She looked surprised—possibly the last question she’d expected. “Peter and I came up here last summer to the Washington County Fair—just for fun. We had a sandwich in that cafe, and I remembered it.” Her voice was husky with fatigue. She turned to look at me and said rapidly, “I hope I can trust you—I’ve got to trust someone. Ruth doesn’t know—doesn’t know the kind of people who—who might shoot someone. I don’t either, really, but I think I have a better idea than she does.” She gave a bleak smile. “I’m going to lose my mind if I stay here alone any longer. But I can’t go back to Chicago. I need help. If you can’t do it, if you blow it and I get shot—or if you’re some clever female hit man who fooled Ruth into giving you my address—I don’t know. I have to take the chance.” She was holding her hands together so tightly that the knuckles were white.
“I’m a private investigator,” I said. “Your father hired me last week to find you, and I found Peter Thayer’s body instead. Over the weekend, he told me to stop looking. I have my own guesses as to what all that was about. That’s how I got involved. I agree that you’re in a pretty tough spot. And if I blow it, neither of us will be in very good shape. You can’t hide here forever, though, and I think that I’m tough enough, quick enough, and smart enough to get things settled so that you can come out of hiding. I can’t cure the pain, and there’s more to come, but I can get you back to Chicago—or wherever else you want so that you can live openly and with dignity.”
She thought about that, nodding her head. People were walking up and down the sidewalk; I felt as if we were in a fishbowl. “Is there somewhere we can go to talk—somewhere with a little more room? ”
“There’s a park.”
“That’d be fine.” It was back along route 60 toward Milwaukee. I parked the Datsun out of sight of the road and we walked down to sit on the bank of a little stream that ran through the park, dividing it from the back wall of the Chrysler plant on the other side. The day was hot, but here in the country the air was clear and sweet.
“You said something about living with dignity,” she said, looking at the water, her mouth twisted in a harsh smile. “I don’t think I’ll ever do that again. I know what happened to Peter, you see. In a way, I guess you could say I killed him.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked gently.
“You say you found his body. Well, so did I. I came home at four and found him. I knew then what had happened. I lost my head and ran. I didn’t know where to go—I didn’t come here until the next day. I spent the night at Mary’s house, and then I came up here. I couldn’t figure out why they weren’t waiting for me, but I knew if I went back they’d get me.” She was starting to sob, great dry sobs that heaved her shoulders and chest. “Dignity!” she said in a hoarse voice. “Oh, Chirst! I’d settle for a night’s sleep.” I didn’t say anything, but sat watching her. After a few minutes she calmed down a bit. “How much do you know?” she asked.
“I don’t know much for certain—that I can prove, I mean. But I’ve got some guesses. What I know for certain is that your father and Yardley Masters have a deal going. I don’t know what it is, but I found a claim draft from Ajax in your apartment. I presume that Peter brought it home, so one of my guesses is that the deal has to do with claim drafts. I know that your father knows Earl Smeissen, and I know that someone wanted something very badly that they thought was in your apartment and then thought that I had taken it and put in mine. They wanted it badly enough to ransack both places. My guess is that they were looking for the claim draft, and that it was Smeissen, or one of his people, who did the ransacking.”
“Is Smeissen a killer?” she asked in her harsh, strained voice.
“Well, he’s doing pretty well these days: he doesn’t kill, himself, but he’s got muscle to do it for him.”
“So my father had him kill Peter, didn’t he?” She stared at me challengingly, her eyes hard and dry, her mouth twisted. This was the nightmare she’d been lying down with every night. No wonder she wasn’t sleeping.
“I don’t know. This is one of my guesses. Your father loves you, you know, and he’s going nuts right now. He would never knowingly have put your life in danger. And he would never knowingly have let Peter be shot. I think what happened was that Peter confronted Masters, and Masters panicked and called your dad.” I stopped. “This isn’t pretty and it’s hard to say to you. But your dad knows the kind of people who will put someone away for a price. He’s made it to the top of a rough union in a rough industry, and he’s had to know those kinds of people.”
She nodded wearily, not looking at me. “I know. I never wanted to know it in the past, but I know it now. So my—my father, gave him this Smeissen’s name. Is that what you’re getting at?”
“Yes, I’m sure Masters didn’t tell him who it was who’d crossed his path—just that someone had tumbled to the secret, and had to be eliminated. It’s the only thing that explains your father’s behavior.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, not very interested.
“ Your father came to me last Wednesday, gave me a fake name and a phony story, but he wanted me to find you. He knew about Peter’s death at that point, and he was upset because you’d run away. You called and accused him of killing Peter, didn’t you?”