A Shot to Die For

by Libby Fischer Hellmann

  Daria hadn’t called Fred’s office. Or his cell. She’d called Mount Olympus. I lowered the phone. “I—I’m not sure.”

  I scribbled the two 262 numbers on another scrap of paper. “You need to show these to Chief Saclarides.” I stuffed my cell in my bag and started for the door.

  “Where are you going?” He gestured toward Jimmy’s closed door. “I thought you were waiting—”

  I hesitated. “Tell Chief Saclarides I need to—”

  Suddenly the door to Jimmy’s office opened. He stood there in his uniform and white shirt and looked from me to Davis. “Tell me what? What are you doing here, Ellie?”

  “I—I. This man needs to talk to you. And so do I. He’s the man who lent—”

  “I can’t. Not now.” His face was drawn and pained.

  “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “Luke’s gone. He took off in his plane this morning.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  I braced myself against the glass door. I felt light, unanchored. “What do you mean, Luke’s gone? Where?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He flew his plane?”

  Jimmy nodded.

  “When?”

  He looked like he wasn’t sure he wanted to tell me. Then he leaned against the door and sighed. “Not long after the sheriff’s deputies found the shoe print outside Herbert Flynn’s house.”

  “A shoe print?”

  “They lifted it from the lawn. About a foot away from the front porch. They’re running tests on it now.”

  “And you think he ran because he knew the shoe print was his?”

  “It doesn’t look good.” His face was grim.

  I hoisted my bag up on my shoulder. “Jimmy, I know this isn’t a good time, but you need to talk to him.” I gestured to Davis. “He was the one who let Daria borrow his cell phone.”

  Astonishment came over Jimmy’s face.

  Davis introduced himself. “I’ve been on vacation the past three weeks. No TV or papers. As soon as I realized who she was and how I tied in, I came over.” He glanced at me. “And then when I met Ellie here, well, she found the numbers on my call log.”

  Jimmy leveled me with a look. In other circumstances, it might have turned into a smile, but it didn’t get that far.

  “I wrote them down.” I pointed to the piece of paper in Davis’ hand.

  Jimmy took the paper and studied the numbers. “I know this number. The second one.” He pulled out his cell and punched it in.

  I waited for him to make the connection.

  “Oh God.” It came out quietly, sounding more like a prayer than an exclamation. He clicked off. A distant look came into his eyes.

  “Daria made two calls,” I said. “One was to someone named Fred Baker. The second was to Kim.”

  “I know what the first call was about,” Davis piped up.

  I spun around. “You do? Was he her boyfriend?”

  Davis looked puzzled. “Her boyfriend? I—I don’t know. I suppose he could have been.”

  “What does that mean?” Jimmy asked.

  “My impression was that he was someone she was working with. At least that’s what she said when she asked to borrow the phone.”

  “She was calling a coworker?” Jimmy squared his shoulders and refocused, all business now. “From the restaurant?”

  “More like a partner, I think. There was this party she was catering somewhere in Lake Bluff. He was supplying the pastries and cakes and they were going to deliver them to the house. Her car broke down and she didn’t have the money to get it repaired, so there was—there was this arrangement. She got dropped off at the oasis, and he was going to meet her. I got the impression they were heading toward Lake Bluff.”

  Jimmy started to nod. “She was stranded on Route 50 a few months ago. One of my deputies on patrol picked her up.” He turned to Davis. “Did she say who dropped her off?”

  “No, just that she was being picked up. But then she got upset, so I figured he wasn’t coming.”

  “So the fight was with this—this Fred,” Jimmy said. “In her catering business. Who might have been her boyfriend. But they made up afterward, right?”

  I wasn’t sure whether Jimmy really believed that or whether he wanted it to be true. I turned to Davis. “When did she make the second call?”

  He looked confused. “Right after she hung up on the first. She started to give me back the phone, but then she asked if she could make one more call.”

  “Why don’t I remember that?”

