“How do you know his father didn’t like it?”
“Oh, it wasn’t any secret. Shortly after Pete started with us, Jack Thayer came storming in showing his muscle and bellowing around like a vice-president in heat-how the kid was betraying the family with his labor-union talk, and why couldn’t he live in a decent place-I guess they’d bought a condo for him down there, if you can believe that. I must say, the boy took it very well-didn’t blow up back or anything.”
“Did he work with any-well, highly confidential-papers at Ajax?”
Devereux was surprised. “You’re not trying to link his death with Ajax, are you? I thought it was pretty clear that he was shot by one of those drug addicts who are always killing people in Hyde Park.”
“You make Hyde Park sound like the site of the Tong Wars, Mr. Devereux. Of the thirty-two murders in the twenty-first police district last year, only six were in Hyde Park-one every two months. I don’t think Peter Thayer is just the neighborhood’s July-August statistic.”
“Well, what makes you think it’s connected with Ajax, then?”
“I don’t think so. I’m just trying to eliminate possibilities… Have you ever seen a dead body-or at least a body that got that way because of a bullet?” He shook his head and moved defensively in his chair. “Well, I have. And you can often tell from the way the body lies whether the victim was trying to fight off the attacker. Well, this boy was sitting at his kitchen table in a white shirt-probably ready to come down here Monday morning-and someone put a little hole smack in the middle of his head. Now a professional might have done that, but even so, he’d have to bring along someone whom the boy knew to get his confidence. It could’ve been you, or Masters, or his father, or his girl friend… I’m just trying to find out why it couldn’t be you.”
He shook his head. “I can’t do anything to prove it. Except that I don’t know how to handle a gun-but I’m not sure I could prove that to you.”
I laughed. “You probably could… What about Masters?”
“Yardley? Come on! The guy’s one of the most respected people you could hope to find at Ajax.”
“That doesn’t preclude his being a murderer. Why don’t you let me know more about what Peter did there.”
He protested some more, but he finally agreed to tell me about his work and what Peter Thayer had done for him. It just didn’t seem to add up to murder. Masters was responsible for the financial side of the claim operation, reserving and so on, and Peter had added up numbers for him, checking office copies of issued drafts against known reserves for various claims, adding up overhead items in the field offices to see where they were going over budget, and all the dull day-to-day activities that businesses need in order to keep on going. And yet… and yet… Masters had agreed to see me, an unknown person, and a detective besides, on the spur of the moment. If he hadn’t known Peter was in trouble-or even, maybe, known he was dead-I just couldn’t believe his obligation to John Thayer would make him do that.
I contemplated Devereux. Was he just another pretty face, or did he know anything? His anger had seemed to me the result of genuine shock and bewilderment at finding out the boy was dead. But anger was a good cover for other emotions, too… For the time being I decided to classify him as an innocent bystander.
Devereux’s native Irish cockiness was starting to return-he began teasing me about my job. I felt I’d gotten all I could from him until I knew enough to ask better questions, so I let the matter drop and moved on to lighter subjects.
I signed the bar tab for Sal-she sends me a bill once a month-and went on to the Officers’ Mess with Devereux for a protracted meal. It’s Indian, and to my mind one of the most romantic restaurants in Chicago. They make a very nice Pimm’s Cup, too. Coming on top of the Scotch, it left me with a muzzy impression of dancing at a succession of North Side discos. I might have had a few more drinks. It was after one when I returned, alone, to my apartment. I was glad just to fling my clothes onto a chair and fall into bed.
3
That Professional Touch
Peter Thayer was protesting capitalist oppression by running wildly up and down the halls at Ajax, while Anita McGraw stood to one side carrying a picket sign and smiling. Ralph Devereux came out of his office and shot Thayer. The shot reverberated in the halls. It kept ringing and ringing and I tried seizing the gun from Devereux and throwing it away, but the sound continued and I jerked awake. The doorbell was shrilling furiously. I slid out of bed and pulled on jeans and a shirt as a loud knock sounded. The fuzziness in my mouth and eyes told me I’d had one or two Scotches too many too late in the evening before. I stumbled to the front room and looked through the peephole as heavy fists hammered the door again.
Two men were outside, both beefy, with jacket sleeves too short and hair crew-cut. I didn’t know the younger one on the right, but the older one on the left was Bobby Mallory, Homicide lieutenant from the twenty-first district. I fumbled the lock open and tried to smile sunnily.
“Morning, Bobby. What a nice surprise.”
“Good morning, Vicki. Sorry to drag you out of bed,” Mallory said with heavy humor.
“Not at all, Bobby-I’m always glad to see you.” Bobby Mallory had been my dad’s closest friend on the force. They’d started on the same beat together back in the thirties, and Bobby hadn’t forgotten Tony even after promotions had moved him out of my dad’s work life. I usually have Thanksgiving dinner with him and Eileen, his warmly maternal wife. And his six children and four grandchildren.
Most of the time Bobby tries to pretend I’m not working, or at least not working as an investigator. Now he was looking past me, not at me. “This is Sergeant John McGonnigal,” he said heartily, waving his arm loosely in McGonnigal’s direction. “We’d like to come in and ask you a few questions.”
“Certainly,” I said politely, wishing my hair weren’t sticking out in different directions all over my head. “Nice to meet you, Sergeant. I’m V. I. Warshawski.”
McGonnigal and I shook hands and I stood back to let them into the small entryway. The hallway behind us leads straight back to the bathroom, with the bedroom and living rooms opening off to the right, and the dining room and kitchen to the left. This way in the mornings I can stumble straight from bedroom to bathroom to kitchen.
I took Bobby and McGonnigal to the kitchen and put on some coffee. I casually whisked some crumbs off the kitchen table and rummaged in the refrigerator for pumpernickel and cheddar cheese. Behind me, Bobby said, “You ever clean up this dump?”
Eileen is a fanatical housekeeper. If she didn’t love to watch people eat, you’d never see a dirty dish in their house. “I’ve been working,” I said with what dignity I could muster, “and I can’t afford a housekeeper. ”
Mallory looked around in disgust. “You know, if Tony had turned you over his knee more often instead of spoiling you rotten, you’d be a happy housewife now, instead of playing at detective and making it harder for us to get our job done.”
“But I’m a happy detective, Bobby, and I made a lousy housewife.” That was true. My brief foray into marriage eight years ago had ended in an acrimonious divorce after fourteen months: some men can only admire independent women at a distance.
“Being a detective is not a job for a girl like you, Vicki-it’s not fun and games. I’ve told you this a million times. Now you’ve got yourself messed up in a murder. They were going to send Althans out to talk to you, but I pulled my rank to get the assignment. That still means you’ve got to talk. I want to know what you were doing messing around with the Thayer boy.”