A Shot to Die For

by Libby Fischer Hellmann

  Did that mean he didn’t know about any meetings between Daria and Luke Sutton? Unlikely. If Luke and Jimmy were as close as I thought, it was possible—even probable—he would have known about their connection from the start. So why had it fallen on my shoulders to reveal it? Was Jimmy covering for his friend’s affair? And if so, why?

  I crossed my arms. Despite the absence of evidence tying Luke to Daria, despite his title, despite his apparent kindliness, I didn’t trust Jimmy Saclarides. “Where’s your friend tonight?”

  He took a casual sip of his drink. Too casual. “Luke never comes to things like this. At least since he’s been back.”

  He didn’t have to ask who I was talking about. “What do you mean ‘back’?”

  “He’s been living out West. Just moved back a year ago.”

  He looked past me, his gaze caught on something or someone behind me. “But his brother—now that’s a different story.”

  I spun around. A man was coming toward us. His steps were measured, as if he was trying to hide how much he’d been drinking. An average build, he looked to be in his fifties. Curly gray hair dipped below his ears. He had a broad forehead, and his eyes were the same deep Sutton blue I’d seen before. I would have labeled him good-looking were it not for the fact that those eyes were barely more than slits.

  “Jimmy.” He punched the police chief playfully in the shoulder. “You sly devil. Always cornering the best-looking woman in the room.”

  Jimmy stepped back, which caused the man’s fist to hang in midair. “How are you, Chip? Where’s Jen?”

  “Back in Winnetka, as usual.” Bending over, he swept his hand through the air in a mock bow. It narrowly missed Jimmy’s glass. When he realized how close he’d come, he straightened up. “Once again, disaster narrowly averted.” He grinned ruefully. “I’m Chip Sutton. And who would you be?”

  Jimmy piped up. “This is—this is the woman who’s producing the video about the Lodge.”

  Chip appraised me. “Beauty…and talent, too?”

  He was laying it on thick. But then, he’d been drinking. “You must be Charles Sutton’s son.”

  For an instant, his eyes lost focus. “The inimitable Charles Sutton. Scholar, businessman, captain of industry. And father, par excellence. Yes. I am his son.”

  I ignored his sarcasm. “I just met him.”

  He swayed slightly and covered it by grabbing Jimmy’s arm. He let go a moment later. “I’m not surprised. My father’s always one step ahead of everyone else. But I hope you’ll give me a chance. I might not be first out of the gate, but I have staying power.” He cracked a smile. Or what I’m sure he thought was one. I fidgeted uneasily. Then he squinted, his gaze focusing on my bodice. “What happened to you, my dear?”

  In his state I was surprised he saw it. “An—an accident.”

  “You must be terribly uncomfortable. Can’t you change into something else?”

  “If I had anything to change into, I would.”

  “I’m sorry. I wish there was something I could do.” He shrugged, then let his gaze rise to my face. “What was your name, again?”

  “Ellie Foreman.”

  He cocked his head. “That sounds familiar. Have we met?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Jimmy cut in. “Chip, this is the woman I was telling you about.” He fixed Chip with a knowing look.

  Chip looked bewildered.

  “The one from Chicago, who reported seeing Luke and Daria Flynn together.”

  My stomach twisted.

  It took time for Chip to register what Jimmy was saying, but when he did, a flush broke out on his neck, and his eyes turned as hard as metal. “You?” He took a step back.

  “Chip.” Jimmy grabbed his arm. “Not now.”

  Chip brushed him off, his drunken bonhomie gone. “So you’re the one I’ve been hearing about.”

  I steeled myself.

  “The one who likes to frame other people for murder.”

  I stood there, speechless.

  “Or maybe you’re the type who just likes to invade other people’s privacy.”

  Jimmy stepped forward, physically shielding me. “Chip, give it a rest.”

  Chip didn’t move, but his eyes snapped with anger. “Why, Saclarides? We’re the victims here. Not her.” He faced me. “We—my family—we’re easy targets for the likes of you. You just can’t resist, can you? What are you getting out of it? A book? A movie deal? Going on all the talk shows?”

