In the middle of this charming setting was Mrs. Thayer. Even with no makeup and a few tearstains, she was very handsome, easily recognizable as the original of the picture in yesterday’s
Herald-Star.
A very pretty young woman, an older edition of Jill, sat solicitously on one side of her, and a handsome young man in a polo shirt and checked trousers sat across from her, looking a little ill-at-ease.
“Please, Jill, I don’t understand a word you or Lucy
are saying, but don’t shout, darling, my nerves absolutely won’t stand it.”
I moved past Lucy into the room and went over to Mrs. Thayer’s couch. “Mrs. Thayer, I’m very sorry about your husband and your son,” I said. “My name is V. I. Warshawski. I’m a private detective. Your daughter asked me to come up here this morning to see if I could help out.”
The young man answered, sticking his jaw out. “I’m Mrs. Thayer’s son-in-law, and I think I can safely say that if my father-in-law threw you out of the house on Saturday, that you’re probably not wanted here.”
“Jill, did you call her?” the young woman asked, shocked.
“Yes, I did,” Jill answered, setting her jaw mulishly. “And you can’t throw her out, Jack: it’s not your house. I asked her to come up, and I’ve hired her to find out who killed Daddy and Pete. She thinks the same person did it both times.”
“Really, Jill,” the other woman said, “I think we can leave this to the police without upsetting Mother by bringing in hired detectives.”
“Just what I tried telling her, Mrs. Thorndale, but of course she wouldn’t listen.” That was Lucy, triumphant.
Jill’s face was screwed up again, as if she were going to cry. “Take it easy, honey,” I said. “Let’s not get everyone more worked up than they are already. Why don’t you tell me who’s who?”
“Sorry,” she gulped. “This is my mother, my sister,
Susan Thorndale, and her husband, Jack. And Jack thinks because he can boss Susan around he can do that to me, but—”
“Steady, Jill,” I said, putting a hand on her shoulder.
Susan’s face was pink. “Jill, if you hadn’t been spoiled rotten all these years you would show a little respect to someone like Jack who has a lot more experience than you do. Do you have any idea what people are going to be saying about Daddy, the way he was killed and all? Why, why it looks like a gang killing, and it makes Daddy look as if he was involved with the gang.” Her voice rose to a high pitch on the last sentence.
“Mob,” I said. Susan looked at me blankly. “It looks like a mob killing. Some gangs may go in for that style of execution, but usually they don’t have the resources.”
“Now look here,” Jack said angrily. “We’ve already asked you to leave. Why don’t you go, instead of showing off your smart mouth! Like Susan said, it’s going to be hard enough explaining away the way Mr. Thayer died, without having to explain why we got a private detective involved as well.”
“Is that all you care about?” Jill cried. “What people will say? With Pete dead, and Daddy dead?”
“No one is sorrier than me that Peter was shot,” Jack said, “but if he had done what your father wanted and lived in a proper apartment, instead of that slummy dump with that slut of a girl, he would never have been shot in the first place.”
“Oh!” Jill screamed. “How can you talk about Peter that way! He was trying to do something warm and real instead of—You’re such a fake. All you and Susan care about is how much money you make and what the neighbors will say! I hate you!” She ended on another flood of tears and flung herself into my arms. I gave her a hug and wrapped my right arm around her while I fished in my bag for some tissues with the left.
“Jill,” her mother said in a soft, complaining voice, “Jill, honey, please don’t shout like that in here. My nerves just absolutely cannot take it. I’m just as sorry as you are that Petey is dead, but Jack is right, honey: if he’d listened to your father all this wouldn’t have happened, and your father wouldn’t be—be …” Her voice broke off and she started weeping quietly.
Susan put an arm around her mother and patted her shoulder. “Now, see what you’ve done,” she said venomously, whether to me or to her sister I wasn’t sure.
“Now you’ve caused enough disturbance, you polack detective, whatever your name is,” Lucy began.
