A Shot to Die For

by Libby Fischer Hellmann

  “But here’s the thing. They found something inside the ice house.”

  I felt goosebumps on my arm. “Inside?”

  “And that’s where it gets interesting.” Willetta cleared her throat. “I told you I was making Gloria a cup of tea, right?”

  I nodded.

  “So I brought it upstairs, and then I told her I had to go use the facilities, you know? I ran downstairs as quick as I could and listened from the other side of the study door.”

  “And?”

  She took a long, slow sip of her bourbon. It was all I could do not to grab her glass and throw it on the floor. “They found a bundle of Annie’s clothes hidden under a loose floorboard.”

  “Annie Sutton?”

  She nodded. “Shorts, a T-shirt, bra, and panties.” She paused. “Turned out to be the clothes she was wearing the night she was killed.”

  I blew out a breath and took a sip of bourbon. “How’d they get in the ice house?”

  “I guess that’s what they’re trying to figure out. Anyway, they were all folded up nice and neat. Imagine. After all that time.” She shook her head. “They took ’em away, of course. To do some tests.”

  “What kind of tests?”

  “I’m not real sure. I think it was something with initials.”

  “DNA?”

  “That’s it.”

  I took another sip of bourbon.

  Willetta rolled her empty glass in a little circle on the table. “But you know what boggles the mind?”

  “What?” My voice cracked from the liquor.

  “All these years, everyone thought Herbert was dead. But there he was, living less than a hundred miles away.” She rubbed the back of her hand across her mouth. “And to think his wife was supporting him all that time. Just goes to show, you never know what other people are up to.”

  “Irene was supporting him?”

  “Apparently she was sending money from the restaurant to him. Explains why the place was always on the brink.”

  “Jimmy told you all this?”

  “Not me, sweetheart. It was Chuck he was telling.”

  Ah, the privileges of wealth. A direct line into police matters. “So Irene knew he wasn’t dead?”

  “I guess so.”

  “But she told everyone he was.”

  Willetta nodded.

  “Why’d she lie?”

  “Good question, isn’t it? Maybe he was sick and got better. Maybe he couldn’t keep a job. Maybe she wanted the girls to think he was dead.” She tossed back her shot. “But really, who knows? That family—well, they’re peculiar. Always have been.”

  “When did Herbert come back?”

  “Don’t know that either. According to Jimmy, Irene claimed he just showed up at her door in the middle of the night, not long before Daria was killed. Out of the blue. Gave her and the girls the fright of their lives, Jimmy said.”

  “So all three of them knew he was back?”

  “Sure sounds like it.”

  “Do the police have a theory why he was murdered?”

  “The only thing Jimmy said was that the sheriff’s department has been canvassing Herbert’s neighborhood, and someone saw a man visit Herbert. But it was at night when it was dark, and they couldn’t give a description.”

  I pondered it. “Do you think his murder has anything to do with the clothes they found in the ice house? Or Annie’s murder?”

  “Well, now, those are all good questions, aren’t they? You can bet someone’s gonna find the answers before long.” She picked up her glass, looked at me, then put the glass down. “You said you came over to talk to Luke, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why?”

  “Uh, well, I—I wanted to ask him some questions. We—we met a while back, and I just needed—well, I wanted to see him.”

  She looked as if she understood what I wasn’t saying. “Well, sweetie, if I were you, I might rethink it. Whatever reason you came for.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of what they found along with Annie’s clothes.”

  I felt a chill. “What was that?”

  “Chip identified it, and Luke didn’t deny it.”

  “What?” I could have strangled the woman. “What did they find?”

  “It was a shirt that belonged to Luke. A baseball shirt he wore when he was a teenager.”

  “So?”

  She sighed. “There were brown stains on it, Ellie. Brown stains they think are blood.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  A nameless, formless dread chased me through the night, and I woke up the next morning without the layer of protection that keeps demons at bay. I pulled on shorts and a T-shirt and poured most of a strong pot of coffee down my throat, listening to the TV people commemorating Richard Nixon’s resignation. It was a big anniversary, and silver-haired pundits were remembering that August in Washington: the drama of the impeachment hearings, the sense that events were hurtling toward critical mass, the release and crippling exhaustion when he finally resigned. One commentator recalled how DC was a ghost town that weekend—no one could bear to stay in the city. I remember Gerald Ford telling the country that our long national nightmare was over. I also remember believing him.

  Now, I looked out at a perfect summer morning. The only reminder of the past two days was a soft breeze that stirred the leaves of the locust tree and made them glitter. I wouldn’t need to water the flowers, but the grass needed to be cut. I thought about borrowing my neighbor’s lawn mower and soothing myself with the balm of the mundane.

  First, though, I dug out my address book and looked up a number.

  A woman’s voice picked up when I dialed. “Georgia Davis.”

  “Georgia, hi. This is Ellie Foreman.”

  “Ellie. How are you?”

  “Hanging in. How about you? How’s life now that you’re not on the force?” Georgia Davis and I had both been involved in a murder investigation last winter. She was a police officer at the time. Now she was a private detective.

  “I seem to be making a living.”

  “You like it?”

