warshawski-if we’re going to have a prayer of finding these guys We’ve got to fingerprint the place.”

“Okay, okay,” I said. He went out to check downstairs. I went to the bedroom. My canvas suitcase was lying open but fortunately had not been cut. I didn’t think canvas would take fingerprints, so I put it on the dismantled box springs and packed, going through the array of clothes and lingerie on the floor. I put the wrapped box from Riley’s in, too, and then called Lotty on the bedside phone.

“Lotty, I can’t talk right now, but my apartment has been ravaged. Can I come and stay a few nights?”

“Naturally, Vic. Do you need me to come get you?”

“No, I’m okay. I’ll be over in a while-I need to talk to the police first.”

We hung up and I took the suitcase down to the car. McGonnigal was in the second-floor apartment; the door was half open and he was talking, with his back to the hallway. I put the suitcase in my trunk and was just unlocking the outer door to go back upstairs when Mallory came squealing up to the curb with a couple of squad cars hot behind him. They double-parked, lights flashing, and a group of kids gathered at the end of the street, staring. Police like to create public drama-no other need for all that show.

“Hello, Bobby,” I said as cheerily as I could manage.

“What the hell is going on here, Vicki?” Bobby asked, so angry that he forgot his cardinal rule against swearing in front of women and children.

“Not nice, whatever it is: someone tore my place up. They smashed one of Gabriella’s glasses.”

Mallory had been charging up the stairs, about to muscle me aside, but that stopped him-he’d drunk too many New Year’s toasts out of those glasses. “Christ, Vicki, I’m sorry, but what the hell were you doing poking your nose into this business anyway?”

“Why don’t you send your boys upstairs and we’ll sit here and talk. There’s no place to sit down up there and frankly, I can’t stand to look at it.”

He thought about it for a minute. “Yeah, why don’t we go sit in my car, and you answer a few questions. Finchley!” he bellowed. A young black cop stepped forward. “Take the crew upstairs and fingerprint the place and search it if you can for any clues.” He turned to me. “Anything valuable that might be missing?”

I shrugged. “Who knows what’s valuable to a ransacker. A couple of good pieces of jewelry-my mother’s; I never wear them, too old-fashioned-a single diamond pendant set in a white gold filigree with matching earrings. A couple of rings. There’s a little silver flatware. I don’t know-a turntable. I haven’t looked for anything-just looked and looked away.”

“Yeah, okay,” Bobby said. “Go on.” He waved a hand and the four uniformed men started up the stairs. “And send McGonnigal down to me,” he called after them.

We went to Bobby’s car and sat together in the front seat. His full, red face was set-angry, but not, I thought, with me. “I told you on Thursday to butt out of the Thayer case.”

“I heard the police made an arrest yesterday-Donald Mackenzie. Is there still a Thayer case?”

Bobby ignored that. “What happened to your face?”

“I ran into a door.”

“Don’t clown, Vicki. You know why I sent McGonnigal over to talk to you?”

“I give up. He fell in love with me and you were giving him an excuse to come by and see me?”

“I can’t deal with you this morning!” Bobby yelled, top volume. “A kid is dead, your place is a wreck, your face looks like hell, and all you can think of is getting my goat. Goddamnit, talk to me straight and pay attention to what I say.”

“Okay, okay,” I said pacifically. “I give up: why did you send the sergeant over to see me?”

Bobby breathed heavily for a few minutes. He nodded, as if to affirm that he’d recovered his self-control. “Because John Thayer told me last night that you’d been beaten up and you didn’t believe that Mackenzie had committed the crime.”

“Thayer,” I echoed, incredulous. “I talked to him yesterday and he threw me out of his house because I wouldn’t accept his word that Mackenzie was the murderer. Now why’s he turning around telling you that? How’d you come to be talking to him, anyway?”

Bobby smiled sourly. “We had to go out to Winnetka to ask a few last questions. When it’s the Thayer family, we wait on their convenience, and that was when it was convenient… He believes it was Mackenzie but he wants to be sure. Now tell me about your face.”

“There’s nothing to tell. It looks worse than it is-you know how it is with black eyes.”

