A Shot to Die For (3 page)

“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.

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 villages 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.”

Rachel called almost immediately after I’d hung up with Dad. “Are you okay, Mom?” She sounded worried. “We were just watching the news. You should have told me when you called.”

“I’m fine, sweetheart. I didn’t want you to worry.”

I heard Barry’s voice in the background. And then a female voice. Not Rachel’s. Soft. Muffled. Rachel spoke. “Mom, you don’t mind if I spend the night at Dad’s, do you? They—he said he’d make sure my bike is locked up. I’ll ride it back tomorrow.”

Rachel keeps clothes and an extra toothbrush at Barry’s, so it wasn’t an inconvenience. And given what happened today, it probably wasn’t a bad idea.

“Sounds like a plan.”

“You’re sure it’s okay?”

I assured her and hung up, wondering who the female voice belonged to. Barry has been a member of the girlfriend-of-the-month club for years. He’d been seeing a divorcee with two young kids last winter, but that was six months ago. He’d probably been through six new ones since then.

I was just about to turn out the light when the phone trilled again. I thought about letting it go—this was beginning to remind me of one of those public television telethons—but I grabbed it in case someone was offering me a pledge.

It was Susan Siler, my closest friend. “Tell me that wasn’t you on the news.”

“No can do.”

“Oh, God, Ellie. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Rachel wasn’t with you, was she?” Susan gets right to the core issues.

“No, thank God.”

“What happened?” I went through it for a third time.

“Do they think it’s the same guy as last April?”

“If they do, they’re not saying.”

“How come you just happened to be there?”

“I was coming back from Lake Geneva.”

“Are you sure?”

“About what? That it was a copycat attack, or that I was coming back from Lake Geneva?”

“Well…both, I guess. But there were other people at the rest stop. Why were you the one in the middle?”

“I wasn’t the only one. Some other guy let her borrow his cell phone. I was just making small talk.”

“Where’s the guy with the cell phone?”

“I don’t know. He left before it happened. They’re trying to find him.”

“Hmmm.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?” she asked.

“Give me that cryptic ‘hmmm.’”

“Was I doing that?”

“You were. And I know what you were thinking.”

“What?”

“You’re deploring the loss of life and the escalating amount of violence in society, but you’re too idealistic to admit it.”

“That sounds like your agenda.” I didn’t contradict her. “So what happens now?”

“The cops will try to track him and bring him in. The sniper, that is.”

“You won’t be—helping them, or anything?”

This was the second time someone close to me had asked. “No.”

There was a relieved silence. “Did you see him?”

“The sniper? No. The pickup was too far away. And I was looking at Daria when it happened. By the time I turned around, the truck had taken off.” I yawned. “Susan, I’m beat. How ’bout we continue this over coffee tomorrow morning?”

“I’m working.” Susan works in an art gallery three days a week. She paused, then made a small worried sound. “Ellie, does he know that?”

“Does who know what?”

“The sniper. You said you didn’t see him. But…does he know you didn’t?”

“How would I know? And why does—?” I cut myself off. If the sniper thought I’d seen him—even though I hadn’t—it wouldn’t be difficult to identify me from the news reports. Maybe even find out where I lived.

No. That wasn’t going to happen. “Susan, I’m going to sleep.”

Chapter Four

But I didn’t. I lay awake most of the night, rescreening the murder at the rest stop. I’d assumed a sniper wouldn’t revisit a place or a person he’d already hit. It would be too dangerous. If he did pop up again, he’d strike a new target, wouldn’t he? Isn’t that one of the reasons it’s so difficult to track them? Still, that didn’t stop the Greek chorus of family and friends wailing through my head. I thrashed under the sheet until it was hot and wrinkled and the edges had come away from the mattress.

There was another reason I couldn’t sleep, the same reason I hadn’t been sleeping well for weeks. David Linden, my lover who lives in Philadelphia, wasn’t. At least not for the time being. Last winter he’d become involved with another woman. She professed her love, wheedled a large chunk of money out of him, then dumped him. Both David and his uncle had been victims of her scheme.

Once he realized how she’d manipulated him, he begged me to forgive him. I did, in a way, and over the next few months we tried to make peace. We spoke on the phone regularly. He’d even flown in last spring, and we met for dinner at one of those trendy new restaurants that serve American cuisine like some exotic newly discovered fare. We chatted about inconsequential things, skirting the real subject on our plates. After dinner he went back to the Four Seasons, and I drove home alone.