  “You’d gone inside.”

  “Of course.” I went in to get a drink. By the time I came out, Daria must have been talking to Kim. I’d missed the end of her first call and the beginning of the second. “I didn’t realize that. I assumed she was on the same call.”

  Jimmy didn’t say anything.

  I bit my lip. “Oh God, Jimmy. The person I heard her apologizing to wasn’t her boyfriend. It was Kim. She’d been fighting with her sister.”

  Jimmy cut in. “So when she asked whoever it was to come soon….”

  “It was Kim. Kim was coming to pick her up.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Jimmy called in a deputy to take Steven Davis’ statement. Before he arrived, Jimmy asked Davis for his phone. Davis handed it over goodnaturedly. “The wife’s been bugging me to get one of those fancy ones with a camera anyway.”

  Jimmy sent another deputy over to the Flynns’ home to stake out the place.

  “You’re not going to arrest her?” I asked.

  “For what? Having a fight with her sister?”

  “She was supposed to pick up her sister. She never did. She lied about it. And in the interim, Daria was killed.”

  “Ellie, it’s still speculation. And I don’t have time to work it through right now.” He gathered his wallet and keys from his desk and stuffed them in his pocket.

  “Where are you going?”

  He checked his watch, opened a drawer behind his desk, and pulled out a map.

  “You’re going to look for Luke.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “I’m going with you.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “This is police business.”

  “You’re lying.”

  He looked over. “What are you talking about?”

  “You said you were removing yourself from the investigations. But you’re going to try and find him anyway.” When he didn’t answer, I added, “You want to get to him before anyone else.”

  He threw me a look but didn’t deny it.

  “Jimmy, I have to go with you. I need to see Luke. And I have things to tell you. About Chip.”

  “Chip?”

  “I talked to his wife.”

  “Jen?”

  I nodded.

  He hesitated, but then shook his head. “It’ll have to wait until I get back.”

  “It can’t. I—I think I might know what happened to Annie.”

  Jimmy stared at me. “How could you?”

  I stood my ground. “Please, Jimmy. We have to talk.”

  “I’ve got to go.”

  “Okay,” I shrugged. “If that’s the way you’re going to be, I’ll just follow you in my Volvo.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t do that.”

  “Try me.”

  He walked to the door, shaking his head. I followed two steps behind. He stopped and turned around. “Christ. Just get in the car.”

  ***

  “It’s more than speculation,” I explained on the way to the airstrip. We were in Jimmy’s gold Camry. “It fits together. I should have known when she came to my house.”

  “Kim came to your house?”

  I nodded. “Not long after Daria died. Irene was with her.” I explained how they’d come, ostensibly to ask me about Daria’s last words. “But then Kim came into the kitchen and pumped me about Daria’s ‘boyfriend.’”

  “What did she ask you?”

  “She wanted to know if Daria said an
ything about him to me. Whether I’d seen him. If I knew what he looked like. What he did.” I took a breath. “I thought she was genuinely trying to identify him. But now, I see it was all a sham.” I glanced out the window. “Then there were the times I talked to her in the restaurant. Told her what I’d learned from Willetta, from you, even Luke. She was clever. Always two steps ahead of me.” I looked over. “I didn’t see it, Jimmy. I fucked up.”

  “You couldn’t have known.”

  I shook my head. “Jimmy, I was the one who perpetrated the myth of a boyfriend picking her up. Me. I led you and the police astray. And then spreading the rumors about Luke and Daria.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “And all the time, it was Kim. Jesus, what did I do?”

  “Anyone could have made the same assumption, Ellie. You didn’t know Daria made two calls. And I have to warn you. There’s still no proof Kim was involved in Daria’s murder.”

  “Not yet.”

  “What’s the motive, Ellie? Why would she kill her sister? And why go through all the maneuvering to make it look like a sniper attack? They lived together. If Kim wanted to kill Daria, there are much easier ways than staging a shooting at a rest stop.”