  “I like being my own boss. How’s Rachel?”

  I filled her in. Georgia and Rachel met when Georgia was still a cop. In fact, she’d known Rachel before she knew me. Rachel had been hanging around with the wrong kids and had gotten herself in trouble. Georgia had been so decent about the whole thing I’d almost revised my thinking about cops.

  “Sounds like everything’s going well.”

  “It’s not me,” I protested. “When Rachel knows what she wants, she goes after it all by herself. And God forbid anyone gets in her way.”

  “Like mother, like daughter.”

  I laughed.

  “So what can I do for you?”

  “I have a question about DNA tests. How long does it take to get a reading on what’s there or what isn’t?”

  “Why?”

  “Um, well, I don’t know if I—”

  “Too much information?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Should I be worried?”

  “No. I’m not in any kind of trouble. This time.”

  “Not yet, you mean.”

  “Georgia….”

  “Sorry. Hmm. DNA, huh? Okay. Like everything else, it depends. What the material is, what you’re looking for, whether it’s a heater case. You know?”

  “Isn’t there some kind of ballpark figure?”

  “Let’s put it this way. If you go through the system, like most police do, it would probably be about six weeks or so.”

  “That long? I thought—”

  “Typing blood is easy. So is screening blood and urine for drugs. DNA is a different animal.”

  “Can’t you do it faster?”

  “Like I said, if it’s a heater case, sometimes you can get it down a little. But it has to do with growing stuff in test tubes. It’s the kind of thing that can’t be rushed.”

  “So, for six weeks, everyth
ing is in limbo while the tests are being done?”

  “That’s a blink of an eye for some people.”

  “Well, tell me this. If something has been underground for say thirty years, and they just unearthed it, would they be able to test it for DNA?”

  “They can try, but whether they get anything is hard to say. There are basically two kinds of DNA tests, but both of them require a certain sample size. More important, those samples can’t be contaminated or degraded. Which might be the case if the material was out in the elements a long time. Temperature changes, moisture, the length of time it’s been in the ground can wreak havoc with the stuff and make the sample unusable.” She paused. “And I gotta tell you, thirty years is a long time.”

  I groaned.

  “How was the material stored?”

  “It was wedged under a floorboard in a tool shed.”

  “Was it protected?”

  “You mean, was it enclosed in a plastic bag or something like that?”

  “How about a hermetically sealed box?”

  “It’s that sensitive?”

  “Uh-huh. And that doesn’t take into account whether it was handled properly at the scene.”

  “So what you’re basically telling me is that it doesn’t look good.”

  “Ellie, I have no idea what the situation is. And I’m no expert on DNA. I’m just telling you what I know.”

  “I understand.”

  “Anything else on your mind?” she asked after a pause.

  “Would most cops know that?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Would most cops know as much as you about DNA?”

  “Ellie, I hardly know anything.”

  “You know more than me.”

  “Well…I suppose they would. At least around here. Anything else?” she asked.

  “That’s it.”

  “Okay. Take care of yourself. And Rachel.”

  ***

  I was just coming home after dropping Rachel at Julia’s, thinking I might go for a run on the bicycle path, when I saw a red Dodge Ram parked in the driveway. Fouad, in white painter’s pants and a striped T-shirt, was bent over the bed of the truck. I beeped the horn. He straightened up and waved. I pulled up behind him.

  “Fouad!”

  As he walked over to greet me, I noticed the spring in his step. “I am glad to see you, Ellie. Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “The phone number.”

  “What? Oh.” I’d almost forgotten about my call to Johns Hopkins. I’d left the number on Fouad’s machine.

  “What happened? Did you find Ahmed?”

  He smiled enigmatically. “In a way.”

  “You’re going to have to be less mysterious.”

  “Let me put it this way. I know where he is.”

  “Not the Mideast.”

  He shook his head. “He’s in the Midwest. Minnesota. A cabin in a little town in the northern part of the state. He is with Rani.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “When I called Rani’s parents, it turned out they were as upset as we were. Rani had run away as well—and left no word where she was going. Hayat and I were frantic. We did not eat. Or sleep. Or work. That is why I was not here.” He motioned with his hand.

  “Don’t even think about it,” I said.

  He nodded. “During all this time, Natalie was there. She did not say much, but she was watching us.”

  Natalie, two years younger than her brother, was waitressing for the summer at one of the restaurants in the Glen, a section of Glenview that had been recently developed.

  “Then one night, Rani’s father called. Her mother had some sort of attack. From the stress. They took her to the hospital.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “She will recover, but everyone was upset.”

  “Of course they were.” The summer I was twenty I hitchhiked across country in an attempt to “find myself.” I had a blast, coming home only when I ran out of money. I had no idea how worried my parents were until, years later, I imagined Rachel doing the same thing.

  “Natalie was dismayed when we told her about Rani’s mother. She came home early from work, locked herself in her room, and stayed there all night. The next morning she confessed that she knew where they were. I think she just couldn’t watch us suffer anymore.”

  “Ahmed told her?”

  Fouad nodded. “They are close.”

