She nodded. “Nice lady. Your friend. Yes, I did tell her about it. I worked up there for three seasons. Made a lot of money. Put myself through college with it.”
“Really?”
“With more left over.”
“Wow.”
“I made close to fifty grand over the course of the summer. And that was twenty years ago.”
I whistled softly. “That’s serious money.”
“The tips were incredible, especially if they gave you a good schedule.” She sipped her wine. “People don’t realize that. The Playboy bunnies I knew were—are—some of the shrewdest, smartest, most ambitious women I’ve ever met.”
“Wasn’t Gloria Steinem one?”
She nodded. “We have these Bunny reunions every couple of years, and it’s amazing to hear what everyone’s doing now. Lawyers, doctors, horse owners, nurses, real estate entrepreneurs…all because they used their Bunny income as a steppingstone. In fact”—she looked around, a little sadly, I thought—“I’m about the only one who got married and did nothing.” She leaned back. “But you didn’t come here for a history of Bunnydom. What do you want to know?”
“Did you work there in the seventies? Seventy-four, to be exact?”
She hesitated and then shook her head. “People tell me I look younger than I am. But I’m not that old. I was there near the end. In the eighties. Why?”
“I’m trying to find someone who might have been there the summer that Luke Sutton managed the airstrip.”
“Luke Sutton? The Luke Sutton?”
“Did you know him?”
“I didn’t know any of the Suttons. Everybody’s heard about them, though. The sister died, the brother’s a drunk, mother’s kind of crazy? He was supposed to be the only sane one. He got out.”
Susan and my father had said pretty much the same thing. An edgy feeling crawled over me.
“Is that the same Luke Sutton who’s been in the news recently?”
I nodded.
Her eyebrows lifted, but she didn’t say anything. She reached for the wine bottle and poured us each another glass. The sounds of shrieks, laughter, and splashing floated down the stairs. “I hope she took out towels,” Julia said.
I looked around. “I can’t believe how neat she is here. She doesn’t lift a finger at home.”
“She’s getting paid for it.” Julia shrugged. “Makes a difference.”
I nodded. She was right, of course.
We were silent for a moment. Then she jumped up and hurried over to the counter. “Hold on. I know someone who may have worked up there in seventy-four. I met her at a Bunny reunion.” She pulled open a drawer and dug out a personal phone book. Flipping through the pages, she screwed up her face. “Damn. I thought I had it.”
“That’s okay.”
“No. I can get it. I just have to make a couple of calls.”
“You wouldn’t mind?”
She smiled. “No problem.”
I brightened. “I really appreciate it.”
She nodded. We lapsed into another silence, but neither of us seemed to be in a hurry. I still had most of a glass of wine, and so did Julia. I suspected she had just as many questions as I, and I wondered whether either of us was brave enough to ask them. Oh hell. Someone had to start. “So, how are you and Barry doing?”
She looked as if she’d been expecting it. “Fine. He’s been nice to me.”
“No reason not to be. You’re a nice person.”
“Thanks.” She smiled. “And thanks for sharing your daughter with me. I know that had to be hard.”
“It was.”
She nodded. Another short silence, then we both started talking at once.
“Did you really—”
“How long have you been divorced?”
She answered first. “About two years now.”
“It’s been longer for me.” I sipped my wine. “But, of course, you already know that.” I put the glass down. “Shit, you probably know all the gory details, too.”
“Barry’s mentioned it once or twice,” she admitted. “But I take it all with a grain of salt.”
I looked up. “You do?”
“He’s a man, isn’t he?”
“Yes, he definitely is.”
“No more need be said.” She giggled.
I grinned. “All right, then.”
She laughed and raised her glass. “Men. Can’t live with them, can’t live without them.”
I raised mine, and we clinked. “But we’re trying.”
We laughed so hard that Rachel yelled from upstairs, “What’s so funny?”
That set us off even more. I gestured to the ceiling and then flattened my palm in a questioning gesture. Julia answered between giggles, “Nothing, sweetie. Your mother and I are just talking.”
