I nodded and quietly put my identification back in my billfold. The gun took a big chunk out of the thousand dollars I’d had from McGraw, and I didn’t think I could legitimately charge it to him as an expense. Larry brought me the gun in a beautiful velvet case. I looked at it and asked them to put it in a bag for me. Ron Jaffrey ushered me urbanely to my car, magnificently ignoring my face. “You live quite a ways from here, but if you want to come down and use the target, just bring your bill with you—you get six months’ free practice with the purchase.” He opened my car door for me. I thanked him, and he went back to the store.
The bute was still keeping the pain from crashing in on me completely, but I was absolutely exhausted. My last bit of energy had gone to buying the gun and using the target. I couldn’t drive the thirty miles back to my apartment. I started the car and went slowly down the street, looking for a motel. I found a Best Western that had rooms backing onto a side street, away from the busy road I was on. The clerk looked curiously at my face but made no comment, I paid cash and took the key.
The room was decent and quiet, the bed firm. I uncorked the bottle of nepenthe Lotty had given me and took a healthy swallow. I peeled off my clothes, wound my watch and put it on the bedside table, and crawled under the covers. I debated calling my answering service but decided I was too tired to handle anything even if it had come up. The air conditioner, set on high, drowned out any street noises and made the room cold enough to enjoy snuggling under the blankets. I lay down and was starting to think about John Thayer when I fell asleep.
8
Some Visitors don’t Knock
I came to slowly, out of a sound sleep. I lay quietly, not sure at first where I was, and dozed again lightly. When I woke up the second time, I was refreshed and aware. The heavy drapes shut out any outside light; I switched on the bedside lamp and looked at my watch—7:30. I had slept more than twelve hours.
I sat up and cautiously moved legs and neck. My muscles had stiffened again in my sleep, but not nearly as badly as the previous morning. I pulled myself from the bed and made it to the window with only minor twinges. Looking through a crack I pulled in the drapes, I saw bright morning sunlight.
I was puzzled by Thayer’s account of a police arrest and wondered if there would be a story in the morning paper. I pulled on my slacks and shirt and went down to the lobby for a copy of the Sunday Herald-Star. Back upstairs I undressed again and ran a hot bath while I looked at the paper, DRUG ADDICT ARRESTED IN BANKING HEIR’S MURDER was On the lower right side of the front page. Police have arrested Donald Mackenzie of 4302 S. Ellis in the murder of banking heir Peter Thayer last Monday. Asst. Police Commissioner Tim Sullivan praised the men working on the case and said an arrest was made early Saturday morning when one of the residents of the apartment where Peter Thayer lived identified Mackenzie as a man seen hanging around the building several times recently. It is believed that Mackenzie, allegedly addicted to cocaine, entered the Thayer apartment on Monday, July 16, believing no one to be at home. When he found Peter Thayer eating breakfast in the kitchen, he lost his nerve and shot him. Commissioner Sullivan says the Browning automatic that fired the fatal bullet has not yet been traced but that the police have every hope of recovering the weapon.
The story was continued on page sixty-three. Here, a full page had been devoted to the case. Pictures of the Thayer family with Jill, another sister, and a chic Mrs. Thayer. A single shot of Peter in a baseball uniform for New Trier High School. A good candid picture of Anita McGraw. An accompanying story proclaimed LABOR LEADER’S DAUGHTER STILL MISSING. It suggested “now that the police have made an arrest, there is hope that Miss McGraw will return to Chicago or call her family Meanwhile, her picture has been circulated to state police in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan.”
That seemed to be that. I lay back in the water and closed my eyes. The police were supposedly hunting high and low for the Browning, questioning, Mackenzie’s friends, and searching his hangouts. But I didn’t think they’d find it. I tried to remember what Earl’s goons had been carrying. Fred had had a Colt, but I thought Tony might have had a Browning. Why was Thayer so willing to believe Mackenzie had killed his son? According to Jill, he’d been insisting at first it was McGraw. Something nagged at the back of my mind, but I couldn’t put a finger on it. Could there possibly be any proof that Mackenzie had done it? On the other hand, what proof did I have that he hadn’t? My stiff joints, the fact that nothing had been touched in the apartment…. But what did it really add up to? I wondered if Bobby had made that arrest, whether he was among those diligent policemen whom Police Commissioner Sullivan unstintingly praised. I decided I needed to get back to Chicago and talk to him.