“Frankly, V.I. or Vic, or whatever your real name is, you haven’t convinced me. I don’t believe Anita’s life could be in danger. But if anyone disagrees with me and knows where Anita is, go ahead and betray her.”
“I have another question,” Ruth said. “Assuming we did know where she is and told you, what good would that do her—if everything you’re saying is true?”
“If I can find out what the transaction is, I can probably get some definite proof of who the murderer is,” I said. “The more quickly that happens, the less likely it is that this hired killer can get to her.”
No one said anything else. I waited a few minutes. I kind of hoped Annette would try to throw me out: I felt like breaking someone’s arm. Radicals are so goddamn paranoid. And radical students combine that with isolation and pomposity. Maybe I’d break all their arms, just for fun. But Annette didn’t move. And no one chirped up with Anita’s address.
“Satisfied?” Mary asked triumphantly, her thin cheeks pulled back in a smirk.
“Thanks for the time, sisters,” I said. “If any of you changes her mind, I’m leaving some business cards with my phone number by the coffee.” I put them down and left.
I felt very depressed driving home. Peter Wimsey would have gone in and charmed all those uncouth radicals into slobbering all over him. He would never have revealed he was a private detective—he would have started some clever conversation that would have told him everything he wanted to know and then given two hundred pounds to the Lesbian Freedom Fund.
I turned left onto Lake Shore Drive, going much too fast and getting a reckless pleasure from feeling the car careening, almost out of control. I didn’t even care at this point if someone stopped me. I did the four miles between Fifty-seventh Street and McCormick Place in three minutes. It was at that point that I realized someone was following me.
The speed limit in that area was forty-five and I was doing eighty, yet I was holding the same pair of headlights in my rearview mirror that had been behind me in the other lane when I got on the Drive. I braked quickly, and changed to the outside lane. The other car didn’t change lanes, but slowed down also.
How long had I been carrying a tail, and why? If Earl wanted to blow me away, he had unlimited opportunities, no need to waste manpower and money on a tail. He might not know where I’d gone after leaving my apartment, but I didn’t think so. My answering service had Lotty’s phone number, and it’s a simple matter to get an address from the phone company if you have the number.
Maybe they wanted Jill and didn’t realize I’d taken her to Lotty’s. I drove slowly and normally, not trying to change lanes or make an unexpected exit. My companion stayed with me, in the center lane, letting a few cars get between us. As we moved downtown, the lights got brighter and I could see the car better—a mid-sized gray sedan, it looked like.
If they got Jill, they would have a potent weapon to force me off the case. I couldn’t believe that Earl thought I had a case. He’d given me the big scare, he’d torn my apartment apart, and he’d gotten the police to make an arrest. As far as I could tell, despite John Thayer’s death, Donald Mackenzie was still in jail. Perhaps they thought I could lead them to the document they had overlooked at Peter Thayer’s, and not found in my apartment.
The phrase “lead them to” clicked in my brain. Of course. They weren’t interested in me, or in Jill, or even in that claim draft. They wanted Anita McGraw, just as I did, and they thought I could lead them to her. How had they known I was going to the campus tonight? They hadn’t: they’d followed me there. I’d told McGraw I had a lead on a lead to Anita and he had told—Smeissen?—Masters? I didn’t like the thought of McGraw fingering his daughter. He must have told someone he thought he could trust. Surely not Masters, though.