Bobby drummed on the steering wheel in exaggerated patience. “Vicki, after I talked to Thayer, I had McGonnigal go through our reports to see if anyone had turned in anything on a battered woman. And we found a cabbie had stopped at the Town Hall Station and mentioned picking up a woman at Astor and the Drive and dropping her at your address. Quite a coincidence, huh? The guy was worried because you looked in pretty bad shape, but there wasn’t anything anyone could do about it-you weren’t filing a complaint.”

“Right you are,” I said.

Mallory tightened his lips but didn’t lose his temper. “Now, Vicki,” he continued. “McGonnigal wondered what you were doing down at Astor and the Drive looking so bloody. It’s not really a mugger’s spot. And he remembered how Earl Smeissen owns a condo down there on Astor, in from State Street-or Parkway they call it when it gets into the tony part of town. So now we want to know why Earl wanted to beat you up.”

“It’s your story. You’re saying he beat me up, you give me a reason why.”

“He probably had a bellyful of your clowning,” Bobby said, his voice rising again. “For two cents, I’d black your other goddamn eye for you.”

“Is that why you came over, to threaten me?”

“Vicki, I want to know why Earl beat you. The only reason I can think of is that he’s tied to the Thayer boy-maybe had him shot when someone else fingered him.”

“Then you don’t think that Mackenzie is responsible? “ Mallory was silent. “You make the arrest?”

“No,” Mallory said stiffly. I could see this hurt. “Lieutenant Carlson did.”

“Carlson? I don’t know him. Who’s he work for?”

“Captain Vespucci,” Mallory said shortly.

I raised my eyebrows. “Vespucci?” I was beginning to sound like a parrot. Vespucci had been a colleague my father was ashamed to talk about. He’d been implicated in a number of departmental scandals over the years, most of them having to do with police bought off by the mob, or turning the other cheek to mob activities in their territory. There’d never been enough evidence to justify throwing him off the force-but that, too, the rumors said, was because he had the kind of connections that made you keep quiet.

“Carlson and Vespucci pretty close?” I asked.

“Yes,” Bobby bit off.

I thought for a minute. “Did someone-like Earl, say-bring pressure on Vespucci to make an arrest? Is Donald Mackenzie another poor slob caught in a trap because he was wandering around the wrong part of town? Did he leave any prints in the apartment? Can you find the gun? Has he made a confession?”

“No, but he can’t account for his time on Monday. And we’re pretty sure he’s been involved in some Hyde Park burglaries.”

“ But you don’t agree that he’s the killer?”

“As far as the department is concerned, the case is closed. I talked to Mackenzie myself this morning.”

“And?”

“And nothing. My captain says it’s a defensible arrest.”

“Your captain owe anything to Vespucci?” I asked.

Mallory made a violent motion with his torso. “Don’t talk like that to me, Vicki. We’ve got seventy-three unsolved homicides right now. If we wrap one up in a week, the captain has every right to be happy.”

“All right, Bobby.” I sighed. “Sorry. Lieutenant Carlson arrested Mackenzie, and Vespucci told your captain, who told you to lay off, the case was closed… But you want to know why Earl beat me up.” Mallory turned red again. “You can’t have it both ways. If Mackenzie is the killer, why would Smeissen care about me and Peter Thayer? If he beat me up-and I mean if-it could have been for lots of reasons. He might’ve made a heavy pass I turned down. Earl doesn’t like ladies who turn him down, you know-he’s beaten a couple before. First time I ever saw Earl was when I was a starry-eyed rookie attorney on the Public Defender’s roster. I was appearing for a lady whom Earl beat up. Nice young prostitute who didn’t want to work for him. Sorry, I just committed slander: she alleged that Earl beat her up, but we couldn’t make it stick.”

“You’re not going to ask for charges, then,” Mallory said. “Figures. Now tell me about your apartment. I haven’t seen it, but take it as read that it was torn apart-McGonnigal gave me a brief description. Someone was looking for something. What?”

