Hunting Sweetie Rose : A Mystery (9781429950879) by Jack Fredrickson Page A

so I could see in.
    One end was immediately visible. It had been dipped in some kind of gluelike substance. It was a factory-sealed end.
    â€œCan I see the other end, please?” I asked.
    â€œFor frays?” the officer asked, unconvinced.
    â€œFor frays,” Jennifer said quickly.
    The sergeant maneuvered the opening in the bag until the other end was visible.
    That end was raw, unsealed. Freshly cut.
    Jennifer thanked the sergeant, and we left.
    â€œSomeone cut that rope,” Jennifer said outside, on the sidewalk.
    â€œNo doubt.”
    â€œYour client, that security guy? Or someone he’s fronting?”
    â€œI can’t imagine,” I said.

CHAPTER 13.
    I called Duggan after Jennifer pulled away.
    â€œNice note,” he said, right off.
    â€œIt didn’t get me a meeting with your client, Sweetie Fairbairn.”
    He covered the mouthpiece of his phone. A minute later, Sweetie Fairbairn came on the line.
    â€œThank you for your note, Mr. Elstrom.” Her voice was soft, tentative.
    â€œThank you for a lovely party.”
    â€œWhat put you onto me?”
    â€œYou didn’t question me enough about my relationship with Amanda.”
    â€œCan you drop by?”
    I told her I could, and would, and pointed the Jeep toward the Gold Coast.
    *   *   *
    It must have been a fine day for bargains—perhaps thousand-dollar shoes were being dumped for nine hundred—because Michigan Avenue was packed solid with shoppers. Great throngs of them choked the sidewalks and the crosswalks, swinging bright bags filled with things sure to improve their lives.
    A different valet was on duty at the Wilbur Wright. This one came right over to take the Jeep, but his narrowed eyes betrayed his concern that I’d be hunting under the floor mats for a quarter to tip him when I came out.
    Again, a guard stood by Sweetie’s private elevator. The previous evening, I’d wondered if the elevator guard had been hired special for the party—to keep out riffraff, or perhaps to quell a riot, should the swells spill down from the penthouse, ginned up, and start spoon-flicking bits of caviar at guests in the lobby. Those thoughts had disappeared when I’d gotten upstairs. There’d been more guards, too many more for ordinary security, in the penthouse. Sweetie Fairbairn had mysteries. What I couldn’t figure was why those mysteries needed full-time protection.
    I gave the guard my driver’s license before he could ask. He took a careful look at the beaming face I’d presented to the Illinois secretary of state’s photographer, before the secretary of state had become governor and then gone on to prison, and announced my arrival into a small walkie-talkie.
    Timothy Duggan’s frown was waiting up in the foyer.
    â€œYou’re something, Elstrom,” he said.
    â€œI, too, marvel at myself.”
    He told me to sit on an orange velvet settee just inside the living room. I supposed that was so he could keep an eye on both the elevator and myself.
    I looked around the room. Just the night before, it had been filled with a hundred rich people, drinking and chewing. Yet now every piece of furniture—the two dozen sofas, settees, and chairs, all upholstered in sunny summertime yellows, greens, and oranges—along with the endless expanse of beige carpet, appeared spotless. I could not spy the slightest pink remain of cocktail weenie or black speck of caviar anywhere. Either rich people were very careful chewers, or someone had come along with a Shop-Vac, much as I did to clean my clothes.
    â€œAre you terribly angry with me, Mr. Elstrom?” Sweetie Fairbairn asked softly.
    I hadn’t heard her enter. She looked wan. As she took my arm, I had the suspicion that Sweetie Fairbairn wasn’t guiding me toward the hall so much as she was hanging on to me, for support.
    â€œNot yet, but there’s still time.”
    â€œYes,”