A Shot to Die For

by Libby Fischer Hellmann

  I whipped around. “No. That’s not it. I mean—not really.” Did he know about my fear of flying? How could he?

  He planted his hands on his hips. “I’m going up. You could check out the shot right now.”

  I ran a hand through my hair. “I—I don’t think so. It’s late.”

  Despite the shadows, I thought I saw a smile on his face. “Are you afraid?”

  “Of—of course not,” I blustered.

  Mac made a small snorting sound but covered it with a cough. What was going on? Was there some kind of private old boys’ network that made guys like these stick together?

  Sutton waited.

  “We’re finished here, Ellie,” Mac said. “You coming or not?”

  Suddenly I remembered. I couldn’t go up in the plane. I’d driven out with Mac, and my car was at his studio in Chicago. I motioned toward Mac. “I can’t. I—they’re my ride. I have no way to get back.”

  “You can take the van,” Mac offered. “I’ll drive back with the crew.”

  I skewered him with a hard look.

  He pasted on a bland expression.

  Luke watched.

  No more excuses. I had to decide.

  ***

  As soon as I was strapped into the Cessna, I knew I’d made a mistake. I was voluntarily going up in an airplane, something I’d never do by choice. Even worse, I’d put my life in the hands of someone I barely knew. And trusted even less. What was I thinking? How could I have been so stupid?

  The interior of the Cessna didn’t help. The cockpit was more cramped than a car. My head grazed the ceiling, and I had to keep my knees bent. A bewildering jumble of dials and gauges, each of them probably measuring something critical for our survival, were built into a wood-paneled console in front. The leather seats swiveled and were surprisingly comfortable, but they were nothing like a commercial airliner’s. A contraption that looked like half a steering wheel was wedged in front of both seats. Why was there one in front of me? Was I supposed to do something?

  Sutton strapped himself in and started the engine. The roar was so deafening my body started to vibrate. I leaned toward him. “You know, maybe this wasn’t such a great idea.”

  He studied the dials in the cockpit.

  “Listen, Luke….”

  He did something with the throttle that kicked the engine up another notch. The Cessna started forward and taxied to the end of the runway. I put my hands over my ears.

  He reached behind the seats and pulled out two pairs of headphones. “Here. Put these on.” He handed one pair to me and slipped the other over his ears.

  “Now,” he yelled. He pulled back on the wheel. The engine grew even louder.

  I put them on, and we accelerated. As the plane gathered speed, the familiar panic started to build. The hangar flew by in a blur of white. The trees at the edge of the runway loomed ahead. We were going to crash into them! I squeezed my eyes shut and recited the Sh’ma. At least I would die quickly. Then the plane lifted, and I felt it buck. There was a powerful surge, and we angled sharply up.

  When I dared to open my eyes, we had cleared the trees by at least fifty feet and were climbing fast. I glanced over at Luke. His features relaxed. He checked the dials again, then looked over at me. He did something with the wheel and the plane leveled out. He pushed his sunglasses on top of his head.

  “Take a look.” His voice came through the headphones, tinny and nasal.

  I peeked out. The ground was rushing away from us, but the higher we went, the more I could see. Below us was the Lodge: the hotel, the condos, the pool, the spa building, even the bunny hill. To our right a palette of earth colors—fields and crops—stretched to the horizon. To our left lay Lake Geneva, whitecaps sparkling in the late afternoon sun.

  “Is this what you’re looking for?”

  “It’s perfect.”

  “Good.” He pulled on the wheel. The nose shot up again. I gripped my seat. He saw it. “You’re afraid to fly, aren’t you?”

  I bit my lip. How did he know? I nodded.

  His face softened. He did something with the wheel. The plane started to bank. “Don’t worry. I’ve been doing this a long time. I want to get back just as much as you.”

  We rose even higher. Long shadows crept across the ground. A blush stained the western sky. Despite the roar of the engine, I imagined a deep silence on the ground.

