A Shot to Die For Read online

  Not long after that, several cruisers, the paramedics, and an unmarked car arrived in a blaze of lights and sirens. Two troopers herded the remaining gapers back into the building. Another secured the area around Daria’s body with crime-scene tape. Another watched the paramedics as they tried to take vital signs. The doctor hovered over them.

  A dark van from the Northern Illinois Crime Lab pulled up. Two evidence technicians got out and retrieved large duffles from the back. At the same time, a few roadway maintenance trucks lumbered through the oasis and parked across the ramps, closing the oasis to traffic. One of the evidence techs snapped pictures, while the other took out paper, plastic bags, and markers. There was a subtle harmony to their work, as if each one knew his part and was performing it well.

  Their familiarity was probably the result of experience. This was the second sniper attack—or drive-by, or whatever you chose to call it—in the Chicago area this year. The first had occurred in April at a highway rest stop on the South Side. The victim, a nurse named Pam Blades, had been coming out of the oasis with her teenage son. She was shot twice by someone from a slow-moving pickup. She died immediately. Police mounted an intense investigation, but three months later, the shooter was still at large. They did recover a bullet fragment that indicated the shooter had used a high-powered rifle, but whether he was a psycho, a weirdo bent on revenge, or even a terrorist, no one knew.

  Now, an older man got out of an unmarked, moving with such a sleepy gait that I wondered if he’d been napping. Smallish, with thin blond hair, he was dressed in chinos and a navy blue golf shirt, and his gut hung over his belt. Fumbling his car keys into his pocket, he conferred with the paramedics, technicians, and the trooper who’d been first on the scene. Then he stuffed his hands in his pockets and stared at me.

  ***

  Sniper! I thought. That’s what it had to be.

  The sun dipped behind the trees along the roadway, streaking the clouds with pink and purple. The photographer packed up his camera; the other tech lit a cigarette. The coroner’s rep, who’d been parked in a white van at the edge of the tarmac, wheeled a gurney with a dark plastic body bag to where Daria lay.

  The man in the navy shirt ambled over to the cruiser and blinked. I rolled down the window.

  “Miss Foreman? I’m Detective Lieutenant Walter Milanovich.” His voice was surprisingly soft, in contrast to his world-weary appearance. “How ’bout I buy you a cup of coffee.”

  As I slipped back inside the building, the elderly woman with the straw hat, who’d been waylaid by the shooting, was inside as well. She pursed her lips again as if it was my fault Daria had died and ruined her day.

  Milanovich motioned me to a table in front of the Starbucks booth and a few minutes later brought over two lattes. He had ruddy cheeks and a pink forehead. His eyelashes were even paler than his hair, making his blue eyes appear abnormally large. I had the impression they wouldn’t miss much.

  He sat down. “So, tell me what happened.”

  I did.

  He blinked. “She was having a fight?” He dumped three packs of sugar into his latte.

  I nodded. “With her boyfriend, I think. But they made up.”

  “How do you know?”

  I told him what I remembered of the conversation on the cell.

  He blinked again. “She was using a borrowed cell?”

  I nodded.

  “Can you describe the man who lent her his cell phone?”

  I thought back. I’d hardly noticed him at all. “He was—average.”

  He looked as if he’d expected me to say that. “Can you be more specific?”

  “He had a crew cut, I remember. Maybe a buzz. And horn-rimmed glasses.”

  “Hair color?”

  “Brown, I think. But it was short.”

  “Build?”

  I shrugged. “Medium?”

  Milanovich shot me a look. “Eyes?”

  I thought about it. “I didn’t notice. But he was wearing jeans—oh, wait. When she returned the phone, she said to him, ‘Hope you catch some big ones.’”

  Milanovich raised his eyebrows. “Big ones?”

  “Yeah. Big ones. Like fish. I had the impression he was going fishing.”

  “Peachy.” Milanovich looked down and made a note. “There’s only about a thousand lakes in Wisconsin.” He looked over. “You happen to notice what kind of car he was driving?”