It only took a few seconds for Rachel to scramble down the stairs and bounce into the kitchen. “What about?”
“Noth—nothing.” By now I was laughing so hard I had trouble getting the words out.
Rachel planted her hands on her hips. “Oh God, you’re getting drunk together. I’m telling Dad.”
That prompted another round of guffaws. I doubled over and pressed a hand on my stomach, which had started to spasm. “You didn’t leave the kids in the tub, did you?” I finally spit out.
“Of course not.” Rachel gave us an evil look and stomped out.
“She’s something else,” Julia finally said.
“Yes…she…is.” I gasped for breath, trying to control my laughter. Eventually, the spasms subsided. I took a breath, picked up my wine, and finished it off. “So, what went wrong with your marriage, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Julia tipped her head to the side. “You really want to know?”
When I nodded, she paused, then picked up her glass and swirled the wine. I heard a tiny plop. “It was the mackerel loaf.”
“Excuse me?”
“The mackerel loaf,” she said solemnly.
I frowned. “Julia, what the hell are you talking about?”
“Okay.” She drained the rest of the wine and set down her glass. “I had this great salmon loaf recipe. It’s been in my family for ages. Handed down for four generations.”
“Salmon? I thought you just—”
She cut me off with a raised finger. “It was—it is fabulous. You make it with a white sauce and mayonnaise and olives. Maybe pimento. Gives it both a sweet and sour flavor. I mean, this thing was delicious. You serve it for brunch or dinner, and everyone oohs and ahhs.”
“Yeah?”
“Well, one day my husband told me to make it, except he didn’t want me to make it with salmon. He wanted me to make it with…” She paused again and wrinkled her nose. “…mackerel.”
“Mackerel?”
“Mackerel.”
It was my turn to pause. “I’m not sure I know what mackerel tastes like.”
“I’m sure you don’t.” She sniffed. “If you did, you would never buy the stuff.”
“That bad?”
When she nodded, I poured the last of the wine into our glasses. “Where do you get mackerel?”
“It comes in a can,” she said.
“It does? I thought you could only buy it fresh.” When she shook her head, I asked, “What does it look like?”
“It’s gray.”
“Gray,” I repeated.
“Iron gray.”
“Where do you buy it? At an army-navy surplus store?”
“Just about.”
I drank more wine. “Okay. What did you do when he said he wanted the mackerel?”
“I tried to talk him out of it, but he insisted. The salmon didn’t cut it. He had to have the damn mackerel. The salmon was from my side of the family, he said, and my side of the family has no taste in anything, including food. But mackerel, now that was something special. He went on and on. In fact, he gave me so much shit about it I eventually threw up my hands and made the damn mackerel loaf.”
�
�You did?” I marveled.
“I did.”
“How was it?”
“It tasted awful. Even the kids thought it was gross. They poked at it but wouldn’t touch it.”
“What about your husband?”
“He ate it.”
“The whole thing?”
“I don’t know about the leftovers.”
“Why not?”
“I filed for divorce the next day and moved out.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Julia Hauldren was as good as her word. An hour later she called with the number of Sharon Singer, a former bunny who worked at the Lake Geneva Playboy Resort during the seventies. I thanked her and vowed not to let my prejudices get in the way of a possible friendship again.
Sharon and I made a date for coffee the next morning. But after we hung up, I stared at my computer monitor. There had to be something else I could do. Someone else I could talk to about Luke or the Suttons or what went on that summer. I pulled out a sheet of paper and a pencil and started to list everyone I could think of who had a relationship with the Suttons. When I got to Chip, I tapped the pencil on my desk.
Five minutes later, with the help of Google and the crisscross phone directory, I had what I was looking for. I got in the car and swung east on Willow Road.
