Sara Paretsky - Indemnity Only

“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?”