Big Shot
Big Shot
Big Shot
Julie Mulhern
J & M Press
Copyright
Copyright © 2022 by Julie Mulhern
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Contents
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
Let’s Stay in Touch!
Also by Julie Mulhern
Chapter One
July 1975
Miami County, Kansas
Elegant hands clutched the 12-gauge shotgun. Elegant as in manicured and soft with long fingers. Those hands didn’t dig ditches or saw wood or even mow the lawn. Thatcher Cooke had no reason to dig or saw, and he had a teenage boy from down the street mow.
He was dressed for a day at the country club, not the Fin and Feather (also a club, but one dedicated to hunting, fishing, and horseback riding). He grinned at Graham Landingham, puffed his chest, and settled the gun’s butt against his shoulder. “Pull!”
He shifted the gun’s barrel too quickly.
Bang!
Thatch’s shot went wide, and an intact clay pigeon crashed to the earth.
Graham flashed a grin that flirted with smirking. With his madras shorts, golf shirt, and deck shoes, Graham looked as out of place as Thatch. “Nice shooting.”
We were at the club’s skeet range, in essence an enormous field. No doubt filled with bugs (bad), rodents (worse) and snakes (worst). I wore khaki pants, a long-sleeved denim shirt, and sturdy boots (in case the snakes left the field for the stations arc). It was too hot for long sleeves, long pants, or the long pauses between Thatch’s shots, and my temper was short. I’d come to shoot, not insult other people’s talents, or lack thereof.
“You could do better?” Thatch demanded.
Graham chuckled. “I couldn’t do worse.”
I swallowed an annoyed sigh. Friday afternoon, and the weekend was already off to a rocky start. I’d sensed this weekend was a bad idea. Too many men with outsized egos. Throw in guns and alcohol, July heat, hunting cabins not meant to house people in high summer, cicadas loud enough to make shotgun blasts seem quiet, and my propensity for finding bodies, and the whole thing spelled disaster. In capital letters.
Thatch scowled and reloaded. “Pull!”
The clay pigeon flew across the field. Thatch fired. And missed. Again.
“You do know you're supposed to hit the clay?”
Mocking a man with a shotgun? I frowned at Graham.
The decision to come to the shooting range was a mistake. I could be on a shaded dock with the other woman who’d been corralled into this weekend. I could be enjoying the breeze off the lake (a generous description for the extra-large pond) while I enjoyed a gin and tonic. But no. I’d chosen guns and the opportunity to test my skills, and now I stood in late afternoon sun hot enough to melt the polish off my nails and listened to two men take potshots at each other. Potshots more accurate than their actual shooting.
“Just kicking off the rust,” Thatch ground out. “I haven’t held a shotgun in months.”
“That’s your story?” Graham produced another grin.
Thatch’s shoulders tightened, a posture that wouldn’t help his aim.
I held my tongue. Thatch wouldn’t appreciate shooting tips from a woman. Even if I could tell him exactly what he was doing wrong.
As a girl who adored her daddy, I'd embraced his passions—hunting and golf. I learned early how to shoot a gun and swing a club. And because (according to Mother) anything worth doing was worth doing well, I’d excelled.
When I refused to shoot animals, Daddy had introduced me to skeet. We’d spent countless Saturday afternoons blowing apart clay pigeons.
One of Daddy’s first lessons? Hold a shotgun like a baby bird.
Thatch gripped his gun as if it were a baseball bat signed by the Royals’ third baseman he and Graham had discussed before the shooting began. His death grip coupled with the tightness in his shoulders meant he’d be lucky to hit the broadside of a barn. “Pull!”
Bang!
Thatch wasn’t lucky, and Graham laughed out loud when the shot went wide.
“May I try?” Intervening seemed like the best way to avert a murder before cocktail hour.
Thatch forgot his ire, and Graham forgot his mockery. Instead, they stared at me as if my presence surprised them. That or they didn’t believe women could shoot skeet. Either way, they’d been so invested in measuring their…egos, they’d forgotten me.
