A Shot to Die For Read online

  A Shot to Die For

  A Shot to Die For

  Libby Fischer Hellmann

  www.libbyhellmann.com

  POISONED PEN PRESS

  Copyright © 2005 by Libby Fischer Hellmann

  First Edition 2005

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2005903227

  ISBN: 1-59058-185-7 Hardcover

  ISBN: 9781615950959 ePub

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

  Poisoned Pen Press

  6962 E. First Ave., Ste. 103

  Scottsdale, AZ 85251

  www.poisonedpenpress.com

  [email protected]

  DEDICATION

  For Deane and Steven

  Playmates, support group, and all-around

  extraordinary siblings

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Among the folks who gave me their time, expertise, and stories were Helen Brandt at the Lake Geneva Historical Society, who clued me into Newport of the West, 1870–1920 by Ann Wolfmeyer and Mary Burns Gage; the wonderful Pam Showalter-Blades; former Lake Geneva mayor Spiro Condos (aka Speedo); Pam Rawlinson; Mary Welk; Mike Black; Dave Case; Teri Mathes; Reba Meshulam; and Captain Ralph Bauman (aka Homer) of the Lake Geneva Police Department.

  Also, someone I should have acknowledged long ago is Cindy Clohesey, who has graciously allowed me to “borrow” some of her best lines.

  As always, The Red Herrings, who meet at Scotland Yard, deserve cheers. There is no better writing group in the universe. Thanks, too, to Michael Dymmoch and Barb D’Amato, who helped me out of a hole. And Roberta Isleib and Deborah Donnelly (“Sex” and “Lies”), without whose daily encouragement “Videotape” would be permanently out of focus.

  A special acknowledgment to editor Nora Cavin, whose perceptive comments and suggestions were the reason this book came to be finished at all.

  And, once again, my thanks to my Berkley editor, Samantha Mandor, whose grace and talent are unmatched; Barbara Peters, whose eye is unerring; and Jacky Sachs, the best agent in the business.

  Finally, one last, loving tribute to my friend Susan White, the “Susan Siler” in my books. She will live forever on these pages.

  EPIGRAPH

  Eight children were at play, seven sisters and their brother. Suddenly the boy was struck dumb; he trembled and began to run upon his hands and feet. His fingers became closed, and his body was covered with fur. Directly there was a bear where the boy had been. The sisters were terrified, they ran and the bear after them. They came to the stump of a great tree, and the tree spoke to them. It bade them climb upon it, and as they did so it began to rise into the air. The bear came to kill them, but they were just beyond its reach. It reared against the tree and scored the bark all around with its claws. The seven sisters were borne into the sky, and they became the stars of the Big Dipper.

  N. Scott Momaday,

  The Way to Rainy Mountain

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

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  CHAPTER ONE

  “What do you mean you’re not coming? You were supposed to meet me! We had a date!” With each syllable, the woman’s voice slid up the register toward hysteria.

  I slowed. I was walking toward the Lake Forest rest stop—an oasis, we call them here—just off the interstate near the Wisconsin state line. The woman was talking on her cell phone about thirty feet away, but her voice carried clearly. “How could you do this to me? After all our plans! You knew I’d be stranded!”

  A man with a buzz cut and horn-rimmed glasses stood near the entrance, his hands in his pockets. He stepped aside as I approached.

  “Look. I can’t talk long. I borrowed a cell.” There was a pause. “Mine’s out of juice.”

  A tall, striking woman who appeared to be somewhere in her thirties, the woman on the phone wore a white T-shirt, khaki miniskirt, and sandals. Her shoulder-length hair, held off her face by a wide headband and a pair of shades, was a glossy black. Blue highlights glinted when she moved her head.

  I went inside the building, which since its multimillion-dollar renovation, looked more like an airport terminal than one of the antiseptic fast-food places that used to commandeer pit stops on the highway. Donuts, pizza, coffee, and Chinese food beckoned me from cheerful kiosks, and it took all my resolve to resist them. I was tired, having spent the day scouting locations for a video about the Lodge, a luxury resort in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. I’d stopped in for a cold drink before heading home to Rachel, my fifteen-year-old, who was in the midst of a what-am-I-going-to-do-all-summer-since-I’m-too-old-for-camp crisis.

  I bought a Diet Coke, eyed the Krispy Kremes, and quickly headed back outside. A Thursday evening in the third week of June, it had been a hot and humid day. Now, though, a cool front was pushing through, and a breeze was chasing away the heat.

  The woman was still on the cell. “I know. I’m sorry, too. I hate it when we fight.” There was a pause. “I realize that. It’s just—well, this has been a shitty day.”

  The man who’d been standing near the entrance had his back to her as though he was trying not to listen to her conversation.

  “I can’t. My cell is out of juice,” she repeated. “Okay. Thanks. I’ll be waiting. Please come soon.” The woman disconnected and looked around. Spotting the man at the entrance, she walked over and handed him the cell. “Thank you. You’ve been very kind.”

