Indemnity Only

by Sara Paretsky

  He leaned over to kiss me, then went out. I reheated the washcloth and flexed my legs in the steamy water. After a while they moved easily, so I was confident they would be fine in a few days. Before Ralph returned with the coffee, I had soaked much of the stiffness out of my joints. I climbed out of the tub and enveloped myself in a large blue bath towel and walked-with much less difficulty-to the living room.

  Ralph came in with the coffee. He admired my robe, but couldn’t quite look me in the face. “The weather’s broken,” he remarked. “I went out to get a paper and it’s a beautiful day-clear and cool. Want to drive out to the Indiana Dunes?”

  I started to shake my head, but the pain stopped me. “No. It sounds lovely, but I’ve got some work to do.”

  “Come on, Vic,” Ralph protested. “Let the police handle this. You’re in rotten shape-you need to take the day off.”

  “You could be right,” I said, trying to keep down my anger. “But I thought we went through all that last-night. At any rate, I’m not taking the day off.”

  “Well, how about some company. Need someone to drive you?”

  I studied Ralph’s face, but all I saw was friendly concern. Was he just having an attack of male protectiveness, or did he have some special reason for wanting me to stay off the job? As a companion he’d be able to keep tabs on my errands. And report them to Earl Smeissen?

  “I’m going to Winnetka to talk to Peter Thayer’s father. Since he’s a neighbor of your boss, I’m not sure it would look too good for you to come along.”

  “Probably not,” he agreed. “Why do you have to see him?”

  “It’s like the man said about Annapurna, Ralph: because he’s there.” There were a couple of other things I needed to do, too, things I’d just as soon be alone for.

  “How about dinner tonight?” he suggested.

  “Ralph, for heaven’s sake, you’re beginning to act like a Seeing Eye dog. No. No dinner tonight. You’re sweet, I appreciate it, but I want some time to myself.”

  “Okay, okay,” he grumbled. “Just trying to be friendly.”

  I stood up and walked painfully over to the couch where he was sitting. “ I know.” I put an arm around him and gave him a kiss. “I’m just trying to be unfriendly.” He pulled me onto his lap. The dissatisfaction smoothed out of his face and he kissed me.

  After a few minutes I pulled myself gently away and hobbled back to the bedroom to get dressed. The navy silk was lying over a chair, with a couple of rents in it and a fair amount of blood and dirt. My cleaner could probably fix it up, but I didn’t think I’d ever care to wear it again. I threw it out and put on my green linen slacks with a pale-lemon shirt and a jacket. Perfect for suburbia. I decided not to worry about my face. It would look even more garish with makeup in sunlight than as it was.

  I fixed myself Cream of Wheat while Ralph ate toast and jam. “Well,” I said, “time to head for suburbia.”

  Ralph walked downstairs with me, trying to hold out a supporting hand. “No, thanks,” I said. “I’d better get used to doing this by myself.” At the bottom he won points by not lingering over his good-byes. We kissed briefly; he sketched a cheerful wave and crossed the street to his car. I watched him out of sight, then hailed a passing cab.

  The driver dropped me on Sheffield north of Addison, a neighborhood more decayed than mine, largely Puerto Rican. I rang Lotty Herschel’s bell and was relieved when she answered it. “Who’s there?” she squawked through the intercom. “It’s me. Vic,” I said, and pushed the front door while the buzzer sounded.

  Lotty lived on the second floor. She was waiting for me in the doorway when I made it to the top of the stairs. “My dear Vic-what on earth is wrong with you?” she greeted me, her thick black eyebrows soaring to punctuate her astonishment.

  I’d known Lotty for years. She was a doctor, about fifty, I thought, but with her vivid, clever face and trim, energetic body it was hard to tell. Sometime in her Viennese youth she had discovered the secret of perpetual motion. She held fierce opinions on a number of things, and put them to practice in medicine, often to the dismay of her colleagues. She’d been one of the physicians who performed abortions in connection with an underground referral service I’d belonged to at the University of Chicago in the days when abortion was illegal and a dirty word to most doctors. Now she ran a clinic in a shabby storefront down the street. She’d tried running it for nothing when she first opened it, but found the neighborhood people wouldn’t trust medical care they didn’t have to pay for. Still it was one of the cheapest clinics in the city, and I often wondered what she lived on.

