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.”
I realized that I’d passed the Addison exit and turned onto the Belmont off-ramp. “Sorry-that answer turned into a sermon, and I got so carried away I missed my exit. Does it help any?”
Jill nodded and was quiet again as I drove north along Pulaski and then turned east on Addison. “It’s lonely now, with Peter gone,” she said finally. “He was the only one in the family who-who cared about me.”
“Yeah, it’s going to be rough, sweetie,” I said gently, and squeezed her hand.
“Thank you for coming up, Miss Warshawski,” she whispered.
I had to lean over to hear her. “My friends call me Vic,” I said.
11
Friendly Persuasion
I stopped at the clinic before going to the apartment to let Lotty know I’d made free with her hospitality and to see if she thought Jill needed anything for shock. A small group of women, most of them with younger children, were waiting in the little anteroom. Jill looked around her curiously. I poked my head into the inner door, where Lotty’s nurse, a young Puerto Rican woman, saw me. “Hello, Vic,” she said. “Lotty’s with a patient. Do you need something?”
“Hi, Carol. Tell her that I’d like to bring my young friend back to her apartment-the one I went out this morning to see. She’ll know whom you mean. And ask her if she can take a quick look at her-healthy kid, but she’s had a lot of stress lately.”
Carol went into the tiny examining room where she spoke for a few minutes. “Bring her into the office. Lotty will take a quick look at her after Mrs. Segi has left. And of course, take her to the apartment.”
I took Jill into Lotty’s office, among disapproving frowns from those who had been waiting longer. While we waited, I told her a little bit about Lotty, Austrian war refugee, brilliant London University medical student, maverick doctor, warm friend. Lotty herself came bustling in.
“So, this is Miss Thayer,” she said briskly. “Vic has brought you down for a little rest? That’s good.” She lifted Jill’s chin with her hand, looked at her pupils, made her do some simple tests, talking all the while.
“What was the trouble?” she asked.
“Her father was shot,” I explained.
Lotty clicked her tongue and shook her head, then turned to Jill. “Now, open your mouth. No, I know you haven’t got a sore throat, but it’s free, I’m a doctor, and I have to look. Good. Nothing wrong with you, but you need some rest and something to eat. Vic, when you get her home, a little brandy. Don’t talk too much, let her get some rest. Are you going out? ”
“Yes, I’ve got a lot to do.”
She pursed her lips and thought a minute. “I’ll send Carol over in about an hour. She can stay with Jill until one of us gets home.”
At that moment I realized how much I liked Lotty. I’d been a little uneasy about leaving Jill alone, in case Earl was close on my trail. Whether Lotty knew that, or simply felt a scared young girl should not be left alone, it was a worry I now did not have to speak aloud.
“Great. I’ll wait until she gets there.”
We left the clinic among more baleful stares while Carol summoned the next patient. “She’s nice, isn’t she? ” Jill said as we got into the car. “Lotty or Carol?”
“Both, but Lotty, I meant. She really doesn’t mind me showing up like this, does she?”
“No,” I agreed. “All of Lotty’s instincts are directed at helping people. She’s just not sentimental about it.”
When we got back to the apartment, I made Jill stay in the car while I checked the street and the entranceway. I didn’t want to add to her fears, but I didn’t want anyone getting a shot at her, either. The coast was still clear. Maybe Earl really did believe he’d scared me off. Or maybe with the police arresting poor Donald Mackenzie, he was resting easy.