Indemnity Only

by Sara Paretsky

  When all but two were seated, Mary suggested we go around the circle and introduce ourselves. “There are a couple of new people here tonight,” she said. “I’m Mary Annasdaughter.” She turned to the woman on her right, the one who’d protested women’s exclusion from big unions. When they got to me, I said, “I’m V. I. Warshawski. Most people call me Vic.”

  When they’d finished, one said curiously, “Do you go by your initials or is Vic your real name?”

  “It’s a nickname,” I said. “I usually use my initials. I started out my working life as a lawyer, and I found it was harder for male colleagues and opponents to patronize me if they didn’t know my first name.”

  “Good point,” Mary said, taking the meeting back. “Tonight I’d like to see what we can do to support the ERA booth at the Illinois State Fair. The state NOW group usually has a booth where they distribute literature. This year they want to do something more elaborate, have a slide show, and they need more people. Someone who can go down to Springfield for one or more days the week of August fourth to tenth to staff the booth and the slide show.”

  “Are they sending a car down?” the plump, curly-haired one asked.

  “I expect the transportation will depend on how many people volunteer. I thought I might go. If some of the rest of you want to, we could all take the bus together-it’s not that long a ride.”

  “Where would we stay?” someone wanted to know.

  “I plan to camp out,” Mary said. “But you can probably find some NOW people to share a hotel room with. I can check back at the headquarters.”

  “I kind of hate doing anything with NOW,” a rosy-cheeked woman with waist-long hair said. She was wearing a T-shirt and bib overalls; she had the face of a peaceful Victorian matron.

  “Why, Annette?” Gail asked.

  “They ignore the real issues-women’s social position, inequities of marriage, divorce, child care-and go screwing around supporting establishment politicians. They’ll support a candidate who does one measly little thing for child care, and overlook the fact that he doesn’t have any women on his staff, and that his wife is a plastic mannequin sitting at home supporting his career.”

  “Well, you’re never going to have social justice until you get some basic political and economic inequalities solved,” a stocky woman, whose name I thought was Ruth, said. “And political problems can be grappled with. You can’t go around trying to uproot the fundamental oppression between men and women without some tool to dig with: laws represent that tool.”

  This was an old argument; it went back to the start of radical feminism in the late sixties: Do you concentrate on equal pay and equal legal rights, or do you go off and try to convert the whole society to a new set of sexual values? Mary let the tide roll in for ten minutes. Then she rapped the floor with her knuckles.

  “I’m not asking for a consensus on NOW, or even on the ERA,” she said. “I just want a head count of those who’d like to go to Springfield.”

  Gail volunteered first, predictably, and Ruth. The two who’d been dissecting Weinstein’s politics also agreed to go.

  “What about you, Vic?” Mary said.

  “Thanks, but no,” I said.

  “Why don’t you tell us why you’re really here,” Mary said in a steely voice. “You may be an old UC student, but no one stops by a rap group on Tuesday night just to check out politics on the old campus.”

  “They don’t change that much, but you’re right: I came here because I’m trying to find Anita McGraw. I don’t know anyone here well, but I know this is a group she was close to, and I’m hoping that someone here can tell me where she is.”

  “In that case, you can get out,” Mary said angrily. The group silently closed against me; I could feel their hostility like a physical force. “We’ve all had the police on us-now I guess they thought a woman pig could infiltrate this meeting and worm Anita’s address out of one of us-assuming we had it to worm. I don’t know it myself-I don’t know if anyone in here knows it-but you pigs just can’t give up, can you? ”

  I didn’t move. “I’m not with the police, and I’m not a reporter. Do you think the police want to find Anita so that they can lay Peter Thayer’s death on her? ”

  “Of course,” Mary snorted. “they’ve been poking around trying to find if Peter slept around and Anita was jealous or if he’d made a will leaving her money. Well, I’m sorry-you can go back and tell them that they just cannot get away with that.”

  “I’d like to present an alternative scenario,” I said.

