Sara Paretsky - Indemnity Only

When I stopped talking, they were silent for a minute. Mulgrave was clasping Mrs. Thayer’s hands again, sitting next to her now. Susan looked like a kitten getting ready to spit at a dog. My client was sitting on one of the bamboo side chairs, her hands clenched in her lap, her face intent. Then Mulgrave said, “Are you trying to threaten us-threaten the Thayer family?”

“If you mean, am I threatening to find out the truth, the answer is yes; if that means turning up a lot of sordid junk along the way, tough.”

“Just a minute, Ted,” Jack said, waving an arm at the older man. “I know how to deal with her.” He nodded at me. “Come on, name your price,” he said, pulling out his checkbook.

My fingers itched to bring out the Smith & Wesson and pistol-whip him. “Grow up, Thorndale,” I snapped. “There are things in this life that money can’t buy. Regardless of what you, or your mother-in-law, or the mayor of Winnetka says, I am investigating this murder-these murders.” I laughed a little, mirthlessly. “Two days ago, John Thayer tried to give me $5,000 to buy me out of this case. You guys up here on the North Shore live in some kind of dream world. You think you can buy a cover-up for anything that goes wrong in your lives, just like you hire the garbagemen to take away your filth, or Lucy here to clean it up and carry it outside for you. It doesn’t work that way. John Thayer is dead. He couldn’t pay enough to get whatever filth he was involved in away from him, nor away from his son. Now whatever it was that caused their deaths isn’t private anymore. It doesn’t belong to you. Anyone who wants it can find out about it. I intend to.”

Mrs. Thayer was moaning softly. Jack looked uncomfortable. With an effort to save his dignity he said, “Naturally, if you choose to poke around in something that’s none of your business we can’t stop you. It’s just that we think matters are better off left to the police.”

“Yeah, well, they’re not batting a thousand right now,” I said. “They thought they had a guy behind bars for the crime, but while he was eating his prison breakfast this morning John Thayer got killed.”

Susan turned to Jill. “This is all your fault! You brought this person up here. Now We’ve been insulted and embarrassed-I’ve never been more ashamed in my life. Daddy’s been killed and all you can think about is bringing in some outsider to call us names.”

Mulgrave turned back to Mrs. Thayer, and Jack and Susan both started talking to him at once. While this was going on, I walked over to Jill and knelt down to look her in the face. She was looking as though she might collapse or go into shock. “Look, I think you need to get away from all this. Is there any friend or relative you can visit until the worst of the fuss is over?”

She thought for a minute, then shook her head. “Not really. I’ve got lots of friends, you know, but I don’t think any of their mothers would like having me around right now.” She gave a wobbly smile. “The scandal, you know, like Jack said. I wish Anita were here.”

I hesitated a minute. “Would you like to come back to Chicago with me? My apartment’s been torn up, and I’m staying with a friend, but she’ll be glad to have you, too, for a few days.” Lotty would never mind another stray. I needed Jill where I could ask her some questions, and I wanted her away from her family. She was tough and could fight back, but she didn’t need to do that kind of fighting on top of the shock of her father’s death.

Her face lightened. “Do you really mean that?”

I nodded. “Why don’t you run upstairs now and pack an overnight bag while everyone is still arguing here.”

When she had left the room, I explained what I was doing to Mrs. Thayer. This, predictably, started a fresh uproar from the family. Finally, though, Mulgrave said, “It’s important that Margaret-Mrs. Thayer-be kept absolutely quiet. If Jill really is worrying her, perhaps it would be better if she did leave for a few days. I can make some inquiries about this person, and if she’s not reliable, we can always bring Jill back home.”

Mrs. Thayer gave a martyred smile. “Thank you, Ted. If you say it’s all right, I’m sure it will be. As long as you live in a safe neighborhood, Miss-”

“Warshawski,” I said dryly. “Well, no one’s been machine-gunned there this week.”

Mulgrave and Jack decided I ought to give them some references to call. I saw that as a face-saving effort and gave them the name of one of my old law professors. He would be startled but supportive if he got an inquiry into my character.

When Jill came back, she’d brushed her hair and washed her face. She went over to her mother, who was still sitting on the couch. “I’m sorry, Mother,” she muttered. “I didn’t mean to be rude to you.”

Mrs. Thayer smiled wanly. “It’s all right, dear. I don’t expect you to understand how I feel.” She looked at me. “Take good care of her for me.”

“Sure,” I answered.

“I don’t want any trouble,” Jack warned me.

“I’ll keep that in mind, Mr. Thorndale.” I picked up Jill’s suitcase and she followed me out the door.

She stopped in the doorway to look at her family. “Well, good-bye,” she said. They all looked at her but no one said anything.

When we got to the front door, I explained to the sergeant that Miss Thayer was coming home with me for a few days to get a little rest and attention; had the police taken all the statements they needed from her? After some talk with his lieutenant over the walkie-talkie, he agreed that she could leave, as long as I gave him my address. I gave it to him and we walked down the drive.

Jill didn’t say anything on the way over to the Edens. She looked straight ahead and didn’t pay much attention to the countryside. As we joined the stop-and-go traffic on the southbound Kennedy, though, she turned to look at me. “Do you think I was wrong, leaving my mother like that?”

I braked to let a fifty-ton semi merge in front of me. “Well, Jill, it seemed to me that everyone there was trying to play on your guilt feelings. Now you’re feeling guilty, so maybe they got what they wanted out of you.”

She digested that for a few minutes. “Is that a scandal, the way my father was killed?”

“People are probably talking about it, and that will make Jack and Susan very uncomfortable. The real question, though, is why he was killed-and even the answer to that question doesn’t have to be a scandal to you.” I threaded my way around a Herald-Star delivery van. “Thing is, you have to have your own sense of what’s right built inside you. If your father ran afoul of the type of people who do machine-gun-style executions, it may be because they tried to violate his sense of what’s right. No scandal to that. And even if he happened to be involved in some kind of shady activity, it doesn’t have to affect you unless you want it to.” I changed lanes. “I don’t believe in the visitation of the sins of the fathers, and I don’t believe in people brooding over vengeance for twenty years.”

Jill turned a puzzled face toward me. “Oh, it can happen. It’s just that you’ve got to want to make it happen. Like your mother-unhappy woman-right?” Jill nodded. “And probably unhappy because of things that happened thirty years ago. That’s her choice. You’ve got the same choice. Suppose your father did something criminal and we find that out? It’s going to be rough, but it only has to be a scandal and make your life miserable if you let it. Lots of things in this life happen to you no matter what you do, or through no fault of your own-like your father and brother getting killed. But how you make those events part of your life is under your control. You can get bitter, although I don’t think you have that kind of character, or you can learn and grow from it.”