A Shot to Die For

by Libby Fischer Hellmann

  I waited on a padded marble bench in the lobby. Across from me was the pro shop, which featured leather jackets and a polka dot party dress in its window. It was only midmorning, but plenty of people streamed in and out. Didn’t anybody work? I tried not to feel intimated by the parade of women with sports bags slung over their shoulders. Some had long frizzy hair, others the short, wet sculpted look, but all of them were incredibly fit. Even the pregnant women looked better than I did, although at $3,500 a year for dues, they should.

  A chic-looking woman in casual sweats skipped down a flight of stairs and made her way over to me. Her blond hair hung straight to her shoulders, and her makeup was carefully applied. I doubted she was there to work out.

  “Are you Ellie?”

  I stood up. “You must be Sharon.”

  We shook hands. She was so fit and her face so unlined it was impossible to determine her age. She led me back up the stairs, and we went into the grill, a cheerful restaurant with an art deco floor and impressionist prints on the walls. Within seconds, we both had coffee, and she had ordered omelets with sourdough toast.

  “I didn’t expect breakfast,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “Any friend of Julia’s is a friend of mine.” She laced her fingers and stretched out her arms as if she’d just gotten out of bed. “Julia said you had questions about the Playboy Resort.”

  I nodded. “You were a bunny in Lake Geneva during the seventies, right?”

  “Five years.”

  “Were you there in seventy-four?”

  “I sure was.” She looked off as if remembering. “That was the summer I almost applied to be a Bunny mother. Changed my mind, though.”

  “A what?”

  “It’s kind of a Girl Scout leader for bunnies. The den mother.”

  “I didn’t realize you had—”

  “You wouldn’t believe how strictly we were supervised. The company was very protective of the Bunny image. For good reason. They taught us everything.”

  “What do you mean, everything?”

  “Oh, my. Let’s see. They taught us how to serve, how to taste wine—we wore these little silver wine-tasting cups around our neck. How to make people feel at ease, make sure they were having a good time.” She straightened up at my smirk. “Hey, let’s make one thing clear. There was absolutely no hanky-panky going on with bunnies. If you stepped out of line in any way, you were out.”

  “Really?”

  “You better believe it.”

  “So the Bunny mother was your chastity belt?”

  “In a way. She was generally a former bunny herself, so she knew the score. She’d try to point you in the right direction, but God help you if you got caught fraternizing. They were so strict we couldn’t even be seen with a man on the premises unless we had written permission. And that included your father. Even then, you always had to be with another female. If you weren’t, even the Bunny mother couldn’t save you.”

  “Sounds like a prison.”

  “Maybe to you.” She smiled. “But I don’t regret a single minute. Where else does an eighteen-year-old make fifty grand a year without being on your back?” She shrugged. “Let’s face it. I’m no great brain, and I don’t have much talent. I knew from the get-go my looks were my ticket to success.”

  “That sounds harsh.”

  “Not when you’re pulling down a hundred and fifty or two hundred dollars a night,” she said. “It was a great gig. All we had to do was smile, be perky, and follow the rules. Everything else was thought out and prepared in advance. Hell, even our costumes matched the décor.”

  “Really?” I was interested in spite of myself.

  She leaned forward. “The VIP Room was done up in silver and blue, with lots of smoky mirrors on the walls. We would dress in these royal blue velvet costumes with silver trim. The fabric was the same velvet they used in the booths. All the serving dishes were silver, too. Including our wine-tasting cups.”

  “So you actually tasted the wine?”

  “Of course.” She nodded. “That’s how I learned all that stuff.”

  I felt a newfound appreciation for the Playboy organization. “Are you sad that it’s over?”

  “Sure. Maybe a little.”

  “I guess women’s lib pretty much put an end to it.”

  She frowned. “Oh, I don’t think so.”

  I looked over. “No?”

  “It probably didn’t help, but the real blow was the murder of Dorothy Stratton.”

