Rough Trade

the trigger. I looked at the clock and decided that it was too late to call Elliott. I’d let him sleep and dazzle him with my powers of deduction in the morning.
     
    I got up early the next morning, showered, and dressed almost as carefully as Chrissy. The house was quiet and I decided to let Chrissy sleep. We’d turned the ringer off the phone the day before, plagued by unwanted phone calls from the press, and I figured it was best to maintain the status quo for now. Before I left I checked all the windows and the doors, making sure that they were still locked. At the end of the driveway I stopped and spoke to the uniformed security officer, who was busy keeping warm in the front seat of his car. I described Harald Feiss to him and explained that under no circumstances was he to set foot on the property.
    From the car I dialed my secretary, joining the pitiful trickle of cars that masquerades as rush hour in Milwaukee.
    “You must be very important,” announced my loyal secretary who was already at her desk. “The mayor of Milwaukee has agreed to meet with you, but he wants to keep things hush-hush.”
    “Oh, yippee. What does he want to do? Meet in the churchyard at midnight? Smuggle me into his office disguised as a policeman?”
    “Close. He’s faxing me directions for where you’re going to rendezvous with his security people. I guess you’re going in through the backdoor. He actually managed to use the word covert about six times. The man sounds like an asshole.”
    “That’s probably because he is one. Anybody else call that I should know about?”
    “Jake Palmer called. He seems anxious to speak to you. He says he has some information you might want about Darius Fredericks.”
    “Did he leave you a number?”
    “No. He said to tell you that he can’t be reached this morning, but if you wanted, you could meet him at a restaurant called Mader’s at one o’clock. I have the address.”
    “I think I know where it is,” I said, “but let me take it down anyway.” I reached over toward the passenger seat and was rewarded only by the feeling of rich leather. “Do me a favor—make a note that I want a dozen legal pads put in the car and a bunch of pencils.”
    “So, do you still like your new car?”
    “It needs some breaking in. Anybody else call?”
    “Just Stephen. He says he thinks you two need to sit down and talk.”
    “Call him back and tell him that I have a funeral to go to,” I replied, “and all things considered, he’s lucky that it’s not his.”
     
    “Everything go okay last night?” inquired Elliott when I got him on his cell phone. He was on his way out to Naperville to interview one of a dozen families who’d been bilked by a fraudulent builder. “Nothing go bump in the night?”
    “All serene. I did find out some interesting things.”
    “You, too?So spill. What deep dark secrets did you unearth?”
    “I know who killed Beau Rendell and why.”
    “So, are you going to share this with me, Sherlock, or do I have to beg?”
    “Normally I’d say begging is good, but I’m in a hurry to get to the bank. I want to take a peek in Beau Rendell’s safe-deposit box before my meeting with the bankers.”
    “If you find millions in hard cold cash, I’ll split it with you.”
    “No chance,” I replied, and told him everything I’d figured out about Harald Feiss the night before.
    “Curiouser and curiouser,” he replied when I had finished.
    “Don’t you mean ‘bravo’?”
    “Well, I didn’t tell you, but I called a friend of mine who runs a P.I. outfit in L.A. and had him buzz over to the Regent Beverly Wilshire to see what he could find out about Jeffrey Rendell’s last days.”
    “And what did he find out?” I asked, feeling rather deflated.
    “Well, for one thing I learned that a luxury hotel is not a particularly good place if you want to keep a secret. They keep records of everything, and the staff doesn’t miss a thing.”
    “So what secret was he trying to keep?”
    “Let’s just put it this way. Jeff checked in on Friday and met a guy named Ken Gunther, who I guess works out of your firm’s L.A. office. Ken had already booked a room. The whole thing was comped, by the way. The hotel picked up the whole tab. According to the manager it was some kind of quid pro quo deal for the L.A. Stadium Commission.
    “Okay, so on Friday they went out to dinner. According to housekeeping, everything looked pretty much like you’d expect. Records