  Now she shut the door behind me and ushered me into her living room. Like Lotty herself, it was sparely furnished, but glowed with strong colors-curtains in a vivid red-and-orange print, and an abstract painting like fire on the wall. Lotty sat me on a daybed and brought me a cup of the strong Viennese coffee she lived on.

  “So now, Victoria, what have you been doing that makes you hobble upstairs like an old woman and turns your face black-and-blue? I am sure not a car accident, that’s too tame for you-am I right?”

  “Right as always, Lotty,” I answered, and gave her an abbreviated account of my adventures.

  She pursed her lips at the tale of Smeissen but wasted no time arguing about whether I ought to go to the police or drop out of the case or spend the day in bed. She didn’t always agree with me, but Lotty respected my decisions. She went into her bedroom and returned with a large, businesslike black bag. She pulled my face muscles and looked at my eyes with an ophthalmoscope. “Nothing time won’t cure,” she pronounced, and checked the reflexes in my legs and the muscles. “Yes, I see, you are sore, and you will continue to be sore. But you are healthy, you take good care of yourself; it will pass off before too long.

  “Yes, I suspected as much,” I agreed. “But I can’t take the time to wait for these leg muscles to heal. And they’re sore enough to slow me down quite a bit right now. I need something that will help me overlook the pain enough to do some errands and some thinking-not like codeine that knocks you out. Do you have anything?”

  “Ah, yes, a miracle drug.” Lotty’s face was amused. “You shouldn’t put so much faith in doctors and drugs, Vic. However, I’ll give you a shot of phenylbutazone. That’s what they give racehorses to keep them from aching when they run, and it seems to me you’re galloping around like a horse.”

  She disappeared for a few minutes, and I heard the refrigerator door open. She returned with a syringe and a small, rubber-stoppered bottle. “Now, lie down; we’ll do this in your behind so it goes quickly to the bloodstream. Pull your slacks down a bit, so; great stuff this, really, they call it ‘bute’ for short, in half an hour you will be ready for the Derby, my dear.” As she talked, Lotty worked rapidly. I felt a small sting and it was over. “Now, sit. I’ll tell you some stories about the clinic. I’m going to give you some nepenthe to take away with you. That’s very strong, a painkiller; don’t try to drive while you’re taking it, and don’t drink. I’ll pack up some bute in tablets for you.”

  I leaned back against a big pillow and tried not to relax too much. The temptation to lie down and sleep was very strong. I forced myself to follow Lotty’s quick, clever talk, asking questions, but not debating her more outlandish statements. After a while I could feel the drug taking effect. My neck muscles eased considerably. I didn’t feel like unarmed combat, but I was reasonably certain I could handle my car.

  Lotty didn’t try to stop my getting up. “you’ve rested for close to an hour-you should do for a while.” She packed the bute tablets in a plastic bottle and gave me a bottle of nepenthe.

  I thanked her. “How much do I owe you?”

  She shook her head. “No, these are all samples. When you come for your long-overdue checkup, then I’ll charge you what any good Michigan Avenue doctor would.”

  She saw me to the door. “Seriously, Vic, if you get worried about this Smeissen character, you are always welcome in my spare room.”
I thanked her-it was a good offer, and one that I might need.

  Normally I would have walked back to my car; Lotty was only about eight blocks from me. But even with the shot I didn’t feel quite up to par, so I walked slowly down to Addison and caught a cab. I rode it down to my office, where I picked up Peter Thayer’s voter card with the Winnetka address on it, then flagged another cab back to my own car on the North Side. McGraw was going to have quite a bill for expenses-all these cabs, and then the navy suit had cost a hundred and sixty-seven dollars.

  A lot of people were out enjoying the day, and the clean fresh air lifted my spirits too. By two I was on the Edens Expressway heading toward the North Shore. I started singing a snatch from Mozart’s “Ch’io mi scordi di te,” but my rib cage protested and I had to settle for a Bartok concerto on WFMT.

