A Shot to Die For (25 page)

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?”

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.”