A cocktail on the dock was sounding better and better.
I ignored the 12-gauge double-barrel that Thatch held out. Maybe he thought a 12-gauge was manly, but I could live without the kick. Instead, I claimed a .410 from the gun rack. Then I loaded, stepped forward to station one, and settled the butt against my shoulder.
“You should adjust your stance,” said Thatch. “Open up.”
Because he was so good at hitting the clays? My stance was fine. “I think I’ll stick with what I know.”
He grunted his disapproval.
Graham studied me with narrowed eyes. “You need a tighter hold on the fore stock.”
For the love of Pete. I forced a small smile, acknowledged his unsolicited advice with a quick nod, and kept my Daddy-approved, firm-but-not-so-tight-I’d-kill-a-baby-bird grip. “Pull!”
I sighted the target and pulled the trigger.
Bang!
The clay pigeon exploded in a satisfying cloud of dust.
“Pull.”
This time, the pigeon came from the low house.
I pulled the trigger, reduced the clay to rubble, and reloaded.
“Pull.”
Two clays. One from the high house and one from the low.
I hit them both.
“Where did you learn to shoot? And can Thatcher get lessons?”
“My father taught me.” I reloaded and shifted to station two. “Pull.”
I hit another clay.
“Nice.” Thatch fisted his hands as if the compliment cost him.
“Thank you.”
“Does your husband shoot?” Thatch asked. “Skeet, I mean.”
My husband was a homicide detective and carried a handgun. “He does.” We’d discussed skeet after Libba strong-armed us—me, I strong-armed Anarchy—into accepting the invitation to come this weekend. “Pull.”
I aimed, and another low-house clay exploded.
Thatch rubbed his chin. “Is he as good as you?” Perhaps he planned on asking Anarchy for shooting tips.
“We’ll have to find out.” I kept my voice mild. “Pull.”
Again, clays flew from the high and low houses.
I shot them both, and, for a half-second, a smirk claimed my lips. I quickly replaced said smirk with a polite smile. “Graham, would you like a turn?”
Graham grimaced. “You’re a hard act to follow. Please finish.”
I visited all eight stations and didn’t miss a single clay, then Graham claimed the gun Thatcher had used, positioned himself at station one, and rested the shotgun’s butt against his shoulder. "Pull."
He missed.
Thatcher chuckled.
“Pull!”
Graham missed a second time.
Thatcher crossed his arms and rocked back on his heels. Now he was the one smirking. “Shall we make this interesting?”
Betting? Neither of them had hit a clay yet. I sealed my lips (they wouldn’t appreciate my observation) and batted away a determined mosquito.
“Twenty dollars a clay?” asked Thatcher.
“Fifty,” Graham replied.
“Let’s make it a hundred.”
Graham grunted his approval.
“What are the rules?” I asked. “You pay for misses or hits?”
They both turned their scowls my way.
Even though I’d asked a legitimate question, I held up my hands. “Can I get in on this?”
The sun had turned the back of Graham’s neck lobster red, he rubbed at his burned skin. “You’re not part of the bet, Ellison.”
Because I could actually hit the targets?
“To twenty-five?” Graham meant twenty-five clays.
“You can afford to lose that much?” asked Thatch.
Graham produced another smirk. “You haven’t hit anything yet.”
Neither of them had. Again, I kept that thought to myself. Instead I eyed the field, now filled with their missed clays.
Graham reloaded and lifted the gun to his shoulder.
The cicadas in the distant trees droned louder than ever.
Sweat trickled down my back, but I shivered. Shivered? Why did my shoulders feel as if an icy finger had just tapped for my attention? Dread gripped my spine. Something awful was coming. I was sure of it.
Thatch frowned at me. “You okay, Ellison?”
“Fine. A goose walked over my grave.” If I explained my premonition to Thatch or Graham, really to any man but Anarchy, they’d pat my hand and tell me I was being silly. Or emotional. Or both. Few men had faith in women’s intuition. Their mistake.
“Pull.”
