“Murray, I’ve got the story of a lifetime for you if you can keep a key witness on ice for a few days.”
“Where are you?” he asked. “You sound like you’re calling from the North Pole. Who’s the witness? The McGraw girl?”
“Murray, your mind works like a steel trap. I want a promise and I need some help.”
“I’ve already helped you,” he protested. “Lots. First by giving you those photos, and then by not running a story that you were dead so I could collect your document from your lawyer.”
“Murray, if there was another soul on earth I could turn to right now, I would. But you are absolutely in if faced with the promise of a good story.”
“All right,” he agreed. “I’ll do what I can for you.”
“Good. I’m in Hartford, Wisconsin, with Anita McGraw. I want to get her back to Chicago and keep her under close wraps until this case blows over. That means no one must have a whiff of where she is, because if they do, you’ll be covering her obituary. I can’t bring her down myself because I’m a hot property now. What I want to do is take her to Milwaukee and put her on a train and have you meet her at Union Station. When you do, get her into a hotel. Some place far enough from the Loop that some smart bellhop on Smeissen’s payroll won’t put two and two together when she comes in. Can do?”
“Jesus, Vic, you don’t do anything in a small way, do you? Sure. What’s the story? Why is she in danger? Smeissen knock off her boyfriend?”
“Murray, I’m telling you, you put any of this in print before the whole story is finished, and they’re going to be fishing your body out of the Chicago River: I guarantee I’ll put it there.”
“You have my word of honor as a gent who is waiting to scoop the City of Chicago. What time is the train coming in?”
“I don’t know. I’ll call you again from Milwaukee.”
When I hung up, Anita had come back out and was waiting by the car. “They weren’t real happy about me quitting,” she said.
I laughed. “Well, worry about that on the way down. It’ll keep your mind off your troubles.”
16
Price of a Claim
We had to wait in Milwaukee until 1:30 for a Chicago train. I left Anita at the station and went out to buy her some jeans and a shirt. When she had washed up in the station rest room and changed, she looked younger and healthier. As soon as she got that terrible black dye out of her hair, she’d be in good shape. She thought her life was ruined, and it certainly didn’t look great at the moment. But she was only twenty; she’d recover.
Murray agreed to meet the train and get her to a hotel. He’d decided on the Ritz. “If she’s going to be holed up for a few days, it might as well be someplace where she’ll be comfortable,” he explained. “The Star will share the bill with you.”
“Thanks, Murray,” I said dryly. He was to call my answering service and leave a message: “yes” or “no”-no name. “No” meant something had gone wrong with pickup or delivery and I would get back to him. I wasn’t going to go near the hotel. He’d stop by a couple of times a day with food and chat-we didn’t want Anita calling room service.
As soon as the train pulled out, I headed back to the tollway and Chicago. I had almost all the threads in my hands now. The problem was, I couldn’t prove that Masters had killed Peter Thayer. Caused him to be killed. Of course, Anita’s story confirmed it: Masters had had an appointment with Peter. But there was no proof, nothing that would make Bobby swear out a warrant and bring handcuffs to a senior vice-president of an influential Chicago corporation. Somehow I had to stir around in the nest enough to make the king hornet come out and get me.
As I left the toll road for the Edens Expressway, I made a detour to Winnetka to see if Jill had gone home, and if she had turned up anything among her father’s papers. I stopped at a service station on Willow Road and called the Thayer house.
Jack answered the phone. Yes, Jill had come home, but she wasn’t talking to reporters. “I’m not a reporter,” I said. “This is V. I. Warshawski.”
“She certainly isn’t talking to you. You’ve caused Mother Thayer enough pain already.”
“Thorndale, you are the stupidest SOB I have ever met. If you don’t put Jill on the phone, I will be at the house in five minutes. I will make a lot of noise, and I will go and bother all the neighbors until I find one who will put a phone call through to Jill for me.”
He banged the receiver down hard, on a tabletop I guessed, since the connection still held. A few minutes later Jill’s clear, high voice came onto the line. “What did you say to Jack?” she giggled. “I’ve never seen him so angry.”