  “If you’re so unsure, why’d you send a deputy to stake out her house?”

  “Because—because I think it’s a good idea to keep tabs on her. We’re going to have another talk when I get back.”

  We turned onto the access road to the Lodge and drove around back to the airstrip. Jimmy had called ahead, and one of the staffers at the Lodge raised the door to the hangar. Although I’d peered in several times before, I hadn’t actually been inside. I followed Jimmy into a cavernous room with a cement floor and skirted a jumble of ropes, tarps, and other equipment. I stopped in front of a white plane with a blue stripe running down its side.

  “The Cessna!” I exclaimed. “It’s here.” I looked around, half expecting to see Luke emerge from the cockpit, slipping his sunglasses off and greeting me with a smile.

  Jimmy walked around the plane, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. “But the other one isn’t.”

  “The other one?”

  “Luke has two planes, both of them Cessnas. One of them is equipped with pontoons.”

  I blinked. Two planes. Of course. There had been more than one plane parked here. “So that means—”

  “He’s planning to land on water.”

  I hesitated. Then, “I think I know where he is.”

  “I do, too.”

  ***

  The drive to Star Lake took over five hours. A steady rain dogged us for the first two hours, sharp tiny bullets that exploded on contact with the windshield. Jimmy tried one last time to persuade me to go home, but when I refused, he threw up his hands. “Suit yourself.”

  I called Rachel at home and told her I was going to northern Wisconsin. She said she’d spend the night at Barry’s.

  As we headed north, the steady thud on the roof of the Toyota faded to an occasional plink. The scenery changed, too, forests of evergreens and deciduous trees now pushing in from both sides of the road. The insulation of a thick cushion of green was oddly comforting, and we started to talk.

  I told him what I’d learned from Jen Sutton.

  “So Chip is obsessive about being neat,” Jimmy summed up. “And Annie’s clothes were neatly folded.” He shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s thin.”

  “Oh, come on. How many sexual predators take the time to fold their victim’s clothes afterward?”

  “It’s bizarre, I’ll grant you, but—”

  “But it could be.”

  “If you’re right, why was it Luke who bolted? And what about his baseball shirt?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe Chip was wearing it for some reason.”

  “And what about the bloodstains?”

  “What about them?” I peered over at Jimmy.

  He shook his head. “You know I can’t talk about that with you.”

  “Maybe not. But I can. I don’t think it was Luke.”

  “If you’re right, why didn’t Luke tell me a long time ago?”

  “How could he, Jimmy? You’re the chief of police.”

  He didn’t look convinced.

  “How do you turn in your own brother for murdering your sister?”

  “Luke knows the difference between right and wrong,” he said stubbornly.

  “Jimmy, think of the pressure he was under. Chuck Sutton is a master at twisting people’s arms. Guilt. Threats. Bribes. Whatever it takes. What makes you think he wouldn’t do the same thing to his own family?”

  “So he convinces his sons to keep quiet and pins the blame on Herbert Flynn,” Jimmy said.

  “And when that doesn’t work, he comes up with the intruder theory.”

  Jimmy was quiet. Trees and bushes zipped past in a blur of green.

  “It’ll be interesting to see if the DNA tests back up my theory.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  I eyed him. “In fact, the results should answer a lot of questions.”

  He still didn’t say anything.

  “Right?”

  He rubbed a finger across his nose. “Right.”

  I studied his face and folded my arms.

  He looked over. “What?”

  “Tell me something, Jimmy. I’m no expert, but I thought material that’s been in a damp environment for a long time with temperature changes and other kinds of corrosion could become so badly contaminated it wouldn’t yield any DNA at all.”

  “Is that so.” He gripped the wheel.

  “That’s so.” I kept my eyes on him.

  He kept his eyes on the road. “You know, my father is a pretty smart guy for eighty-one,” I said after a while. “In fact, I value his advice more and more every day.”

  “Yeah? What does your father say?”