  “Nice, huh?” For the first time since I’d known him, he smiled. Such a sunny, wide-open smile, I had to smile back.

  “It is.”

  “Why do you think I’m involved in Daria Flynn’s murder?”

  His frankness caught me off-guard. I ran a finger underneath the strap of my seat belt. “If you’re not, why haven’t you said so?”

  “Because everyone knows I’m not.”

  “Everyone who counts.”

  He squinted.

  “Including the chief of police, who happens to be your best friend.”

  “I thought so.” His voice through the headphones turned grim.

  “Thought what?”

  “You think because Charles Sutton is my father and Jimmy Saclarides is my buddy, I can get away with anything.”

  “Like I said, if you haven’t done anything wrong, why not say so?”

  “You’ve heard about an individual’s right to privacy?”

  I shook my head. “Everybody up here falls back on that. But don’t you think you should have waived it in this situation? I mean, your reputation was at stake.”

  “My reputation’s been trashed for years,” he said tiredly. “I don’t care about that.”

  “What do you care about?”

  “My mother. She doesn’t need any more publicity.”

  He stared straight ahead. I wasn’t sure how to respond. After a moment, he motioned out the window. “Now look.”

  We were much higher now. Below us stretched a ribbon of highway. Cars crept in both directions, resembling those miniature models little boys collect. Dollhouse buildings with postage-stamp lawns sat beside them. Every so often, a highway cloverleaf twined around the road. We weren’t that far up, but I felt strangely exhilarated, almost as if I’d run a marathon. I made it. I was flying!

  “You know where we are?”

  “That’s 94. The toll road.”

  He nodded. “The Lake Forest oasis is directly below us.” He started to bank the plane again. But as the plane rolled diagonally, there was a bump. Fear spiked through me.

  “That was just an air pocket,” he said through the headphones. “In summer, the heat rises, and when it hits cooler air, you feel a bump or two. Nothing to worry about.”

  I nodded. I wanted to say thank you but something held me back. He glanced at the dials on the cockpit. One of them was called an altimeter, I suddenly remembered. It measured how level you were. Eventually the lines on the altimeter went horizontal.

  “I did see Daria Flynn,” Luke said. “A couple of times.”

  I looked over.

  “But it was all business.”

  He had this habit of suddenly sprinkling critical bits of information into the conversation.

  “She wanted to start her own catering business, and she wanted to cater my airline.”

  “Your airline?”

  “It’s a new business venture.”

  “Like United and American?”

  “No. A no-frills kind.”

  He was starting an airline? “Why? I mean, how? Where? When did you start?”

  He smiled. “You missed ‘who.’”

  “Sorry. I just meant…well, I didn’t expect—”

  “Because I don’t need to work for a living?”

  I felt my cheeks flush. “Well, to be honest, yes. Partly. Why didn’t you go into the railroad business?”

  He hesitated for a moment. “I’ve been flying all my life.” I wondered about the pause. “I was about ten when my uncle took me up in his Piper for the first time. I never knew you could feel so—so full of possibili
ties. There’s something liberating about being in the air. That feeling never went away. Even in the army, I couldn’t wait to go up.”

  “You were in the army?”

  “Something wrong with that, too?”

  I smiled. The way he answered a question with another reminded me of my father. “Rich men’s sons usually got out of the draft. Or went into the Guard.”

  “There was no draft. I enlisted.”

  I looked over, surprised. Luke Sutton was flouting all my preconceptions. “Why?”

  “I needed to get away and…well….” He paused. “Who the fuck knows?” It came out hard, and for a moment, the anger was back. “They trained me on high-powered rifles. We had to hit targets from five hundred yards.” I had the sense he was trying to work something out. Get it right. “But then they let me fly. It helped pull me out of it.”

  “Out of what?”

  He looked over, startled, as if he’d revealed something he hadn’t intended. “Nothing.” He stared straight ahead, quiet for a moment. Then, “Nice country, isn’t it?”

  I looked through the windshield. The sun was on our left. Large patches of farmland swam all the way to the horizon, where they were sliced off by a sharp delineation between land and sky.

