Hunting Sweetie Rose : A Mystery (9781429950879) (16 page)

“Nice of Duggan to call you,” I said to the back of Plinnit's neck.

The vinyl upholstery smelled funny, as if it had just been drenched with a cleaner to kill a smell. I reached down to touch the seat. Mercifully, it seemed dry.

“He doesn't like trouble,” Plinnit said.

“I was invited in.”

“Like the person who killed Robert Norton, I'm sure.”

“You never got around to telling me if there was a lobby camera at the Wilbur Wright.”

“The quality's lousy, but we could make out you. And Ms. Fairbairn, twice. She went up, apparently forgot something, changed her clothes, and came back down the rear stairs because we don't have that recorded. Then she went up again. She's an obvious candidate for shooting Norton, Elstrom.”

“If you ever find motive,” I said. “Where are we going?”

“You'll recognize it,” Plinnit said.

Five minutes later, I did. It was Andrew Fill's apartment building.

I also recognized Jennifer Gale's green Prius. It was parked down the block.

The car looked empty. So did the sidewalks, except for a redheaded woman in a turquoise coat strolling down the block.

“What's this?” I asked.

“Oh, please,” Plinnit said.

In the foyer, Plinnit buzzed someone on the second floor, who let us in. We took the elevator up.

The pleasant older man who'd held the door for me the last time I'd come was waiting in the hall. At the sight of me, he widened his eyes and nodded exaggeratedly at Plinnit. Plinnit thanked him a fraction of an instant before the old man slammed the door.

“Last time, I came cleverly disguised as a painter,” I said.

“Ah, Elstrom,” Plinnit said. We went back to the elevator and rode it up to three.

“What are we doing?” I asked, too loudly, when we got to Fill's door. If Jennifer was in the apartment, the best she could do now was hide under the bed.

Plinnit gave me a puzzled look and withdrew a key from his pocket.

“Aren't you going to knock first?” I asked, again too loudly.

“Losing your hearing, Elstrom? Or are you expecting Fill to be home?”

We went in.

Fill's apartment no longer smelled of spoiled meat. It smelled of Jennifer Gale's perfume.

“The place has been gone over, so you can touch,” Plinnit said, then added, “some more.”

“You found my prints?” It was my last loud attempt.

Plinnit laughed. “Certainly not on the roast.”

“The door was open. I stepped in, looked around, saw the apartment was immaculate. I left.”

“How did you think to come here in the first place?”

“Same reason as you, Lieutenant. Andrew Fill had a dispute with Sweetie Fairbairn. It was in the newspaper.”

“George Koros told us Fill took money from something called the Midwest Arts Symposium.”

“Sweetie Fairbairn had Koros fire him.”

Plinnit's face tightened and then relaxed. “The question is, Elstrom, did you come here to snoop or to abduct?”

“Abduct Andrew Fill? Why?”

“For Sweetie Fairbairn. She could have hired you to muscle the money out of Fill.”

“No need. Koros can confirm that Fill has been paying it back.”

“Koros did. But perhaps Fill was paying back too slowly for Ms. Fairbairn.”

“I got involved in this long after Fill disappeared. He's been gone at least a month.”

“The stinking roast gave you that?”

Plinnit was too smart for too many lies. I gave him something he already knew.

“I went through his mail,” I said.

“We know. We took your prints off the box. We'll probably add violating federal postal laws to your growing list of crimes.”

“I wanted to see how long the mail had been piling up.”

“You were thinking Andrew Fill went away for a month, then decided to come back to kill Ms. Fairbairn?”

“I don't know what to think. Koros says Fill is an embezzler, nothing more. I'm just assembling facts that might help find Sweetie Fairbairn.”

“Why didn't you toss the apartment, Elstrom?”

“What?”

“When you broke in here before. Why didn't you toss the place, do a thorough search?”

“For what?”

“For all that money, Elstrom. Or for clues as to where Fill might be, with all that money.”

Something itchy started working at my scalp.