  For some reason the Edens ceases to be a beautiful expressway as it nears the homes of the rich. Close to Chicago it’s lined with greensward and neat bungalows, but as you go farther out, shopping centers crop up and industrial parks and drive-ins take over. Once I turned right onto Willow Road, though, and headed toward the lake, the view became more impressive-large stately homes set well back on giant, carefully manicured lawns. I checked Thayer’s address and turned south onto Sheridan Road, squinting at numbers on mailboxes. His house was on the east side, the side where lots face Lake Michigan, giving the children private beaches and boat moorings when they were home from Groton or Andover.

  My Chevy felt embarrassed turning through twin stone pillars, especially when it saw a small Mercedes, an Alfa, and an Audi Fox off to one side of the drive. The circular drive took me past some attractive flower gardens to the front door of a limestone mansion. Next to the door a small sign requested tradesmen to make deliveries in the rear. Was I a tradesman or -woman? I wasn’t sure I had anything to deliver, but perhaps my host did.

  I took a card from my wallet and wrote a short message on it: “Let’s talk about your relations with the Knifegrinders.” I rang the bell.

  The expression on the face of the neatly uniformed woman who answered the door reminded me of my black eye: the bute had put it out of my mind for a while. I gave her the card. “I’d like to see Mr. Thayer,” I said coolly.

  She looked at me dubiously, but took the card, shutting the door in my face. I could hear faint shouts from beaches farther up the road. As the minutes passed, I left the porch to make a more detailed study of a flower bed on the other side of the drive. When the door opened, I turned back. The maid frowned at me.

  “I’m not stealing the flowers,” I assured hen “But since you don’t have magazines in the waiting area, I had to look at something.

  She sucked in her breath but only said, “This way.” No “please,” no manners at all. Still, this was a house of mourning. I made allowances.

  We moved at a fast clip through a large entry room graced by a dull-green statue, past a stairway, and down a hall leading to the back of the house. John Thayer met us, coming from the other direction. He was wearing a white knit shirt and checked gray slacks-suburban attire but muted. His whole air was subdued, as if he were consciously trying to act like a mourning father.

  “Thanks, Lucy. We’ll go in here.” He took my arm and moved me into a room with comfortable armchairs and packed bookcases. The books were lined up neatly on the shelves. I wondered if he ever read any of them.

  Thayer held out my card. “What’s this about, Warshawski?”

  “Just what it says. I want to talk about your relations with the Knifegrinders.”

  He gave a humorless smile. “They are as minimal as possible. Now that Peter is-gone, I expect them to be nonexistent.”

  “ I wonder if Mr. McGraw would agree with that.”

  He clenched his fist, crushing the card. “Now we get to it. McGraw hired you to blackmail me, didn’t he?”

  “Then there is a connection between you and the Knifegrinders.”

  “No!”

  “Then how can Mr. McGraw possibly blackmail you?”

  “A man like that stops at nothing. I warned you yesterday to be careful around him.”

  “Look, Mr. Thayer. Yesterday you got terribly upset at learning that McGraw had brought your name into this. Today you’re afraid he’s blackmailing you. That’s awfully suggestive.”

  His face was set in harsh, strained lines. “Of what?”

  “Something was going on between you two that you don’t want known. Your son found it out and you two had him killed to keep him quiet.”

  “That’s a lie, Warshawski, a goddamned lie,” he roared.

  “Prove it.”

  “The police arrested Peter’s killer this morning.”

  My head swam and I sat down suddenly in one of the leather chairs. “What?” My voice squeaked.

  “One of the commissioners called me. They found a drug addict who tried to rob the place. They say Peter caught him at it and was shot.”

  “No,” I said.

  “What do you mean, no? They arrested the guy.”

  “No. Maybe they arrested him, but that wasn’t the scene. No one robbed that place. Your son didn’t catch anyone in the act. I tell you, Thayer, the boy was sitting at the kitchen table and someone shot him. That is not the work of a drug addict caught in a felony. Besides, nothing was taken.”

  “What are you after, Warshawski? Maybe nothing was taken. Maybe he got scared and fled. I’d believe that before I’d believe your story-that I shot my own son.” His face was working with a strong emotion. Grief? Anger? Maybe horror?

  “Mr. Thayer, I’m sure you’ve noticed what a mess my face is. A couple of punks roughed me up last night to warn me off the investigation into your son’s death. A drug addict doesn’t have those kinds of resources. I saw several people who might have engineered that-and you and Andy McGraw were two of them.”