“Oh, I just threatened to get all your neighbors involved in what’s going on,” I answered. “Not that they aren’t anyway-the police have probably been visiting all of them, asking questions… You get out to Winnetka all right?”
“Oh, yes. It was very exciting. Paul got a police escort for us to the clinic. Lotty didn’t want to do it, but he insisted. Then he went and got your car and we got a blast-off with sirens from the clinic. Sergeant McGonnigal was really, really super.”
“Sounds good. How are things on the home front?”
“Oh, they’re okay. Mother has decided to forgive me, but Jack is acting like the stupid phony he is. He keeps telling me I’ve made Mother very, very unhappy. I asked Paul to stay to lunch, and Jack kept treating him as if he were the garbage collector or something. I got really mad, but Paul told me he was used to it. I hate Jack,” she concluded.
I laughed at this outburst. “Good girl! Paul’s a neat guy-worth standing up for. Did you have a chance to look through your father’s papers?”
“Oh, yes. Of course, Lucy had a fit. But I just pretended I was Lotty and didn’t pay any attention to her. I didn’t really know what I was looking for,” she said, “but I found some kind of document that had both Mr. Masters’s and Mr. McGraw’s names on it.”
I suddenly felt completely at peace, as though I’d been through a major crisis and come out whole on the other side. I found myself grinning into the telephone. “Did you now,” I said. “What was it?”
“I don’t know,” Jill said doubtfully. “Do you want me to get it and read it to you?”
“That’s probably the best thing,” I agreed. She put the phone down. I started singing under my breath. What will you be, O document? What kind of laundry ticket?
“It’s a Xerox,” Jill announced, back at the phone. “My dad wrote the date in ink at the top-March eighteenth, 1974. Then it says: ‘Agreement of Trust. The Undersigned, Yardley Leland Masters and Andrew Solomon McGraw, are herein granted fiduciary responsibility for any and all monies submitted to this account under their authority for the following.’ ” She stumbled over fiduciary. “Then it gives a list of names-Andrew McGraw, Carl O’Malley, Joseph Giel-I can’t pronounce it. There are about-let’s see-” I could hear her counting under her breath: “-twenty-three names. Then it adds, ‘and any other names as shall be added at their discretion under my countersignature.’ Then Daddy’s name, and a place for him to sign it. Is that what you were looking for?”
“That’s what I was looking for, Jill.” My voice was as calm and steady as if I were announcing that the Cubs had won the World Series.
“What does it mean?” she asked. She was sobering up from her glee at triumphing over Jack and Lucy. “Does it mean Daddy killed Peter?”
“No, Jill, it does not. Your father did not kill your brother. What it means is that your father knew about a dirty scheme that your brother found out about. Your brother was killed because he found out about it.”
“I see.” She was quiet for a few minutes. “Do you know who killed him?” she asked presently.
“I think so. You hang loose, Jill. Stay close to the house and don’t go out with anyone but Paul. I’ll come up to see you tomorrow or the next day-everything should be over by then.” I started to hang up, then thought I should warn her to hide the paper. “Oh, Jill,” I said, but s
he had hung up. Oh, well, I thought. If anyone suspected it was there, they would have been around looking by now.
What that document meant was that Masters could set up fake claims for anyone; then he and McGraw could cash the drafts, or whatever one did with them. Put them into the trust account, which Thayer ostensibly oversaw. In fact, I wondered why they even bothered to use real names. Why not just made-up people-easier to disguise. If they’d done that, Peter Thayer and his father would still be alive. Maybe they’d gotten to that later. I’d have to see a complete list of the names on the account and check them against the Knifegrinders’ roster.