  “Screw yourself,” Mary said. “We’re not interested. Now get out.”

  “Not until you’ve listened to me.”

  “Do you want me to throw her out, Mary?” Annette asked.

  “You can try,” I said. “But it’ll just make you madder if I hurt one of you, and I’m still not going to leave until you’ve listened to what I have to say.”

  “All right,” Mary said angrily. She took out her watch. “You can have five minutes. Then Annette throws you out.”

  “Thank you. My tale is short: I can embellish it later if you have questions.

  “Yesterday morning, John Thayer, Peter’s father, was gunned down in front of his home. The police presume, but cannot prove, that this was the work of a hired killer known to them. It is my belief, not shared by the police, that this same killer shot Peter Thayer last Monday.

  “Now, why was Peter shot? The answer is that he knew something that was potentially damaging to a very powerful and very corrupt labor leader. I don’t know what he knew, but I assume it had something to do with illegal financial transactions. It is further possible that his father was a party to these transactions, as was the man Peter worked for.”

  I stretched my legs out and leaned back on my hands. No one spoke. “These are all assumptions. I have no proof at the moment that could be used in court, but I have the proof that comes from watching human relationships and reactions. If I am correct in my assumptions, then I believe Anita McGraw’s life is in serious danger. The overwhelming probability is that Peter Thayer shared with her the secret that got him killed, and that when she came home last Monday evening to find his dead body, she panicked and ran. But as long as she is alive, and in lonely possession of this secret-whatever it is-then the men who have killed twice to protect it will not care about killing her as well.”

  “You know a lot about it,” Ruth said, “How do you happen to be involved if you’re not a reporter and not a cop?”

  “I’m a private investigator,” I said levelly. “At the moment my client is a fourteen-year-old girl who saw her father murdered and is very frightened.”

  Mary was still angry. “You’re still a cop, then. It doesn’t make any difference who is paying your salary.”

  “You’re wrong,” I said. “It makes an enormous difference. I’m the only person I take orders from, not a hierarchy of officers, aldermen, and commissioners.”

  “What kind of proof do you have?” Ruth asked.

  “I was beaten up last Friday night by the man who employs the killer who probably killed the two Thayers. He warned me away from the case. I have a presumption, not provable, of who hired him: a man who got his name from an associate on speaking terms with many prominent criminals. This man is the person Peter Thayer was working for this summer. And I know the other guy, the one with the criminal contacts, has been seen with Peter’s boss. Ex-boss. I don’t know about the money, that’s just a guess. No one in that crowd would be hurt by sex scandals, and spying is very unlikely.”

  “What about dope?” Gail asked.

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “But anyway, that is certainly an illegal source of income for which you might kill to cover up.”

  “Frankly, V.I. or Vic, or whatever your real name is, you haven’t convinced me. I don’t believe Anita’s life could be in danger. But if anyone disagrees with me and knows where Anita is, go ahead and betray her.”

  “I have another question,” R
uth said. “Assuming we did know where she is and told you, what good would that do her-if everything you’re saying is true?”

  “If I can find out what the transaction is, I can probably get some definite proof of who the murderer is,” I said. “The more quickly that happens, the less likely it is that this hired killer can get to her.”

  No one said anything else. I waited a few minutes. I kind of hoped Annette would try to throw me out: I felt like breaking someone’s arm. Radicals are so goddamn paranoid. And radical students combine that with isolation and pomposity. Maybe I’d break all their arms, just for fun. But Annette didn’t move. And no one chirped up with Anita’s address.

  “Satisfied?” Mary asked triumphantly, her thin cheeks pulled back in a smirk.

  “Thanks for the time, sisters,” I said. “If any of you changes her mind, I’m leaving some business cards with my phone number by the coffee.” I put them down and left.

  I felt very depressed driving home. Peter Wimsey would have gone in and charmed all those uncouth radicals into slobbering all over him. He would never have revealed he was a private detective-he would have started some clever conversation that would have told him everything he wanted to know and then given two hundred pounds to the Lesbian Freedom Fund.

