A Shot to Die For

by Libby Fischer Hellmann

  “I’ve never been there,” I said to Milanovich. “But I’ve heard it’s exquisite. Was she a waitress?”

  He didn’t answer for a moment. I pictured him blinking. “No. She was one of the cooks. Excuse me. Chefs.”

  I swallowed my surprise. To be a chef at one of the finest restaurants in Lake Geneva took talent. And hard work. I hadn’t realized there was that much substance to Daria Flynn. I’d pictured her as a woman who, by virtue of her beauty, was used to “winning” fights and getting her own way.

  “You’re sure you never ran into her?” Milanovich asked.

  “Detective, I’ve told you—several times—that I only laid eyes on her for the first time at the rest stop.”

  He didn’t reply.

  “Oh, come on. You can’t—” I cut myself off. He was a cop, and cops are trained to investigate anyone close to the victim at the time of their death. I qualified. Then again, if he had checked me out, he’d know who I was. And that I’d been involved in murder investigations before. I started to pace. “Detective, is there something else you’re trying to get at? Because if there is, just come out with it. I’ll try my best to help.”

  He drew a long, uneven sigh. “As a matter of fact, there are a couple of”—he paused—“anomalies. Maybe they mean something. Maybe they don’t.”

  “What kind of—anomalies?”

  “Well, for starters, it seems there was only one shot fired. Why only one?”

  I remembered Homer Simpson’s comment. “The guy was a good shot?”

  He cleared his throat. “Maybe. But then why was the Flynn girl the only victim?”

  There had been only one victim during the first sniper attack, I recalled. Why would it be so noteworthy this time? “Detective, I’m not sure I understand the question.”

  “You were standing right next to her, Ms. Foreman.”

  Now I got it. “In other words, why am I still alive?”

  “Ms. Foreman, do you have any enemies that could do something like this?”

  I stopped pacing. “Do you think someone was trying to kill me? And missed?”

  “I don’t think anything. I’m just asking questions.”

  First I was a perpetrator, now a victim. My head was spinning. I glanced over my shoulder. Rachel was in the hall listening, her head cocked to the side. I’d been in some dangerous situations in the past. It was possible someone was bent on revenge or some form of vigilante justice. But that assumed I was someone who mattered enough to harm. I wasn’t. I was just a video producer with a daughter, a father, and perhaps, a disproportionate amount of curiosity.

  “I did some checking,” Milanovich went on. “You have a ‘relationship’ with the local police. They know you.”

  That much was true. “And that means.…”

  “Maybe nothing,” he admitted. “But the fact remains that you were standing next to her. You were the last person to talk to her. I just keep thinking there may be a reason for that.”

  “And I keep telling you I don’t know what that could be.” I paused. “Detective, I’m not an investigator, but it seems to me there are a lot more reasons to link Daria Flynn’s death to the sniper attack last April than to me. Female victims, both shot at a rest stop from a green pickup—”

  “We are aware of the similarities.”

  Of course they were. “Well, if there’s anything else you can tell me, something you haven’t remembered about the pickup or the incident or the girl, you’ll call, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “By the way,” he added. “Expect a call from the Walworth County Sheriff’s Office. Maybe the Lake Geneva Police, too. We’re working the case with them. I’ve filled them in, but they’ll probably want to follow up on their own.”

  “Can’t you tell them what I told you?”

  “I did. But they’re Wisconsin. We’re Illinois.”

  “Cheeseheads versus Flatlanders, huh?”

  There was a beat of silence. “Good-bye, Ms. Foreman.”

  ***

  After dinner, I took a glass of wine out on the deck and swung back and forth on my glider. I’d splurged on it last spring, knowing as soon as I tried it out in the store that I would buy it. It was made from redwood and had a green cushion, and its gentle motion has a soothing, almost primal feel. I rocked and sipped my wine and watched the sun retreat across the backyard, glazing everything with splashes of rosy gold.