It was almost four. Anita should have made it to Chicago by now. I called my answering service, but no one had rung up with the message of “yes” or “no.” I got back in the car and returned to the Edens. Inbound traffic moved at a crawl. Repairs on two of the lanes turned rush hour into a nightmare. I oozed slowly onto the Kennedy, irate and impatient, although I didn’t have an agenda. Just an impatience, I didn’t know what to do next. I could certainly expose the fake claim drafts. But as I’d pointed out to Anita, Masters would certainly disclaim all knowledge: the Knifegrinders might well have set them up, with complete doctors’ reports. Did claim handlers actually physically look at accident victims? I wondered. I’d better talk to Ralph, explain what I’d learned today, and see if there was some legal angle that would link Masters irretrievably with the fraud. Even that wasn’t good enough, though. I had to link him with the killing. And I couldn’t think of a way.
It was 5:30 by the time I exited at Addison, and then I had to fight my way across town. I finally swung off onto a small side street, full of potholes, but not much traffic. I was about to turn up Sheffield to Lotty’s, when I thought that might mean walking open-armed into a setup. I found the all-night restaurant on the corner of Addison and gave her a call.
“My dear Vic,” she greeted me. “Can you believe, those Gestapo actually had the effrontery to break into this apartment? Whether they were looking for you, Jill, or the McGraw girl, I couldn’t say, but they have been here.”
“Oh, my God, Lotty,” I said, my stomach sinking. “I am so sorry. How bad is the damage?”
“Oh, it’s nothing-just the locks, and Paul is here now replacing them; it’s just the wantonness of it that makes me so angry.”
“I know,” I said remorsefully. “I’ll certainly repair whatever damage has been done. I’ll come by to get my stuff right now, and be gone.”
I hung up and decided to take my chances on a trap. It would be just as well if Smeissen knew I had gone back home-I didn’t want Lotty put in any more danger, or to suffer any more invasions. I raced up the street to her building and only gave cursory attention to potential marksmen in the street. I didn’t see anyone I knew, and no one opened fire as I dashed up the stairs.
Paul was in the doorway, screwing a dead-bolt lock into the door. His square face looked very mean. “This is pretty bad, Vic-you think Jill is in any danger?”
“Not too likely,” I said.
“Well, I think I should go up there and see.”
I grinned. “Sounds like a good idea to me. Be careful though, you hear?”
“Don’t worry.” His breathtaking smile came. “But I’m not sure whether I’m protecting her from that brother-in-law or from a gunman.”
“Well, do both.” I went on into the apartment. Lotty was at the back, trying to reattach a screen to the back door. For a woman with such skillful medical fingers she was remarkably inept. I took the hammer from her and quickly finished the job. Her thin face was set and hard, her mouth in a fine line.
“I am glad you gave the warning to Paul and had that Sergeant Mc-Whatever take us to the clinic. At the time, I was annoyed, with you and with Paul, but clearly it saved the child’s life.” Her Viennese accent was very heavy in her anger. I thought she was exaggerating about the danger to Jill but didn’t want to argue the point. I went through the apartment with her but had to agree that there really had been no damage. Not even the medical samples, some of which had great street value, had been removed.
Lotty kept up a stream of invective during the inspection which became heavily laden with German, a language I don’t speak. I gave up trying to calm her down and merely nodded and grunted agreement. Paul finally brought it to a halt by coming in to say that the front door was now secure, and did she want him to do anything else?
“No, my dear, thank you. Go out and visit Jill, and take very good care of her. We don’t want her harmed.”
Paul agreed fervently. He gave me my car keys, and told me the Chevy was over on Seminary off Irving Park Road. I’d thought about leaving him the car, but felt I’d better hang on to it: I didn’t know what the evening would bring in the way of action.
I called Larry to see if my apartment was ready for occupation. It was; he’d left the keys to the new locks with the first-floor tenants; they’d seemed a bit friendlier than Mrs. Alvarez on the second floor.
“Well, everything is all set, Lotty: I can go home. Sorry I didn’t yesterday, and sleep with the place nailed shut-it would have spared you this invasion.”
Her mouth twisted in her sardonic smile. “Ah, forget it, Vic, my anger storm has passed, blown over. Now I am feeling a little melancholy at being alone-I shall miss those two children. They are very sweet together… I forgot to ask: Did you find Miss McGraw?”