  Dorothy Stratton. A long-ago memory surfaced. A Playboy bunny and aspiring actress. Brutally murdered by her estranged husband. At the time it was a sordid affair, full of gossip and innuendo. She’d been having an affair with film director Peter Bogdanovich. I seem to recall rumors of others, too. Even Hugh Hefner.

  “There was so much bad publicity about it that things kind of fell apart,” Sharon explained. “Particularly for Hef. He took it really hard.”

  “Was he having an affair with her?”

  “Who knows? Maybe it was just a father-daughter thing. I don’t know. But he lost interest in everything for a while, and then, well, nothing was the same. The resort went downhill. It closed a year or so later.” Her face took on a determined smile. “But that’s not the period you’re interested in, is it?”

  “You’re right. I’m wondering about the summer that Luke Sutton ran the airstrip.”

  A gleam came into her eyes. “Luke Sutton, huh? How come you’re interested in him?”

  I didn’t feel like explaining. “Did you know him?”

  She giggled. “Everyone knew Luke.”

  Our omelets came. Sharon sprinkled salt and pepper on hers and took a small bite. “He was a hottie.”

  I tore off a piece of toast and stuffed it in my mouth. “He was?”

  “Oh yes. Lots of the girls would sneak down to ‘visit’ him at the hangar on their break. Of course, if they got caught, they were screwed.” She took another bite of her omelet. “Didn’t seem to stop some of ’em. Although, now that I’m thinking about it, they weren’t that concerned about bunnies socializing with the staff. Customers and performers were the no-no’s.” She started telling me about a popular singer who performed at the resort but couldn’t keep his hands off the girls. “One of my friends was caught in his room. She was fired the next day.”

  “Umm.” I chewed another piece of toast. “So, what about Luke?”

  “Oh, yeah. Sorry.” She got a faraway look in her eyes. “Well, actually, from what I remember, Luke kept pretty much to himself.”

  “He did?” I don’t know why that made me feel better—it was thirty years ago—but it did.

  “No, wait a minute. How could I forget?”

  My spirits sank. “Forget what?”

  “There was this townie.”

  “Townie?” I picked up my fork and dug into my omelet.

  She nodded. “She worked as a maid over the summer. The poor girl was head over heels in love with Luke. Followed him all over like a puppy dog.”

  I froze, my fork halfway to my mouth.

  Sharon didn’t seem to notice and shook her head. “She was relentless.”

  “Wha—what happened?”

  Sharon shot me a meaningful look. “What do you think happened? I mean, what do you suppose a man’s going to do when a girl keeps throwing herself at him?”

  “She threw herself at Luke? This townie?”

  “It was pitiful.”

  “Do you—by any chance—remember her name?”

  She chewed thoughtfully. “Let’s see. No. She had dark hair. It was long. She wasn’t bad looking. Actually, I do remember when they finally got it on. You’d think she’d just won the lottery.”

  My stomach turned over. “They—they got it on?”

  “Well, that’s what she told everyone. You know that thing women do when they think they’ve got something going. They start talking about what they’re gonna do with the guy. Use the word ‘we’ a lot. That kind of thing.”
r />   I kept my mouth shut. My appetite vanished.

  Sharon kept eating. Then she brightened. “I remember her name now. It was Kim.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  I drove back to the North Shore feeling like I’d been duped. Once again, I was the last person to know something that had occurred up in Lake Geneva. And even though it had happened thirty years ago, it felt personal. Why didn’t I know? Why hadn’t anyone told me?

  I rolled down the window. To be fair, there was no reason for anyone to tell me about an affair that happened thirty years ago. It was none of my business. Whatever had occurred between Luke and Kim was in the past. Kim’s hatred of the Suttons had undoubtedly destroyed whatever feelings she once had. It was probably just a summer fling. They were both teenagers, probably in heat and eager to experiment with sex. For all I knew, Kim might even be embarrassed about it now. I certainly had regrets about some of my past exploits.