  Jimmy’s voice went tight. “This is your last warning, Chip. Go home and sleep it off.”

  Chip glared at Jimmy. “Why? So you can make nice to this—this piece of work? Three sniper attacks, and they still won’t leave us alone. Who is she, anyway? She can’t even keep her clothes clean.”

  “Go, Chip. Now.”

  After wavering for a long moment, Chip turned and lurched toward the stairs. He was muttering under his breath.

  I watched him go, wondering how—or if—he was going to make it home, then realized somewhat churlishly it didn’t matter. Chip wasn’t my problem. Unlike Jimmy, who had evidently shared considerable information with Chip. Wrapping myself in a cold anger, I turned back.

  “You knew.”

  “Of course I did.”

  “You didn’t tell me.”

  “Didn’t need to.”

  “How did you find out?”

  He shrugged. “It’s gossip. Old gossip at that. Doesn’t have anything to do with the case.”

  “It was Milanovich, wasn’t it?”

  “A murder investigation is police business. And it’s gonna stay that way.”

  “Then why are you telling the Suttons what’s going on?”

  He leveled a hard look at me. “I’m doing what I need to do. You’ll have to accept that.” He paused. “But I am sorry for the way Chip came after you. That wasn’t right.”

  “I can tell how sorry you are.”

  He rubbed a finger across his face just above his lips. “Ellie, when I ran into you, I was really hoping we wouldn’t—wouldn’t have to deal with any of this. At least for tonight.”

  I had the sense he was telling the truth. Still, I shook my head. He might not have lied, but he had been less than candid. It was clear where his priorities lay. Then again, had I really expected anything else?

  “Listen. People up here value their privacy. That’s one of the reasons they live here. They get upset when someone asks too many questions.”

  “Well, the way I see it, the best way to stop questions is to answer them fully the first time.” I paused. “Assuming they have nothing to hide.”

  He didn’t answer.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Mac left early the next morning, but I stuck around, indulging myself with a day at the spa, compliments of the Lodge. They’d heard about the incident with my outfit, and this was their way of offering an apology. After a massage, manicure, pedicure, and facial, I decided maybe the shoot wasn’t so bad after all. I packed up around three, unsure whether I was a beauty queen in training or a turkey trussed and dressed and ready to roast.

  Instead of taking Route 50 to I-94, I drove through downtown Lake Geneva. It was a hot gray day, and it felt like a storm was moving in. I grabbed a frappuccino at a Starbucks and was just getting into my car when the door to the drug store across the street opened. Luke Sutton came out carrying a small plastic bag. Glancing up at the overcast sky, he went around to the back of the store and disappeared.

  I sipped my drink, then got out of the car. A pay phone was just outside the coffee shop. I walked up and checked the phone book.

  A few minutes later I turned into a semicircular gravel driveway off South Lake Shore Road. A procession of lakefront estates, each one larger and more luxurious than the next, flanked the street. F. Scott Fitzgerald was right. The rich are different. It’s not just their sense of entitlement, or their casual plundering of resources. I think it’s a sense of “apartness”—that they are not bound by the
same rules as the rest of us. They seem to exist in a parallel universe, partaking of ours only when it suits them.

  I parked in front of a stately Tudor with steeply pitched gables, a half-timbered exterior, and tall, diamond-paned windows. I walked to the front door and started to press Willetta Emerson’s doorbell. Then I reconsidered and walked back down her drive and about 100 yards down the road. Charles Sutton’s estate sat precisely in the center of a circular driveway, well recessed from the road, but plainly visible. It was a red-brick structure, with four white columns supporting a large portico. Behind the portico on top of the house sat a wide octagonal-shaped base. Above that was a white dome.

  I don’t know much about architecture, but the house had a classical, familiar look. Small windows peeked out just below the dome, and I thought I saw a skylight as well. I’d seen this house before. But where? When I got it, I sucked in a breath. Charles Sutton had built a replica of Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s home.

