The tabloids were full of it. Constance Thayer, after a night of
clubbing, drinks, and drugs, had taken an automatic pistol from the
collection of her industrialist husband Doyle Thayer Jr. and emptied it
into his back, as he lay naked and unconscious in their Iroquois Heights
home. The news of Constance Thayer's X-rated past breathed new life into
the scandal for another month. Walker's job was to gather enough dirt on
the late Mr. Thayer to make his widow look clean by comparison. What he
found was a monstrous magnate, a dubious corpse, and a gang of
country-style gunrunners.