Tucked away on some private streets in Winnetka are huge homes that you can get to only if you know they’re there. I turned down White Oak Lane and slowly made my way down a one-lane road more like a driveway than a street. I stopped at a stately red brick Georgian home with a gravel-lined drive in front and a backyard that looked like a miniature forest preserve. Just visible in a clearing on the side was a tennis court surrounded by a tall chain-link fence. I couldn’t see the players, but I heard the plop and twang of a serious rally.
I got out of the car and rang the doorbell. The chimes echoed noisily inside, and a moment later, the plop and twang ceased. A moment after that, the door was opened by a tall, slim woman with short black hair held off her face by a sweatband. She was wearing a powder blue tennis dress, and the sheen of sweat on her face said she was one of the players.
I took a breath, hoping Jennifer Brinks Sutton, Chip’s wife, was nothing like her husband. “Mrs. Sutton, I’m sorry to intrude, but I’d like to talk to you. My name is Ellie Foreman, and I’m a friend of Luke’s.”
For a moment she didn’t reply, just stared at me with dark, piercing eyes that made me think she saw straight through me. Then, a female voice called out behind her. “Everything okay, Jenny?”
She turned away from me and answered, “Everything’s fine.” She turned back and looked me up and down, her gaze taking in my jeans, T-shirt, and sweaty palms. “So what can I do for you, friend of Luke’s?” she said with a curious but not unkind expression.
I sagged in relief. “I was hoping you might talk to me about the night Anne Sutton died. I know you weren’t married to Chip then, but maybe he—or someone else in the family—said something afterward that would help Luke establish an alibi for that night.”
She eyed me again, and I sensed she was deciding whether or not to talk to me. Finally, she opened the door wide. “Come in.”
She led me down a wide hall with a marble floor. On the left was a formal living room with a thick carpet and wall sconces that looked like mini-chandeliers. It was filled with delicate Louis XVI furniture, and a whiff of furniture polish drifted out as we passed. On the right was a wide, winding staircase that made the one Clark Gable carried Scarlett up look shabby. We ended up at the back of the house in a wood-paneled great room with twelve-foot ceilings. Another woman, also in tennis gear, sprawled on a long couch.
“I hope I didn’t ruin your game, Mrs. Sutton,” I said.
“We were almost done anyway,” she said. “And please. Call me Jen.” She gestured to the other woman. She was slim also, but petite and blond. “This is my friend, Julie Nothstine.”
We exchanged nods, and Jen went behind a bar in the corner. “Please, sit down. Would you like a drink?”
“Thanks.” I sat down in an oversized navy blue armchair, watching as she filled three glasses with ice and poured Diet Coke into each. She handed one to me and one to her friend, then sat down on the couch a little too close to her. Julie threw her arm on the back of the sofa. Jen relaxed against her arm, sipped her drink, and shot me a defiant smile. I sensed she was daring me to judge her.
I returned what I hoped was a disarming smile. “Are you keeping up with events in Lake Geneva?” I began cautiously.
She rearranged herself, curling her legs underneath her. “I’ve been reading about it in the paper. God, what a mess that’s turning out to be. Glad I’m not there.”
Why was she relying on the newspaper, I wondered. Shouldn’t Chip be calling her, giving her a blow-by-blow?
She watched me, a little smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “You’re wondering why I’m reading about it in the paper instead of talking to my husband.”
I looked at her, startled. “You read my mind.”
She hesitated, then tipped her glass to me. “To Chip Sutton.” She took a sip.
Julie followed suit. They traded smiles.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
Jen hesitated. Then, “You know that line from Fiddler on the Roof? The one about the czar?”
“May God bless and keep the czar…far away from us?”
“That’s the one,” she said. “Well, that’s the way I feel about Chip.”
I wasn’t sure what to say.
“And by the way, I haven’t been totally honest about something. I do know who you are. Chip called a few weeks ago and asked me to check you out. He doesn’t like you very much.”
“I had that feeling.”
“Which predisposed me to like you right away. Then, after I did some checking, I decided I liked you even more. You made the WISH video, right?”
I’d produced a video for WISH—Women for Interim Subsidized Housing—last winter. “How did you know?”