Graham clipped his clay, and he flashed Thatch a wily grin. “That’s a hundred to me.”
Had Graham missed his early shots on purpose? The sense of dread was near stifling, and I crossed my arms over my chest. I had so much to lose, I couldn’t help but shudder.
Anarchy and I were housed in the second to last of six log cabins. Each had a tiny front porch and a screened porch off the back. Each stood in a clearing surrounded by shade trees.
Mother would call the tiny cabin primitive. And she'd be right.
A braided rag rug covered the knotty pine floors. There was also a bed, a dresser, two chairs pushed in at a scarred oak table, a tiny kitchenette, a tinier bathroom, and a window unit air conditioner that made enough noise to drown out a full-scale military operation.
My best friend Libba, who’d joined me for a cocktail, frowned at the offending unit. "I can’t hear myself think."
“I can turn it off, but the temperature in here will be stifling within twenty minutes.”
She glanced at her watch. "We're due at dinner soon. Turn it off."
I stood and jabbed the unit’s red button. The resulting silence was deafening. At least to me.
Libba breathed a relieved sigh. “How will you sleep with that thing running? Oh, wait. Newlyweds.” She waggled her brows suggestively. “You don’t sleep.”
I rolled my eyes at her.
“When will your new husband be here?” she asked.
Anarchy was wrapping up a case and hadn’t been able to leave work until late in the day. Instead of having me wait for him, he’d insisted Libba and I make the drive together. “I’m not sure.”
“How was shooting?”
“Thatch and Graham were...” I searched for the right word.
“Swaggering?”
“Yes.”
“Competitive?”
“They bet a hundred per clay.”
She barked a laugh. “How did that work out?”
“Thatch hustled Graham, and Graham hustled Thatch. They morphed from men who couldn’t hit a thing to half-decent shots. I watched them.”
“How many did they hit?”
“Thirteen each.”
“So, a wash?”
“Yes.” Should I tell her about my sense of foreboding? Libba would not pat my hand or call me silly. Instead, she’d worry. There was no reason to ruin her weekend over a feeling. I clinked the ice cubes melting in my gin and tonic and stared at the rag rug.
“How many did you hit?”
I looked up from my study of the rug. “I wasn’t part of the bet.”
“How many?”
“I didn’t miss with the .410 or the 20-gauge.”
She grinned. “I bet they loved that.”
“They seemed more interested in jabbing at each other than the number of clays I hit.”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, duh.”
“Why, duh?”
“Thatch is managing partner at their law firm. Has been for several years. Now Graham has thrown his name in the hat for the position.” Libba stood and studied her reflection in the tiny mirror above the dresser. “From what I hear, he has a good chance of unseating Thatch.”
Now, those potshots made sense.
“Also…”
I waited for more.
Libba’s lips curled into an evil smile. “Jinx told me Willa Cooke and Graham were spotted having drinks.” Jinx, our dear friend, was a world-class gossip. She was also unfailingly accurate.
“Where?” The answer mattered. The club or one of the restaurants frequented by our set could be entirely innocent. A hotel bar? Not so much.
“Nabil’s.”
“No one would plan an illicit rendez-vous at Nabil’s.” Nor could I imagine Thatch’s wife, who was willowy and graceful and vague, having enough guile to carry on an affair.
“Maybe they were trying to trick people into thinking their rendez-vous was innocent.”
I stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Why not be sneaky?” There were plenty of places a couple could go without being spotted. Nabil’s wasn’t one of them. I’d never darkened its doors without seeing a handful of people I knew.
“Maybe Willa picked the place. She’s not sneaky.” Libba had that right.
Throw cheating spouses into the weekend’s mix and we were guaranteed disaster. The icy finger poked at me again. I squared my shoulders. “Here’s a question for you.”
Libba lifted her brows and twisted so she could admire the reflection of her near bare back.
“Why does Graham want to be the managing partner? It’s not as if he’ll make more money. If anything, the time he spends managing the firm means he’ll bill fewer hours.”