“Don’t you dare talk to her like that,” Jill cried, her voice partly muffled by my shoulder. “Her name is Miss Warshawski, and you should call her Miss Warshawski!”
“Well, Mother Thayer,” Jack said with a rueful laugh, “sorry to drag you into this, but since Jill won’t listen to her sister or me, will you tell her that she has to get this woman out of the house?”
“Oh, please, Jack,” his mother-in-law said, leaning on Susan. She stretched out a hand to him without
looking at him, and I was interested to note that her eyes didn’t turn red with crying. “I just don’t have the strength to deal with Jill in one of her moods.” However, she pulled herself into a sitting position, still holding on to Jack’s hand, and looked at Jill earnestly. “Jill, I just cannot stand for you to have one of your temper tantrums right now. You and Peter never listen to what anyone has to say to you. If Petey had, he wouldn’t be dead now. With Petey dead, and John, I just can’t take anything else. So don’t talk to this private detective any longer. She’s taking advantage of you to get her name in the paper, and I can’t bear another scandal about this family.”
Before I could say anything, Jill tore herself away from me, her little face crimson. “Don’t talk like that to me!” she screamed. “I care about Pete and Daddy and you don’t! You’re the one who’s bringing scandals into the house. Everybody knows you didn’t love Daddy! Everybody knows what you and Dr. Mulgrave were up to! Daddy was probably—”
Susan leaped up from the couch and slapped her sister hard on the face. “You goddamn brat, be quiet!” Mrs. Thayer started weeping in earnest. Jill, overcome by assorted strong and uncontrollable feelings, began sobbing again.
At that moment a worried-looking man in a business suit came into the room, escorted by one of the patrolmen. He crossed to Mrs. Thayer and clasped her hands. “Margaret! I came as soon as I heard the news. How are you? ”
Susan blushed. Jill’s sobs died away. Jack looked as though he had been stuffed. Mrs. Thayer turned large tragic eyes to the newcomer’s face. “Ted. How kind of you,” she said in a brave voice, barely above a whisper.
“Dr. Mulgrave, I presume,” I said.
He dropped Mrs. Thayer’s wrists and stood up straight. “Yes, I’m Dr. Mulgrave.” He looked at Jack. “Is this a policewoman?”
“No,” I said. “I’m a private investigator. Miss Thayer has hired me to find out who killed her father and brother.”
“Margaret?” he asked incredulously.
“No.
Miss
Thayer. Jill,” I said.
Jack said, “Mrs. Thayer just ordered you to leave her house and leave her daughter alone. I’d think even an ambulance chaser like you would know how to take a hint like that.”
“Oh, cool it, Thorndale,” I said. “What’s eating you? Jill asked me to come up here because she’s scared silly—as any normal person would be with all this going on. But you guys are so defensive you make me wonder what you’re hiding.”
“What do you mean?” he scowled.
“Well, why don’t you want me looking into your father-in-law’s death? What are you afraid I’ll find out—that he and Peter caught you with your fingers in the till and you had them shot to shut them up?”
I ignored his outraged gasp. “What about you, Doctor? Did Mr. Thayer learn about your relations
with his wife and threaten divorce—but you decided a wealthy widow was a better bet than a woman who couldn’t make a very good case for alimony?”
“Now look here, whatever your name is. I don’t have to listen to that kind of crap,” Mulgrave started.
“Then leave,” I said. “Maybe Lucy is using this house as a center for burglarizing wealthy homes on the North Shore—after all, as a maid, she probably hears a lot about where jewelry, documents, and so on are kept. When Mr. Thayer and his son got too hot on her trail, she hired a murderer.” I smiled enthusiastically at Susan, who was starting to babble—I was getting carried away by my own fantasies. “I could probably think of a motive for you too, Mrs. Thorn-dale. All I’m trying to say is, you people are so hostile that it starts me wondering. The less you want me to undertake a murder investigation, the more I start thinking there might be something to my ideas.”
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?”