  Except, according to Sharon, she’d flaunted it around the Playboy Resort. Made sure everyone knew they were an “item.” Was that just the posturing of an insecure girl? Or was it something else? And what happened to break them up? I wondered if it had anything to do with Annie’s death, and the suspicion about Herbert’s role in it. Was the pressure just too much, the Capulets and the Montagues come to blows?

  I looked out through the windshield. A dirty gray overcast had lowered, punched through with darker storm clouds. I’d intended to go over to Mac’s to edit, but I knew I wouldn’t make it. A storm was about to break, and I knew where I wanted to be when it did.

  ***

  I parked on the street in front of the police station in Lake Geneva. Inside, I climbed to the second floor and went down the hall. The chief of police’s door opened to a reception area with a desk, a couch, and several chairs around a low table, but no one was behind the reception desk, and the door to Jimmy’s office was closed.

  Through the door I heard him on the phone, and while his end of the conversation was muffled, his voice sounded tense. I sat in one of the chairs, picked up a three-month-old copy of Police magazine, and thumbed through it restlessly.

  Jimmy had to be under tremendous stress. Although he’d removed himself from the investigations, he had to be mentally picking at the pieces, trying to make sense of them. His position made him privy to critical information, whether he chose to do anything with it or not. I wondered how that information affected the way he felt about people he’d known all his life.

  I remembered how he’d questioned Kim at the restaurant the other day. His tone seemed cooler than usual. I hadn’t seen him with Luke since they’d found Annie’s clothes and Luke’s shirt, but his attitude toward him had to be in turmoil, too. How are you supposed to feel when your best friend could be a murder suspect? And what about Chip? How would Jimmy react when I told him what Jen Sutton said?

  I’d just read the same sentence three times—something about SWAT team training—when footsteps thudded down the hall. A moment later, a man walked into the reception area. About average height and weight, he was wearing horn-rimmed glasses, and his buzz cut needed a trim. I stared at him. Something about him was familiar. He stared at me, too, and tipped his head to the side.

  We both got it at the same time.

  “You’re the guy with the cell phone!”

  “Jesus, you were there, too!”

  “The police have been looking for you.”

  “I know.” He nodded. “I just came back to civilization.” He took a few steps and held out his hand. “Steve Davis.”

  I stood up. “I’m Ellie Foreman.”

  He motioned with his hand. “Are you with the police?”

  “Just an interested bystander. Where have you been?”

  “I’ve been fishing for the past three weeks in Wisconsin.”

  “Fishing. That’s right. ‘Hope you catch some big ones.’”

  “Actually I did.”

  I let it go.

  “There weren’t any phones, TV, or papers. I stopped into a Denny’s for some breakfast on the way home, and when I picked up a paper, I read about the shooting. My God, it must have happened a minute or two after I left.”

  “Exactly right.”

  “I realized right away I must be the one they were talking about, and since I was heading back in this direction, I figured I should come in.”

  A public-spirited citizen. I was impressed.

  “Did they—do they know who her boyfriend was?” he asked.

  If he only knew. “No one’s come forward.” I eyed him. “That’s why your cell phone is so important.” I looked at Jimmy’s door. It was still closed, and I could still hear him on the phone. “Steve—you don’t mind if I call you Steve?”

  He shook his head.

  “Would you mind—could I take a look at your phone? I won’t make any calls. I just want to take a look.”

  “You want to see if the calls she made are on my call log?”

  “Well, as a matter of fact….”

  “I didn’t check. I thought maybe the police ought to do that.” He shot me a questioning look. “They might have a special way of doing it to get fingerprints or evidence, or something.”

  Just my luck, an armchair detective. Probably learned it on Law and Order. I rubbed my thumb and index finger together. “Um, you know, Steve,” I said sweetly, “if they needed to identify whose prints were on it, you’d be absolutely right. But in this case, everyone knows Daria used your phone. Her prints will turn up all over it. Nothing will happen if we just take a quick peek.”

