Someone knocked on his door. Duggan went and opened it.
It was Plinnit.
“Lieutenant,” I said, looking at Duggan, “what a sudden nonsurprise.”
“It’s a lovely day, Elstrom,” the lieutenant said. “I’ve come to take you for a drive.”
The gray-eyed, gray-haired man was behind the wheel. He didn’t wiggle his jowls or drool in excited recognition when I slid into the back of the unmarked car. He waited for Plinnit to get in, then drove us from the curb.
“Nice of Duggan to call you,” I said to the back of Plinnit’s neck.
The vinyl upholstery smelled funny, as if it had just been drenched with a cleaner to kill a smell. I reached down to touch the seat. Mercifully, it seemed dry.
“He doesn’t like trouble,” Plinnit said.
“I was invited in.”
“Like the person who killed Robert Norton, I’m sure.”
“You never got around to telling me if there was a lobby camera at the Wilbur Wright.”
“The quality’s lousy, but we could make out you. And Ms. Fairbairn, twice. She went up, apparently forgot something, changed her clothes, and came back down the rear stairs because we don’t have that recorded. Then she went up again. She’s an obvious candidate for shooting Norton, Elstrom.”
“If you ever find motive,” I said. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll recognize it,” Plinnit said.
Five minutes later, I did. It was Andrew Fill’s apartment building.
I also recognized Jennifer Gale’s green Prius. It was parked down the block.
The car looked empty. So did the sidewalks, except for a redheaded woman in a turquoise coat strolling down the block.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“Oh, please,” Plinnit said.
In the foyer, Plinnit buzzed someone on the second floor, who let us in. We took the elevator up.
The pleasant older man who’d held the door for me the last time I’d come was waiting in the hall. At the sight of me, he widened his eyes and nodded exaggeratedly at Plinnit. Plinnit thanked him a fraction of an instant before the old man slammed the door.
“Last time, I came cleverly disguised as a painter,” I said.
“Ah, Elstrom,” Plinnit said. We went back to the elevator and rode it up to three.
“What are we doing?” I asked, too loudly, when we got to Fill’s door. If Jennifer was in the apartment, the best she could do now was hide under the bed.
Plinnit gave me a puzzled look and withdrew a key from his pocket.
“Aren’t you going to knock first?” I asked, again too loudly.
“Losing your hearing, Elstrom? Or are you expecting Fill to be home?”
We went in.
Fill’s apartment no longer smelled of spoiled meat. It smelled of Jennifer Gale’s perfume.
“The place has been gone over, so you can touch,” Plinnit said, then added, “some more.”
“You found my prints?” It was my last loud attempt.
Plinnit laughed. “Certainly not on the roast.”
“The door was open. I stepped in, looked around, saw the apartment was immaculate. I left.”
“How did you think to come here in the first place?”
“Same reason as you, Lieutenant. Andrew Fill had a dispute with Sweetie Fairbairn. It was in the newspaper.”
“George Koros told us Fill took money from something called the Midwest Arts Symposium.”
“Sweetie Fairbairn had Koros fire him.”
Plinnit’s face tightened and then relaxed. “The question is, Elstrom, did you come here to snoop or to abduct?”
“Abduct Andrew Fill? Why?”
“For Sweetie Fairbairn. She could have hired you to muscle the money out of Fill.”
“No need. Koros can confirm that Fill has been paying it back.”
“Koros did. But perhaps Fill was paying back too slowly for Ms. Fairbairn.”
“I got involved in this long after Fill disappeared. He’s been gone at least a month.”
“The stinking roast gave you that?”
Plinnit was too smart for too many lies. I gave him something he already knew.
“I went through his mail,” I said.
“We know. We took your prints off the box. We’ll probably add violating federal postal laws to your growing list of crimes.”
“I wanted to see how long the mail had been piling up.”
“You were thinking Andrew Fill went away for a month, then decided to come back to kill Ms. Fairbairn?”
“I don’t know what to think. Koros says Fill is an embezzler, nothing more. I’m just assembling facts that might help find Sweetie Fairbairn.”
“Why didn’t you toss the apartment, Elstrom?”
“What?”
“When you broke in here before. Why didn’t you toss the place, do a thorough search?”
“For what?”
“For all that money, Elstrom. Or for clues as to where Fill might be, with all that money.”
Something itchy started working at my scalp.
“Want to know why you didn’t need to toss this place?” Plinnit went on. “Because you already knew what was here: Nothing, with a capital N. You came back just to make sure the place looked good enough for us. Now there’s nothing here for anyone to find.”
It was enough. “If you want to talk more, let’s invite John Peet.”
“Not yet, Elstrom. Maybe soon.”
We went down to his car.
Nobody said anything on the ride back to Duggan’s office building. As the gray-haired, gray-eyed man pulled us to a stop, Plinnit turned around to look at me.
“Care to guess whose face keeps popping up where it doesn’t belong, Elstrom? First in Sweetie Fairbairn’s penthouse, then in Andrew Fill’s apartment?”
I reached for the door handle. “Thanks for the ride, Lieutenant.”
“Don’t pop up again until I come for you,” he said.
CHAPTER 26.
I called Jennifer as soon as Plinnit pulled away.
“Housebreaking?” I asked.
“That was close, wasn’t it? I’d just come out when you arrived in a very official-looking car.”
“That was Lieutenant Plinnit, who’s heading the search for Sweetie Fairbairn. He wanted to rub my nose in my trail, to make sure I understood he knew I’d been in Fill’s apartment. What were you doing there?”
“Your bidding, remember? You want me to find Andrew Fill. What better place to start than his apartment?”
“How did you get in?” It wasn’t important, but the woman was fascinating.
“The building’s back door was open. Upstairs, for the apartment, I used picks.”
“Aren’t you too recognizable for that?”
“I have a wig and a very long coat.”
I remembered the red-haired woman in the turquoise coat on the sidewalk. “Good thing you chose subdued colors.”
“They draw the eye from the face.”
“Not that face,” I wanted to say, but asked instead, “Did you learn anything?”
“I’ll pick you up. We’ll talk as we drive.”
“Drive where?”
“Oh no you don’t, Dek Elstrom. This one I’m in on from the beginning.”
“Don’t you have to work?”
“Only until three o’clock. I’ll pick you up after that.”
I checked my phone for messages. Amanda had called twice. George Koros, once.
I got right through to Amanda. “I need to show you something,” she said.
“It’s lunchtime,” I said.
“I can’t do a restaurant,” she said quickly.
“I’ll come to your office.”
“No.” She said it just as fast, and then I understood why she didn’t want to meet in a restaurant, or in her office. She couldn’t afford to be seen with me.
“Messenger it to me, then,” I said.
She thought for a minute and said, “The hell with it. Sandwiches, in Millennium Park?”
We used to meet at noon there, back when they were finishing up the grand new park. It seemed that all of Chicago had been excited about what was coming. Like us, before we got married.