  I shook my head.

  “You didn’t see him drive away?”

  “No. He walked around a corner. I didn’t see his car.”

  He blinked again. “Now, you say she lived in Lake Geneva?”

  “That’s what she said.”

  He gazed at me with those sharp, oversized eyes. I couldn’t help thinking of a large fish. “Did she say where?”

  “No.”

  He took another sip. “What direction was she traveling?”

  “I assume she was heading into Chicago.”

  “Why did you assume that?”

  I went over it in my mind. Now that I was thinking about it, I realized I didn’t know. We were on the southern side of the rest stop, but Daria hadn’t indicated where she was going or what she was doing. “Well, now that you mention it, I guess she could have been heading back to Lake Geneva.”

  “She never told you where she was going? What she’d be doing when she got there?”

  “No.”

  “Didn’t you ask?”

  “It wasn’t that kind of conversation.”

  Milanovich blinked.

  I ran my tongue around my lips. “But she did say she’d lost the entire day. I got the idea that whatever she’d planned didn’t happen.”

  He blinked. “And you say you didn’t know the woman.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But you overheard her fighting with her boyfriend. And then you talked to her at the brick wall.”

  “Yes.”

  An edge had crept into his voice. Where was he going with this? He was about to say something but was cut off by the arrival of the coroner’s rep, a middle-aged man with a thick gut, beady eyes, and a five o’clock shadow. “I’m done here, Lieutenant,” he announced.

  Milanovich rose from the table and motioned the man to follow him. They regrouped a few feet away from me. “What have you got?” He lowered his voice, but I could still hear him.

  “Not much.” The man reminded me of a three-dimensional Homer Simpson. “The entrance wound wasn’t that big, but the exit wound more than made up for it.”

  “Consistent with a high-powered rifle?”

  Homer nodded. “It’s a safe bet.”

  “Chest wound?”

  “Straight through the heart, ribs, backbone, and out the other side.”

  Milanovich blinked. “No one’s found any shell casings or fragments yet, but we have dogs on the way.”

  “The night is still young.”

  Milanovich ignored him. “Anything else?”

  “Just the obvious.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The guy’s a hell of a shot.”

  The detective shifted. “You’re doing her tomorrow?”

  Homer nodded.

  “I’ll call you.”

  The coroner retreated, rubbing his hand across his chin. Milanovich came back and sat down. “So. You never saw her before.”

  “That’s right.” I said, for the third—or was it tenth—time.

  “But you heard her fighting with her boyfriend.”

  “Yes.”

  “And then they made up.”

  “Yes.”

  “And he said he was coming to pick her up.”

  “I assumed that from what she said.”

  “Which was?”

  “Which was something like, ‘Thanks. I’ll be waiting. Please come quickly.’”

  “Anything else?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did she say anything else?”

  I was quiet for a moment, trying t
o remember. “Yes. She did. She said her cell was out of juice.”

  “Again? Didn’t you say she’d said that before you went inside the oasis?”

  “Yes. She said it twice.”

  “So she repeated herself?”

  I nodded. “The man whose cell she was using was a few feet away. I figured she wanted to get off so she could give it back.”

  “So she repeated that her cell was out of juice.”

  I sat straighter. Something about him was different.

  He set his cup down on the edge of the table and folded his hands. “Let’s back up. You were here…what…getting a cold drink on your way home. The woman…Daria…” He paused. “…a woman you’d never seen before seemed to be in distress, and you stopped to chat.”

  He’d stopped blinking. That’s what was different.

  “Then she goes inside, comes back out, and five minutes later is shot dead. Not even three feet from you.”

  He watched me as if I was some kind of mildly curious lab specimen. I started to miss the blinking fish.

  “Look, Detective Milanovich. I didn’t know the woman, but she was clearly upset. At least at first. Then she calmed down. I was just trying to be pleasant. That’s all.”