  I’d thought the murder of Daria Flynn at the oasis was linked to the first sniper attack in April, but from the tone of Milanovich’s questions, I gathered he wasn’t so sure. I could even empathize; I was not only a witness but a possible suspect. But I have a love-hate relationship with cops, and I wasn’t eager for more questions.

  I thought back to my conversation with Susan. If I’d just refrained from chit-chatting with Daria, I wouldn’t be involved. All I had to do was buy my drink and head straight out to the car. I would have been long gone before anything happened. But making conversation is part of my nature, and given a similar situation, I’d probably do the same thing again.

  The phone rang inside. I slowed the glider.

  “Got it,” Rachel yelled out.

  When a minute had passed with no summons, I started up again, thinking about Daria Flynn. Had she told her mother what time she’d be home? How much time passed before her mother began to worry? Yes, Daria was an adult, but a mother never stops worrying. What did she do? Read? Wash dishes? Or did she turn on the television, preferring its empty chatter to the silence of the house? What did she think when she heard that a woman from Lake Geneva had been killed? Did she assume it was some other person? Or did she know, in the pit of her stomach, that the victim lying on the tarmac was her daughter?

  The sun fled, and the evening light bathed everything in muted shades of green. My mother died from pancreatic cancer. If she were alive, though, she never would have spent time in a glider with me. She was always too busy doing errands, taking care of the house, saving the world. When I was little and had the mumps, it was my father who spent the week at home with me in an old black rocker. Sometimes he’d tell stories. Sometimes he’d sing—not often, happily, since his voice is somewhere between an angry frog and a badly tuned bassoon. But most of the time, he didn’t talk at all. He just sat there with me in his lap and rocked.

  I slapped at a mosquito emboldened by the deepening dusk and went inside. Rachel had commandeered the couch in the family room, sprawled like Cleopatra on an immovable barge with her possessions spread out around her. Her long legs dangled over one armrest, her mop of curly blond hair against the other. The cordless was glued to her ear and the sound of her conversation floated just over the noise from the TV. I kissed the top of her head.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Vegetable soup. When the wind blows across Mac’s studio from south to north, the smell of whatever they’re making at the food-processing plant down the block makes my mouth water and my stomach growl. This morning the rich, hearty aroma of vegetable soup hung in the air, as if a giant pot was simmering on the roof of the building. I parked and inhaled deeply.

  Mac, aka Mackenzie Kendall, III, owns a video production studio tucked away in an industrial section of Northbrook. We’ve known each other twenty years and worked together for twelve. A talented director, Mac has all of the downtown expertise but none of the downtown prices. He also has Hank Chenowsky, one of the best editors downtown or anywhere else. The shows he’s edited have won so many awards that the row of plaques on the walls might be intimidating, were I the sort of person to pay attention to those things.

  As I pushed through the door, a buzzer sounded. A conversation stopped, and I heard a rustling sound. Seconds later, Mac appeared, coffee mug in hand, a section of newspaper under his arm, and reading glasses on his nose.

  “Ellie. Your ears must be burning.” In his torn jeans, T-shirt, and Harachi sandals, he looked like an aging hippie, a fact that gives him great pleasure but exasperates his affluent WASP family.


  “We were just talking about you.” He turned to the shiny new coffee urn and filled his mug. “Grab some and come on back.”

  I got myself coffee and followed him into his office, a small comfortable room with two narrow floor-to-ceiling windows, both of which had been replaced last year, thanks to me.

  Hank, a twenty-something youngster with long pale hair, even paler skin, and the hands and soul of an artist, lounged in a chair reading another section of the Trib. He looked up as I came in. “Well, if it isn’t the indestructible Ellie.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He snapped the newspaper, then folded it in half. “Dodging bullets, leaping tall buildings with a single bound. They ought to name a doll after you.”

  “Wonder Woman.” Mac sat down at his desk. “No. Buffy.”

  Hank pointed the newspaper at me. “That’s it! Ellie the Bad Guy Slayer.”

  “No.” Mac shook his head and sketched a movie marquee in the air. “Ellie the Warrior Princess!”