Libba turned toward the mirror and patted a stray hair into place. “Are you serious?”
As serious as a heart attack. Or a shotgun blast. “Yes.”
“Ego. Prestige. Bragging rights.” Fair points. Especially when it came to Thatch. I remembered Graham’s smirk. Those points applied to him as well.
Now I could add professional rivalry to all the reasons this weekend was a bad idea. “Remind me again why we're here.”
“Because Charlie and Perry Brandt are old friends.”
“That explains why Charlie’s here.”
“Charlie asked me to come.”
“That explains you. Why am I here?”
“You’re here to support your best friend.” When she’d heard Anarchy and I had been invited, she’d begged me—us—to join her and Charlies on this back-country weekend.
“Liz is here.”
“Liz does everything well and looks gorgeous doing it.”
“And I don’t?” I didn’t.
Libba stared at her glass as if she were puzzled where the gin went. “You might shoot well and ride well, but you’re not intimidating. You spill things, and you find bodies.”
I frowned at her.
She held up her free hand. “You don’t judge me. Except for Liz, the women who are here this weekend treat me like I have the plague.”
My gorgeous best friend went through boyfriends faster that I went through coffee. She had a zest for living that caught men’s eyes—not that she’d knowingly dip her toe into adultery. That didn’t stop wives, who’d been thickened by childbirth and aged by surly teenagers, from being nervous.
In addition to Thatch’s wife, Willa, and Liz, Melanie Paige was coming. If she’d arrived earlier, Mel would have been at the range with Thatch and Graham and me. The woman was a crack shot.
Then there was Buffy Geller. Her husband Bill had a wandering eye. Buffy didn’t trust any woman around him. Or to be more precise, she didn’t trust him around other women—especially unmarried women.
As for Merit Dodson, who knew if she worried about Libba? I doubted it. But I could be wrong. Merit was one of those women who believed Eleanor Roosevelt when she said, “Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.” Using that logic, Libba and I had average to small minds. Merit had little use for us.
Finally there was Graham’s wife, Sumner. She'd been beautiful as a girl, but her looks had faded with the passing years. Not that she was going gentle into middle age. She tended to wear clothes too young for her and was the only woman I knew who wore false eyelashes on a daily basis.
Oh, dear Lord.
My inner voice was beginning to sound as judgmental as Mother’s.
Who was I to judge if hairy spiders perched above Sumner’s eyes? I bet she thought the short, sometimes-I-forgot-mascara lashes around my eyes were dull as dishwater.
“Aside from Buffy, I don’t see any of the women here treating you like a deadly illness. Besides, you’re with Charlie now.”
Libba might not admit it to herself, to Charlie, or to me, but she’d fallen hard for my high-school flame and current next-door neighbor. She gave a sharp shake of her head. “I needed you here.”
“Well, here I am.”
She joined me on the edge of the bed and squeezed my hand. “And I’m grateful. Thank you for coming.” Extra wetness swam in Libba’s eyes and she sniffed.
How many gin and tonics had she drunk on that dock without me? Gin made her weepy. There was no other explanation for the threatening tears. We needed a new subject. Quickly. “What does Perry think of the managing-partner tiff?” Perry, Thatch, and Graham were partners in the same firm.
She snorted. “You'll have to ask him.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What do you know?”
“Nothing.” She spoke too quickly and studied her watch with more attention than the time deserved. “Charlie promised he'd be here by six. Shall we walk up to the parking lot and meet him?”
What wasn’t she telling me? I could badger her. Or I could ask Liz. One option promised aggravation, the other did not. I let Libba’s avoidance stand. “Let me turn on the air, then we can go.” I rose from my spot on the bed and pressed a button.
The window unit roared to life. Jet engines were quieter.
“Ready.”
“You’re wearing that?” Libba frowned her disapproval.
I frowned back. I’d kept quiet about her halter dress’s scandalously deep vee, its color, and its lurid pattern (purple, blue and green paisleys). How dare she question the peasant skirt I’d paired with a scoop neck tee-shirt and cowboy boots? “I am.”
