Free 7 - Rogue: Ike Schwartz Mystery 7 by Frederick Ramsay

he had in mind. He even asked Ruth for a recommendation letter.”
    “Did she give him one? I can’t imagine she did.”
    “No. She explained to him how the process usually worked and said he would need to ask for a different sort of letter, and at the moment, she couldn’t see her way clear to putting his name forward.”
    “How’d he take that?”
    “I don’t know. Not well, I guess. Shortly after that, Ruth got the call to Washington and the Board appointed him Acting President. He hasn’t sent any more résumés since. He’s reworked it a few times but not sent any that I know of. Something stopped him, I guess.”
    “Well, he wouldn’t, would he? He’s in a position now to function at the level to which he aspires, to build a track record that will attract the notice he needs the correct way. That’s assuming he’s doing a good job. Is he?”
    “Is he doing a good job? Yes, I think so but I’m not the one to judge. I guess you’re right about the résumés.” Agnes frowned, gathered her purse, wiped the remains of her cinnamon bun away from her chin, and stood to leave. “The e-mails are pretty self-explanatory and none seem all that threatening. Most are old, you know, like, they came in the early part of her chairing that committee. Then I guess they found out her government e-mail address and sent them there after that.”
    “They’ll be useful, Agnes, anyway. I will try to match these early letters to later ones from the same people and see if there is a pattern of increasing anger or threats. Thank you for your trouble.”
    Agnes left and Ike stayed seated, nursing his coffee and sorting through the documents on the table before him. Agnes had handed him a job-lot of documents crammed into a folder apparently recycled from a wastebasket. The label had once read Dr. F., but that had been crossed out. In addition to the copies of Agnes’ take on negative e-mails, she’d included a few sheets that had nothing to do with Ruth. He guessed they had been in the discarded file and Agnes had not noticed them when she collected her papers. He only glanced at them long enough to see that at least one was a marked-up copy of the Acting President’s résumé, apparently revised and given to someone for retyping. Ike shoved it and the two or three other papers in the back of the folder, making a mental note to return them to Agnes when he had a chance. Then those papers, along with any thoughts he had about Scott Fiske, slid into that part of his brain where he habitually deposited things to think about later when he had nothing better to do.
    A young man in green scrubs sat down at the next table. Ike asked if it would be alright to use his phone in the cafeteria. He’d shut it down on the hospital floor, of course, but wanted to make a call. The young man smiled and said it would be okay as long as he used it only in the cafeteria, the lobby, or outside.
    Ike called Charlie. He needed another favor. He had to leave a message. Charlie, it seemed, was out.

Chapter Twelve
    Before returning to his office for the first time in nearly a week, Ike stopped by the mayor’s office to fill him in on what he hoped to do over the next few days. The interview did not go well. That may have had something to do with the fact the mayor preferred the candidate running against Ike in the election. He’d decided early in Ike’s tenure as sheriff that Ike was too apolitical and therefore not easily controlled. He wouldn’t admit it, but his cronies reported the mayor wanted a more tractable top cop.
    He denied Ike’s request for a leave of absence. He said he expected Ike to be on duty twenty-four seven. Recently, the phrase “twenty-four seven,” had crept into and nearly taken over a substantial portion of the mayor’s vocabulary. It had replaced “give one hundred and ten percent,” which in itself was a small blessing. “Think outside the box” also lingered in the mayor’s speeches but, thankfully, seemed