We’d have to talk, but for now something was holding me back from a full-fledged reconciliation. Alone, in the small hours of the night, I could admit what it was. David and I were fundamentally different people. We’d met while uncovering long-held secrets that involved both our families. We’d connected because—well—I was never quite sure why we connected. That we were attracted to one another was undeniable. And at the time the ties between our families seemed to suggest a relationship was inevitable. But there had been problems from the start, problems I’d been afraid to confront because of what we might discover about each other. Who knew where a conversation about trust and betrayal would lead?

An hour later, with sleep still eluding me, I got up to check the locks on the doors and windows. Thirty minutes later I checked again. After the third round, I decided the silent house was laughing at me, so I did what any other lonely, dysfunctional woman would do in my position. I polished off the rest of the wine.

***

I fell into an exhausted sleep around five and woke up a few hours later, haunted by a dream about shotguns that unfurled like the tongues of snakes. Feeling thick and slow and cranky, I threw on a T-shirt and shorts and went downstairs to make coffee. In the kitchen the message light on my answering machine was blinking. Probably a reporter. I ignored it and took my coffee out to the tiny patch of planks I call a deck.

The backyard was a rich carpet of summer. The grass was soft and green, the brown scrubby days of August a long way off. My peonies, columbines, and irises were flourishing, but the miracle of the season was my climbing June rosebush. I’d bought it four years ago, and it had been dormant ever since. I’d been ready to replace it with clematis vines when it suddenly burst into bloom. Now dozens of healthy pink blossoms were threaded through the trellis. I gazed at them, sipping my coffee and imagining myself in an English walled garden.

The familiar clank of a loose suspension broke my reverie. I walked around to the front of the house just as a red Dodge Ram pulled into the driveway. A dark, slender man whose hair and mustache were more gray than black slid from behind the wheel.

“Good morning, Fouad,” I said.

Fouad Al Hamra emigrated from Syria almost forty years ago. He’s been my landscaper since Barry and I were married. After my divorce, he took pity on me and has been trying to help me acquire a green thumb. More important, though, Fouad is my friend. He risked his life two years ago to save mine.

“Ellie.” His dark eyes were wide and worried. “You are safe?”

I nodded.

He wore grass-stained painter’s pants, and his shoes were caked with mud, but he carried himself with his usual grace. “It’s a bad business, these attacks.” He shook his head. “How did you come to be there?”

I explained.

He listened quietly. When I had finished, he murmured, more to himself than me, I thought, “What is the English expression? ‘There but for the grace of God go I’?”

I nodded. Fouad’s Muslim, and I’m Jewish, but he has a spiritual bent that is decidedly ecumenical. As for me, I’m not sure whether God does exist, but I’m not willing to put money on it either way. “What does the Koran say about fate?”

“Fate?” His brow furrowed. “The concept is very different in Islam.”

“How so?”

“We do not use the word ‘fate.’ The Sunnah, which is like your Talmud, says that Allah prevails everywhere. Not a leaf stirs without His Will. And since Allah has power over every thing, He must know and determine everything. The concept is known as ‘
al-qada’ wa al-qadar’.
…”

“So there is no free will?”

“Not exactly. The freedom we have is granted to us by Allah and we should use it to submit to Him freely and willingly.”

“Hold on. Either there is free will or there isn’t.”

“We believe there is a destiny to everything, Ellie.” His eyes twinkled. “Even if we must nudge it along now and then.”

He crossed the tiny yard to my vegetable plot. We’d built it last month, edging the sides with railroad ties. We’d turned the earth, enhanced it with manure, and planted radishes, cucumbers, and beans. The next day, in a frenzy of optimism, I’d added tomatoes. I’d been monitoring the seedlings, watching them sprout and thicken and marveling at the wonders of nature.

Now Fouad examined them. “You have not been watering.” I felt like I’d been scolded.

“I have. But yesterday, I didn’t get a chance, and well, you know.…”

He went back to the pickup. Rummaging around in the bed, he pulled out a yellow sprinkler that had seen better days, brought it over, and attached it to my hose. He nodded at me to turn on the water. A few jets spurted out sideways, but most of the spray landed on the plants. I could have sworn they bent gratefully toward the water. He nodded again and surveyed the rest of the yard. Either it met with his approval, or he had something else on his mind. He turned to me.

“How is Rachel?”

I told him about her crisis of leisure. He smiled but again I could see an anxious look embedded in it. “What’s wrong, Fouad?”

He didn’t answer right away. Then he folded his arms. “Ahmed.” His voice was tight.

Fouad’s son was about to start his senior year at Johns Hopkins. A premed student, he’d been interested in neurosurgery, although Fouad said that changed whenever he started a new rotation. He was an excellent student and was already being courted by several prestigious medical schools.