  “If we kept going north, we’d hit the lake country.” He gestured through the window. “We have a fishing cabin up there. That’s where I was when Daria Flynn was killed.”

  I cocked my head.

  “But you don’t have to believe me. You can check with the guy who manages the airstrip outside Star Lake. It’s in Vilas County. In northern Wisconsin. His name’s Norman Desmond.”

  Was that the truth? Slip enough cash into the right hands, and people will say anything you want. And Luke Sutton had enough cash. Still, he knew I could follow up.

  “What did you tell Daria Flynn? About the catering?”

  “I told her I’d think about it, but honestly, the only catering I can afford is jet fuel. I didn’t see how I could do it.”

  “You told her that?”

  “I never got the chance.”

  “So why doesn’t anyone else know this?”

  “Who says no one knows?”

  I sat back. Once again, I’d been put in my place. I was an outsider. No. If he really believed that, I wouldn’t be up in the Cessna with him. “So you flew planes in the army, and now you’re starting an airline. What did you do between?”

  “You ask a lot of questions, you know that?” But there was no rancor, and his voice was soft. “I lived in Montana.”

  “Doing what?”

  “I worked on a ranch for a while. Then I bought it.”

  “Oh.”

  “I can give you names there, too, in case you want to check it out.” But there was a smile on his face.

  “That won’t be necessary,” I said primly.

  A moment later, he turned the wheel, and we started to bank. I clutched the edge of my seat.

  “All under control,” he said. “Look. I gave you answers. Now it’s your turn. Why do you think I was involved with Daria Flynn’s murder?”

  I gazed at him, looking for any clue that he was still angry. All I saw was curiosity. I took a breath. “Daria was abandoned by her boyfriend at the rest stop. But no one, including her family, seems to know who her boyfriend was. Then, when one of the waitresses at the Lodge told me she’d seen you and Daria together, I just…well….”

  “Assumed I was her boyfriend?”

  “I wasn’t sure. But then, when I saw you with Jimmy Saclarides and found out he was the chief of police, and then I found out Herbert Flynn used to work for you, I—”

  “Herbert.” His mouth tightened, and he went silent.

  “I’m sorry. Did I say something wrong?” I asked through the headphones.

  He didn’t answer, but something about the way he’d said “Herbert” told me to back off.

  The drone of the engine seemed to grow louder. Apparently, his mood could change like quicksilver. Had I blown it? Strange. Now the situation had reversed itself. I wanted him to believe me. I cast around for something to say. I remembered what he’d said about his mother.

  “My mother passed away about eight years ago.”

  He didn’t answer right away. Then, “Mine might as well have.”

  “How can you say that?” It came out more sharply than I’d intended.

  “When I was a kid, she was always singing. Playing games with us. Making us peanut butter sandwiches. But now….” He broke off, as though he didn’t want to be reminded that life had once been happy and cheerful and full of promise. “What happened to yours?” he asked after a while.

  “Pancreatic cancer. It was quick, but we had the chance to say good-bye.”

  He kept his eyes on the dials. “That can’t have been easy.”

  “It wasn’t.” I paused. “I—I’m sorry about your sister,” I added.

  He nodded back.

  Below us evening spread across the ground like a blanket. Purple shadows covered everything, but at our altitude, we could still see the sun. A small rosy disk, it fell slowly toward the horizon, shooting off glints that frosted the hills with fire.

  “I’m sorry, too,” he said.

  I looked over, puzzled. “For what?”

  “The way my brother treated you. At the Lodge.”

  “Who told—oh, Jimmy. Of course.”

  “Chip has”—he hesitated—“issues.”

  The incident at the Lodge seemed like a long time ago. Up here I felt insulated. Out of time and place, but safe. As though I could say anything. Was that the attraction for Luke? A free-fly zone, where honesty and candor reigned? Maybe that’s why I said what I did next. I hadn’t told anyone, not even Susan. I looked out my window. I could just see the moon in the eastern sky, crystalline silver and blue and perfectly round.

