Hunting Sweetie Rose

CHAPTER 20.

I don’t remember the ride. I don’t remember whether it was a marked or an unmarked car, or who drove, or whether there was much traffic. I’d never seen the police station. I did recognize the table. It seemed like every station house I’d been in had the same kind of beat-up, plastic-topped relic, surrounded by metal-framed hard plastic chairs that were tough on the ass.

I knew the questions Plinnit was going to ask, like he knew the answers he was going to get. We’d done it before, in Sweetie Fairbairn’s kitchen. Twice. Even so, we were going to slog through them again, and again, until one of us wore down too much to go on.

The gray-haired, gray-eyed man stood at the door. Plinnit and I sat at the table.

He switched on a tape recorder and blew through a Miranda. When I said I didn’t need a lawyer, he started with the questions. “Ms. Fairbairn was alive and well when you saw her?”

“She was in shock,” I said again.

“You know shock?” he asked again.

“Nothing on her face wanted to move. She barely had the energy to blink.”

“You told me you didn’t think she stabbed the guard?”

“I didn’t think anything except blood. I didn’t see a knife. I told her to go wait in her bedroom. I went to the foyer, called 911, and-”

“Waited for us.”

I nodded.

“Where is Ms. Fairbairn now, Elstrom?”

“I don’t know.”

“You want to continue insisting you waited for us by the elevator door?”

“That’s where I was.”

“In the foyer, right by the elevator, where you would have seen her leave?”

“If she took the elevator-but there’s a back stairs, Duggan told me.”

“Told you today?”

“No. You know I found him dead today. This was yesterday.”

“You were there yesterday?”

“Someone set a fire in her powder room.”

“That wasn’t reported?”

“Certainly it was reported; fire trucks came. The building was emptied. Ask the Wilbur Wright’s manager. Check with the fire department.”

“But the police weren’t called? It wasn’t reported as a home invasion, arson?”

“I don’t know.”

“There’s a boarded-up window in the guest bedroom.”

“Point of entry.”

“Convenient,” he murmured.

“Convenient for whom, Plinnit? Timothy Duggan? He’s dead. Sweetie Fairbairn? She’s missing. Maybe she’s dead, too.”

“Convenient for anyone to enter unseen. Like you, Elstrom.”

I stood up, daring them to push me back down, daring them to come right out and accuse me of murder. I am not at my brightest, angry.

They let me stand.

Plinnit continued. “It must have been someone big, your size, to have gotten close enough to that bodyguard-”

“Duggan,” I said, cutting him off. “His name was Duggan.”

“No. His name was Norton, Robert Norton. Duggan’s at the station, here. He’s giving a statement right now.”

It took a moment to digest. “He’ll tell you about the fire.”

“Norton had a gun, Elstrom. How do you think someone got close to him?”

Everyone-me, Plinnit, the silent slab of gray beef by the door-knew there was only one answer to that.

“Norton knew his assailant, trusted him,” I said.

“You,” he said.

“You betcha,” I said.

“Or her?” Plinnit’s eyes were steady.

Both Sweetie and I were a good cop’s obvious suspects. Me, because I was being evasive. Her, because I’d placed her in the penthouse, kneeling down over the dead man, and because she’d taken off. I wasn’t going to play with Plinnit on that. Missing, even dead, Sweetie Fairbairn was still a client.

“I don’t see Sweetie Fairbairn using a knife, Lieutenant.”

“Did Norton know you, Elstrom?”

“As I told you, I was there, several times. He would have known me by sight.”

“Why did Sweetie Fairbairn hire you?” Plinnit asked, and asked again. It was what he most wanted to know. Each time, my refusal to answer that question signaled the end of the round, that we were going to start it all again.

“Ask her, Lieutenant,” I said each time.

So it went, around and around and around, each of us unyielding, as the afternoon changed into evening, and the evening changed into night.

Until, at midnight, I asked, “Do I call my lawyer?”

He surprised me.

“You can do it from home,” he said.

There was no offer of a ride back to my Jeep. I didn’t protest. I was desperate enough for free air to walk until I could find a cab. I went out the front door of the station house.

Into the sudden glare of television camera lights.

The reporters behind them started shouting.

“Vlodek Elstrom! Will you be charged with the murder of Sweetie Fairbairn?” the loudest of them yelled.

Plinnit had probably tipped them I’d be coming out, a little extra pressure from a cop who’d spent his evening not believing most of what I was saying.

I remembered those kinds of reporter noises, those kinds of shouted questions that could be edited into something else entirely. My livelihood, my Amanda, my future; I’d lost everything in that same kind of din.

I smiled, I waved. I walked swiftly away, into the darkest street I could see. When I was sure that none of the cameramen had been able to keep up, I ran like I was being chased by the hounds of hell, until I couldn’t run anymore. Then I walked, chest heaving, gulping air, for six more blocks, or maybe ten. Finally, a cab slowed. He looked me over, real slow, said he’d need cash up front before he’d drive me the few blocks north of the river, to the parking lot close to the Wilbur Wright, where I’d left the Jeep.

There were television lights at the hotel, too. Waiting for news of Sweetie Fairbairn, dead or alive.

I stayed close to the buildings and moved up enough to hear the personalities and their crews talking about what they didn’t know.

“She’s got to come back, right?” and “Someone said she killed all of them,” and “Some guy named Elstrom has been arrested.”

Then someone called out, “Hey! You! With the clothes!”

A videocam light swung onto me, followed by another. I didn’t understand. It didn’t matter. I ran down to the parking lot, stuffed cash-I didn’t know how much-into the hand of the late-night attendant, and fired up the Jeep. I was almost out of the lot when one of the newsies thought to step in front of me. I revved the engine. He blinked once, twice, must have seen that I wasn’t blinking once, or twice. He jumped aside.

By then, a silver sedan-another newsman-had pulled up to block the exit onto the street. I drove onto the sidewalk, almost striking an elderly pair of late-night strollers into the next life. Bouncing over the curb, I gunned the Jeep down Oak Street. I ran a red light at the next intersection and turned left. I shot a glance into the rearview mirror. I’d lost the silver sedan.

Suddenly, my whole body started to shake. Squeezing the steering wheel to keep the Jeep in control, I drove east, to Lake Shore Drive, then south, paralleling the lake. Newspeople would be at the turret, too. Some would have even remembered the way, from the last time, during the Evangeline Wilts trial. The old can was going to be pried open; the worms were going to dance in the glare of the lights again. That long-ago man who’d been thought to have falsified evidence-accused in big print, exonerated in small-was going to be back bigger than ever. Pressure would build. Plinnit would have to act. I’d have to be charged.

No turret, not yet.

I drove past the turn to the expressway to Rivertown.