“I don’t think this was done while I was here, but I’ll go ask your downstairs neighbors if they heard any noise. I know it must be very upsetting to come home and find your apartment destroyed, but please, Miss Warshawski—if we’re going to have a prayer of finding these guys We’ve got to fingerprint the place.”
“Okay, okay,” I said. He went out to check downstairs. I went to the bedroom. My canvas suitcase was lying open but fortunately had not been cut. I didn’t think canvas would take fingerprints, so I put it on the dismantled box springs and packed, going through the array of clothes and lingerie on the floor. I put the wrapped box from Riley’s in, too, and then called Lotty on the bedside phone.
“Lotty, I can’t talk right now, but my apartment has been ravaged. Can I come and stay a few nights?”
“Naturally, Vic. Do you need me to come get you?”
“No, I’m okay. I’ll be over in a while—I need to talk to the police first.”
We hung up and I took the suitcase down to the car. McGonnigal was in the second-floor apartment; the door was half open and he was talking, with his back to the hallway. I put the suitcase in my trunk and was just unlocking the outer door to go back upstairs when Mallory came squealing up to the curb with a couple of squad cars hot behind him. They double-parked, lights flashing, and a group of kids gathered at the end of the street, staring. Police like to create public drama—no other need for all that show.
“Hello, Bobby,” I said as cheerily as I could manage.
“What the hell is going on here, Vicki?” Bobby asked, so angry that he forgot his cardinal rule against swearing in front of women and children.
“Not nice, whatever it is: someone tore my place up. They smashed one of Gabriella’s glasses.”
Mallory had been charging up the stairs, about to muscle me aside, but that stopped him—he’d drunk too many New Year’s toasts out of those glasses. “Christ, Vicki, I’m sorry, but what the hell were you doing poking your nose into this business anyway?”
“Why don’t you send your boys upstairs and we’ll sit here and talk. There’s no place to sit down up there and frankly, I can’t stand to look at it.”
He thought about it for a minute. “Yeah, why don’t we go sit in my car, and you answer a few questions. Finchley!” he bellowed. A young black cop stepped forward. “Take the crew upstairs and fingerprint the place and search it if you can for any clues.” He turned to me. “Anything valuable that might be missing?”
I shrugged. “Who knows what’s valuable to a ransacker. A couple of good pieces of jewelry—my mother’s; I never wear them, too old-fashioned—a single diamond pendant set in a white gold filigree with matching earrings. A couple of rings. There’s a little silver flatware. I don’t know—a turntable. I haven’t looked for anything—just looked and looked away.”
“Yeah, okay,” Bobby said. “Go on.” He waved a hand and the four uniformed men started up the stairs. “And send McGonnigal down to me,” he called after them.
We went to Bobby’s car and sat together in the front seat. His full, red face was set—angry, but not, I thought, with me. “I told you on Thursday to butt out of the Thayer case.”
“I heard the police made an arrest yesterday—Donald Mackenzie. Is there still a Thayer case?”
Bobby ignored that. “What happened to your face?”
“I ran into a door.”
“Don’t clown, Vicki. You know why I sent McGonnigal over to talk to you?”
“I give up. He fell in love with me and you were giving him an excuse to come by and see me?”
“I can’t deal with you this morning!” Bobby yelled, top volume. “A kid is dead, your place is a wreck, your face looks like hell, and all you can think of is getting my goat. Goddamnit, talk to me straight and pay attention to what I say.”
“Okay, okay,” I said pacifically. “I give up: why did you send the sergeant over to see me?”
Bobby breathed heavily for a few minutes. He nodded, as if to affirm that he’d recovered his self-control. “Because John Thayer told me last night that you’d been beaten up and you didn’t believe that Mackenzie had committed the crime.”
“Thayer,” I echoed, incredulous. “I talked to him yesterday and he threw me out of his house because I wouldn’t accept his word that Mackenzie was the murderer. Now why’s he turning around telling you that? How’d you come to be talking to him, anyway?”
Bobby smiled sourly. “We had to go out to Winnetka to ask a few last questions. When it’s the Thayer family, we wait on their convenience, and that was when it was convenient…. He believes it was Mackenzie but he wants to be sure. Now tell me about your face.”