“Word gets around. I sit on several boards. Infant Welfare, Northwestern Settlement. I have an interest in children’s issues. Chip says it’s my misplaced motherhood. We never had any.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Actually, now I’m glad. I wouldn’t want them to see how much I despise their father,” she said scornfully. “Believe me, I’m just thankful he stays up in Lake Geneva.” She placed her hand on Julie’s knee.
I sipped my drink.
She eyed me. “You’re wondering why we bother to stay together at all, aren’t you?”
“The thought did cross my mind.”
“It’s simple.” She leaned back, her hands flopping in her lap. “Together, we’re worth more than a small country. It makes for a mutually satisfying strategic alliance. Strange bedfellows and all that.”
I put my drink down. I wasn’t interested in any of her bedfellows, strange or not. “Jen, I really came to ask you about Luke.”
“Right.” She sighed. “Poor Luke. I don’t know how he managed to survive in that nest of vipers. If only I’d met him first….” She looked wistful for an instant, then flashed Julie a smile and snuggled in next to her. “I didn’t get to know him till he got back from Montana. A good person. But such a lost soul.” She looked over. “He’s quite a catch, you know.”
I felt my cheeks get hot.
“Mmm…I thought so.” She laughed. “But don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me. I’m harmless.”
And I’m Grace Slick. I had the feeling Jen Sutton could turn into a barracuda at will. I looked around. The kitchen extended off the great room. A pizza box lay on the counter. Magazines and today’s newspaper were spread out on the coffee table in front of me. Two half-filled coffee mugs lay on top.
She followed my gaze. “Sorry for the clutter. It’s just such a relief to live like a normal person.”
“Pardon me?”
“When Chip’s here, it’s always a struggle.” At my fr
own, she went on. “He’s—well, let’s just say, he’s a tad obsessive-compulsive.”
Julie snorted. I looked at Jen.
“He’s got a control jones you wouldn’t believe. Everything has to be in order. And I mean perfect order. No coffee grounds in the sink. Toilet paper torn off at the perforations. Once he went into a tirade about the shelf paper lining the cabinets. It was crooked. And his clothes.” She rolled her eyes. “His shirts have to line up in his drawer just so. Jesus, he even inspects the damn linen closet. Not that he’s ever made a bed in his life, but the maids have to fold the sheets and pillowcases to his precise specifications. If they don’t, he fires them.” She shook her head.
“My pantsuit,” I murmured.
“Excuse me?”
I remembered how concerned Chip had been by the wine stain on my outfit at the gala. I’d thought he was just being rude, but apparently, there was more to it. “I had a run-in with him along those lines.” I gazed around.
She waved a hand. “I live a normal life when he’s not here.”
I nodded politely. “So you didn’t know Luke thirty years ago?”
“Thirty years ago I was spending summers on Mackinac Island. I didn’t know the Suttons existed. And while I regret that isn’t still the case, I can tell you unequivocally that Luke Sutton is the last person I’d suspect of hurting—much less killing—anyone.”
***
I was stacking plates in the dishwasher that night when it hit me. Despite Jen Sutton’s explanation, I’d been pondering how she could stay married to Chip. I wasn’t sure whether to pity her, be irritated, or admire her behavior. I could never live with a man like Chip. Inspecting the linen closet, drawers, even sinks. Making sure everything was perfectly aligned. I barely even fold the clothes out of the dryer. Fortune or not, I’d have been gone the first year.
Suddenly, I gasped, nearly dropping the plate I’d been holding. The clothes. Anne Sutton’s clothes. When the police found them in the ice house, they’d been neatly folded.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
I called Jimmy early the next morning. He wasn’t in his office, and I didn’t want to leave a message on his voice mail, so I hung up. I drove downtown and parked a block away from the East Bank Club in River North. A combination health club, restaurant, and gathering place, it was one of the first of its kind twenty years ago. It was also one of the few that has maintained its cachet.
A Shot to Die For Page 24