  Hank shook his head. “No. It’s Double-O-Seven in skirts. Foreman,” he rumbled in a mock British accent. “Ellie Foreman.”

  These were the men I trusted to work magic with my shows? “When did you say you graduated from high school?”

  “Ooo. A direct hit!” Mac chortled.

  I fluffed out my hair, making sure it fell in front of my face. “If anyone, it’s Grace Slick. But you’re both too culturally challenged to appreciate her.”

  That prompted more guffaws, which subsided only when the buzzer sounded from the front.

  “I’ll get it.” Hank laughed his way out of the room.

  I sat in the empty chair. Mac swallowed a last chuckle and took a breath. “Sorry. Sometimes you can’t stop. You know.”

  “It’s okay. I needed it.”

  “Me too.” Mac squared his shoulders. “You holding up? You’ve been through a lot the past couple days.”

  “It wasn’t that bad—compared to some of the things we’ve weathered.” I motioned to the newspaper Hank left. “They’re saying the two attacks are related. That it’s the same guy.”

  Indeed, the media were already highlighting the similarities in the case: young women exiting an oasis on I-94, the shooter in a green pickup with a camper shell. There’d been a stream of articles in both papers, and a talk show was promo-ing a special later today featuring eyewitnesses from both scenes. I’d had a couple of calls on my machine. I hadn’t returned them.

  Mac shrugged and looked at my feet, then the door, then the windows—everywhere, it seemed, except me. I waited until I couldn’t stand it anymore. “You don’t agree?”

  “You know me too well.” He ran a hand through his beard, which he’d grown to hide the scar running down his left cheek. Unfortunately, the beard grew in everywhere except around the scar.

  “What’s up?”

  He raised himself up on his desk. “You know I still keep up with a few of the guys at the station, right?”

  I nodded. Mac and I met when we both worked in the news department of a local television station. We’d left around the same time—I went freelance; he started Kendall Productions.

  “So, I’m having a beer last night with Brian Stuckley. Remember him?”

  I dredged up vague recollections of a skinny, quiet, nerdish guy. “He was on the desk, wasn’t he? Three to eleven.”

  “That’s him.”

  “I remember. So what?”

  “Well, he’s news director now.”

  Figures. The nerds will inherit the earth.

  “He remembers the restaurant where you found rat droppings and called in the city inspector. Who refused to give the place a citation. You tried to tell us he’d been paid off but you couldn’t prove it. Remember?”

  “I remember.” It had been one of my more underwhelming moments as an investigative producer. In fact, the frustration of not cracking the story—and changing the world according to my master plan—was one of the reasons I left TV news. I crossed one leg over the other. “Sooh…” I said, stretching the word. “Other than fond reminiscences, what did Brian have to offer?”

  Mac leaned forward. “He told me the cops ran a partial of the pickup’s plates at the rest stop.” He paused. “They got a hit.”

  “And he knows this how?”

  “Ellie.…”

  “Of course. News director. Sorry.”

  Mac nodded. “Turns out a Jeep was stolen about a month ago.”

  “A Jeep? But—”

  Mac cut me off with a raised palm. “The owner’s a construction worker. He was working in Schaumburg when it happened. In broad daylight.”

  Schaumburg, a western suburb undergoing rapid development, was in the throes of suburban sprawl. More significant, though, it was nowhere near Lake Geneva. Or me.

  “Someone switched the plates?”

  Mac nodded again.

  I recalled my latest conversation with Milanovich. He must have known that before he called me, but he didn’t say anything. Not that it would have made much difference. Unless he’d found a connection between the construction worker and Daria. Or someone else involved in the case. Like me.

  “Ellie.” Mac looked over nervously. “Brian wasn’t supposed to tell me that, you know?”

  “Not to worry.” I uncrossed my legs. “Someone steals a license plate, slaps it onto a pickup that’s used in the murder of a woman I don’t know and didn’t meet until five minutes before she died. What am I gonna do with the information?”

  Mac just looked at me.

  I swiveled in the chair. Then I stopped.

  “What?”