  He didn’t reply for a moment. Then he hunched his shoulders. “Well, I guess it’s okay.”

  It was all I could do not to grab it after he fished it out of his pocket. Silver and black, it looked like every other cell phone I’d ever seen. I turned it on, and once it warmed up, I pushed Menu, then Call Log, then Dialed Calls. I started scrolling and breathed a prayer. Calls normally stay in the phone’s memory for thirty days, give or take a day. The problem was it had been almost that long since Daria Flynn’s murder. It was iffy.

  I scrolled past a bunch of calls with area codes 312 and 847. “Do you live on the North Shore?”

  “Wilmette.”

  “What a coincidence. I live off Happ Road.”

  “I know it well.”

  I kept scrolling. What was the area code up here? I should know it from all the calls I’d made to the Lodge. Of course—262. I kept scrolling. More 847s, and then a 914. He had friends in Westchester County, NY. That was followed by a 516. Long Island. Then I froze. What if Daria’s boyfriend didn’t live in Wisconsin? What if he lived in Chicago, or even on the North Shore? A wave of anxiety washed over me. If that was the case, I might have already passed the number. There was no way to tell. Maybe I should let the cops go over it. They could print out the log and identify each number more easily than I.

  No. Not yet. I kept going, hoping I wasn’t scrolling through the numbers a second time. Two more 847s. It didn’t look good.

  Bingo! I scrolled past a 262 area code. And after that, another. And then a third! I frowned. Three calls with 262s? Daria had made only one call. I showed Steve the cell. “Do you recognize any of these numbers?”

  He took the phone and squinted at the tiny screen. He nodded. My spirits sank.

  “The third one. It’s the number of the fishing camp I stayed at. But the other two….” He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. Why?”

  “There are three calls here with a 262 area code. There should only be two. The one you made, and the one Daria made to her boyfriend.”

  “Daria was her name?”

  “Yes. Daria Flynn.” I found a scrap of paper in my bag and wrote down the numbers, but as I jotted them down, again I realized I could be wrong. The first call might have been to her boyfriend’s home. But what if he wasn’t there? She might well have called his work number, or his cell. That would account for the extra
call.

  “Which way was she headed, this Daria?”

  I looked up. It was odd, given how steeped I was in the case, to think Steve Davis didn’t know anything about her. Odder still that he’d asked the one question no one seemed able to answer. “She—I think she was trying to go home.” I didn’t want to be rude, but I needed to focus on the calls. “The calls, Steve. On your phone. There are three with a 262 area code. You made one. Daria made another. What about the third? Is it possible you forgot you made it? Or was it possible Daria made more than one call?”

  “Lemme think. Actually, now that you mention it, she did.”

  “Did what?”

  “I’m pretty sure she made two calls.”

  That explained it. I dug out my own cell and dialed the first number. It rang three times, then switched over to voice mail. My heart was pounding. I was finally going to find out who the boyfriend was. Please don’t let it be—

  “Hi, this is Fred Baker.” The voice paused. “And that’s exactly what I do.” He chuckled. “Cakes and petit-fours are my specialty, but I’m game for anything. Leave a message.”

  I gripped the phone. Could Fred Baker have been Daria’s boyfriend? They were clearly in the same business: he was a baker, she a sous-chef. They could have met through their work. He sounded warm. Friendly. Even had a sense of humor. How could he not have come forward? He had to know the police were looking for him.

  Unless he had something to hide. Unless coming forward would expose something he couldn’t afford to reveal. I shivered. I’d been thinking about leaving a message, but I abandoned the idea and hung up. Then I checked the second number I’d written down and punched it into my cell. Three rings, then it, too, went to voice mail.

  This time a female voice came on. A familiar female voice. “This is Mount Olympus restaurant. Serving the best Greek food in Lake Geneva. We’re closed right now. Please call back.”

  My stomach turned over.

  “Well?” Davis pointed with his chin toward the phone, but when he saw me, his brows knit together. “What’s wrong?”