“Want to know why you didn't need to toss this place?” Plinnit went on. “Because you already knew what was here: Nothing, with a capital
N
. You came back just to make sure the place looked good enough for us. Now there's nothing here for anyone to find.”

It was enough. “If you want to talk more, let's invite John Peet.”

“Not yet, Elstrom. Maybe soon.”

We went down to his car.

Nobody said anything on the ride back to Duggan's office building. As the gray-haired, gray-eyed man pulled us to a stop, Plinnit turned around to look at me.

“Care to guess whose face keeps popping up where it doesn't belong, Elstrom? First in Sweetie Fairbairn's penthouse, then in Andrew Fill's apartment?”

I reached for the door handle. “Thanks for the ride, Lieutenant.”

“Don't pop up again until I come for you,” he said.

CHAPTER 26.

I called Jennifer as soon as Plinnit pulled away.

“Housebreaking?” I asked.

“That was close, wasn't it? I'd just come out when you arrived in a very official-looking car.”

“That was Lieutenant Plinnit, who's heading the search for Sweetie Fairbairn. He wanted to rub my nose in my trail, to make sure I understood he knew I'd been in Fill's apartment. What were you doing there?”

“Your bidding, remember? You want me to find Andrew Fill. What better place to start than his apartment?”

“How did you get in?” It wasn't important, but the woman was fascinating.

“The building's back door was open. Upstairs, for the apartment, I used picks.”

“Aren't you too recognizable for that?”

“I have a wig and a very long coat.”

I remembered the red-haired woman in the turquoise coat on the sidewalk. “Good thing you chose subdued colors.”

“They draw the eye from the face.”

“Not that face,” I wanted to say, but asked instead, “Did you learn anything?”

“I'll pick you up. We'll talk as we drive.”

“Drive where?”

“Oh no you don't, Dek Elstrom. This one I'm in on from the beginning.”

“Don't you have to work?”

“Only until three o'clock. I'll pick you up after that.”

I checked my phone for messages. Amanda had called twice. George Koros, once.

I got right through to Amanda. “I need to show you something,” she said.

“It's lunchtime,” I said.

“I can't do a restaurant,” she said quickly.

“I'll come to your office.”

“No.” She said it just as fast, and then I understood why she didn't want to meet in a restaurant, or in her office. She couldn't afford to be seen with me.

“Messenger it to me, then,” I said.

She thought for a minute and said, “The hell with it. Sandwiches, in Millennium Park?”

We used to meet at noon there, back when they were finishing up the grand new park. It seemed that all of Chicago had been excited about what was coming. Like us, before we got married.

“I'll get those roast beef sandwiches with the horseradish mustard, the ones on jalapeño rolls,” I said.

“You remember the bench?”

I did. Our bench was east of the bean, that asymmetrical, mirrorlike wonder that tourists and locals alike sought out to see their reflections distorted. Our bench was out of the way, tucked behind some bushes.

I told her I'd pick up the sandwiches and see her there in an hour.

I returned George Koros's call.

“I seem to remember Andrew Fill has a summer place, in Wisconsin, or maybe Michigan,” he said.

“You think he's there?”

“I don't think anything, Mr. Elstrom. I had to FedEx something to Andrew once, a Saturday delivery. He gave me the address of his weekend place. When I find where it is, can you get out there right away?”

“It's the only lead we've got.”

*   *   *

I got to the park twenty minutes early. Amanda wasn't there yet, so I took the sandwiches for a walk. It had been months, perhaps a year, since I'd last been there. The park looked different. Plantings had been changed, and some stone benches added. It wasn't just that, though. The people looked different. I might have still had cellular communications on the brain, because it seemed everyone was on the phone. Headsets, handsets, everyone appeared to be talking to someone far away. There were no couples simply strolling, that lunch hour, like Amanda and I used to do. Everyone looked to be alone, and on the phone.

I saw her then.

For an instant, I almost didn't recognize her. The spring was still in her step; she still moved with the same purpose and grace. Her features were as fine and as beautiful as I always saw them, though now that was usually only in my mind.