  Things change. I remembered Fouad’s rueful stories about how much they fought when they were younger. At the time, he couldn’t understand; he rarely fought with his siblings. But he was raised in a different culture, a different world. “What in heaven’s name are they doing in Minnesota?”

  Fouad started to say something, then apparently thought better of it. He shrugged.

  “Oh.” I swallowed. I couldn’t help wondering what I’d do if I discovered Rachel was holed up in a cabin someplace with her boyfriend. Somehow, I didn’t think I would be as stoic.

  “Natalie told us they were in a cabin near a lake. I called the proprietor. A lovely woman. She told me not to worry. She would keep an eye on them. Then we called Rani’s parents.”

  “So you haven’t talked to Ahmed in person?”

  “He called the next day. He says he has much thinking to do. But we should not worry. He will finish his schooling in Baltimore. And then we will all sit down together and discuss his future.”

  “You have to be so relieved. Thank God for Natalie.”

  “The Lord takes daughters from among the angels.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “You, too, Ellie.”

  “Who? Rachel?”

  He laughed. “No. You.”

  “Me?”

  “If we had not contacted Rani’s parents, we would not have known about her mother. That was—how do you say it—the turning point.”

  “I’m sure Natalie would have told you eventually.”

  Fouad didn’t look convinced. “He swore her to secrecy.”

  “He will forgive her.”

  “He already has.” Fouad flipped up his palms and spread his arms. “Praise be to Allah. It is a beautiful day, and life is good.”

  I didn’t reply.

  Fouad dropped his arms. “What is wrong, Ellie?”

  I didn’t answer right away. I didn’t want to intrude on his joy. Then I remembered what a good friend he was. Friends share their joys and sorrows. “I have a problem. I don’t know what to think or who to trust.”

  He took my arm. “Come. We will talk.” He guided me to the pickup, where we sat on the tailgate while I went through the chain of events: Daria Flynn’s death, her mother’s visit to my house, the rumors about Luke and Daria, the third sniper attack, Annie Sutton’s murder and Herbert Flynn’s part in it, the plane ride with Luke, Herbert Flynn’s death, his mysterious note, the clothes from the ice house. Fouad listened without interrupting.

  “The kicker was they found a baseball shirt with the girl’s clothes. It belonged to Luke. They’re saying it has bloodstains on it.”

  Fouad got up, turned around, and took out the lawn mower from the bed of the truck. Bending over, he unscrewed the gasoline cap and checked the level. “Which casts suspicion on him.”

  “The caretaker, Herbert, had been suspected of her murder. In fact, it got so bad he left town after it happened. But now that he’s dead, and they found her clothes and Luke’s shirt, well….”

  “Ellie, do you have feelings for this man? This Luke?”

  I looked at the ground.

  “What about your friend David?”

  “David and I—well, it’s over. We just didn’t want to admit it.”

  Fouad scratched his cheek. “So you have met a new man, and you are afraid he might have been involved in his sister’s death.”

  “The facts seem to line up.”

  Fouad replaced the gasoline cap on the lawn mower. “Do they? You do not know why this Herbert was at the ice house the other day. Or why he was killed. Or ho
w the baseball shirt came to be with the girl’s clothes.”

  “Herbert used to be the caretaker of the Suttons’ estate. He was the one who found her body. Soon after that, he became a suspect in the crime. But no one ever found any evidence. After he left town, they said her death was caused by an intruder or a vagrant.” I told him about the Percy daughter’s murder. “So there was some kind of precedent, so to speak. At one point, there was even speculation it could have been the same guy. Killing again after ten years. It didn’t amount to anything, though.”

  “Go on.”

  “Thirty years later, Herbert, who everyone pretty much thought was dead, turns up back in Lake Geneva. He writes a note to someone, and shortly afterward is murdered. For real, this time. When the police look into it, lo and behold, they find Annie’s clothes in the ice house. And Luke’s shirt. With the bloodstains.”

  Fouad pushed the mower to the edge of the grass. “Whose blood is it?”

  “Don’t know yet.”

  “Do you really think this Luke—the man you might have feelings for—might have killed his sister?”

  I followed him over to the lawn. “I don’t want to, but….”

  “If that’s true, why would he—or anyone—hide her clothes—and his shirt—in an ice house all this time? Why not burn them or throw them away?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he panicked and left them in there figuring he’d get them later, but then for some reason didn’t. Or maybe he thought no one would find them—there used to be a hole that extended down twenty feet, like a well, before they built a floor over it.” I paused. “Except they were found wedged under a loose floorboard. They couldn’t have been thrown down the hole.” I frowned. “Oh well, that doesn’t matter. The important thing is that they were found.”

  “So, this brother, or whoever it was, killed his sister thirty years ago. And then killed the caretaker…this Herbert, too?”

  “I don’t know why Herbert was killed. I do know I saw him lurking around the ice house recently, the same ice house where the clothes were found.” I went on. “And they found a key to the ice house in his safe-deposit box.”

  “Which proves, without any doubt, there is a connection.”

  I looked at my sneakers. “Well, when you put it that way, I—I’m not sure.”

  Fouad nodded. “It is wise not to judge unless you are wearing judges’ robes.”