“Oh, not collusion. But Joe Hill has always been a big hero of ours. Jody Hill just came to me subconsciously. He probably picked it for the same reason.”
We had reached our exit, and Anita started giving me detailed directions. When we pulled up in front of the house, she sat for a bit without speaking. Finally she said, “I couldn’t decide whether to ask you to come in with me or not. But I think you should. This whole thing got started—or your involvement got started—because he came to you. Now I don’t know whether he’ll believe it’s over without your story.”
“Okay.” We walked up to the house together. A man was sitting outside the front door.
“Bodyguard,” Anita murmured to me. “Daddy’s had one as long as I can remember.” Aloud she said, “Hi, Chuck. It’s me, Anita—I’ve dyed my hair.”
The man was taken aback. “I heard you ran off, that someone was gunning for you. You okay?”
“Oh, yes, I’m fine. My dad home?”
“ Yup, he’s in there alone.”
We went into the house, a small ranch house on a large plot. Anita led me through the living room to a sunken family room. Andrew McGraw was watching television. He turned as he heard us coming. For a second he didn’t recognize Anita with her short black hair. Then he jumped up.
“Annie?”
“Yes, it’s me,” she said quietly. “Miss Warshawski here found me, as you asked her to. She shot Yardley Masters, and broke the arm of Earl Smeissen’s hired gunman. They’re all three in jail now. So we can talk.”
“Is that true?” he demanded. “You disabled Bronsky and shot Masters?”
“Yes,” I said. “But your troubles aren’t over, you know: as soon as Masters has recovered somewhat, he’s going to talk.”
He looked from me to Anita, the heavy square face uncertain. “How much do you know?” he finally said.
“I know a lot,” Anita said. Her voice wasn’t hostile, but it was cold, the voice of someone who didn’t know the person she was talking to very well and wasn’t sure she’d want to. “I know you’ve been using the union as a front for collecting money on illegal insurance claims. I know that Peter found that out and went to Yardley Masters about it. And Masters called you and got the name of a hit man.”
“Listen, Annie,” he said in a low, urgent tone, much different from the angry bluster I’d heard before. “you’ve got to believe I didn’t know it was Peter when Yardley called.”
She stayed in the doorway to the room, looking down at him as he stood in his shirt-sleeves. I moved over to one side. “Don’t you see,” she said, her voice breaking a little, “it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter whether you knew who it was or not. What matters is that you were using the union for fraud, and that you knew a killer when Masters needed one. I know you wouldn’t have had Peter shot in cold blood. But it’s because you knew how to get people shot that it happened at all.”
He was silent, thinking. “Yes, I see,” he said finally, in that same low voice. “Do you think I haven’t seen it, sitting here for ten days wondering if I’d see you dead, too, and know that I had killed you?” She said nothing. “Look, Annie. You and the union—that’s been my whole life for twenty years. I thought for ten days that I’d lost both of you. Now you’re back. I’m going to have to give up the union—are you going to make me do without you as well?”
Behind us an insanely grinning woman on TV was urging the room to buy some kind of shampoo. Anita stared at her father. “It can never be the same, you know. Our life, you know, the foundation’s broken.”
“Look at me, Annie,” he said hoarsely. “I haven’t slept for ten days, I haven’t eaten. I keep watching television, expecting to hear that they’ve found your dead body someplace…. I asked Warshawski here to find you when I thought I could keep a step ahead of Masters. But when they made it clear you’d be dead if you showed up, I had to call her off.”
He looked at me. “You were right—about almost everything. I used Thayer’s card because I wanted to plant the idea of him in your mind. It was stupid. Everything I’ve done this last week’s been stupid. Once I realized Annie was in trouble, I just lost my head and acted on crazy impulses. I wasn’t mad at you, you know. I was just hoping to God you’d stop before you found Annie. I knew if Earl was watching you you’d lead him straight to her.”