“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.
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.