  “I just found out I had a brother. An older brother. He only lived a day. I never knew him.”

  “You just found this out?”

  “My father told me the other day. It’s hard to believe they kept it from me all these years.”

  “Maybe they were protecting their privacy. Maybe they didn’t want to inflict it on you. It was their hurt. Their pain.”

  “My mother took it hard,” I admitted. “Like I said, I never knew him, but it’s made a difference.”

  “How?”

  “As an only child, sometimes I felt like I was marooned on an island by myself. Now I know there was someone else on that island. He didn’t stick around very long, but I wasn’t alone, after all. Do you know what I’m saying?” I shook my head. “Sorry. I’m probably not making any sense.”

  “More than you know.”

  We didn’t say anything for a moment.

  “We’re almost back now, aren’t we?”

  “Yes.” He almost seemed wistful. Then he grinned. “Now, be honest. Flying’s not so bad, is it?”

  I smiled back. “It isn’t.”

  “You just need more experience. Which you’re going to get right now.” He looked over. “Bring us down, Ellie.”

  “What?”

  “Here.” He took my hand, placed it on the control wheel, and covered it with his own. “Ease it forward. Nice and slow.” I felt him press against my hand. “That’s it. Don’t be afraid. Just feel it.”

  The plane shifted under our hands. We started to drop, but it was a gentle descent. Not at all the nightmarish image I had of planes falling out of the sky. As the plane responded to my hand, I felt a new, almost inexplicable feeling. Power. And control. Amazed, I glanced over at Luke, about to tell him I think I finally got it. But when our eyes met, his expression had changed. The smile was still there, but something else was just behind it. Something fiery and passionate and wanting, something that took my breath away. His hand was still pressing down on mine. I felt the fire jump to my skin.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  When we landed, I climbed out of the plane, and Luke rolled it back into the hangar.
After locking the hangar door, he followed me over to Mac’s van. It was dark, but a spotlight on the outside wall lit the planes of his face. “I enjoyed that, Ellie.”

  “I did, too.” My arms hung at my sides. I didn’t know what to do with my hands.

  “Next time you go up, maybe you won’t be as scared.”

  I nodded. His eyes held mine, as if he wanted to say something more but couldn’t. Or wouldn’t. The breeze picked up, carrying his scent. I breathed it in. I wanted him to touch me; I was afraid that he would touch me.

  I forced myself to step back. This was crazy. It was just my hormones. Or the fact that David and I were through. He stepped closer and brushed the side of my cheek with his fingertips. A few strands of hair had come loose. He tucked them behind my ear.

  I trembled. “My hair must be a mess.”

  “You’re beautiful.” He raised a finger to his lips.

  I reached up and wound my fingers through his beard. A gentle tangle of gray and brown, it was surprisingly soft. He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “Good-bye, Ellie.” Then he turned, walked away, and climbed into his pickup.

  I fumbled around for the keys to Mac’s van, finally locating them under the seat. I stabbed at the ignition several times before the key slid in. I couldn’t remember ever feeling so clumsy. Or needy. Or elated.

  ***

  It was well after dark by the time I got home. Rachel had grilled burgers for dinner, but I wasn’t hungry. I figured I could manage dessert, though, so we drove over to Dairy Queen. Soft ice cream should be one of the world’s seven wonders. First, you get to watch it ooze out of the machines, cascading and twisting into thick, lazy swirls. Then you get to flick your tongue around a mound of cold, sweet creaminess. Finally you draw it into your mouth, savoring the fact that it’s solid enough not to melt, but not hard enough to choke you. Three awe-inspiring sensations in one food item.

  Rachel chattered on about a lifeguard at the pool who’d asked for her phone number. I tried to pry out how old he was, whether he drove, or was still in high school, but after a few nonanswers, the kind that fifteen-year-olds have perfected, I realized she either didn’t know or wasn’t about to tell me. My third degree could wait until he came to the house. If he did.