Sara Paretsky - Indemnity Only

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 she 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.