Hunting Sweetie Rose

CHAPTER 18.

Leo said that working out of Endora’s cubicle for the rest of the morning would be preferable to hanging around the backyard of his bungalow, waiting for Ma and her friends to finally exhaust themselves. I dropped him across the street from the Newberry Library.

I called Koros as Leo walked inside.

“How much money did Andrew Fill steal?”

“I’m not authorized to tell you, Mr. Elstrom. Approval has to come from Ms. Fairbairn.”

“Call her.”

“I’ll get back to you.”

“I’m fifteen minutes from your office.”

“No need,” he said quickly. “I’ll call you right back.”

I shut off the engine to wait for a more forthcoming attitude.

He called back ten minutes later. “I don’t understand. She always answers her cell phone.”

He didn’t know about the powder room fire. Sweetie Fairbairn might very well have been huddled somewhere, not talking to anybody.

“I’ll take the responsibility for what you tell me about Andrew Fill.”

“I don’t know…”

“Fill’s mail is piling up.”

Koros’s voice rose. “He’s left town?”

“There’s more: He left a roast out to spoil.”

Koros laughed. It was forced. “Are you kidding with me, Mr. Elstrom?”

“Andrew Fill is a fussy housekeeper, neat in every regard. He left a roast and two potatoes out, to spoil. Which they’ve been doing, for some weeks.”

“You know this how?”

“He may be in hiding. He may be dead.”

He sucked air. “Andrew’s alive. He must be alive.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s been paying-”

“Paying what?”

“Paying back what he took, as I told you.”

“How much so far?”

“Twenty-one thousand-but he’s late, and he’s stopped answering his phone. I’ve been calling every day for the past two weeks. The voice mail is full. He’s not answering anyone.”

“How much money did he take?”

“A lot,” he hedged.

“How much?”

“Four hundred and eighty-five thousand dollars.”

“That’s enough to go far away.”

“This is my fault.”

“His disappearance?”

“The money. I was overseeing the Symposium’s checking account. The disbursements looked so regular; travel and meals and lodging for the guests the Symposium board invited.”

“Not legit?”

“The bills were very legitimate, and Andrew purportedly withdrew funds from the cash account to pay them in full. Secretly, though, he’d set up a dozen credit card accounts, and arranged to use those to pay only minimums against the invoices. He kept the rest of the cash he withdrew.”

“I don’t understand why Ms. Fairbairn wouldn’t go after a man who stole almost a half-million dollars.”

“There would be the personal embarrassment, of course. Technically, she was his boss. Worse for her, though, was that she worried her friends would stop donating to charities she was involved with. So she repaid the fund on her own-and remember, Andrew has started to pay it back.” He cleared his throat. “Until he stopped answering his phone.”

“When did he stop answering, exactly?”

“Like I said, a couple of weeks ago, maybe longer. I thought he had to go somewhere, out of the country perhaps, to get the rest of it. I wasn’t alarmed; he was paying back. But lately…”

“You’re very trusting, Mr. Koros.”

“I had no idea he’d stop repaying, and I certainly did not know he was sending threatening letters, or whatever. Look, I’m not a fool, Mr. Elstrom. I should have kept better tabs on that account. But really, all I did was make sure the account was properly funded and reconciled every month. As for Sweetie, if she said no to punishing Andrew, then it was not my place to disagree.”

George Koros had answers for everything.

I drove the few blocks north to Oak Street, to see if Sweetie said they were true.

There was no guard outside the private elevator in the Wilbur Wright. I expected the elevator to be locked out, if Sweetie wasn’t home, but the doors opened as soon as I pressed the button.

The motors whirred, the elevator went up. Five seconds later, the door opened into the penthouse.

There was no guard in the foyer, either.

I walked into the living room. I suppose I first saw the familiar soft yellow silk on the walls, and the greens and yellows and oranges on the sofas and chairs, all of the colors made bright by the sun streaming in the windows.

I know I saw the sun glinting off the small ring of keys dropped on the beige carpet. It had a large fob with the letters S and F.

Mostly, what I saw was red. Lots of it, spilling out of the square suit of the bodyguard lying facedown on the pale carpet, wet and glistening in the sunlight.

I saw it, too, smeared, darker, on the arms and on the front of the dress of Sweetie Fairbairn.