“What about him?”

“He wants to go to Iraq.”

“Iraq?” I felt a chill. “Why?”

Fouad reached into his back pocket for a small pruner and squatted down beside the columbine. He didn’t move, and the pruner dangled from his fingers. “You know Ahmed’s mother, Hayat, is Iraqi,” he said at last.

“Of course.”

“We met here in America. Well—since the war, Ahmed has been—voicing strong opinions about the situation.”

“He’s not alone.”

“But in Ahmed’s case, it’s more—extreme. He feels he should be over there.” Fouad straightened up. “He says Iraqi blood flows through his veins, and it is time he did something for his ‘countrymen.’”

I bit my lip. I could understand Ahmed’s need to prove himself. To define himself as separate from his parents. But the thought of a child going to a place a shade short of anarchy was every parent’s nightmare. “What does he want to do?”

“He met a girl, the daughter of an Iraqi expatriate. She is also a premed student. They want to work in a hospital together.”

A girlfriend yet. “Have you met her?”

He shook his head. “Hayat is not comfortable with the idea. For all her American ways, she is very traditional when it comes to her children’s lives.”

“What are you saying? That she wants an arranged marriage for Ahmed?”

Fouad shrugged.

“Oh boy.” I studied the columbine. How much of Ahmed’s desire to go to Iraq was genuine, I wondered, and how much was wrapped up in his girlfriend? He was twenty-one, an age when children often do the opposite of what their parents expect. Pursuing a relationship over his parents’ tacit, or not so tacit, objections—even fleeing to Iraq because of it—sounded like the sort of rebellion a son might wage.

At the same time, though, working in a hospital wasn’t, intrinsically, a bad thing. It was altruistic. Idealistic. The kind of goal you’d join the Peace Corps for. And a hospital is supposed to be a safe harbor. Theoretically. “How long does he want to stay?”

“A year.” He ran his hand over his head. “I’m afraid, Ellie…for his—their—safety.” Fouad looked as if his heart was about to break.

I shook my head. “No. You’re afraid they won’t come back.”

It took him a while to answer. “Yes,” he whispered.

“What does Hayat say?”

“She and I have not” —he paused— “come to an agreement. She still has family there.”

“Who might persuade him to stay permanently.”

He pressed his lips together.

Suddenly I felt relieved that Rachel was still a teenager. “What about this girlfriend’s parents?”

“We do not know them.”

“Well, why don’t you—”

A horn beeped, and a shiny white SUV pulled up to the curb. The driver was a woman with long, blond hair. Two tow-headed kids peeked out of the back. Rachel opened the passenger door, jumped out, and went to the back of the car. The woman got out, too, and raised the hatch. She was wearing a lime green tank top and white shorts, which revealed a lot of smooth, tanned skin. Together they extracted Rachel’s bike and set it on the ground. They were about the same height, and from the back, with the woman’s straight blond hair and Rachel’s blond curls, they could have been mother and daughter, even sisters. My dark hair pressed down on my head like a weight.

Rachel wheeled the bike halfway up the driveway, then turned to wave. The woman smiled, waved back, then climbed back into her car. As she drove away, the two little kids waved frantically through the window. Rachel waited until they were out of sight, then walked her bike into the garage. “Hi, Mom.”

“Hi, sweetie.” I gave her a hug. “Who was that?”

Was I imagining it, or did I see a guilty expression cross her face? “Julia. And her kids.”

It took a moment to connect the dots. Julia Hauldren was the woman Barry had been dating last winter. Six months ago. This had to be an all-time record for him. “Why did she bring you home?”

Rachel shrugged. “It was on her way. She lives a couple of blocks away.”

I remembered. Susan had told me she lived nearby. But that prompted more questions. Had she spent the night at Barry’s along with Rachel? Or had she come to his place that morning? I couldn’t see Barry tolerating two little rugrats running around his condo—neither child looked older than eight. Then again, beautiful women can make men do all sorts of strange things. And Julia was clearly beautiful.

Rachel waved to Fouad and went inside. I turned around, but he was bent over the columbine, removing the extraneous plants. I squatted down to help, hoping to finish our conversation, but he went silent. I knew better than to force him to talk. I started pulling up chickweed, thinking about Fouad’s son and Barry’s girlfriend and how difficult it was to embrace change. Within seconds a layer of dirt had collected under my fingernails. I should put on gloves.

I was on my way to the garage when the phone trilled. A moment later Rachel called through the window. “Mom, phone for you. Detective Milanovich.”