  The man pocketed the cell. “No problem. I hope everything works out.”

  “I’m sure it will.” She smiled. “Hope you catch some big ones.”

  The man raised his hand and started across to the parking lot. The woman went inside. I looked at my watch. Almost seven. I wondered if Rachel had eaten. Maybe I should go back in and pick up a pizza. For now, though, I lingered outside with my drink, letting the cool breeze wash over me.

  I was just about to go when the woman came back out, carrying a drink. She walked over to a three-foot-high brick wall that ran between the building and the parking lot. Turning her face into the wind, she lifted her hair off the back of her neck.

  “Feels good, doesn’t it?” I said.

  She nodded.

  It had been hot in Lake Geneva, the breeze that usually keeps thi
ngs cool apparently AWOL. For over a century, wealthy Chicagoans had escaped the blistering Midwest summer at the “Newport of the West,” where they built luxurious estates and fueled a culture of privilege and class that rivaled anything on Martha’s Vineyard or Nantucket. Though the resort’s exclusivity had faded over time, tourists still flocked to it, a fact that had not gone unnoticed by developers. The Lodge’s owners snapped up their property as soon as it became available, proving once again that as landmarks turn populist, they become marketable.

  Now, though, I was twenty miles southeast, at the only rest stop between the North Shore of Chicago and the Wisconsin state line. Access ramps led from the highway to a paved surface the size of a football field. The building that housed the food court occupied the middle of the tarmac and hung over both sides of I-94. Parking lots flanked with gas pumps sat on both sides.

  The young woman sighed. “I guess it’ll turn out okay after all.”

  I looked over. “Bad day?”

  “You don’t know the half of it.”

  The door to the restaurant opened, and an elderly couple came out. The man, his thick white hair neatly parted on the side, carefully avoided eye contact with both of us. His companion, a seventyish woman with a wide-brimmed straw hat, tightened her lips when she saw me. I wondered what I’d done to annoy her or whether she was just the kind of person who disapproved of everyone. The young woman flashed me a sympathetic smile. I smiled back.

  As the couple made their way to the parking lot, four red-faced kids in tanks and shorts pushed past on their way into the rest stop. They smelled of sweat and sun block and seemed oblivious to everything except themselves.

  “I couldn’t help overhearing. I hope your ride gets here soon,” I said.

  The young woman tipped her head. “Me, too. I’ve lost the whole day.”

  “I hate fights.”

  “It was—stupid.”

  “They usually are.”

  “It should never have happened.”

  I nodded. The breeze was so refreshing I hated to leave. I slung the canvas bag that doubles as my briefcase onto my shoulder and joined her at the wall. As long as we were both hanging around, I might as well be nice. She perched on top, her legs dangling in front. Close up, she was stunning, her black hair thick and wavy—without a hint of gray, I noted enviously—her skin olive-gold. She had wide, jade green eyes, and those legs would pass what my father called the “Betty Grable” test with flying colors.

  I pressed down on the tiny web of varicose veins above my knee, willing them to disappear, but they popped back out when I lifted my thumb off my skin. I sighed. “What’s your name?”

  “Daria.” She swung her legs back and forth like a kid.

  “I’m Ellie. Where are you from?”

  “I live in Lake Geneva.”

  “Small world. I’m producing a film up there.”

  “A film?”

  “Well, a video. At the Lodge. Do you know it?”

  “The old Playboy Club?”

  “That’s the one.”

  Daria nodded. “I know it well.”

  The Lodge had been built by Hugh Hefner in the early sixties and was a popular Playboy resort until his empire collapsed in the eighties. It passed through several sets of hands after that, each owner removing more traces of its glamorous X-rated past. Now it’s such a G-rated facility that a bronze statue of a father with a little boy on his shoulders greets guests at the entrance.

  I scanned the cars heading up the ramp on our side of the rest stop. A silver Beamer slowly turned in, followed by a green pickup with a camper shell. “Is that your ride?” I pointed to the Beamer.

  Daria shaded her eyes and looked. As the car passed, we could plainly see a couple in the front seat. The woman in the passenger seat motioned to an empty space in the parking lot. As the Beamer swerved into the spot, Daria seemed to deflate. “No.”

  I hoisted my bag farther up my shoulder. “Well, don’t worry. I’m sure your boyfriend will be here soon.”

  She was about to say something when the pickup that had been behind the Beamer passed us. It slowed to a crawl, and the window at the back of the camper shell slid open. The movement triggered a prickly feeling at the back of my neck.

  I turned to Daria. She stared at the pickup. I was about to ask if she recognized it when I heard a loud crack. I whipped around. The pickup’s engine revved, and it tore out of the ramp. I turned back to Daria. A crimson design exploded on her shirt. She fell forward off the wall and crumpled to the ground.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Sniper!”