  I leaned forward. “Tell me something. If you’re a sniper, and you’ve already killed one person, and you know the cops have ID’d your pickup, why would you steal a set of plates and slap them on the same truck you already used? Wouldn’t it be safer to rip off a different truck, one that looked nothing like the first one?”

  Mac folded his arms. “What are you saying?”

  “Why did the shooter use the same truck but different plates?”

  “How do I know? Because he wants to establish a pattern? Let people know he’s behind all of them? So he uses the same method to draw attention to himself. Isn’t that what the shrinks say?”

  “The profilers, you mean.” I started swiveling again. “But if you’re really trying to hide your identity, it wouldn’t make sense, would it?”

  “Neither does picking off people at a rest stop.”

  “How much do you want to bet that’s where Brian goes with the story? That’s what I’d do.”

  Mac shrugged.

  “There’s something else, too.”

  “What?”

  “The detective working the case seems interested that there was only one shot fired. And that it hit the woman dead on.”

  “So?”

  “Is that what happened the first time?”

  “Only one person was hit. The nurse.”

  “But how many shots were fired?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Me neither.” I swiveled some more. “So what kind of gun would you use?”

  “For what?”

  “To kill people from a distance.”

  “There are all sorts of high-powered rifles. And assault weapons. With a tripod and a scope, any one of those babies could do the job.”

  “What kind of baby?”

  “For starters, something like an M16,” he said helpfully.

  “The ones they use in the army?”

  “Or a commercial version. Why? You thinking of packing some heat?” He stroked his beard. “Actually, with your record, it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

  “Sure. Me and Annie Oakley. No. I was just thinking—do you think the shooter was a vet?”

  He snorted. “Military…mob…it could be anyone. Those pieces aren’t hard to use. Even you could learn to shoot one in about an hour.”

  “I could?”

  “All in a day’s work. Clean the
house, cook dinner, and brush up on your marksmanship.”

  “I must have missed it on ‘Here’s Martha.’”

  “It was a good thing.”

  I looked through Mac’s windows. A docile summer sun was climbing through a sky so uniformly blue it looked like someone had splashed a bucket of paint across it. A huge garbage truck lumbered by and stopped, its high-pitched whistle warning it was backing up. A woman climbed out of a red Toyota, carrying a Dunkin’ Donuts bag. Life looked normal. I wanted mine to be, too. I turned to Mac. “Okay. I’m done with this. Let’s talk video.”

  “Good.” Mac pulled out his notes. The Lodge had just finished extensive renovations, and our shoot would begin next Monday. We would continue on and off for two weeks, culminating at a black-tie gala to celebrate the resort’s official reopening. We would tape all the amenities at the resort, including the private airstrip and the bunny hill for skiers. The Lodge would provide employees for cheerful sound bites, and we’d interview some guests. I was trying to nail down one or two townsfolk to add “color”—perhaps a few recollections about the resort’s Playboy days.

  Mac brightened. “Hey, maybe we could interview some former Bunnies.”

  “In your dreams.” Despite thirty years of feminism, the mention of anything connected to the Playboy era still triggers a Pavlovian response among men. Forget Samoa; Margaret Mead could have had a field day analyzing Hugh Hefner’s effect on the male psyche. “I was thinking more along the lines of people who own those huge estates.”

  Lake Geneva first came to public attention after the Great Chicago Fire in 1871 when a few industrialists built temporary homes—they called them “cottages”—while their city property was being restored. Once the railroad linked the two places, more Chicagoans followed—Chicagoans with names like Wrigley, Pullman, and Sears. Between 1880 and 1920 dozens of estates went up on the shores of the lake.

  “Don’t you want to see what the robber barons did with their fortunes?”

  Mac didn’t answer.

  “Oh.” I smacked the palm of my hand against my cheek. “I forgot. That wouldn’t be some of your relatives, would it?”

  For a moment, I couldn’t read his reaction. Then he laughed. “As a matter of fact, one of my uncles or cousins has a place up there. I haven’t talked to him in years.”