  I peered up the driveway. Two small statues flanked the front entrance. From a distance, I thought they were replicas of those little black jockeys in red jackets you used to see on lawns before they became unacceptable, but as I squinted, I realized I was wrong. The statue on the left was a cowboy, with a ten-gallon hat, chaps, lasso, and two six-guns. On the right was an Indian in feathered headdress, buckskin clothes, and warpaint. No pseudo-Southern gentility here. Someone had a Midwestern sense of humor.

  I retraced my steps to Willetta Emerson’s home and rang the doorbell. Seconds later someone waved to me from a window, and a moment after that Willetta answered the door. Dressed in a brightly printed caftan, she made a stark contrast to the gray day.

  “Hiya, cutie. You didn’t waste any time, did you?”

  “It’s not a bad time, is it?”

  “Of course not. I’m glad for the company. Too quiet around here since George passed on.” A trace of sadness came over her, but it resolved quickly. “Come on in.”

  Like the gown she wore at the gala, the predominant color in Willetta Emerson’s home was green. The furniture, mostly white wicker, was upholstered in material splashed with green ferns and leaves. Matching wallpaper festooned the walls. The effect was more Miami Beach than Lake Geneva, which, combined with the staid Tudor architecture, made some kind of statement. I wasn’t sure what.

  She led me into her kitchen, a large room with a slate floor, forest green cabinets, and a butcher block table. Motioning me to sit down, she took the kettle to the sink. “I’ll make some tea.” She turned on the faucet, then checked a clock on the wall. It was almost four. “Aw, hell, it’s five o’clock somewhere.”

  She switched off the water, opened a cabinet, and pulled out a full bottle of bourbon and two shot glasses. She poured two fingers into each glass and brought them to the table. “Here.” She passed one to me.

  I took a sip. The liquor burned my throat. Willetta downed hers in one gulp and smacked her lips. “So, Miss Ellie Foreman, what would you like to know?”

  I leaned back. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had actually invited me to ask questions. I plunged in. “Well, for starters, I just took a look at the Sutton estate. It looks like a replica of Monticello. Was that intentional?”

  Willetta laughed. “You ever been there?”

  “Charlottesville? No, but I’ve seen pictures. The dome, especially.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, the hallowed dome. Chuck says it was pretty unusual for the architecture of the time. When he remodeled the place, he said he couldn’t think of a better design. From the dome right down to the ice house.”

  I sipped my bourbon. Talk about hero worship. Chuck Sutton could have done anything he wanted to his mansion, yet he chose to emulate Thomas Jefferson. Right down to the house he lived in.

  “Where is it—the ice house?”

  “In the back. You should check it out.”

  “I couldn’t. I don’t want to trespass.”

  She waved her hand. “You know how it is. Everyone has a ton of security, and no one turns the damn things on. You’re not planning to rip them off, are you?”

  I didn’t reply.

  She grinned. “Just teasing. They converted the ice house into a tool shed a long time ago, but it looks pretty much the same. Except they removed the iron grate in front. And added a new floor. It used to extend twenty feet underground.” She refilled my glass. “Like a well. The ice man would fill it up every spring.”

  “Who were the ice men?”

  She held up a finger, stood up, and went into the living room, where she pulled a scrapbook from a drawer. Coming back, she thumbed through it and set it down on the table. The scrapbook was open to a photo of a man wearing overalls in the driver’s seat of a wagon. A team of horses was hitched to the wagon.

  “My father took this a long time ago. It’s one of the ice men. They were mostly farm and railroad workers.”

  “They moonlighted?”

  “Not really. Back in the old days, the Wisconsin Central was supposed to go through Walworth County clear up to Lake Superior, so a lot of Germans, Scandinavians, and Irish came over to work on it. In fact, there’s an area just out of town used to be called the Irish Woods. But the railroad fell through, and the immigrants scattered. Some farmed, some moved to the cities, some became ice men.”

  “Do you have an ice house?”

  “George tore it down when we bought this place. He built a swimming pool instead. Would you like to see it?”

  “Sure.”