  That was the word on everyone’s lips even before the state police showed up. It took me a while to realize it, though. I felt as if I was inside a freeze-frame. There was no sound. Movement halted. Even the air currents stopped.

  Except for the blood. I don’t know how long I stood over Daria, watching the crimson design expand. The red kept spreading, eating up the material, blossoming like one of those time-lapse sequences in nature films. I couldn’t tear my eyes away.

  Then a face popped up in front of my field of vision. Then another, and another. Mouths opened, lips moved. I saw expressions of concern. Someone took my arm, and guided me away from the wall and the explosion of red. The silence yielded, and I began to hear words.

  “I’m all right.” The words were coming from me.

  “No, you’re not,” a voice said. “Sit down.” A man took my arm. “Make room,” he ordered sharply.

  The crowd parted to let me through. I squatted on the curb. Someone shoved a water bottle into my hand. The crowd regrouped around me. “Not again!” “How is she?” “Did someone call the police?” “Are you getting a pulse?” “Did she see the shooter?”

  A man bent over Daria, his back to me. After a moment, he straightened. “She’s gone.”

  I heard murmurs, a cry, several intakes of breath. “Are you sure?” someone asked.

  The man got to his feet and turned around. “I’m a doctor.” He checked his watch and then came over to me. “What about you? How are you doing?”

  I looked at Daria’s body. “I’m alive.”

  ***

  Sniper!

  I saw it on the face of the first cop on the scene. The cruiser raced up the ramp and swerved to a stop. The officer jumped out, leaving the engine on and the roof lights flashing. Young and eager, he was wearing a khaki uniform and the wide-brimmed campaign hat Illinois state troopers have worn since World War One. When he saw Daria, his face paled and his body went rigid, and for a minute I thought he was going to throw up. Then he seemed to realize that people were looking to him for guidance. He threw his shoulders back and planted his hands on his hips, an Eagle Scout with a gun on his hip. The only tip-off to his feelings was a muscle in his jaw that kept twitching.

  Once he’d determined who I was and that the pickup was gone and no one was in imminent danger, he radioed from the cruiser, nodding several times as he spoke. Then he went to the trunk and fished out a megaphone.

  Knots of people had gathered on the tarmac, some around me, others in the parking lot, still others in front of the building’s entrance. “All you folks go inside,” he bellowed through the megaphone. “And don’t touch anything. More troopers are on the way, and they’re gonna want to talk to all of you.”

  The crowd started to thin. I got to my feet and started toward the building, but the trooper held up his palm. “Not you. You come with me.”

  He led me over to the cruiser. “The detective wants to talk to you.”

  “How long do you think that will be? I’d like to go home. My daughter’s—”

  He cut me off and opened the rear door. “Hard to say.”

  Reluctantly I slid in. I’d been in patrol cars before; this one wasn’t much different. A radio, dash lights, a minicomputer beside the driver’s seat. I settled myself in the back seat, pulled out my cell, and called Rachel.

  “Hi, sweetie. How are you?”

  “Bored.”
Her voice was sullen. “I IM’d everyone, but no one’s around. They’re all at camp. Or Europe. Everybody’s someplace. Except me.”

  If I didn’t know better, I might think she’d developed a case of “North Shore-itis,” a common affliction of teenagers who’ve been raised in affluence and feel entitled to everything. But Rachel is a level-headed girl. Most of the time. “You were the one who said you were too old for camp.”

  “Yeah, well, there’s nothing to do.”

  I’d been trying to warn her since March this might happen, but any suggestions about getting a job, starting the community service project she’d committed to last spring, or even—perish the thought—summer school had gone unheeded. Like the grasshopper, my daughter was certain something would work out without her having to lift a finger, and she’d done nothing to prepare for summer. Ordinarily I might have let loose with an I-told-you-so, but given where I was and why, being right didn’t seem important.

  “Why don’t we talk about it when I get home, okay? I’m calling to say I’m going to be late.”

  Silence. Then, “You said we could go to the movies tonight.”

  “I’m sorry. Something happened.”

  “You’re working late…again,” she groused.

  “Not exactly.”

  Thankfully, she didn’t pursue it. “When will you be home?”

  I took a quick look at the clock on my cell. “Eight or eight thirty, I hope.”

  “Jeez.” She sighed heavily. “Well, I guess I’ll call Daddy and see what he’s doing.”

  I forced myself not to react. I’ve been divorced from Barry nearly ten years, and while our relationship wasn’t outright hostile, Rachel was savvy enough to use it as leverage. She’d been playing us against each other for years, and it didn’t help that I was susceptible to guilt trips, especially where she was concerned. More than once I’d wondered whether my child-rearing skills—or the lack of them—were creating a future ax murderer. Or worse, a politician. But I’d deal with that later.

  “Just let me know where you end up,” I said evenly.