Hunting Sweetie Rose

CHAPTER 56.

So it went, until three in the morning. Plinnit never got satisfied with what I was telling him. I didn’t, either. I could not figure why Darlene Taylor turned up dead behind my turret, or who could benefit from that.

Surely, after Leo and Plinnit helped me walk all five floors, I could not figure out how anyone had benefited from breaking into the turret. Nothing was missing.

Finally, we walked out into the night. By then, the Channel 8 News van and Plinnit’s crew had left. Oddly, Jenny’s Prius was still there, but she might have hitched a ride back to the studio with her cameraman, to process footage, or whatever newspeople did in the middle of the night.

A dark sedan also remained, parked back toward Thompson Avenue.

“My people, to keep you alive, at least until I can verify Darlene Taylor’s time of death,” Plinnit said.

Leo pulled a parking ticket from his windshield. “Damn it,” he said.

Plinnit had gotten one, too. “What the hell is this?” he asked, ripping it from beneath his windshield wiper.

I pointed up at the sign. “Parking citation. You’ve parked in a fire lane.”

“I’m a police officer.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Leo said.

“I’ll call you tomorrow, too,” Plinnit said, “after I learn your alibi doesn’t check out.”

“I have questions,” Jenny Galecki said, stepping into the front door light.

For a moment, nobody spoke.

“Damn it to hell,” Plinnit said, getting into his car and slamming his door.

“For sure, I’m calling you tomorrow,” Leo said, getting into the minivan.

“This will lead our first news, at noon,” Jenny said to me, the only one left.

“You’ve been alone out here, in the dark, all this time?”

“My cameraman just took off. We had officer Fittle to protect us.”

“Still, it was dangerous to wait. Whoever killed Darlene Taylor also tried to break in here.”

“Gone now?”

I nodded. “Coffee?”

“Sounds perfect.”

Upstairs, my hand shook as I went to the sink to rinse the carafe. I took that to mean I’d had too much coffee and nothing more.

I set down the carafe. “We could have wine and Ho Hos instead,” I said.

“Even lovelier.” She sat at the plywood table.

I’ve had the same gallon of Gallo for years. It used to be a temptation, which is why I still keep it. It is covered with dust, untouched since the day I moved into the turret. I accept victory wherever I can find it.

I poured us each two inches of the wine, opened a fresh pack of Ho Hos, and told her everything I knew that wouldn’t point at Sweetie Fairbairn.

“Not much of that is usable,” she said when I’d finished.

“Everything I told you about Alta Taylor and what I think was her role at the gas station killing is conjecture. Same with Darlene’s role in the murders of Stitts, the guard, Andrew Fill, and George Koros.”

“For now, I’ll go with the discovery as a Jane Doe next to your turret-by you, Dek; you’re the one who discovered the body. With you comes mention of Sweetie Fairbairn, because you were the one who discovered her kneeling over the guard’s body. It’s all part of the story.”

“I understand.”

“When Plinnit gets solid identification that it was Darlene, the link between her, Koros, and Sweetie Fairbairn will come out. Then the story will go back to Hadlow, and to you getting shot up there.” She tried to smile. “You’ll be the talk of the town.”

“No Amanda,” I said.

“Not from me, but somebody will connect her to you.” Then she said, “Are you tired?”

“I slept half the way back from Minnesota, then drank coffee here for at least two hours. Now I’ve had wine and Ho Hos. I’m rested, caffeinated, and sugared enough to be awake for a month.”

She held out her glass for another two inches of wine. “How about building a small fire in one of your big fireplaces?”

I could have paused to think, but I didn’t. I picked up some wood scraps from the pile in the kitchen, and we walked across the hall to my office. I opened the flue for the very first time since I’d lived there. The wood was dry, and caught almost immediately. I wheeled the tilting red desk chair over to the electric blue La-Z-Boy, and for a time we sat, mismatched people in mismatched chairs, silently watching the fire.

“I can’t believe you’ve never had a fire here,” Jenny said, taking a sip of wine. “Not on the first floor, either.”

“I have on the third floor.”

“Ah, the bedroom.” She grinned.

I added more wood.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have wondered whether you were saving this fireplace to use on a more special occasion.”

“Finding a corpse behind one’s home isn’t special enough?”

“I meant with Ms…”

It was a nice thought. Although it was probably no longer relevant. I shook my head.

She looked into the fire. “My husband and I had a small cabin. Not much more than a shack, in Kentucky. No electricity, no running water, but it had a big fireplace.” She turned to me and smiled. “We had great heat, he and I. We used it all the time.”

“Your husband,” I said.

“Afghanistan. We knew it was a gamble, but he-no, we-” She stopped, and looked away, back toward the fire, but not before I’d seen the tears in her eyes.

“No,” she said, after a moment. “It was I who wanted the national stage. He wanted it because I wanted it. He got a job as an independent, got sent to Afghanistan. Road bomb.”

She set down her plastic cup, still staring into the fire. After a time, she fell asleep.

I watched her, I watched the fire. Then I covered her with a blanket as she slept in my ridiculous blue chair and went upstairs to try to sleep.