  “Ancient Chinese proverb. Never try to con a con.”

  His mouth twitched.

  “There are no DNA tests, are there?”

  He looked over.

  “You know the clothes are too badly contaminated to get any results. You’re using the threat of tests to flush out the Suttons.” When he didn’t answer, I added, “Slick move.”

  “You didn’t hear it from me. And I’ll deny it if it gets out.”

  “Don’t worry.” I readjusted myself in the seat. “So do you think it will work?”

  “It seems to have jarred something loose or we wouldn’t be here now.” He shrugged. “I just hope—well—maybe it’s better not to.”

  “What are you going to do when we get to the cabin?”

  “I’m going to lay it out for Luke and convince him to come back.”

  “Do you think it’ll work?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why do you think he ran?”

  “Don’t know that either. Maybe because he’s guilty. Maybe he just needs to think things through.”

  “You don’t think he killed anyone, do you?”

  He didn’t answer for a long time. Then, “I’ve lived here all my life. I thought I knew everyone. Now….” His voice trailed off. I’d never seen him look so sad.

  “People always let you down,” I said quietly.

  “What?”

  “Irene Flynn said that when she and Kim came to my house.”

  “Luke never has.”

  “You’re his friend.”

  “Or the biggest fool east of the Mississippi.”

  “It was the note, wasn’t it? Herbert Flynn’s note started it.”

  Jimmy didn’t answer.

  “Herbert Flynn wrote something that implicated Luke.”

  “You know I can’t tell you that.”

  The fact he didn’t deny it was proof enough. What did the note say? Did Herbert see Luke and his sister together? Did he see him rape her? Kill her? Then stash her clothes in the ice house? Or did he see someone else? Someone wearing Luke’s shirt? Someone he could have mistaken for Luke?

  We drove on in silence.
Then, “Jimmy, did you know Kim and Luke had an affair?”

  No answer.

  “Thirty years ago. The summer Anne Sutton died. When you all worked at the Playboy Club.”

  The overcast, tinged with shadows, smudged the leaves on the trees with gray.

  “You knew.”

  He cleared his throat. “It was a long time ago.” The words came out thickly, as if he was pulling out something that had been stuck for a long time.

  I told him what Sharon Singer said about Kim. “I wonder if the rumors about Daria and Luke upset her.”

  He threw me a sharp look. “Are you saying she was jealous—that she was still carrying a torch for Luke and that’s why she killed her sister?”

  “I’m just looking at it as an outsider. Luke and Daria are seen together at the Lodge. Kim finds out. A few weeks later, Daria is killed. The timing is—interesting.”

  “The shooter was a man. In all three cases. Kim couldn’t be that—that twisted.”

  “The second sniper attack was an anomaly. Different bullet fragments. Different rifle. The same kind that the guy who worked at Mount Olympus owned. You can’t tell me you haven’t been thinking in those terms.”

  “Of course I have. But I still don’t think there’s much of a motive. Kim kills Daria because Daria was meeting someone Kim shacked up with thirty years ago? I don’t think so. Even if it happened, don’t you think I would have picked it up?”

  “You’ve been friends your entire life. Your families are close. Maybe that’s what Kim was counting on. Exploiting your relationship, figuring she’d be the last person you’d suspect. You said yourself you’re not sure you really know anyone.”

  He slid a couple of fingers up and down the steering wheel.

  A minute later, his cell phone chirped. He pulled it out. “Yeah?” He paused. “Hello? Anyone there?” He snapped it off. “Shit.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “No service.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  The town of Star Lake, between the Eagle River and the upper peninsula of Michigan, is one of a collection of small towns in northern Wisconsin that used to be home to the logging industry. But logging has moved on, and today Vilas County is known mostly as a resort area. The snowmobile was invented in neighboring Sayner, and with miles of trails winding through the area, the town claims to have started the winter sport. In summer, visitors flock to hundreds of nearby lakes, including Star Lake, for which the town was named.