  We went out to a sprawling backyard that included a rectangular pool, a cabana with a striped awning, and a bricked-in patio. At the far end of the yard was the dock, and beyond that the lake. The water was throwing off tiny bursts of light. A stand of evergreens stretched across one side of the yard, forming a natural barrier between Willetta and the Suttons, but I caught a glimpse the Suttons’ backyard.

  The back of the house, the side that faced Lake Geneva, was just as imposing as the front. Columns flanked the door here as well, but instead of a portico, a sizable deck extended outward, and the octagonal base beneath the dome was more apparent. The broad, sloping lawn was heavily wooded. Flower beds had been dug at the edge of the evergreens, and a rainbow of blossoms danced in the breeze.

  About thirty yards away, just under the shade of a huge oak tree, was a rounded structure made of stone and wood. It looked to be about ten feet high.

  Willetta gestured. “That’s the ice house.”

  “It looks like an igloo.”

  “It does at that.” She smiled. “The man who used to deliver their ice became their caretaker, you know.”

  “Oh?”

  “But Herbert left after the—the drowning.”

  I turned around. Willetta was staring at the dock. “The drowning?”

  “It was horrible,” she said.

  “What was?”

  She sighed. “The Suttons have the two sons. Chip’s the oldest, then there’s Luke.”

  “Right.”

  “Well, there was a younger sister. Anne. She was a few years younger than Luke.” She paused. “She drowned when she was sixteen.”

  I winced.

  “She was a beautiful girl. Apple of her parents’ eye. They always wanted a girl, after the boys.”

  “What happened?”

  She motioned me back to the house. “Come on in. I have the newspaper articles.”

  We went back into the kitchen, and Willetta paged through the scrapbook. When she found what she wanted, she spread it open and laid it on the table. I peered over. An article from the Tribune was taped to the page. The portion under the tape was darker than the rest of the article, which was faded and yellow and looked like it might dissolve at any moment. It wasn’t long, only a few paragraphs.

  Daughter of Wealthy Industrialist Drowns in Lake

  Lake Geneva, June 19. Anne Fitzgerald Sutton, the only daughter of Chicago railroad magnate Charles Sutton III, was found dead at their summer estate in Lake Geneva, Wis
consin, the night of June 19. According to sources, her death was the result of drowning. The 16-year-old heiress had attempted to board the family dinghy after dark but fell off the dock and became entangled in the lines. Her body was found by the estate’s caretaker. Police are investigating.

  Willetta Emerson, a neighbor in the resort town with whom the Suttons share the dock, expressed shock at the young girl’s death. “This is a tragedy of the worst order. We are stunned.”

  Miss Sutton, who was home for the summer, attended Miss Calloway’s, an exclusive boarding school in Connecticut. She planned to make her debut next year and travel abroad after graduation. She was the great-granddaughter of Charles Sutton, who was credited with inventing the automatic coupler on rail cars. She leaves not only her parents, Gloria and Charles Sutton III, but two older brothers, Charles IV and Lucas. The family is in seclusion.

  I slowly closed the scrapbook and shivered. The Sutton girl had been sixteen when she died. Rachel was fifteen.

  Willetta was watching me. “The family was never the same.”

  I remembered how, at the gala, Willetta said that Gloria Sutton was reclusive. Was this why? A family torn apart; a mother paralyzed with grief and guilt—guilt, because no matter what the circumstances, a tragedy like that would plague any parent. “Why didn’t anyone untangle the ropes?” “Why was she by herself?” “If only I had been there….” I shivered again. A mother withdraws from the world, leaving her sons to fend for themselves emotionally. Maybe that accounted for their behavior. Except…. “Their father seems to have moved on. He socializes. Smiles. He’s almost friendly.”

  “That’s true.”

  I bit my lip. I hadn’t realized I’d said it out loud.

  “I wondered about that, too.” Willetta had a curious look on her face.

  “What?”

  She picked up the bourbon and, without looking at me, poured more for both of us. “Well, you see, part of the story never made it into that article. It came out later.”

  “What part is that?”

  She sat down and tossed back the bourbon. Her eyes grew wet and wide, then returned to normal. “People around here wanted to keep it quiet. For the sake of the family. And who they are.”