“I forgot to tell you-I did. And I should check to see whether she is safely ensconced in her new hiding place.” I put in a call to my answering service; yes, that long-suffering outfit reported, someone had called up and left a message “yes.” They had not left a name, but said I would know what it meant. I told them they could switch my office calls to my own home number. In the activity of the last few days I’d forgotten to get a Kelly Girl to tidy my office, but at least it was boarded shut. I’d wait until tomorrow to go down there.
I tried Ralph, but there was no answer. He wasn’t at the office, either. Out for dinner? Was I jealous? “Well, Lotty, this is it. Thanks for letting me disrupt your life for a few days. You’ve made a major impression on Jill-she told me the maid up there was trying to hassle her but she ‘pretended she was Lotty’ and didn’t pay her any mind.”
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea-to model herself on me, that is. A very attractive girl-amazing that she’s avoided all that suburban insularity. “She sat on the daybed to watch me pack. “What now? Can-you expose the killer?”
“I’ve got to find a lever,” I said. “I know who did it-not who fired the actual shot, that’s probably a guy named Tony Bronsky, but it could have been any one of several of Smeissen’s crew. But who desired that shot to be fired-that I know but can’t prove. I know what the crime was, though, and I know how it was worked.” I zipped the canvas bag shut. “What I need is a lever, or maybe a wedge.” I was talking to myself more than to Lotty. “A wedge to pry this guy apart a bit. If I can find out that the fiddle couldn’t be worked without his involvement, then maybe I can force him into the open.”
I was standing with one foot on the bed, absent-mindedly tapping the suitcase with my fingers while I thought. Lotty said, “If I were a sculptor, I would make a statue of you-Nemesis come to life. You will think of a way-I see it in your face.” She stood on tiptoe and gave me a kiss. “I’ll walk you to the street-if anyone shoots at you, then I can patch you up quickly, before too much blood is lost.”
I laughed. “Lotty, you’re wonderful. By all means, cover my back for me.”
She walked me to the corner of Seminary, but the street was clear. “That’s because of that Sergeant Mc-Something,” she said. “I think he’s been driving around here from time to time. Still, Vic, be careful: you have no mother, but you are a daughter of my spirit. I should not like anything to happen to you.”
“Lotty, that’s melodrama,” I protested. “Don’t start getting old, for God’s sake.” She shrugged her thin shoulders in a way wholly European and gave me a sardonic smile
, but her eyes were serious as I walked up the street to my car.
17
Shoot-Out on Elm Street
Larry and his friend the carpenter had done a beautiful job on my apartment. The door was a masterpiece, with carved flowers on the panels. The carpenter had installed two dead bolts, and the action on them was clean and quiet. Inside, the place shone as it had not for months. Not a trace of the weekend ravage remained. Although Larry had sent the shredded couch away, he had moved chairs and an occasional table around to fill the empty space. He had left a bill in the middle of the kitchen table. Two people for two days at $8.00 an hour, $256.00. The door, locks, and installation, $315.00. New supplies of flour, sugar, beans, and spices; new pillows for the bed: $97.00. It seemed like a pretty reasonable bill to me. I wondered who was going to pay me, though. Maybe Jill could borrow from her mother until her trust fund matured.
I went to look through my jewelry box. By some miracle the vandals had not taken my mother’s few valuable pieces, but I thought I’d better lock them in a bank vault and not leave them around for the next invader. Larry seemed to have thrown out the shards of the broken Venetian glass. I should have told him to save them, but that couldn’t be helped; it was beyond restoration, anyway. The other seven held pride of place in the built-in china cupboard, but I couldn’t look at them without a thud in my stomach.
I tried Ralph again. This time he answered on the fourth ring. “What’s up, Miss Marple?” he asked. “I thought you were out after Professor Moriarty until tomorrow.”
“I found him earlier than I expected. In fact, I found out the secret that Peter Thayer died to protect. Only he didn’t want to protect it. You know that claim draft I gave you? Did you ever find the file?”
“No. I told you I put it on the missing-file search, but it hasn’t turned up.”
“Well, it may never. Do you know who Joseph Gielczowski is?”
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