  He settled back in his seat, still appraising me. Then he blinked. “Okay. Tell me about the pickup.” His burst of energy had vanished; the world-weary fish was back.

  “It was green. With one of those covers on the back. A black cover.”

  “Could you tell what make or model it was?”

  My friend Fouad has a red Dodge Ram, but that’s the sum total of what I know about pickups. “It wasn’t a Dodge Ram.”

  “How do you know?”

  I explained.

  “What about the camper shell. Could you tell what material it was?”

  “No.”

  I remembered a mention of a green pickup from the first sniper attack. “The pickup in the April sniper attack was green, too, wasn’t it?”

  He didn’t answer. “Go on.”

  “The truck came up behind the Beamer and slowed down. Then it passed us, and the back window slid open.”

  “The back window of the camper shell?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Did you see who was in there?”

  “No. I didn’t see anyone.”

  “What about the driver?”

  I thought about it. “No. I think—I think the sun visor was pulled down.”

  “You didn’t see anyone in the driver’s seat?”

  “I saw a body. But that was all.”

  “Couldn’t tell whether it was a man or woman?”

  I thought about it, then shook my head. “I just wasn’t paying attention. I’m sorry.”

  He looked at me, then nodded briefly. “And you didn’t see anyone through the windows?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Couldn’t tell how many people were in the pickup?”

  “By the time the window slid open, it was too far away.”

  “That’s a ‘no,’ I take it?”

  “Of course it’s a no,” I said in a prickly tone. “But there had to be at least two, right?”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Well—common sense.”

  He stared at me.

  “One person to drive, the other to shoot.”

  “I thought you said you couldn’t see the driver.”

  “I couldn’t. I’m just—never mind. I didn’t. I’d turned around to Daria by then, anyway.”

  “Why?”

  “I was saying I was sure her boyfriend would be there soon.”

  “Did she tell you his name?”

  I shook my head.

  “Did she describe him? Tell you what he did? Where he worked? Anything like that?”

  “No. All she said was that she hated it when they fought.”

  Milanovich nodded. “Okay. So you’re telling her that he would be there soon.”

  “Right. I was facing her.”

  “And you heard something.”

  “A crack. But loud. Almost like an explosion. Then the pickup’s engine revved, and the tires screech, and—”

  “Lieutenant!” One of the troopers hurried toward us, breathing hard. A man and woman followed behind. I recognized the couple from the Beamer. The trooper yanked his thumb at the couple. “We got a partial on the pickup!”

  CHAPTER THREE

  I drove home watching darkness bleed across the sky, staining everything blue-black. The lights at the front of my house were on, and their cheery illumination made me think Rachel was home. But as I walked in from the garage, a deep silence caromed around the walls.

  I went up to the kitchen, feeling lonely. After today, I wanted to see Rachel. I wanted to hug her, feel the beat of her heart, her warm skin against mine. Instead, I found a note propped on the kitchen table.

  Rode my bike to Dad’s. Spending the night.

  I live in a small three-bedroom colonial in a sleepy village twenty miles north of Chicago. My ex-husband has a condo less than two miles away. I kept the house after the divorce, although I’m not sure now it was such a great idea. I’m always lining the pockets of plumbers, electricians, and appliance repairmen, while Barry takes his girlfriends on trips to Alaska, Honduras, and Banff. Tonight, though, I was grateful for my refuge.

  I poured a glass of wine and headed upstairs, recalling the events at the rest stop. Once the deputy at the oasis burst in with a partial description of the pickup’s plates, Milanovich’s interest in me waned. After questioning the couple from the Beamer, he told a deputy to get the description on ISPERN, the Illinois State Police Emergency Radio Network, and pass it on to Wisconsin, too. The media arrived soon afterward, and the troopers who’d been interviewing customers at the rest stop reported in as well. Juggling two cell phones and a growing pile of notes, Milanovich glanced at me with weary resignation.

