He hadn’t paid it all back, though, and he hadn’t run. Because Andrew Fill had been killed right after he’d been fired by Sweetie Fairbairn, well before James Stitts got his safety rope cut. He hadn’t been alive to mastermind anything against Sweetie Fairbairn.
Too many flies; too much money.
After the sun had sufficiently lit the horizon, I called Jennifer Gale.
“Have you slept?” she asked, sounding like she hadn’t.
“I’ve been up for a time, ruminating.”
“Ruminating over what?”
“Flies and money.”
“Delightful. We need to talk.”
“I know. It’s been one of the things I’ve been ruminating about.”
“We have to tell the police we discovered Andrew Fill’s body. It isn’t right, him just lying there, in his trailer, being eaten by those-”
“Out of such horror has come a plan,” I interrupted.
“What plan?”
I told her, way too spontaneously, that I’d tell her over breakfast.
She said she had to drop something off for her mother. We agreed to meet at Galecki’s, behind the wall of ketchup.
I got to the diner first. Mama remembered me and escorted me to the booth behind the red bottles, then came back with two cups of coffee and slid in across the booth.
She pushed one cup across the table. “How rich is your girlfriend?”
I looked at her face. Not one of her wrinkles was stretching up into a smile.
“She’s my ex-wife.”
“How rich?”
“She’ll inherit tens of millions.”
“Tens of millions, whoa boy,” she said, smacking her lips. “And you, you got big dough, too?”
I shook my head. “Your daughter makes more in a week than I made all of last year.”
Her face tensed. “How you know what Jenny makes in a week? You a goldbrick or something?”
“I think the term is ‘gold digger,’ but no, I’m not. It’s just that I make very little money.”
“You happy making no money?”
I laughed. “No.”
“You happy Jenny makes good money?”
“Not my business.”
“Not now, maybe.”
“Not ever.”
She studied me over the steam of the coffee, decided I was probably telling the truth, and grinned. “You poor boy, but good boy, huh?”
“The best.”
She nodded, unsure, and pushed herself out of the booth.
Jennifer arrived five minutes later.
“Your mother and I had a short, but efficient, chat.”
She groaned. “About?”
“Small stuff, like how much money my ex-wife has.”
“I’m sorry, Dek. My mom…”
“I told her Amanda will inherit tens of millions. Your mother lost interest in me when I told her I didn’t have that kind of money.”
“Speaking of Ms. Phelps, how was your evening after I dropped you off?”
“You knew that was Amanda, waiting in that car?”
“Easy guess. She looms large in your life. More interesting, I’ve never heard you refer to her as your ex-wife, until just now. I’m thinking something, more final than you wanted, happened last night.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised. Jennifer Gale had antennae like NASA. For sure, she’d inherited her mother’s directness.
“It’s…” I let the thought die away, unformed.
“That complicated?”
“She’s a wonderful person, orbiting in a very public executive suite, trying to do real good. The newness of it is a strain.”
“And you?”
“The oldness of me is a strain, too. I keep complicating her life. My new notoriety has brought forth my old notoriety. It’s affecting what she’s trying to do.”
A waitress came, and we ordered cheese omelets.
“I think it’s time you called me Jenny. It’s who I am.”
“Why the change? ’Jenny Galecki’ is certainly not too ethnic for media in a Polish town like Chicago.”
“It seemed too ethnic for a national post.” She stirred her coffee. “Or so I thought when I got into this business. My next step was going to be a local anchor slot, then on to national fame. ‘Jennifer Gale’ sounded so much more cosmopolitan.”
“Is that still the dream?”
“Not so much. For a national slot, I should have been overseas the past few years. After my husband…” She took a sip of coffee, set down the cup. “Look, Dek, I still want a story, a big story, but not at the expense of leaving that poor man-”
“I know; we left Andrew Fill in a place where he shouldn’t be. My priority still has to be helping Sweetie Fairbairn. There are unsolved murders: James Stitts, Robert Norton, maybe even Sweetie herself.”
“And Andrew Fill.”
“I think he was first.”
“What?”
“Perhaps a month ago.”
Her eyes were wide. “My God, he’s been lying there a month? Absolutely, we must go to the cops.”
“I could tell you you’ll get in trouble with your station. You were there when I discovered Andrew. You went along with my not reporting it, at least for the night. I could try to convince you all that will play hell with your reputation, if it doesn’t get you fired.”
She nodded. “I thought about that-but a man lying there, dead, for months…”
Our omelets came. She pushed hers aside.
“More important, more selfish, going to Plinnit now will stop me cold,” I went on. “He won’t accept my showing up at another murder site. I was at Sweetie’s penthouse, the night the guard was killed. I was at Fill’s apartment, after he’d gone missing. Now, I’m at Fill’s trailer, with his corpse inside?”
“You said Fill’s been dead for a month. Duggan can corroborate you were hired two weeks afterward.”
“You said this is a heater case. Plinnit will arrest me, just to play to the media.”
“That will stop the investigation? You’re that important?”
“You think the police are making any progress?”
“No.”
“Remember Fill’s wallet? Neat and orderly; nothing that shouldn’t be there?”
“Money, driver’s license, Visa, insurance, and health club cards.”
“And one scrap of paper with George Koros’s phone number on it.”
“It was Koros who pointed you to Andrew Fill,” she said, understanding.
“Everything I learned, I got from Koros.”
“Truths, or lies,” she said.
“Koros knows a lot more than he’s been saying. I want to take a run at him, see what I can shake loose. I need you to go along with me on that.”
“Because no one else is doing anything?”
“Because I don’t know what else to do.”
CHAPTER 31.
I showed up at Koros’s office unannounced. Smiling for the camera behind the hanging plant, I pressed the buzzer next to the door to the inner office. Neither the smile nor the buzzer got a response. I gave the button another quick tap. There was still no answer. Given that the outer door was open, I figured Koros was in, but perhaps in conference with a client.
I sat down, in good view of the camera, and leafed through one of the Forbes magazines on the table. It featured a ranking of the world’s wealthiest people. Disappointingly, none had made their fortunes rehabbing turrets.
After fifteen minutes, I got up and pushed the buzzer again. This time I leaned against it for a full ten seconds, all the while smiling for the camera behind the plant.
It worked. Koros slipped out, tugging the door closed behind him. I’d been right. He’d been in conference.
In spite of the fact that it had taken him fifteen minutes to open the door, he acted pleased to see me. “Thank you so much for stopping by, Mr. Elstrom. I was going to call you. I owe you an apology. I should have called you once Sweetie disappeared, to offer help in anything you’re doing to find her.”