I shook my head. “Beats me. None of my clients has ever given me the secret to the neutron bomb or even a new brand of toothpaste. I just don’t deal with that kind of stuff. And anytime I do have volatile evidence, I leave it in a safe in my office…” My voice trailed off. Why hadn’t I thought of that sooner? If someone had torn the apartment apart looking for something, they were probably down in my office now.

“Give me the address,” Bobby said, I gave it to him and he got on the car radio and ordered a patrol car to go up and check. “Now, Vicki, I want you to be honest with me. This is off the record-no witnesses, no tapes. Tell me what you took out of that apartment that someone, call him Smeissen, wants back so badly.” He looked at me in a kindly, worried, fatherly way. What did I have to lose by telling him about the picture and the pay stub?

“Bobby,” I said earnestly, “I did look around the apartment, but I didn’t see anything that smacked remotely of Earl or any other person in particular. Not only that, the place didn’t look as though anyone else had searched it.”

Sergeant McGonnigal came up to the car. “Hi, Lieutenant-Finchley said you wanted me.”

“Yeah,” Bobby said. “Who came in and out of the building while you were watching it?”

“Just one of the residents, sir.”

“You sure of that?”

“Yes, sir. She lives in the second-floor apartment. I was just talking to her-Mrs. Alvarez-said she heard a lot of noise about three this morning, but didn’t pay any attention to it-says Miss Warshawski often has strange guests and wouldn’t thank her-Mrs. Alvarez-for interfering.”

Thanks, Mrs. Alvarez, I thought. The city needs more neighbors like you. Glad I wasn’t home at the time. But what, I wondered, was whoever ransacked my place looking for so desperately? That pay stub linked Peter Thayer to Ajax, but that was no secret. And the picture of Anita? Even if the police hadn’t connected her to Andrew McGraw, the picture didn’t do that, either. I had put them both in my inner safe at my office, a small bomb- and fireproof box built into the wall at the back of the main safe. I had kept current case papers in there ever since the chairman of Transicon had hired someone to retrieve evidence from my safe two years ago. But I just didn’t think that was it.

Bobby and I discussed the break-in for another half hour, touching occasionally on my battle wounds. Finally I said, “Now you tell me something, Bobby: Why don’t you believe it was Mackenzie?”

Mallory stated through the windshield. “I’m not doubting it. I believe it. I’d be happier if we had a gun or a fingerprint, but I believe it.” I didn’t say anything. Bobby continued to look forward with unseeing eyes. “I just wish I’d found him,” he said at last. “My captain got a call from Commissioner Sullivan Friday afternoon saying he thought I was overworked and he was asking Vespucci to assign Carlson to help me out. I went home under orders-to get some sleep. Not off the case. Just to sleep. And next morning there was an arrest.” He turned to look at me. “You didn’t hear that,” he said.

I nodded agreement, and Bobby asked me a few more questions about the missing evidence, but his heart wasn’t in it. At last he gave up. “If you won’t talk, you won’t. Just remember, Vicki: Earl Smeissen is a heavy. You know yourself the courts can’t nail him. Don’t try to play hardball with him-you’re just not up to his weight at all.”

I nodded solemnly. “Thanks, Bobby. I’ll keep it in mind.” I opened the door.

“By the way,” Bobby said casually, “we got a call last night from Riley’s Gun Shop down in Hazelcrest. Said a V. I. Warshawski had bought a small handgun down there and he was worried-she looked rather wild. That wouldn’t be anyone you’d know, would it, Vicki?”

I got out of the car, shut the door, and looked in through the open window. “I’m the only one by that name in my family, Bobby-but there are some other Warshawskis in the city.”

For once Bobby didn’t lose his temper. He looked at me very seriously. “No one ever stopped you when you had your mind set on something, Vicki. But if you’re planning on using that gun, get your ass down to City Hall first thing tomorrow morning and register it. Now tell Sergeant McGonnigal where you’re going to be until your place is fixed up again.”

While I was giving McGonnigal my address, a squawk came in on Mallory’s radio about my office: the place had been ransacked. I wondered if my business-interruption insurance would cover this. “Remember, Vicki, you’re playing hardball with a pro,” Bobby warned. “Get in, McGonnigal.” They drove off.