Sara Paretsky - Indemnity Only

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.