Hunting Sweetie Rose

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.

Jennifer got to the Maverick and leaned in. She looked to be saying a few long, slow words. Benny’s head started bobbing in agreement. She then straightened up, slowly tugged an imaginary wrinkle from her yellow knit top, and came back smiling. Behind her, Benny Fittle was smiling, too, substantially happier than he’d been the moment before.

“Screw with me, screw with the devil,” Jennifer said.

I did not doubt the truth of that. Nor, I supposed, would Benny Fittle, ever again in his life.

“How about some coffee before we go to Indiana?” she asked.

“Indiana? We’re going to Indiana?”

“Andrew Fill’s place.”

“George Koros said he’d sent something to Fill at a vacation place, but he thought it was in Michigan or Wisconsin. How did you locate it?”

“I found a canceled check in his apartment, made out to a homeowners association. Fill had put his cottage in trust.”

“Secretive?”

“Not necessarily. More likely, he was following the advice of some lawyer when he bought the place. Just a quick cup of coffee, then let’s leave.”

I opened the door, and we went up to the second floor.

“Think I’ll ever get all the way to the roof?” she asked, as I turned into the kitchen.

“We can take our coffee up there.”

I fed Mr. Coffee new grounds. Normally, afternoons, I just run new water through the morning’s grounds-a habit of the financially challenged-but she was the press, and curved. There would be no reruns for Jennifer Gale.

“Interesting collection of appliances.” she said, as Mr. Coffee burbled, sounding every bit as happy as Benny Fittle. “Sort of like a museum of what people used to have in their kitchens.”

“I’ve had them longer than I’d hoped. That avocado-colored refrigerator I got from an alley. The microwave I bought new, but dented. It might leak radiation, but we won’t know that for years.”

I poured coffee in travel mugs and capped them. “The roof?”

“Yes, please.”

I led us up two more flights of stairs, then up the ladder to the fifth floor.

“Why not stairs all the way?” she asked, as I went ahead, up the next ladder, to the roof.

“My grandfather’s thinking was not always clear.” I pushed open the trapdoor. “One of my aunts said he was going to distill up here and wanted to make sure he could drop a door on any charging police, then pull both ladders up to the roof with him.”

“Wouldn’t he then be trapped?”

“As I said, his thinking wasn’t always clear.”

“Wow,” she said, when she got up.

“Best view in town.” I leaned against the wall.

She worked her way around the roof, taking in the views from each direction.

“You think Andrew Fill could be in Indiana?” she asked, finally.

“I’d be surprised if he’s that close. The man’s got a half-million dollars, enough to run far away.”

“Maybe we’ll find a cottage abandoned like his apartment.”

“I think I should tell you about a development that might make you want to forget Indiana and head back to Channel 8. Sweetie Fairbairn wrote very big checks to several charities the same day she disappeared.”

“You know this how?”

“One of the recipients got a charitable donation that was way more than what she’d asked for. That person said two others also got substantially more than they requested. Sweetie gave away millions that last day, Jennifer.”

“How many millions, do you think?”

“Maybe most of what she had.”

“This recipient will verify what you’re telling me?”

“Off-limits,” I said.

“I figured as much,” she said, knowing who it was. She took out her cell phone and flipped it open. “Who else knows?”

“I don’t know, but it will get out today.”

Jennifer called her news director. After repeating what I’d told her, she nodded a couple of times, frowned, and hung up. “They’ll check it out.”

“That’s it? No on-air time for you?”

She shrugged. “Your tip is unsubstantiated; there’s no second source. The news business is changing. We got our news director cheap.”

“Indiana, then?”

“Indiana, for sure.”

We’d just gotten out the door when Leo rumbled up in his Porsche. The convertible top was down, the bossa nova was up. He turned off his CD player.

Across the street, Benny Fittle leaned his head out the side window.

“Jennifer, this specimen is Leo Brumsky. He is my friend.”

Below his summer standards of a wide-brimmed straw hat and big wraparound sunglasses, Leo wore a plum-colored Hawaiian shirt, forested with bright green palm trees that, amazingly, bore bright red apples. Jennifer laughed as she held out her hand.

“Run away with me to the south of France,” he said.

“Apples on a palm tree, Leo?” she asked.

“That’s artistic license, my dear. I wear only designers with expanded imaginations.”

“How much did you pay for the shirt?” I asked, to cut the crap.

“Because of the apples, only a dollar ninety-nine.” He extended his chest. Outside his spare 140 pounds, the XXL shirt didn’t move.

“We’re off on a trip,” I said.

Leo still hadn’t taken his eyes off Jennifer Gale. “You look…” He stopped.

“Older than I appear on television?”

“Even more newsworthy.” He fluffed out the front of his shirt and grinned, a letch covered with apple-laden palm trees. “There’s room in here for both of us.”

She laughed, charmed. Everyone is, with Leo.

He started to reach for the gear shifter, then stopped. “You do know your Jeep is on your lawn?” he asked me.

“Yes.”

He nodded, turned on the bossa nova, and gunned the Porsche back toward Thompson Avenue.

Benny Fittle withdrew his head.

Jennifer Gale and I set off to find Andrew Fill.