  I turned left onto Lake Shore Drive, going much too fast and getting a reckless pleasure from feeling the car careening, almost out of control. I didn’t even care at this point if someone stopped me. I did the four miles between Fifty-seventh Street and McCormick Place in three minutes. It was at that point that I realized someone was following me.

  The speed limit in that area was forty-five and I was doing eighty, yet I was holding the same pair of headlights in my rearview mirror that had been behind me in the other lane when I got on the Drive. I braked quickly, and changed to the outside lane. The other car didn’t change lanes, but slowed down also.

  How long had I been carrying a tail, and why? If Earl wanted to blow me away, he had unlimited opportunities, no need to waste manpower and money on a tail. He might not know where I’d gone after leaving my apartment, but I didn’t think so. My answering service had Lotty’s phone number, and it’s a simple matter to get an address from the phone company if you have the number.

  Maybe they wanted Jill and didn’t realize I’d taken her to Lotty’s. I drove slowly and normally, not trying to change lanes or make an unexpected exit. My companion stayed with me, in the center lane, letting a few cars get between us. As we moved downtown, the lights got brighter and I could see the car better-a mid-sized gray sedan, it looked like.

  If they got Jill, they would have a potent weapon to force me off the case. I couldn’t believe that Earl thought I had a case. He’d given me the big scare, he’d torn my apartment apart, and he’d gotten the police to make an arrest. As far as I could tell, despite John Thayer’s death, Donald Mackenzie was still in jail. Perhaps they thought I could lead them to the document they had overlooked at Peter Thayer’s, and not found in my apartment.

  The phrase “lead them to” clicked in my brain. Of course. They weren’t interested in me, or in Jill, or even in that claim draft. They wanted Anita McGraw, just as I did, and they thought I could lead them to her. How had they known I was going to the campus tonight? They hadn’t: they’d followed me there. I’d told McGraw I had a lead on a lead to Anita and he had told-Smeissen?-Masters? I didn’t like the thought of McGraw fingering his daughter. He must have told someone he thought he could trust. Surely not Masters, though.

  If my deduction was correct, I ought to keep them guessing. As long as they thought I knew something, my life was probably safe. I got off the Drive downtown, going past Buckingham Fountain as it shot up jets of colored water high into the night. A large crowd had gathered to see the nightly show. I wondered if I could lose myself in it, but didn’t think much of my chances. I went on over to Michigan Avenue, and parked across the street from the Conrad Hilton Hotel. I locked the car door and leisurely crossed the street. I stopped inside the glass doors for a glance outside, and was pleased to see the gray sedan pull up next to my car. I didn’t wait to see what the occupants would do, but moved quickly down the hotel’s long corridor to the side entrance on Eighth Street.

  This part of the hotel had airline ticket offices, and as I walked past them, a doorman was calling, “Last call for the airport bus. Nonstop to O’Hare Field.” Without thinking or stopping to look behind me, I pushed in front of a small crew of laughing flight attendants and got on the bus. They followed me more slowly; the conductor checked his load and got off, and the bus started moving. As we turned the corner onto Michigan, I could see a man looking up and down the street. I thought it might be Freddie.

  The bus moved ponderously across the Loop to Ontario Street, some twelve blocks north, and I kept an anxious lookout through the rear window, but it seemed as though Freddie’s slow wits had not considered the possibility of my being on the bus.

  It was 9:30 when we got to O’Hare. I moved from the bus to stand in the shadow of one of the giant pillars supporting the terminal, but saw no gray sedan. I was about to step out when I thought perhaps they had a second car, so I looked to see if any vehicle repeated its circuit more than once, and scanned the occupants to see if I recognized any of Smeissen’s crew. By ten I decided I was clear and caught a cab back to Lotty’s.

  I had the driver drop me at the top of her street. Then I went down the alley behind her building, keeping a hand close to my gun, I didn’t see anyone but a group of three teen-age boys, drinking beer and talking lazily.