“Okay, Annie Oakley.”
“You say that now, but if we see a snake, you’ll regret those sandals.”
“We won’t see any snakes. They avoid people. Now, come on.” Libba tugged my elbow and held up her empty glass. “We can stop by my cabin for refills on our way.”
We stepped outside.
“Ellison,” called Sumner. She and Graham had the cabin next to ours. “How was shooting?”
I turned toward the last cabin in the row, and Sumner smiled at us. Like Libba she held an empty old-fashioned.
“Shooting was fine.” I couldn’t exactly tell her that Graham and Thatch had taunted each other like children on a playground. “But it was hot, I came back thirsty.”
Libba lifted her empty glass. “We need more gin, and Ellison forgot her bottle. She was drinking water when I arrived at her cabin.”
Sumner stared owlishly, as if Libba had imparted deep wisdom. “One can’t travel without gin. And you—” she pointed at me “—need to catch up.”
“Catch up with Libba?” I scoffed. “Libba could drink our husbands under the table.”
Libba preened as if her hollow leg was a point of pride.
Sumner giggled. And tilted.
Only Graham’s sudden appearance and his grip on his wife’s arm kept her from falling. He offered me a wry smile. “Seems as if we missed quite a party at the dock.”
“So I see.”
Sumner hiccupped. “The dock was fun. Sometimes a woman needs to let loose.” She pulled free of her husband’s grasp. “I am woman. Hear me roar.”
Neither her light-pink linen shift (embroidered with dancing shrimp), nor the blurriness in her baby blue eyes spoke of strength or roaring.
“Rahhr!” Sumner curled her free hand until her fingers looked like claws.
We waved our goodbyes and walked toward Libba’s cabin and her stash of gin.
“Tonight should be a hoot,” Libba deadpanned.
Inwardly, I cringed. I could be at home with my new husband, curled on the couch watching television, cooled by an air conditioner that didn’t sound like a take-off at Cape Canaveral, with nary a hint of doom in sight. Instead… “If this ends in disaster, I blame you.”
“Oh, please.” Libba rolled her eyes. “What could possibly go wrong?”
Chapter Two
Liz and Willa, who’d organized this weekend, had hired a caterer to handle our meals. Because, as Liz wisely pointed out, it wasn’t a weekend getaway if she couldn’t get away from fixing breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Instead, the woman who regularly catered events at their husbands’ law firm had arrived with a van full of food and a handful of helpers.
Those helpers had strung fairy lights in the gazebo near the lake and covered a long picnic table with a blue and white gingham cloth.
Fiesta ware platters filled with cold fried chicken and grilled corn on the cob covered the table. They were joined by bowls of potato salad, baked beans, coleslaw, and sliced cucumbers, tomatoes and onions floating in vinegar water.
Daisies and Queen Anne’s lace in mason jars dotted the center of table.
A second table, also covered with a gingham cloth, held enough gin to souse half the British navy, bottles of tonic water, fresh-sliced limes, and a pitcher of lemonade. White wine and beer cooled in a galvanized tub.
Citronella candles’ sharp scent perfumed the air. Whether the citrusy odor prevented mosquitos from biting was debatable. I’d hedged my bets and wore OFF rather than perfume.
Charlie and Anarchy sat at the far end of the picnic table with Perry and Tommy. Occasionally, I caught a few words of their conversation. They were discussing lures.
Fishing.
I’d rather watch paint dry. Literally.
I’d brought an easel, tubes of acrylics, and a selection of paintbrushes, and planned on getting up early with Anarchy. Not to fish, but to paint. Maybe I’d go to the lake and watch as my husband cast a line, then I’d paint the morning mist rising from the water.
For now, I sat between Willa and Sumner. If the two women were aware their spouses were vying for the same job, they hid it well. They’d been unfailingly polite.
Buffy sat next to Sumner, and the two women exchanged cool pleasantries. Golf handicaps. Tennis league gossip. The lovely post-swim-team lull in volunteer commitments.
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