Something, though, had changed. There was a tension to her; she seemed somehow coiled. Perhaps it was me.

Our embrace was too fast; her kiss, on my cheek, was too cordial. We sat on the bench, and I spread out the sandwiches.

“Same sandwiches, certainly,” she said.

“But not the same old Amanda,” I almost said, but didn't. I bit the sandwich instead.

“How is Sweetie Fairbairn?”

“Still gone.”

Strangers on a bench, stiff and formal and guarded.

“No inside dope, things I haven't been hearing on the news?” she asked.

“Nobody knows anything. Especially me.”

“Why did she hire you?”

I hesitated, as I had the first time she'd asked about Sweetie Fairbairn, the night we'd met at Rokie's.

“I have a real need to know, before I show you something,” she added.

I told her what little I knew, about a blond woman in a limousine, and James Stitts, and Andrew Fill.

“And the dead guard?”

“Sweetie was there, and then she took off.”

“She never told you how all this might relate to her?”

“She's extremely guarded. She intimated that someone was impersonating her.”

“That woman in the limo, for blackmail?”

“Andrew Fill could have set that up with an actress.”

“Why? He already has her money.”

“A half-million dollars of it. Maybe he wants more.”

“Then this makes everything doubly interesting. It arrived yesterday.” She pulled a folded sheet of paper from her purse and handed it to me. It was a photocopy of a check, payable to Memorial Hospital, Children's Wing. The check was handwritten, for two million dollars. Sweetie Fairbairn had signed the check.

“A huge check, dated the day she disappeared.” I looked up.

“I'd suggested a contribution of one or two hundred thousand.”

“And she gave you two million?”

“Much more than I asked for.”

“You were very compelling?”

“It wasn't just me. I know of two other people who also received much more from Sweetie than they'd asked for.”

“Checks also written the day she disappeared?”

She nodded. “It will become public today, tomorrow at the latest.”

“Tell me, Amanda.” I wanted her to say the words so that I'd have no doubt.

“Sweetie Fairbairn is giving away her whole fortune.”

CHAPTER 27.

Things had changed in front of the turret since I'd left.

Someone from city hall had put up two
NO PARKING FIRE LANE
signs. One was directly in front of the turret. The other was across the street.

Also, there was a face-off going on between the drivers of two automobiles. Benny Fittle's Maverick was parked across the street, belching hydrocarbons back at city hall. Jennifer Gale was parked in front of the turret, right in front of the new sign. It was hard to tell if her Prius was running, because hybrids belch nothing, idling as they do in electric mode.

Benny was staring at Jennifer Gale, daring her to leave her car so he could enforce the new parking ban.

I got out of the Jeep. “What the hell, Benny?” I asked, crossing the street.

“Better move your car, Mr. Elstrom,” he said through whatever powdered thing he was eating. “Otherwise I got to write you.”

“Where am I supposed to park, if not in front of my own home?”

“There's spots south of Thompson.”

“That's a half mile away.”

He smiled with his mouth open, exposing Boston crème run amok.

I'd fight this new battle another time. I went back to the Jeep, started it, and eased it over the curb to park on the grass in front of my door.

Benny, his cheeks still inflated like a blowfish, gave me a thumbs-up.

I walked over to the Prius.

“What's with the fire lane signs?” Jennifer asked through the open window.

“A consequence of my notoriety. Now no press can park here.”

“Really?” She got out.

She wore black jeans and a yellow knit top that was cut a little lower than anything my eyes needed at that juncture in my life. I told myself she looked like a wasp, in that yellow and black, except for the curves. Myself laughed. “Yeah, except for the curves.”

She reached into the Prius, took out a
PRESS
sign, and held it up so Benny could see. He shook his head; the press would not be accommodated in Rivertown.

She placed the sign on her dash anyway. Then she started across the street. To my eyes, she was putting a little something extra into her walk as she approached Benny's Maverick. By the way his face was reddening through his smeared windshield, he saw it, too. He started working his throat, like a snake trying to swallow a pig, desperate to get rid of the last of his Boston crème.