  “You can go home. I’ll be in touch.”

  I’d hurried to the car, trying to skirt the news cameras that were staked out at the edge of the crime scene. I thought I’d been successful, but when I turned on the TV, I saw shots of myself scurrying to the Volvo. You couldn’t see my gray eyes or the lines around them, but the cloud of dark, wavy hair that refused to lie straight no matter how much conditioner I use was clearly recognizable. I’d lost a little weight recently and was still making grateful obeisance to the calorie gods; unfortunately, the ten extra pounds the camera adds obliterated my gains, or losses, as it were. Still, you could tell it was me.

  I groaned. My father never misses the ten o’clock news.

  The coverage thus far was the breathy “I’m-on-the-scene-of-carnage” type that every reporter yearns for. Between stand-ups by a sharp-featured blonde who’d mussed her hair just enough to suggest she’d been working hard rather than waiting for her cue in the truck, I saw B-roll of Daria’s body being loaded into the coroner’s van. There were also sound bites from some of the people who’d been inside the oasis. The reporter called them eyewitnesses, though they’d been nowhere near Daria when she was shot. But who cared about stretching the truth? This was the second murder on the highway during the peak travel season. With luck, the story would throw Chicago travel and tourism into a panic. The reporter concluded with a plea from the police for the man who had lent the victim his cell phone to come forward.

  I clicked off the remote, got into bed, and stretched out under a clean, cool sheet that still smelled like fabric softener. I turned off the light and was hovering at the edge of sleep, dreaming about the fortune I could make marketing fabric softener as aroma therapy, when the phone rang.

  Sighing, I rolled over. “Hi, Dad.”

  “How did you know it was me?” He sounded disappointed.

  “I’m psychic.”

  “You have that caller ID, don’t you?”

  “No. But I probably should.”

  My widowed father is eighty-two and lives in an assisted-living facility in Skokie, a few vi
llages south. He spends his days playing cards with the boys, steering clear of lusty grandmothers who think he’s cute, and trying not to worry about me. He claims the last is a losing proposition, since I’m reckless and stubborn and loath to ask for help—a trait, he assures me, I inherited from my late mother, not him. It evens out, though, because I spend just as much time worrying about him.

  “So there I am watching the ten o’clock news with Frank,” he said, “when all of a sudden, there’s this picture of someone getting into a white Volvo. And Frank says to me, ‘Jake, that’s Ellie, isn’t it?’”

  “Ummm.”

  “I start to look out the window but then Frank says, ‘No, Jake. On the TV.’ So I turn around and sneak a look. And you know what I said?”

  “What?”

  “I said to Frank, ‘You’re wrong. That couldn’t be my daughter on the TV.’ When Frank asked why, I said, ‘Because my Ellie doesn’t put herself in jeopardy like that. She has a daughter to raise. A career to manage. A father to look after. She wouldn’t be anywhere near a sniper. It’s got to be someone else who just looks like her’.” He paused. “Right?”

  “Well…”

  “Don’t tell me.” He sighed. “What happened?”

  Over the years I’ve learned to parse my father’s seemingly contradictory statements, and I had no problem translating: “I-don’t-even-want-to-think-about-what-God-forbid-might-have-happened-to-you-now-come-clean-and-don’t-leave-anything-out.”

  I told him everything.

  “So who is—was this woman?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But you were a hairsbreadth away from her. Do you have any idea how close you came to being killed yourself?”

  “I—I guess Hashem was looking out for me.”

  “You don’t make it easy for Him.” I could have sworn I heard him shake his head. “Do the police think it’s the same guy as before?”

  “Hard to say what they think. The detective was kind of like Columbo on Xanax.” I told him about my interview. “But they have part of the pickup’s license plate this time. I’m surprised it wasn’t on the news.”

  He cleared his throat. “You—you’re not involved anymore, are you?”

  It was a rhetorical question. “The detective did say he’d be calling me back. But other than that, no.”