  “People don’t like busybodies, Warshawski. If someone beat you up, I’d take the hint.”

  I was too tired to get angry. “In other words, you are involved but you figure you’ve got your ass covered. So that means I’ll have to figure out a way to saw the barrel off your tail. It’ll be a pleasure.”

  “Warshawski, I’m telling you for your own good: drop it.” He went over to his desk. “I can see you’re a conscientious girl-but McGraw is wasting your time. There’s nothing to find.” He wrote a check and handed it to me. “Here. You can give McGraw back whatever he’s paid you and feel like you’ve done your duty.”

  The check was for $5,000. “You bastard. You accuse me of blackmail and then you try to buy me off?” A spurt of raw anger pushed my fatigue to one side. I ripped up the check and let the pieces fall to the floor.

  Thayer turned white. Money was his raw nerve. “The police made an arrest, Warshawski. I don’t need to buy you off. But if you want to act stupid about it, there’s nothing more to say. You’d better leave.”

  The door opened and a girl came in. “Oh, Dad, Mother wants you to-” She broke off. “Sorry, didn’t know you had company.” She was an attractive teenager. Her brown straight hair was well brushed and hung down her back, framing a small oval face. She was wearing jeans and a striped man’s shirt several sizes too big for her. Maybe her brother’s. Normally she probably had the confident, healthy air that money can provide. Right now she drooped a bit.

  “Miss Warshawski was just leaving, Jill. In fact, why don’t you show her out and I’ll go see what your mother wants.”

  He got up and walked to the door, waiting until I followed him to say good-bye. I didn’t offer to shake hands. Jill led me back the way I’d come earlier; her father walked briskly in the opposite direction.

  “I’m very sorry about your brother,” I said as we got to the greenish statue.

  “So am I,” she said, pulling her lips together. When we got to the front of the house, she followed me outside and stood staring up in my face, frowning a little. “Did you know Peter?” she finally asked.

  “No, I never met him,” I answered.
“I’m a private investigator, and I’m afraid I’m the person who found him the other morning.”

  “They wouldn’t let me look at him,” she said.

  “His face was fine. Don’t have nightmares about him-his face wasn’t damaged.” She wanted more information. If he’d been shot in the head, how could his face look all right? I explained it to her in a toned-down, clinical way.

  “Peter told me you could decide whether to trust people by their faces,” she said after a minute. “But yours is pretty banged up so I can’t tell. But you told me the truth about Peter and you’re not talking to me as if I was a baby or something.” She paused. I waited. Finally she asked, “Did Dad ask you to come out here?” When I replied, she asked, “Why was he angry?”

  “Well, he thinks the police have arrested your brother’s murderer, but I think they’ve got the wrong person. And that made him angry.”

  “Why?” she asked. “I mean, not why is he mad, but why do you think they got the wrong person?”

  “The reasons are pretty complicated. It’s not because I know who did it, but because I saw your brother, and the apartment, and some other people who’ve been involved, and they’ve reacted to my seeing them. I’ve been in this business for a while, and I have a feel for when I’m hearing the truth. A drug addict wandering in off the streets just doesn’t fit with what I’ve seen and heard.”

  She stood on one foot, and her face was screwed up as if she were afraid she might start crying. I put an arm around her and pulled her to a sitting position on the shallow porch step.

  “I’m okay,” she muttered. “It’s just-everything is so weird around here. You know, it’s so terrible, Pete dying and everything. He-he-well-” She hiccuped back a sob. “Never mind. It’s Dad who’s crazy. Probably he always was but I never noticed it before. He’s been raving on and on about how Anita and her father shot Pete for his money and dumb stuff like that, and then he’ll start saying how it served Pete right, like he’s glad he’s dead or something.” She gulped and ran her hand across her nose. “Dad was always in such a stew about Peter disgracing the family name, you know, but he wouldn’t have-even if he’d become a union organizer he would have been a successful one. He liked figuring things out, he was that kind of person, figuring things out and trying to do them the best way.” She hiccuped again. “And I like Anita. Now I suppose I’ll never see her again. I wasn’t supposed to meet her, but she and Pete took me out to dinner sometimes, when Mom and Dad were out of town.”