  I had to pound on the back door for several minutes before Lotty heard and came to let me in. Her thick black eyebrows went up in surprise. “Trouble?” she asked.

  “A little, downtown. I’m not sure whether anyone is watching the front.”

  “Jill?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so. I think they’re hoping I’ll lead them to Anita McGraw. Unless I do, or unless they find her first, I think we’re all pretty safe.” I shook my head in dissatisfaction. “I don’t like it, though. They could snatch Jill and hold her to ransom if they thought I knew where Anita was. I didn’t find out tonight. I’m sure one of those goddamned radical women knows where she is, but they think they’re being noble and winning a great war against the pigs, and they won’t tell me. It’s so frustrating.”

  “Yes, I see,” Lotty said seriously. “Maybe it’s not so good for the child to be here. She and Paul are watching the movie on television,” she added, jerking her head toward the living room.

  “I left my car downtown,” I said. “Someone was following me back from the university and I shook them off in the Loop-took the bus out to O’Hare-long and expensive way to shake a tail, but it worked.

  “Tomorrow, Jill’s taking me out to Winnetka to go through her father’s papers. Maybe she should just stay there.”

  “We’ll sleep on it,” Lotty suggested. “Paul is loving his guard duty, but he couldn’t do much against men with machine guns. Besides, he is an architecture student and should not miss too many of his classes.”

  We went back into the living room. Jill was curled up on the daybed, watching the movie. Paul was lying on his stomach, looking up at her every few minutes. Jill didn’t seem aware of the impression she was creating-this seemed to be her first conquest-but she glowed with contentment.

  I went into the guest room to make some phone calls. Larry Anderson said they’d finished my apartment. “I didn’t think you’d want that couch, so I let one of the guys take it home. And about the door-I’ve got a friend who does some carpentry. He has a beautiful oak door, out of some mansion or other. He could fix it up for you and put some dead bolts in it, if you’d like.”

  “Larry, I can’t begin to thank you,” I said, much moved. “That sounds like a beautiful idea. How did you close the place up today?”

  “Oh, we nailed it shut,” he said cheerfully. Larry and I had gone to school together years ago, but he’d dropped out earlier an
d further than I had. We chatted for a few minutes, then I hung up to call Ralph.

  “It’s me. Sherlock Holmes,” I said. “How did your claim files go?”

  “Oh, fine. Summer is a busy time for accidents with so many people on the road. They should stay home, but then they’d cut off their legs with lawnmowers or something and we’d be paying just the same.”

  “Did you refile that draft without any trouble?” I asked.

  “Actually not, I couldn’t find the file. I looked up the guy’s account, though: he must have been in a doozy of an accident-We’ve been sending him weekly checks for four years now.” He chuckled a little. “I was going to inspect Yardley’s face today to see if he looked guilty of multiple homicide, but he’s taking the rest of the week off-apparently cut up about Thayer’s death.”

  “I see.” I wasn’t going to bother telling him about the link I’d found between Masters and McGraw; I was tired of arguing with him over whether I had a case or not.

  “Dinner tomorrow night?” he asked.

  “Make it Thursday,” I suggested. “Tomorrow’s going to be pretty open-ended.”

  As soon as I put the phone down, it rang. “Dr. Herschel’s residence,” I said. It was my favorite reporter, Murray Ryerson.

  “Just got a squeal that Tony Bronsky may have killed John Thayer,” he said.

  “Oh, really? Are you going to publish that?”

  “Oh, I think we’ll paint a murky picture of gangland involvement. It’s just a whiff, no proof, he wasn’t caught at the scene, and our legal people have decided mentioning his name would be actionable.”

  “Thanks for sharing the news,” I said politely.

  “I wasn’t calling out of charity,” Murray responded. “But in my lumbering Swedish way it dawned on me that Bronsky works for Smeissen. We agreed yesterday that his name has been cropping up here and there around the place. What’s his angle, Vic-why would he kill a respectable banker and his son?”